Sermons – Grace Evangelical Free Church // Wyoming, MN

Colossians 1:15-20 –

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

The ongoing questions Paul’s letter to the Colossians forces careful readers to consider are: (1) What hardships are you facing in life, and (2) What help is there for them (or where are you turning to for help)?  For the Colossian Christians, the ongoing answer to the first question was persecution and false teaching.  And Paul’s ongoing answer for the second question is the preeminence of Jesus.  

A proper understanding of and trust in who Jesus is and what He’s done (His preeminence in nature and practice) is always the main help we have and need, Paul wrote.

We saw at the end of the last section of the letter (1:12-14) what Jesus did: Suffered, died, and rose from the dead in order to redeem us, that the Father might qualify us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, deliver us from the domain of darkness, transfer us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, and forgive us of our sins.

We’ll see what He did again at the end of this passage (1:20): He died on the cross to reconcile us (and all things) to Himself.  

That’s what He did in His preeminence.  The rest of the passage, once again, speaks to who Jesus is as preeminent.  

Last week, we saw that He is preeminent in that He is the image of the invisible God.  And because of that we have great help in every hardship.  Specifically, (1) We can be sure that He is always with us for our good in our trials and (2) We can be sure that in the New Heavens and Earth we will see Him with eyes sanctified precisely to enable us to behold Him in His glory forever and ever.

For the next three weeks, we are going to continue to consider who Jesus is as a means of growing in worship and help in trials.  Specifically, we’ll see from this passage that Jesus’ preeminence was at the center of God’s work in Creation (this morning), is at the center of God’s ongoing work in sustaining creation (next week), and will be at the center of the coming recreation (Easter Sunday).  

The big idea of this sermon is that whatever form the hardships in your life take, you must know that Jesus is supreme over every aspect of every object of the difficulty.  As the means and aim of all Creation, there is nothing causing you pain that Jesus is not over.  There is great help in that knowledge for all who are hoping in Jesus.  The main takeaway, then, is to learn to live out of that story—the greatest and truest story, with the greatest Hero, the greatest ending, and the greatest Author.  

In my experience, it is a common tendency for Christians to draw bold lines around the work of the persons of the godhead. For instance, it is normal to think exclusively of the Spirit when it comes to the ongoing power we have for ministry today, of the Son when it comes to securing our salvation, and of the Father when it comes to the Creation of the heavens and earth.

Of course, there’s some truth to this—God’s Word does speak primarily of the Father’s work in Creation, the Son alone died on the cross, and only the Spirit indwells believers—but the Bible consistently teaches that all three persons of the godhead are all involved in all that God does.

Our passage for this morning is an example of that in an important sense. If we miss it, we miss another awesome aspect of the preeminence of Jesus and help for our troubles; namely, in His involvement with and relationship to the Creation work of God. As we just noted, God the Father is the primary mover in Creation, but He did so, as we’re about to see, by, through, and for Jesus.
But what does that mean and how does it help in times of suffering?

The second phrase Paul uses to describe the preeminence of Jesus in v.15 (the first is that He is the “image of the invisible God”) is that: “He is…the first born of all creation.”

That might not sound at first like an expression of Jesus’ preeminence.  In fact, the idea of Jesus being the “firstborn of all creation” ought to sound at least a little strange.  It sounds a little like His involvement in Creation includes being created.  And it sounds like His uniqueness is only that He was the first to be created and born.  If that’s what Paul meant, it doesn’t seem all that impressive and, worse yet, it opens a giant can of worms.  

That’s how certain groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons read it.  And that’s part of what they use to deny the Trinity.  

Biblically, “firstborn” can certainly mean the first to be born in a family.  That is a big deal and a real honor.  It included an extra inheritance and the primary responsibility to keep the family unified in the next generation.  There are many, many examples of that.  

But is that the case?  Is that what Paul had in mind?  

Certainly not!  He makes that crystal clear in the following verses when he says that Jesus is before Creation and that all Creation was by, through, and for Him.  

If that’s not what Paul meant, then what did He mean?

Throughout the Bible, the term “firstborn” also refers to someone who is first in importance.  Psalm 89 gives us a sense of this in a remarkable way.

Psalm 89:27-29  I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. 28 My steadfast love I will keep for him forever, and my covenant will stand firm for him. 29 I will establish his offspring forever and his throne as the days of the heavens.

The Psalmist, Ethan the Ezrahite, wrote in God’s voice of King David, in what is considered a Messianic psalm.  In other words, these few verses in Psalm 89 are ultimately about Jesus being the firstborn in the same sense as Paul means it in our passage.    

I read a similar use of “firstborn” in John’s Gospel in my quite time this week.  John the Baptist was questioned by the Jews concerning his ministry.  In response, of Jesus, he declared, “After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me” (John 1:30).  John was the firstborn of the cousins (physically born before Jesus), but Jesus was the firstborn over the cousins (greater in significance, importance, worth, power).  

That’s the same connection that Paul made in our passage.  Jesus is the “firstborn of all creation” in the same way that He is “before all things” in Creation (v.17); namely in that He is preeminent, in first place over Creation.

The next verse in Colossians, v.16, unpacks that idea further—it explains some of what Paul meant by Jesus’ firstborn-Creation-preeminence.  But before we get there, Grace, let’s pause to marvel at this and check our suffering-story and that of the Colossian Christians against it.  

That Jesus is over all Creation (again, that’s what it means that He is firstborn of all Creation), means, at the very least, that those persecuting and spreading false teaching among the Colossians, as well as whatever aspect of Creation is troubling you—be it renegade cells in your body or people in your life or even demons from hell—are under Jesus.  He is over them all!  

There’s more to the story than that, but there isn’t less.  And if your story doesn’t include that reality, if the way you are processing your hardship doesn’t have that as the center and backdrop, then you’ll never navigate your suffering as you ought, you are missing out on great help, and God is not glorified as He deserves in your response.  

That Jesus is the firstborn of all Creation must dominate every aspect of how you think about and respond to your suffering.  And the more it does, the more help it will be, and the more God will be honored.  That’s what Paul first commended to the Colossians and it’s what I first commend to you.     

That’s quite a bit of help already.  But Paul was not done.  He further unpacked Jesus’ preeminence in Creation.  Look with me at v.16 to see more of what that means, and therein find even more help for your trials.  

15 He is … the firstborn of all creation. 16 For [Why is He preeminent over all Creation?  What does it mean that He is preeminent over all Creation?  What is His relationship to Creation?  Jesus is firstborn of all creation, He is supreme, sovereign, preeminent, because…] by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

In v.16, we see that everything that was made, was made by and through Jesus (and also for Jesus, which we’ll consider next).  That’s remarkable.  That gives greater clarity and color to the meaning of Jesus as firstborn and preeminent over Creation.  It’s remarkable, but it’s not unique to Paul (see also 1 Corinthians 8:6).  

In John 1:3 we’re told that “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”  Likewise, Hebrews 1:2 says that it was “through [Jesus that the Father] created the world.”

Grace it’s nearly impossible to overstate the significance of this.  Look around.  Everything you see was made by Jesus.  Everything that exists outside of the godhead was made through Jesus.  God spoke all things into existence and Jesus is the Word of God!

But how do you communicate something so significant when ordinary words and conventions just aren’t enough?  

I doubt I’ll ever forget Paul Tripp’s attempt at doing so in describing the problem with the human heart.  The fact is that we are desperately and terminally selfish.  But how do you say that in a way that conveys the gravity of the situation?  He attempted to do so by asking, “Do you know what your problem is?”  And answering, “I want.  I want.  I want.  I want.  I want.  I want…..” and he went on for what felt like minutes.  

Paul, the author of our letter, did that often as well.  How do you describe the incalculable love of God?  Consider his description of God’s love for us and what it takes to grasp it in Ephesians 3(:16-19).  

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Paul could have simply written to the Ephesian Christians and said, “It’s important for you to know that God loves you.”  That’s the heart of what he did write.  But he knew that they needed to know and experience and live in light of God’s love above everything else.  And he also knew that God’s love is so great that they’d never grasp it without God’s help.  

And so, instead of simply saying “God loves you” and leaving it at that, Paul revealed that he fell to his knees in prayer, pleading with God to provide for them all they needed to understand and experience His love for them.  He went on to describe the nature of the God to whom he prayed—the Father of every man.  He explained the only reason God would answer his prayer—because of the unlimited wealth of His glory.  He revealed the only way the Ephesians could handle what he was seeking on their behalf—if God first granted them, by His Spirit, strength and power beyond anything they’d experienced.  He named the critical prerequisite for knowing and experiencing the depths of God’s love in them—Christ dwelling in them through their faith.  In that, he made it a triune prayer, invoking each person of the godhead on their behalf.  He wrote of their need not only to know and experience God’s love, but to be rooted and grounded in it.  Then he revealed that God’s love occupies an extra dimension and asked God to grant them access to it—breadth, length, height, and depth.  He acknowledged that God’s love is so vast that it surpasses knowledge.  And, finally, he asked God to fill them with the fullness—to make them full, full—of His love.  

Again, his only point was that God loved them.  But he knew enough about God’s love and the Ephesians need for it, that simply stating it was not enough.  

Well, he did something very similar in our passage.  Paul knew the depth of the trials the Colossians were experiencing.  And he knew that what they needed most was to know and experience the preeminence of Jesus over their trials.  But he also knew that simply saying, “Don’t worry, Jesus is in control,” while certainly true, did not capture the scope or glory of what that meant.  

Therefore, he explained some of the nature of Jesus’ “control” and where it came from.  As we just saw, it starts with the fact that Jesus is the firstborn (sovereign over) everything causing them problems.  But Paul didn’t stop there.  There is more glory to Jesus’ “control” over the things plaguing the Colossians, and therefore, more help for them in it.  He went on then to explain that He is firstborn because all Creation is by and through Jesus.  But he didn’t stop there either.  So that his readers wouldn’t miss it and the help that comes with it, he also rattled off eight dimensions of Creation that were made by and through Jesus!

In the beginning there was only God—Father, Son, and Spirit.  And then, at the appointed time, God determined to Create a universe outside of Himself.  The Father spoke by and through His Son and all that has been made was made.  Everything…

On earth.  Every man, woman, and child, every ray of the sun, every cell, every ant, tree, and flower, every bug, every large rainbow trout, every person, every physical thing.   

In heaven.  Angels, demons, seraphim, cherubim, Satan himself, every spiritual thing.  

Visible.  Everything you can see.  

Invisible.  Everything you can’t see. 

Thrones.  Every position of power on earth. 

Dominions.  Every position of power in heaven.

Rulers.  Every person of power on earth.

Authorities.  Every being of power in heaven.  

It’s not certain, but Paul seems to be oscillating back and forth between the physical and spiritual in order to highlight the all-encompassing nature of Jesus’ involvement in the Creation of all created things.  

Either way, although Paul’s point was not to exhaustively name every distinct aspect of Creation, it was meant to poetically express the totality of Jesus sovereignty over the totality of all that has been made. 

Think about what that means for your trials, Grace Church.  That’s what Paul wanted the Colossians to do.  

Are the things troubling you in heaven or earth?  Are they visible or invisible?  Are they physical or spiritual?  Are they powerful people or nations or forces?  If so (and of course they are for there’s nothing outside of those things), then they were made by and through Jesus.  He is sovereign over them.  

What, then, do you need to fear?  What, then, can they do to you outside of Jesus’ authority (which He always and only uses for the good of those whose faith is in Him)?

This knowledge does not, of course, take away your trials, it doesn’t cancel out the hardships in your life, but it does allow you to endure them with a much bigger story than “this hard. no like. must avoid. at all cost.”

For the Colossians and us, the pain of others’ sin against us, our sickness or that of someone we love, the teasing of other kids, the disobedience of our own kids or the inability to have them, the troubled marriage or the divorce or the singleness, even the temptation of demons are bad; sometimes really bad.  But the knowledge that working an incomprehensible good in every one of those is the Firstborn over all creation, the One by and through whom all of those things were made, the One who created everything on earth and in heaven, visible and invisible, thrones and dominions, rulers and authorities, is infinitely better.  

We all live out of a story.  The question this passage puts in front of us is: Inside what story are you experiencing and interpreting your suffering?  Even more significant is the question: Is the Firstborn of all creation the center of your story?  If He isn’t, hard things will just be hard; perhaps even to the point of despair.  But if He is, they will still be hard, but dimmed to near invisibility by the unmatched light of the glory of Jesus, the firstborn.

For the Colossians, with this understanding, they could endure their persecution in the knowledge that no one was persecuting them who was not made by and through Jesus.  Their persecutors belonged to Jesus and were under His sovereign rule.  And with this understanding, they would reject the false teaching, for no matter its appeal or promise, it was as the foulest pile of rot compared to the glory of the Maker of heaven and earth.  

It is a gift to us that the Colossians had both some kind of physical or emotional struggle (in their persecution) as well as a theological one (in the false doctrine that was being presented to them).  

If it were only theological, someone who’s pain is primarily physical (some disease or sickness or the physical abuse of someone) might think, “False teaching?  Strange doctrine?  Some philosophy?  That’s your suffering?!  It must be nice.  That’s nothing compared to the excruciating pain I’m in day after day.

Or, if the Colossians’ pain were only physical, someone with emotional scars from past sin (theirs or others’) might say, “I’ll take a beating any day of the week.  At least that’s done when it’s done.  I’m haunted 24 hours a day with an emotional pain that is nearly suffocating.”

Or if the Colossians’ pain were only emotional, someone with a theological trial might think, “I’m sure it’s rough to suffer in your mind and heart regarding the things of this earth.  I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.  But if that’s all you have, you can’t imagine how much greater it is to be tormented day after day with the fear that I am not truly saved and that I will suffer forever in hell when I die.”  

That the Colossians suffered all three and Paul’s first and main answer was the same for all three simultaneously acknowledges the unique challenges of the theological, emotional, and physical pain we experience and the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus, the Firstborn, over them all.  

And so the question is: Is the Jesus you believe in that big?  Is He that glorious?  Is He that preeminent?  Is He that supreme?  Is He truly that much greater than anything you might suffer?  Is He the maker of all things?  He is!  The only question is whether or not we realize it enough to find the help that’s in it.

There’s one more point Paul makes that we simply can’t miss.  We want all the help we can get, right?  The harder your situation, the more each drop of help means to you.  But this is no mere drop of help.  It’s a gushing canyon of help.  It’s just two words, but it’s the Niagara Falls of help.  Look with me at the last two words of v.16.  

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Before the act of Creation, before God made all things by and through Jesus, it was determined that all Creation would be for Jesus.  He is the point and the aim.  

“Some translate the word ‘for’ as toward, which makes the sense even more dramatic: ‘All things were created by him and toward him.’  Everything began with him and will end with him.  All things sprang forth at his command, and all things will return to him at his command.  He is the beginning and he is the end—the Alpha and Omega.  One day everything will give him glory!” (Hughes, PTW, 232).

The main thing for us to see is that everyone is living for something.  It’s in our nature to be aimed at something.  We can’t not.  As some of you know, there are countless things we might live for that falsely promise satisfaction—relationships, career, sports, accomplishments, money, quiet, pleasure, etc.  And as the rest of you know, one of the most discouraging places to be in life is not having a sense of purpose—of not even having a place that might provide satisfaction.  But Paul tells us that Jesus is our purpose.  All created things exist for Him.  

We are part of Jesus’ Creation.  Therefore, we will only find true significance inside the One aim that makes us significant: Jesus.  

In that way, when we are faced with trials, there is great help in knowing that for everyone whose hope is in Jesus, they are not pointless.  They are not meaningless.  They are never in vain.  They are a means of God’s sanctifying grace (), or an opportunity to glorify God in our navigation of them (), or the loving discipline of the Lord (), or a powerful witness to the lost (), or some other great good.  We know that for certain because of the two words at the end of v.16.  All things were created “for Him.”  

Just as every bug and snake and flower peddle and mountain and valley and river and ocean and all the things no one has ever heard of that Mr. Dave brings up in The Fact are for Jesus, so too are all of us and all our trials and all the people and things who cause them.  The more the Colossians could appropriate and appreciate that, the more help they would receive in their sufferings; even as that is still the case for us.  

In conclusion, as I mentioned in the beginning, this sermon is part 1 of 3 concerning Jesus’ supremacy over Creation.  This morning, we saw that He is supreme over the original work of Creation.  Next week, in part 2, we’ll see that He is supreme over the ongoing work of sustaining and governing creation.  And then, on Easter Sunday, we’ll see that because of His resurrection from the dead, He is supreme over the recreation to come.  

The big idea of this passage is that whatever form the hardships in your life take, you must know that whoever or whatever it is that is causing your trouble (whether on earth or in heaven, visible or invisible, thrones or dominions, rulers or authorities) it was created by, through, and for Jesus.  There is nothing causing you pain that Jesus is not sovereign over.  There is great help in that knowledge for all who are hoping in Jesus.  Let us learn, then, Grace Church, to learn to live entirely out of that story—the greatest and truest story, with the greatest Hero, the greatest ending, and the greatest Author.  

And so, let us end with the great doxology of Romans 11.

Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. 

Colossians 1:15-20 –

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

I want to thank Darrel very much for preaching last Sunday.  I was able to listen to his sermon on the way home from the conference that Pastor Colin and I attended.  It was clear, biblical, hopeful, immediately applicable, and Christ-centered—all the ingredients of a good sermon.  I prayed that you all would have been as encouraged by it as I was.  In particular, I prayed that the things he commended to us would be our mind and heart whenever suffering comes our way (which, providentially, fits very well with this sermon).  Thank you, Darrel.  You served us well.

And now, welcome back to Colossians.  More specifically, welcome back to Colossians 1:15-20.  More specifically still, welcome back to the heart of the letter and Paul’s answer to the question of how the Colossian Christians (and all followers of Christ) are to navigate hardship (persecution and false teaching for the Colossians). 

His answer is to make sure that nothing other than the preeminence of Jesus (the supremacy of Jesus; the reality that Jesus has first place in everything; that Jesus is all and in all) is at the center of the story we tell ourselves whenever trials—whatever their form—befall us.  

At the same time—and this really is the key, Grace Church—in order to make sure the preeminence of Jesus is truly and helpfully at the center of the story we tell ourselves in times of trial, Paul knew that we must know, in real, concrete terms what it means that Jesus is preeminent; how Jesus is preeminent; what forms Jesus’ preeminence takes.  

In other words, it does us no good to believe lies about Jesus’ preeminence.  And it is not enough to know true things about Jesus’ preeminence in vague or abstract ways.  To find real help through real suffering, we need to know the specifics of Jesus’ glorious preeminence.  We need that now every bit as much as the Colossians needed it then.  

As I mentioned in my last sermon on Colossians, we’re going to consider the various aspects of Jesus’ preeminent nature (mentioned in this passage), slowly over the next several weeks.  We’ll begin looking at them this morning with the first aspect named by Paul and the big idea of this sermon: Jesus is preeminent in that He is the image of the invisible God.  The main takeaway is to learn look unto Jesus when life is hard by remembering that He is with us and that one day we will see Him face to face.  

There are two main questions that drive this sermon: (1) What does it mean that Jesus is the image of the invisible God?  And (2) How does knowing that help us in our suffering?  

In answer to the first question, there are three key points: God is spirit and spirit is invisible, God made Himself visible at times throughout the OT, and Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God.  

In the famous passage recounting Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus taught several significant truths.  Among them is the fact that “God is spirit” (John 4:24).  By that He meant that God the Father is non-physical.  He has no body or parts.  He has no size or dimensions.  

That God is spirit means that He is not a being.  He is being.  

Scholars have called this “pure being” or “the fullness or essence of being” (Grudem, ST, 187).  

This is why God’s most holy name is “I AM” (Exodus 3:14).  

And He is not optional being, but necessary being.  He can’t not be.  And all other being comes from Him.  

And yet, spiritual being is undetectable by ordinary senses.  Like wind, spirit is very real and able to bring about very real effects, but it is also invisible.  The Father is spirit and He is invisible.  That is a key aspect of His nature and our experience of it.  

Before we move on, Grace Church, if this aspect of God’s nature does not stir you to worship, you do not yet understand it.  For millennia, philosophers and theologians have pondered the question of what constitutes “being” (the fancy word is “ontology”).  The greatest human minds recognize the significance of the question, even if they are incompetent to truly grasp it.  God is the answer to the question.  He is spirit.  He is being.  He is the purest and highest form of reality.  He is the only non-derivative reality.  

That’s staggering.  That’s amazing.  That is worthy of our praise.  That is part of what makes Jesus’ preeminent and His preeminence help in times of trouble.  

I invite you to pause and pray, asking God the Father to fill you with the awe and peace that will come as you recognize that He is more fully real and present right here, right now than anything you can see with your eyes.  

While it is staggering, amazing, and worthy of praise, the fact that it makes Him undetectable by ordinary senses makes us wonder how we can even know there is a God, much less how we might interact with Him or have a relationship with Him, much less find help from Him when life is hard.  

There are two answers to this question.  First, God made us with spirits.  While that’s a different sermon for a different day, it’s important to note that there is “some communication from God to us of a spiritual nature” (Grudem, ST, 188)—His spirit to ours.  In other words, and this is all I’ll say about it, as Romans 1 teaches, even though the fact that God is spirit means we can’t perceive him with ordinary senses, we are made with more than ordinary senses such that everyone knows there is a God through conscience and creation—through His effects in us and around us.  

The second answer, which I’ll say more about since it’s more relevant to this sermon, is that God has, at times, made Himself detectible by our senses.  He has chosen to allow people to hear and feel and even see Him through created means.    

Have you ever heard the term “theophany”?  It’s a combination of two words, “God” and “appearance”.  Combined, as I imagine you can imagine, they refer to an appearance of God.  Theophanies are all over in the OT.  God made Himself felt, heard, and seen to His creatures through various aspects of His creation (wind, fire, light, etc.).  Let me share a few examples.

The first is found right at the beginning of the Bible.  In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve, still in the Garden of Eden, “heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’”

As we just saw, God is spirit.  Which means, again as we just saw, that He has no body to walk with, much less rustle leaves or grass as He walked (“the sound of the Lord walking in the garden”).  Likewise, He has no mouth with which to speak (“He called to the man and said…”).  And yet Adam and Eve heard and saw God because God made Himself audible and visible through ordinary (even fallen) eyes and ears by means of the things He made (grass and twigs and pebbles and vibrating molecules/atoms?).

Another early OT theophany is found in Exodus 3.  There we Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law when, unexpectedly, he encountered “the angel of the Lord” (which is God Himself).  God “appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.”  And there, “the Lord saw that [Moses] turned aside to see [Him].”  God “called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ … ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’”

The invisible, God of spirit made Himself seen and heard for the benefit of His chosen spokesman.    

A bit later in Exodus (24:7), God appeared to all the Israelites.  This time, “the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.”

Maybe the most famous OT theophany is found in Isaiah 6:1. There, Isaiah “saw the [invisible, spiritual] Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.”

Ezekiel (1:26-27) saw God seated on something like a throne “with a human appearance. 27 And upward from what had the appearance of his waist [Ezekiel] saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist [he] saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him.

There are, once again, many more such examples throughout the OT.  The point for us to see is that although God is spirit and spirit is invisible, God made Himself visible and hearable because He loves His people, made us for a relationship with Him, and was continually working out His plan to reconcile us to Himself and make Himself “forever visible” to us.   

Again, Grace, this is, rightly understood a truly awesome aspect of God’s nature and work.  That is worthy of our praise.  That is part of what makes Jesus’ preeminent and His preeminence help in times of trouble.  

Having sinned and rebelled against God, all we deserve is His judgment.  Mere silence or undetectability would be a gift.  Once again, then, let us pause and pray, asking God to help us appropriately appreciate His kindness in spreading breadcrumbs of grace through the theophanies, throughout human history, all pointing to and preparing us for the great and ultimate Theophany to come.

The third, final, and most explicit aspect of the answer of what it means that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, is that Jesus is the ultimate Theophany of God!  He is the true and full revelation of God.  

Grace (another bit of theology), do you know that all three persons of the godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—eternally existed as spirit prior to Creation?  Likewise, do you know that Father, Son, and Spirit remained that way from Creation until Jesus was conceived.  And do you know that at the incarnation, and eternally forward, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, Jesus experienced the hypostatic union of human and divine nature, of body and spirit?

Conceived by the Holy Spirit in the virgin Mary, the true and great Theophany was born!  Each previous theophany revealed some aspect of Jesus’ nature.  And they all pointed to, were shadows of, and subtly promised something fuller; Someone much fuller.  

At the beginning of his Gospel (1:1, 14), John said it this way, “In the beginning was the Word [Jesus, the Son of God, entirely spirit], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God…14 And [then!]the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Grace, as I hope you know, that is no small thing!  The God of all spirit became a God of flesh!  

Hebrews 1:3 says it like this, “[Jesus] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature…”

Indeed, as Paul wrote at the end of our passage (in v.19), in Jesus “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”  And he’s even more specific in 2:9, “…in [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily…”

The invisible God became visible.  Spirit, took on physicality, body, parts, size, dimension, and limitations.  He became detectible by ordinary senses.  For the first time, mankind really could see, hear, smell, and touch God.  

Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God, the great Theophany. 

We might think that all the earth would gather to Him in awe and wonder.  Certainly, it should have.  God again came to dwell among man.  What a glorious day, right?

I wonder, have you ever thought that if you could only see and hear from Jesus, things would be better/easier?  Does it seem to you that if only your ordinary senses could detect Him right now, you’d follow Him more faithfully?  As you contemplate your struggles in your life and faith, do you imagine that being in the presence of the image of the invisible God is all you’d need?

Grace, as awesome as the incarnation is, it has always been the case that mere senses are not enough.  

Jesus’ closest followers, His very disciples, chosen by Him, were able to interact with Him just as we are able to interact with one another.  Even more so, they lived with Him, traveled with Him, ate and drank with Him, and received inside instruction from Him.  They were literally in the presence of the image of the invisible God.  They were able to see Him.  They heard Him speak the eternal, powerful, good, beautiful, and true words of God—the words God promised will never return void (Isaiah 55:11).  

And yet, they were usually more confused than amazed.  Over and over they failed to grasp what they witnessed and heard to the point that Jesus questioned them, “Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear” (Mark 8:18).  

And so, the deeper problem of the human heart was revealed.  

As we consider why Paul offered this revelation as help to a suffering people, we are right to first remember Isaiah’s promise concerning the ultimate revelation of God, “[He would have] no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He [would be] despised and rejected by men, [and] a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men [would] hide their faces he [would be] despised, and [mankind would esteem] him not.”

Indeed, as Jesus Himself promised of Himself, “[I] must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation” (Luke 17:24).

In just a moment, we’re going to turn our attention to the second and final question of this sermon (how does knowing that Jesus is the image of God help in our suffering?), but hear now the simple fact that apart from some additional grace of God (beyond merely making Himself accessible by ordinary senses), it won’t help at all.  

In just a minute, I’m going to name (and commend to you) two ways that Paul meant this revelation to strengthen the Colossian believers through their trials.  And yet, I promise they won’t help at all if we don’t first recognize that simply being able to see and hear God as we see and hear one another is not enough.

That God, in love, sent His Son into the world to save the world, is no small measure of grace.  However, until we are born again, until our spirits are made alive by God, “we cannot see the kingdom [or King] of God” (John 3:3).  Apart from God’s regenerating grace, being in the presence of the image of the invisible God (as Isaiah and Jesus said,) will be as thoroughly unimpressive and underwhelming and unhelpful to us as not being in His presence.  Seeing and hearing Jesus with our ordinary eyes and ears will not make a bit of difference if we aren’t first given spiritual eyes and ears to go with it.  

And so, we pray.  We ask God to give us eyes to see and ears to hear.  We ask Him to lift the veil that sin and Satan have put over our eyes keeping us from seeing the “light of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4).  We pray that God would help us to recognize Jesus for who He really is, “the image of the invisible God,” God made flesh, “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature,” and the One in whom “all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell…bodily”  

And as He hears and answers our prayers, we will know, inescapably, of our need to turn from our sin and trust in Him for forgiveness.  And as He gives repentance and forgiveness, we will be in a place for this aspect of the preeminence of Jesus to strengthen us in our every trial.  

How, then, does knowing that Jesus is the image of God (in all the ways we just considered) help in our suffering?

Are you burdened?  Are you heavy laden?  Are there elements of your life that feel overwhelming; perhaps even crushing?  Are you being persecuted and bombarded with false, heretical teaching?  Are you suffering?

If so, and if God has cause you to be born again into a new and living hope in Jesus, and if (as Paul said earlier,) you have been “delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of His beloved Son, [having been redeemed and forgiven of your sins],” then the preeminence of Jesus, expressed in part through His divine image-bearing, is help indeed.  

Above all, that Jesus is the image of God is the fulfillment and guarantee of two promises that are sweet indeed for all who are suffering.   

First, God has always covenantally promised to be present with His people.  There were times (as was the case in the theophanies I mentioned earlier) when that was apparent to all.  But there were other times, the majority of the time for the majority of His people, perhaps, in which it was unapparent.  

In the incarnation, however, in Jesus becoming the image of the invisible God, God proved, once and for all the truthfulness of His promise to be with His people.  Jesus is Immanuel, God with us!

Jesus’ life on earth was a living demonstration of God’s perfect keeping of His promise of continual presence with His faithful followers.  Jesus echoed this in His final earthly words, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).  

Guys, you know how helpful it is to “have a guy,” right?  

If you are in legal trouble, you want to know that you have a good lawyer.  If you are in medical trouble, you want to know that there’s a good doctor set to take care of you.  If you are in relational trouble, you want to have a good friend with you.  If you are in car trouble, you want to be in the shop of a good mechanic.  

We want to be in the presence of someone well-equipped to help us with whatever difficulty we have (anyone know a good transmission guy?).  

But more than any “guy,” we need the help of the One who is the image of God.  Grace, whatever your trial, if your trust is in Jesus, God is with you in your trial to bless you and keep you.  The Colossians needed to know that there was nothing they’d encounter apart from God, no matter how difficult.  And we need to know that there is nothing we will encounter apart from God, no matter how difficult.  God is always with us—and especially in times of trial!  That Jesus was born as the image of the invisible God proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  

As I’ve told most of you, I fell through the ice as a kid while ice fishing on Lake Erie.  I didn’t have a lot of time to think as I flailed around, but I do know that I was desperate in that moment for someone to be with me and help me get out of the mess.  I knew that my life depended on it.  

A million times more than the presence and help of my cousin (as great as that was), there is great help, right now, in reminding ourselves of Jesus’ perfect presence in our hardships.

And so we pray, asking God to make us aware of His perfect and unwavering fulfillment of His promise.   Ask God, right now, whatever you are going through, Christian, to remind you that you really, truly are not alone in it.  

That is part of what makes Jesus’ preeminent and His preeminence help in times of trouble.  

Finally, the second promise that was guaranteed in the incarnation of the image of the invisible God is of a future grace. It is certainly helpful to know that we always have an omnicompetent Helper with us in every time of trouble—present grace.   But it is, perhaps, even more helpful to know that even if the worst comes, it merely shortens our journey and hastens us home to the time in which God’s greatest promise will be fulfilled: that we will see Him face to face forever!

In 1 Corinthians 13:11–12 Paul tells his readers (of Jesus) that,  “For now we see in a mirror dimly…”  That’s the first promise and it really is good news.  Jesus is with us in a real and helpful way, but for now we can only experience that in part, dimly.  But that will not always be the case.  One day, with glorified eyes and ears, perfectly tuned to behold the limitless glory of Jesus, we will see Him “face to face…”.

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Imagine standing in His presence, fully aware of His presence, with your will so free that nothing separates you from grasping how awesome that is.  That Jesus is the image of the invisible God is the unbreakable promise that it will be so forever and ever.  

Revelation 1:7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him…

O, Grace, what help it is in our present trials to know that the preeminence of Jesus as the incarnate image of God did not end with His 30 years on earth.  What a promise it is that all who hope in Him now will do so forever.  What a day it will be when we can see the beauty of the image of the invisible God ourselves!  

Pray and ask God to fill you with knowledge of and hope and longing for that day, such that you are able to see your present trials in light of that unimaginable glory. 

That is part of what makes Jesus’ preeminent and His preeminence help in times of trouble.  

Jesus is preeminent in that He is the image of the invisible God.  The main takeaway is to learn look unto Jesus when life is hard by remembering that He is with us and that one day we will see Him face to face.  

Romans 8:18-39 –

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that 
is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of 
God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, 
in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the 
freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been 
groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, 
who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the 
redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. 
For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, 
but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches 
hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according 
to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, 
for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also 
predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn 
among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called 
he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did 
not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give 
us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 
Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the 
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, 
or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure 
that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love 
of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I have entitled this sermon “Your Extraordinary Hope in Suffering”.  By Extraordinary I mean “unusually great”.   All of you, at one time or another, and many of you right now, are experiencing sufferings and trials of many kinds.  You may be gripped by physical illness and weakness;  you may be facing an onslaught of discouragement or temptation from the evil one;  you may live in relationships with problems that seem insurmountable;  the evil one may remind you again and again of your past failures;  you may be grieved in your heart because of the evil you see in the world;   you may be suffering because you are a follower of Christ;  there is no end to the kinds of suffering you may be experiencing.  

Suffering is hard, but shouldn’t surprise us.  Jesus prepared us for this.  And Jesus Himself suffered.  He suffered for us.  He set an example for how we can respond to suffering.  And He calls us to endure suffering in faith. 

Hebrews 12:1–3 says:  1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 

Jesus calls us to follow Him, enduring suffering with joy, and as we will learn today, Jesus calls us to not lose hope in our suffering.

But, sometimes our suffering overwhelms us.   Sometimes we lose sight of any glimmer of hope.  My desire today is to point you to the Extraordinary hope that is yours in Christ!  If you are a Christian, your hope in Christ is unusually great.  There is nothing ordinary about our hope—it’s the kind of hope that pulls us through suffering.  Its greater than we can begin to imagine.   I want you to see it, and to savor it, and to live in light of it.  God doesn’t promise to always remove the suffering, but He does promise to sustain you with hope as He carries you through it!   In no way do I want to minimize the suffering you are facing; instead, it is my desire for you to understand that the hope that is yours is far greater!

Our text of Scripture this morning is Romans 8:18-39.  Today I want to highlight from this text 3 reasons for your Extraordinary hope in suffering, and I want you to see 3 key questions and answers that fortify that hope!  But let me be clear first and foremost:  this hope is for the person that Christ has saved, the person that is born again, who has been justified by faith, and who has (objective) peace with God.  This hope is anchored in and built upon the person of Jesus Christ who redeemed us through His shed blood, and whose righteousness is ours by faith.  

If you are here this morning and you are not trusting in Jesus for your salvation, I urge you to run to Him today, put your faith in Him, that you too may have this Extraordinary hope.

There is one thing that must be said before we look at reason #1, and it’s this:  Romans 5:3-5 teaches us that “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”.  God is present and at work in our suffering.  And He promises to be doing good things in the lives of His children in the midst of suffering.  In fact, our hope is refined in the furnace of afflictions.  Suffering leads us to put our hope in Christ!  Our hope isn’t tied to our circumstances in life.  Our hope isn’t tied to other people and their opinions of us in life.  Suffering leads us to see that our hope is tied to and built upon Jesus Christ.  In fact, in suffering we learn to identify with Christ and His sufferings!  In Romans 8:16-17 we learn that “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him”.  For Jesus, suffering came before glory!  It’s that way for us too.  So, in our flesh we may fight against suffering, we may not want to accept suffering, we might lose sight of anything good in our suffering, we may be overwhelmed by our suffering, but with the help of the Holy Spirit we can accept and even rejoice in our suffering because of reason #1.

If we suffer with Christ, we will also share in His glory.  And that glory will make any suffering in this lifetime seem pale in comparison.  What does the glory that will be revealed to us when Christ comes again look like?  In short, that glory will be the most beautiful and satisfying thing you will ever see!  John Piper says, “God’s glory is the radiance of his holiness, the radiance of his manifold, infinitely worthy and valuable perfections”.  And when Christ comes again, His glory will be fully revealed to us!  God will give us eyes to see and savor Him in all of His breathtaking beauty in an unhindered way.  I Cor. 13:12 says it best:  “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known”.   

In this lifetime we wait for glory.  We long for it.  In fact, verse 23 says “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”  The Holy Spirit was with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, but still, Jesus experienced deep agony as He was preparing for the Cross.  Yet, He was able to pray “not my will, but yours be done”.  Jesus endured suffering.  Jesus trusted and obeyed His Father’s will, strengthened by the Holy Spirit.  In fact, for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross.  I think it was the joy of doing His Father’s will.  As believers, it’s important to know that real genuine life giving hope doesn’t mean we aren’t honest about our sufferings.  It is when we are honest about our sufferings that we are more prepared to run to Jesus for help, and He will give us the kind of help to endure and persevere in the faith.

That is the promise given to us in 1 Corinthians 10:13 says:  No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.  God promises to help us endure, or to persevere in the Faith.  We don’t stop believing when suffering comes.  But we must be honest about the hardship in such a way that we run to Christ for help.  There we find help to cling to that certain and sure promise of glory—and eternity spent in the presence of Jesus.

Verses 24-25 then says this: “For in this hope we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”.  What is hope?

Hope is a certain and confident expectation that God’s glory will be revealed to us when Christ comes again.  Again, as verse 18 says “…I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”.  Paul is not minimizing the sufferings in this lifetime.  Paul understood suffering.  He suffered plenty in his lifetime.  Instead, he is saying that seeing and savoring the glory of God for all eternity is infinitely better!  He says this so you will persevere in your faith, giving you courage and patience in what can be sometimes “long sufferings”.  

Let me attempt to illustrate present sufferings in contrast to future glory.  Present sufferings might be compared to the excruciating pains of a woman in labor. Not pleasant.  I remember thinking that what Shelli experienced in her labor was more excruciating than anything else I have ever seen.  But the gift of a child makes all those labor pains a price worth paying!  I witnessed Shelli cry out in labor pains for a season (a long season), but there were inexpressible tears of joy with Josh and Jess in her arms.      

Our present sufferings don’t begin to compare with the glory that will be revealed to us when Christ comes again!  There is a great hope for you in suffering!

How?  One of the ways is this:  “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”  Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you don’t know how to pray?  Have you ever been in a situation where you are so overwhelmed by your trial that you don’t even have the strength to pray?  Be encouraged, the Holy Spirit is interceding for you!  This reveals that our hope, ultimately, isn’t tied to us hanging on to God but God hanging on to us!  The Spirit searches our hearts, and He knows what we need.  The Spirit also knows God’s will for us perfectly.  And He intercedes on our behalf!  

Do you grasp the weightiness of that?  We get encouraged when our brothers and sisters pray for us, and rightly so.  How much more should we be encouraged in our sufferings when we know that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us according to God’s perfect will!  And God the Father always gives what the Holy Spirit asks for, because the Holy Spirit is always praying according to the Father’s will!

You are not left alone!  The Holy Spirit is with you.  He knows you far better than you know yourself.  He also knows your Heavenly Father perfectly, and He is actively and faithfully praying for you in perfect agreement with God’s will.  

Not everything that happens to you is good.  We will share in Christ’s glory if we share in His sufferings.  The English definition of the word “suffering “ is a state of ongoing pain, distress, or hardship”.  But God is so wise and powerful that He can use that pain, distress, and hardship to bring about good in your life through it!  What is that good that He will bring about?  Verse 29 says “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers”.  How confident can we be in God’s ability to use sufferings to conform us to the image and likeness of Jesus?  How certain can we be that God will make all things work together for our good?  Verse 30 says:  “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified”.   The word “glorified”, grammatically, means it’s a past completed action.  However, though we are not yet glorified—because that will happen when Christ comes again—it’s  as good as done because God said He will do it!  

God is up to something good in your life!  Even in suffering!  He is at work to form the character of Christ into the character of your life, more and more.  God is so wise and good that He can take hard times and use them to bring you to greater maturity in Christ.  Your suffering is not pointless!  Do you believe that?  Can you rest in the care of your Lord and Savior?  Can you be content in Christ, even in the midst of your trial?  You can be absolutely certain, that no matter what is happening in your life, even if what you are facing isn’t good—even if what you are experiencing brings pain, distress, and hardship—your life won’t be defined by your pain, but by your sovereign Lord who is infinitely wise and loving and good and is at work doing GOOD things in you and through you.  Faith is living in light of that truth even if you don’t see it physically and even if you don’t feel it emotionally.  

We must fight to live in light of Christ and His promises!  Jerry Bridges has said:  

“Trust is not a passive state of mind. It is a vigorous act of the soul by which we choose to lay hold on the promises of God and cling to them despite the adversity that at times seeks to overwhelms us.”

We have talked about 3 reasons for Extraordinary hope in suffering.  Now let’s talk about…

Question #1:  If God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8:31-32).  The answer is, no one.  Absolutely no one.

Answer #1:  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?  That is the character and the promise of God.  The gift of Jesus to meet our greatest need is proof that God is a lavish giver of good, really good gifts.  Yes, we are forgiven.  We have the hope of glory.  We also live in this age with the promise of His faithful presence with us.  The Spirit is constantly with us, comforting, enabling, transforming, and keeping.   

Question #2:  Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? Who is to condemn? (Rom. 8:33-34)

Answer #2:  It is God who justifies.  Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.  Today, we know that God is for us, not against us.  And if God is for us, no one can be against us.

Question #3:  Who/What shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Rom. 8:35-39)

Answer #3:  Nothing!  We are more than conquerors through him who loved us!

Romans 8:35–39:  35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

The Gospel makes it abundantly clear that we really do have an unusually great hope in Christ who will transform us through our sufferings and take us to glory!  You can be absolutely certain of this!

Don’t lose sight of your God given Extraordinary hope in the midst of suffering!

Colossians 1:15-20 –

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Since the first sermon on Colossians, I’ve tried to explain that the central message of this letter and the primary solution to the Colossian Christians’ problems is “Jesus and nothing”.  That idea comes from passages like what we find in chapter 3:11 where Paul declares of Jesus that He “is all and in all.”  Jesus is the aim and answer!

The questions, of course, are: What does that mean and how is it so?  What does it mean that Jesus was sufficient to overcome every challenge of the Colossian Christians?  In what ways is Jesus all and in all and what does that have to do with their hardships?  And remember, Paul was writing to Christians, so his point wasn’t mainly tied to their conversion.  

As you know by now, the two main problems the Colossians were facing were persecution and false teaching.  They were constantly pressured (at best) and severely mistreated (at worst) for their faith in Jesus.  Likewise, in the midst of trying to figure out how to live in a manner worthy of God, they were being constantly bombarded with wrong answers to that question.  At best, they were given bad ideas by well-intentioned people.  And at worst, they were being inundated with doctrines antithetical to the gospel by the enemies of God.  

And again, Paul’s first and main answer to all of that was Jesus.  “Jesus and nothing” was more than enough for them, Paul argued.  But again, how was that the case?  What does that mean?

Before we get to the answer, I invite you to think about that for a minute.  Make a quick mental list of the biggest real-life problems you have right now.  Now try to honestly answer the questions of whether or not Jesus is enough for those things and what would it even mean for Him to be.  In other words, before we get to Paul’s explanation, let’s first make sure to take it out of the past and out of the abstract and into our real lives and our own problems.  

Again, is it easy for you to see how Jesus is the answer to all of that?  Do you know what it means?  Do you know how it’s possible?  Can you see how the fact that Jesus is all and in all is enough?

To help you see how that is the case, I want to answer three questions for you this morning: (1) Why are hard things hard?  (2) What are our options for dealing with hard things?  (3) How does Jesus relate to our hard things?

As I do, you’ll see the big idea of the sermon: Living out of the right story is the only way to honor God in times of hardship.  And right at the center of the right story is the preeminence of Jesus Christ.  The main takeaway is to make sure Jesus is central to your story and that you’re seeing everything else in light of that.  

To be clear, this passage does not answer the first two questions for us.  It only answers the third.  However, Paul’s answer to the third question assumes the first two questions.  And so, with that, why are hard things hard?

This might sound like a silly question.  Admittedly, on some level it is.  But until we can come to grips with the answer to this question, hard things will always be even harder than they need to be.  

Ultimately, hard things are hard because of sin.  No sin, no hardship.  

But to zoom in just a bit more, there are four main ways that sin makes things hard.  Test my answers against the mental list you made earlier.  Ask yourself whether or not the hardships you’re enduring fit into one of these explanations.  

So if those are the avenues sin takes to make things hard, what are our options for dealing with them?  There really are, I believe, only two options.  When hard things happen to us, we will either seek to change our circumstances or the story we believe about them.    

There’s a lot more to be said on this, and Paul will say more as we move along, but for now, we are simply going to consider what Jesus did and who He is in relation to the trouble the Colossians were in and the trouble we’re in (loneliness, marriage problems, kid problems, trouble having kids, family conflict, health struggles, a difficult work environment, money problems, lasting hurt, anxiety or depression, secret or nagging sins, uncertainty about the future).  No one else did what He did and no one else is who He is.  

What Jesus Did

We considered what He did last week.  His life, death, and resurrection were the means by which we were qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, delivered from the domain of darkness, transferred into His kingdom, redeemed, and forgiven (12-14).  Paul concludes the next section, the section on who He is, our section for today, with a reminder of what He did: Made peace by the blood of His cross.  

Because of what Jesus did, He is enough.  Because of what He did, He is preeminent, He is supreme.  Because of what He did, “Jesus and” anything is absurd.  Because of what He did, we can trust Him through every trial.  Because of what He did, the Colossians had everything they needed to endure the persecution and false teaching they were being bombarded with.  

Who Jesus Is

But it was not only because of what Jesus did.  He did what He did because He is who He is.  That’s the emphasis of this most remarkable passage.  In it, we find fourteen unparallel descriptions of who Jesus is—fourteen aspects of the preeminence and supremacy of Jesus.  These things get right to the heart of why Jesus is enough and Jesus and anything is nuts.  

We’re going to spend some time each week for the next several weeks unpacking the individual descriptions of Jesus’ nature.  But the main point I want you to see right now is that it is because of who Jesus is that the Colossians could be filled with hope and peace and rest and joy even if their circumstances only got worse and worse and worse.  Likewise, I want us all to see that it is because of who Jesus is that He is enough for every real-life problem that we mentally marked down earlier, serious as they may be.  

It is because of the things we read in this passage (and passages like it) that Paul is right to say that Jesus is all and in all and it is right for us to see that Jesus and anything is of the devil.  

Why does Paul include this paragraph at this point in the letter?  He does so primarily because he knows that if the Colossians have anything else at the center of their story, they’re lost.  He does so because he knows that while their circumstances are largely out of their control, the story they believe is not.  He knows that their story will have far more to do with their ability to navigate the persecution and heresy than anything else.  

Grace, the same is true for you and I today as much as it was for the Colossians then.  Our circumstances are different.  Our hardships are different.  But the most important aspects of our lives are not—the inability to affect our circumstances and a story that overwhelms them is available to us.  

Why are the hard things in your life hard?  Above all, it’s because something other than the preeminence of Jesus is at the center of your story.  How do you navigate the hard things in your life in such a way that allows you to count them as “all joy” as James says (1:2)?  You do so by making sure that who Jesus is and what He did is primary interpretive lens through which you see your hardships.   Hard things will still be hard, but of an entirely different way.  Instead of being overwhelming and crushing, they will seem to be light momentary afflictions, preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17) because of the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison that is Jesus Christ.

Living out of the right story is the only way to honor God in times of hardship.  And right at the center of the right story is the preeminence of Jesus Christ—who He is and what He’s done.  The main takeaway is to make sure Jesus is central to your story and everything else is seen in light of that.  

One aspect of that is doing what we’re about to do in taking part in the Lord’s Supper.

Colossians 1:9-14 –

9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

What is the hardest thing someone has told you to do?  I know some of you have been told to do really hard things in the military, by a boss, by your doctor, and by a family member.  

More to the point, have any of you been told to do something you didn’t think was even possible?  If so, how did you respond?  Did you even try?  What made you think it was impossible?

Well, it’s important for you all to know that Christianity is filled with “impossible” commands.  It’s a command to dead people to be born again and believe the gospel (John 3:3).  It’s a command to be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16).  It’s a command to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20).  It’s a command to count all trials as joy (James 1:2).  It’s a command to love your enemies (Matthew 5:44).  It’s a command to lose your life so you can find it (Matthew 10:39).  It’s a command to give everything you have to the poor (Matthew 19:21).  It’s a command to love God with all you have (Matthew 22:37).  It’s a command to hate your father and mother (Luke 14:26).  It’s a command to eat Jesus’ flesh and drink His blood (John 6:54).  It’s a command to fit through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24).  It’s a command to follow Jesus wherever He leads and whatever it costs (Luke 14:33).  And, as we see in our passage for this morning, it’s a command to change kingdoms (Colossians 1:12-14) and to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him (1:10).  

The question is, of course: How is it possible to do the impossible?  And the answer, as I mean to help you see, is that what is impossible for man is possible with God.  Graciously, mercifully, miraculously, God provides for us what He requires of us.  That’s the big idea of this passage: from the beginning to the end of the Christian life, God gives His people all we need to live lives worthy of and fully pleasing to Him.  And the main takeaway is to work hard at all that God has commanded us to do in the faith and strength He provides.  

Before I pray, I invite you to be humbled and amazed by that good news.  You do not rightly understand what Jesus calls you to if it does not seem impossible.  But you do not understand the grace of God if you do not recognize that He provides what He requires.    

As we wrap up this section of Paul’s letter, I want to give you a brief recap of what we’ve already covered in it.  As I do, I hope you’ll be able to clearly see that God truly does provide all that He requires to live as He intends no matter our circumstances.  And I hope you’ll be able to see that it’s just as true for us today as it was for the Colossians then.

You may have noticed that Colossians 1:3-14 is all one big prayer.  In the first half, in vs.3-8, Paul prays, thanking God for the work He’d already done in the Colossians.  More specifically, he thanks God for the faith, hope, and love He’d established and preserved in them through their hope in the gospel and through significant trial.  Paul continually thanked God that His grace was more than enough to allow the Colossian Christians to see that Jesus is a treasure worth far more than all the inevitable and remarkable difficulties they faced for trusting in Him.  

Then, beginning in v.9, Paul moves from a prayer of thanksgiving to a prayer of supplication.  He moves from thanking God for the grace He’d already given them, to asking God to grant the Colossians a new and fuller measure of grace.  In that, we find one of the clearest explanations of how God means and empowers us to live lives worthy of and fully pleasing to Him.  That is, a right reading of Paul’s prayer for the Colossians in 9-12 helps us make sense both of the rest of this letter and of our own lives in Christ in a profound way.  

God Provides Knowledge of His Will for the Christian Life (9)

The gist of this portion of His prayer is: Living in a manner worthy of and pleasing to God in any circumstance (which is the very purpose of our existence) begins by knowing God’s will for our lives.  We cannot live as God intends if we do not know what He intends.  But we cannot know what God intends unless God graciously reveals it.  So Paul asked God to fill the Colossians with the knowledge of His will.  

If you don’t want to know God’s will and aren’t willing to seek it where it is found, you cannot live the Christian life.  And so, pray that prayer, Grace.  It is impossible for any of us to know what God wants from us apart from God revealing it to us, both in content and meaning.  Ask God for both and He will grant both—He has granted them!  

God Provides All Spiritual Wisdom and Understanding for the Christian Life (9)

More than merely knowing His will, though, Paul knew that the Colossians also needed to know how to apply it to their present circumstances.  In other words, knowing that it’s God’s will that you love your enemy is not the same as knowing what exactly it looks like to love the actual people who are tempting you to believe heresy (as was the case for the Colossians).  Knowing how to do so—knowing how to apply God’s will once you have it—is what Paul calls “spiritual wisdom and understanding”.

Paul knew that the Colossians needed this, that it was impossible for them to get on their own, and that God provides what He requires, and so he asked God for it on their behalf.

Pray that prayer, Grace.  It is as impossible for any of us to translate knowledge of God’s will into knowledge of God-worthy, God-pleasing specific actions apart from God’s help as it was for the Colossians.  Ask God, therefore, to provide what He requires of you—spiritual wisdom and understanding—and He will grant them.  

God Provides All Power and His Glorious Might for the Christian Life (10)

Paul knew, of course, that all of this was impossible for the Colossians or anyone else.  He knew it was impossible for them to even want any of it in their own strength.  That is why this is a prayer before it is a set of instructions.  And it’s also why He asks God to accomplish all of that in the Colossians by granting them His power and glorious might.  Paul knew that God would empower them to understand, desire, and do what He’d called them to or they would never be able to do it.  

Pray that prayer, Grace.  Ask God to strengthen you for the specific aspects of His will that you must obey today.

God Provides Endurance for the Christian Life (11)

Even more, though, he also knew that this was not a one-time charge.  It’d be impossible for the Colossians to live as God called them to even once, but the actual call was to keep doing it continually.  They were to discern God’s will, apply it to their circumstances in a God-honoring way, even as their circumstances became more difficult and the cost to do so grew, over and over and over.  Paul knew that God would provide what He requires or the Colossians would fail.  And so, He prayed that God would grant them (not just some, but) “all endurance and patience”.  

Pray that prayer, Grace.  Ask God for the grace to faithfully live the Christian life continually, with all necessary endurance and patience, and He will grant it.  He will sustain you through whatever He has for you.

God Provides Joy for the Christian Life (11)

That’s a lot, isn’t it?  Any of that is impossible.  All of that is even moreso.  But Paul wasn’t done.  He knew that God required even more from His people.  If the Colossians were going to truly live in a manner worthy of God, they needed to know God’s will, how to apply His will, how to persevere in His will through every trial, and how to do so in joy!   

It’s one thing to imagine summoning all your self-control and discipline to begrudgingly love your enemy—to seek what’s best for them even though they are actively working for your harm—but it’s something entirely different, something entirely more impossible, to do so “with joy”.  How do you delight in doing good, continually to those who mean to do evil against you?  It is impossible for man, but not for God.  And so Paul prayed that God would grant the Colossians the joy He required of them.  

Pray that prayer, Grace.  Consider the one who causes you the most pain or tempts you to the most sin.  Ask God to let you know His will for you in relation to them, ask Him for the wisdom you need to translate that into specific action, ask Him to grant you the ability to keep doing that good thing no matter how long it lasts, and ask Him to grant you the ability to do all of that, not in somber self-control, but in joyful obedience.  Ask and He will grant it.    

God Provides Thanksgiving for the Christian Life (12)

That has to be it, right?  Living worthy and pleasing Christian lives can’t possibly call for anything more, can it?  It’s already impossibly impossible.  Paul asks God for one more thing on behalf of the Colossian Christians.  

At the beginning of v.3 Paul thanked God for His work in the Colossians.  At the beginning of v.12, Paul asked God, in light of everything else, to draw the Colossians into his thanksgiving.  

The bookends of thanksgiving are the key feature of this section.  Paul, as I hope you remember, prayed His prayers from prison, thanking God for the Colossians who were under a different kind of constant attack.  Nevertheless, Paul’s primary disposition, and the primary disposition he invited them to adopt, was one of giving thanks to God for His amazing grace.  This too, he knew was only possible in the strength God provides.  

Pray that prayer, Grace.  Ask God to fill you with non-stop thanksgiving, no matter your circumstances, no matter what living in light of the will of God costs you, in the certain knowledge that your every moment is already infinitely better than you deserve, and that as you do, you are proving that your every moment for eternity will be infinitely better still.  Ask for what God requires and He will provide it.  

All of that, once again, is where we’ve been—Paul’s prayer concerning the nature of the Christian life and the (gracious) means by which we are to live it.  

And all of that sets us up for where we’re going.  In vs.12b-14, we see that underneath everything we’ve seen is something even more impossible still.  In those verses we see that we need God to provide what He requires not only to live the Christian life faithfully, but also to even begin it.  That’s where we’ll turn now—to the impossibility of beginning the Christian life.

What do I mean that the beginning of the Christian is impossible?  Look again at vs.12-14 to see four essential, but “impossible” aspects of becoming a Christian.  

12 … the Father… has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The heart of Paul’s message in those verses is that the beginning of the Christian life means being (1) delivered from the kingdom of darkness, (2) transferred into Christ’s kingdom of light, (3) redeemed, and (4) forgiven of our sins and each are impossible for us to do in our own strength.  Let’s briefly consider each.

God Delivers from the Kingdom of Darkness (13)

Being clear on what constitutes the beginning of the Christian life begins with being clear on what the alternative is.  The alternative, according to Paul, is to be under “the domain of darkness.”  Before any of the Colossians were part of Christ’s Kingdom, they were (as were we) part of the kingdom of darkness.

Even though I (mistakenly) thought of myself as a Christian early on in my life, this was a totally foreign concept to me.  For me (again, mistakenly), being a Christian was merely a matter of believing in “God” and being a good person.  I certainly believed in something I’d learned to call “God” and I couldn’t even conceive of the idea that I wasn’t a good person, so obviously I was a Christian, I reasoned.  

Had you told me then that I was actually under the dominion and within the domain of darkness, I really wouldn’t have understood what you meant, but I certainly wouldn’t have believed you.  In fact, I would almost certainly have been insulted by the accusation.  Sure, I wasn’t perfect, and sure I did some wrong things sometimes, but that’s a long way from “the domain of darkness”.  

But what I was ignorant of is an essential, critical aspect of beginning the Christian life.  Without understanding and accepting it, no one can begin the Christian life since the heart of the beginning of the Christian life is doing the impossible thing of escaping it.  

Let’s back up just a bit.  What does Paul mean when he speaks of being “the domain of darkness”?  He is, as we’ll see at the end of v.14, categorically declaring that every man, woman, and child, since Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, have been born enslaved to sin and under the condemnation of God that comes from it.  

Does that sound right to you?  Is that how you understand the nature of mankind?  Do you believe that we are truly born as slaves under the domain of darkness or do you, like I did for so many years, find that to be both false and offensive?  

The idea is everywhere in the Bible, and especially in Paul’s writings (see also Psalm 51:5; 1 John 1:8).

Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

Romans 3:23 …all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Ephesians 2:3 … we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

And throughout the Bible, and especially the NT, sin and darkness are inseparably linked.  To be in sin is to be in darkness.  To be in darkness is to be in sin (see also Ephesians 5:11).

John 3:19 … people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

2 Corinthians 6:14 …what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

1 John 1:5-6 …God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

Again, then, the Christian life begins with the understanding that we are born into the kingdom of sin and darkness—which, all by itself is impossible for us to do on our own.  

What’s more, beginning the Christian life is not merely doing the impossible thing of recognizing our place in the kingdom of darkness, it is doing the even more impossible thing of escaping it.  It’s not enough, of course, to simply acknowledge that we are enslaved to sin and enemies of God.  We must free ourselves from its dominion.  And that, again, is more impossible still.  

The question then, of course, is who can begin the Christian life if even the very first step is impossible?  

What is impossible for us, is possible for God.  While we cannot affect our own escape from darkness’s domain, God can deliver us from it.  Underneath the beginning and continuing of the Christian life is the reality that God alone can deliver us from darkness’s domain.  And so He had for the Colossians, “13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness”.  

And so He will for all who trust Him to provide what He requires.  We require a deliverance from darkness that we are incapable of acknowledging or effecting and God provides it.  

Pray that prayer, Grace; for yourself and everyone you love.  Ask God to transfer you from the kingdom of darkness or ask Him to help you live more fully in light of the fact that He already has.

God Transfers into Christ’s Kingdom (12, 13)

If we are to be right with God, we need to be delivered from sin and darkness to be sure.  But we need more than just that.  We must also come under the domain of the beloved Son in light.  And yet, of course, it’s just as impossible to enter the kingdom of light on our own as it is to leave the kingdom of darkness.  

We can no more choose (or even want to choose) to make ourselves citizens of a righteous kingdom of light than we can choose to simply walk away from the enslavement of the tyrannical king of darkness.

Of this, in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Paul wrote that the “… gospel is veiled…to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

But thanks be to God that, once again, He provides what He requires.  We cannot accomplish it for ourselves, but we give perpetual “thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light… 13 …and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son…

What was impossible for us, Paul reminded the Colossians (and us) is possible for God.  While we were powerless to qualify or transfer ourselves, He qualified and transferred us.  

Consider two other passages that speak to this as well.

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Paul’s own life is a living picture of this in a very real way.  Even without knowing it, He was under the domain of darkness before God shown a Great Light to him, delivering and transferring him.  The story is in Acts 9.  

Paul, a zealous Pharisee at the time (who was called Saul then), was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord [and] went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.  [Believing himself to be in the light, he was in darkness.]  3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. 4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do…”

At that time, God sent a man named Ananias to speak to Paul.

17 So Ananias … laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized…

Although Paul thought he was doing the Lord’s will, although he thought he was in the light, he was truly in darkness.  In no small amount of irony, then, Jesus appeared to him in light, causing him to become blind that he might know his true condition, before giving him true sight for the first time in his life.  

How amazing is that?  In Paul’s conversion is a living picture of what he wrote of in our passage and of the impossible thing that must take place in every conversion.  

Which is why it is so significant that God charged him with a ministry of light.  

Acts 26:18 [God sent Paul to the gentiles with the message of the gospel] To open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

The beginning of being right with God, the beginning of the Christian life, the beginning of salvation, is recognizing that we are under the domain of darkness instead of the domain of light.  It is to recognize that we are in the kingdom of sin instead of Christ.  

So how do we recognize that and move from one domain and kingdom to another?  Again, it is truly impossible for us to do either on our own.  We are powerless to escape darkness or come into the light.  But what is impossible for man is possible for God.  Just as it is God who delivers from darkness and sin, it is God who qualifies, transfers, gives, and calls us to light and Christ.  God provides what He requires.  

The final two points are the means by which He does the impossible work of impossibly delivering and transferring.  We’ll examine both in greater detail as we make our way through Colossians.  For now, though, hear Paul clearly as he asserts the fact that God provided the “impossible” requirements of our deliverance and transferal at a great cost.  

Pray that prayer, Grace.  Ask God to transfer you into Christ’s kingdom of light or ask Him to help you live more fully in light of the fact that He already has.

God Redeems (14)

Darkness would not simply release us.  So how did God deliver us from it?  We needed to be redeemed, ransomed from it.  There was a cost, fixed by God Himself, that needed to be paid. The price was infinite and we were entirely impoverished.  It was impossible for us to pay outside of hell.

Our only hope was that someone with unlimited love and power and grace, someone with the power over light and darkness, life and death, would redeem us.  

Kids, you know the story.  What was the only way Edmund was going to escape the witches rightful claim on his life?  He couldn’t redeem himself.  He needed someone else to pay his ransom.  It had to be Aslan with a deeper magic.  What was the only way Frodo could escape the ring’s power over him? Someone else had to carry the ring into the fires of Mount Doom.  It had to be the sacrifice of Gollum.  What was the only way Kalmar, and all who had sung the song of the Stone Keeper, could be redeemed from their fangdom or clovenness?  Someone who hadn’t sung the song had to offer themselves as a ransom.  It had to be Janner’s sacrifice.

Aslan, Gollum, and Janner all offered themselves as a ransom for others.  Insodoing, they provided the redemption that Edmund, Frodo, and Kalmar needed, but were powerless to effect for themselves.

Those imaginary stories have so much power because they are tied to the One True Story of redemption.  God delivered us from Darkness’s domain and transferred us into The Kingdom of Light by sending His beloved Son to pay our ransom, to redeem us.  

Matthew 20:28 The Son of Man came…to give his life as a ransom for many.

1 Timothy 2:6 [Jesus Christ] gave himself as a ransom for all…

1 Peter 1:18-19 … you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.

God lovingly provided what He required for our redemption in His one and only Son.

Pray that prayer, Grace.  Ask God to fill you with joy and thanksgiving in light of His redeeming work in your life and the life of those you love.

God Forgives Sins (14)

And finally, the ransom was for the eternal hold that sin and darkness—that our sin—had on us.  And the result was the forgiveness of our sins.  

14 in [Jesus] we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Indeed, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:7 In [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our [sins], according to the riches of his grace…

Sin killed and enslaved us in darkness.  Jesus offered His own blood to set us free and bring about the forgiveness of God.  

God provided for us what He required from us.  

Pray this prayer, Grace.  Ask God to grant you faith in Jesus’ sacrificial death for the forgiveness of your sins.  

Consider one more time, Grace, who is it that brought all of the about?  Who provided the knowledge, wisdom, understanding, strength, endurance, joy, and thanksgiving we need to live the Christian life?  God provided what we needed.  And who was it that provided the deliverance, transferal, redemption, and forgiveness we need to begin the Christian life?  God provided, yet again, all we needed.  

I conclude, then, with one more question.  If God provides all that He requires, what do we do?  

We trust in God’s provision and we give ourselves entirely, in faith, and in the strength God provides, to do all that God has revealed.  The great mystery of our relationship to God, in all His awesome, sovereign providence, is that we really do make real choices that have real effects and often require hard work and significant sacrifice.  

The mystery is profound, but it’s important for us to recognize that God’s providential and revealed wills are often presented side-by-side in the Bible without any hesitation. That is, God’s sovereignty and our responsibility are often right next to each other with no hint of contradiction.  

Consider Paul’s charge in Philippians 2:12-13, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling [Obey, work at God’s revealed will.  Do it.  Don’t forsake it.  It’s essential.  Why?], 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” [Obey and work hard at God’s revealed will because you know for certain that God’s providential will guarantees that it will never be in vain.]”.

That’s the big idea of this passage: from the beginning to the end of the Christian life, God gives His people all we need to live lives worthy of and fully pleasing to Him.  And the main takeaway is to work hard at all that God has commanded us to do in the faith and strength He provides.  That was Paul’s message to the Colossians in light of all they faced.  And it is God’s message for us today.  May it be so.  Amen.

Colossians 1:9-12 –

9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

I’ve always found it interesting that God designed things in such a way that there is a concentration of some of the most significant, whole-life-effecting decisions we’ll make right at the beginning of adulthood.  We need wisdom and understanding concerning God’s will in droves at the same time we’re just beginning to value and acquire it. 

I experienced this in what felt like a nearly overwhelming weight.  By the end of my junior year in college, I had only recently come to faith in Jesus, had not yet read through the Bible even once, and had an almost entirely blank slate when it came to a Christian worldview (I didn’t even know what that was yet).   And yet, I needed to make some of the biggest decisions of my life—when to get married, what to do for work, whether to stay in the area for another year so Gerri could finish school or jump right into some kind of ministry or ministry prep, where to live, etc.  

There were some godly men in my life at the time, but they weren’t much older or further along in life than I was.  It was before the internet was much of a thing, so I couldn’t just Google it.  And, most significantly, I was only tangentially connected to a local church.  In other words, I didn’t know what to do or how to find out.

I worked through much of that as best I could.  Gerri and I got married the following summer and decided to spend our first year of marriage working together with a ministry that had us in a different city most days and a different state most weeks.  

As that came to an end, about a year later, we were faced with many of the same questions all over again.  We were still immature in our faith and had even less access to godly counsel and wisdom this time since we’d been so disconnected for the previous year.

There are few memories more etched in my mind that that of earnestly wanting to know God’s will during that time.  Looking back, I can see now that I didn’t really even know what that meant.  When it came to trying to figure out what God wanted from me in specific decisions, I only had a vague sense of praying sincere prayers and hoping that God would somehow let me know what to do.  

Very sincere, and somewhat desperate, I did the only thing I could think of.  I emailed John Piper.  I’d never met him or had any kind of communication with him.  I didn’t even know someone who had.  I’d heard him speak at a conference, read a couple of his books, and read quite a few of his sermons, but that’s it.  I just knew that I didn’t know anyone at the time with that kind of biblical insight and wisdom.  So, I sent him an email.

Actually, I didn’t have his email address.  I must have sent it to some general church (or DG?) email address I’d found.  Not surprisingly, I never heard back from him.  But to the church’s credit, someone from the church did reply.  He pointed me to a book (Gary Friesen’s, Decision Making and the Will of God) that is still, 30 years later, in the top 3-4 (non-biblical) things I’ve ever read in terms of creating an immediate and lasting change in my life.  

The short version of the book’s message is that the Bible speaks of God as having two wills (in a sense).  One is His providential will and the other is His revealed will.  From this, I quickly learned three things: 1) Failing to make the distinction between them was at the heart of much of my confusion and angst, and 2) I had a long way to go to gain the knowledge and wisdom I needed to make good decisions.  

All of that autobiography was meant to get us to Paul’s prayer, asking God to fill the Colossians with “the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”   And to help us feel the need to have clear answers on a few questions: 1) What are the two wills of God?  2) Which of the two wills was Paul praying that God would reveal to the Colossians? 3) Why was he asking God for that?  And 4) What difference does that make for us?

As I seek to answer those questions from God’s Word, you’ll see the big idea of the sermon: God has revealed to us everything we need to know to know His will, to know what it means to live in a manner worthy of Him.  He does so through His Word, with the help of His Spirit and Church.  The main takeaway, then, is to be a people of His Word, Spirit, and Church.  

As we turn our attention to the “two wills” of God, I imagine that if you’re not already familiar with that concept (and maybe even if you are), it probably sounds funny.  It might sound a little like the two wills of Paul in Romans 7, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” or like God can’t quite make up His mind about stuff.  

Indeed, the idea of God having two wills should sound funny because it’s definitely not true in either of those ways and it’s only true in a certain sense.  In reality, God has one, perfect will.  He perfectly knows what’s best and always wants what’s best.  He is truly single-minded in the most significant way.  

In what sense do we say He has two wills, then? Only in the sense of our perception.  It’s a way of describing two ways in which God reveals His will to the world.  Again, then, before seeing how all of this applies to the Colossians and us, let’s consider the two ways God reveals His will to the world.

God’s Providential Will

The first has been called many things: God’s “sovereign will” or “efficacious” will or His “decretive” will or His “eternal” will.  I prefer to call it His “providential will.”  Whichever name you prefer, the meaning is the same: There are certain things that God has determined to bring about and nothing can stop or even slow Him down from accomplishing those things.  God’s providential will is all that He has sovereignly determined to bring to pass.  

Perhaps the most succinct and well-known verse on God’s providential will is Ephesians 1:11. There Paul declares that God “works all things according to the counsel of His will.”  

Similarly, we’re told in Romans 8:28 that “God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose…”

Proverbs 16:33 The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. 

Lamentations 3:37 Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?

Isaiah 46:9-10  I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose…”

Daniel 4:35 [God] does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand…

Colossians 1:17 [God] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

These are just a few of the many biblical passages that teach the same idea of God having a providential will.  Collectively, they reveal the key features of this will of God:

Without really knowing it, most of my angst as a young man came from trying to discern God’s providential will.

My prayers were essentially, “God, which job should I take?  Please reveal it to me.”  And, “God, I want to honor you in my whole life.  Please let me know when is the right time to propose to Gerri.”  And, “God, what is your will for where we live after graduation?”  

Those prayers reflected a faithful heart and a right impulse, but they also largely reflect an ignorance concerning the will of God.  I was asking God to reveal to me that which He has determined to keep hidden.  There is no way for that to not be frustrating.  It is right to pray for those things, but my lack of understanding of where to go from there was the problem.  

God’s Revealed Will

The “other” will of God is His “revealed” will (others have called it His “perceptive” will).   It refers to the passages in the Bible in which God has explicitly told us what He requires of us.  In that way, wherever we find a command of God or normative principle from God in the Bible, we have His revealed will.  

The lowest hanging fruit is the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20:3-17.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image…

7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain…

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… 

12 “Honor your father and your mother… 

13 “You shall not murder. 

14 “You shall not commit adultery. 

15 “You shall not steal. 

16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 

17 “You shall not covet … anything that is your neighbor’s.” 

Likewise, we find another example of the low hanging fruit of God’s revealed will in Luke 10:27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

As we make our way through Colossians, we’ll find many aspects of God’s revealed will.  

Colossians 2:6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him…

Colossians 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Colossians 3:5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Colossians 3:12-13 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other…

Colossians 3:18-21 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

And let us never forget the revealed will of God in Deuteronomy 14:21, “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

Again, as I’m sure you can imagine, there are many, many more passages in the Bible in which we find God’s revealed will.  And again, collectively, they teach us the key aspects of this will of God:

How exactly God’s “two wills” can continually function simultaneously is often a mystery, but where the Bible affirms it, we accept it in faith and gladness.

All of that brings us back, full circle, to the question of which of those wills Paul was asking God to reveal to the Colossians.  When we read Colossians 1:9, (And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding), was Paul asking God to fill them with the knowledge of His providential or revealed will?  

It is, as I imagine you already know, the second aspect of God’s will, His revealed will, that Paul was asking God to fill the Colossians with. Paul was not praying that God would reveal His will of providence, but His will of decree.  He wanted God to make it plain what was required of them in their current circumstances.  

If you’ve been here since we began making our way through Colossians, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine why Paul was asking God to reveal His will to the Colossians or why the Colossians would have been so eager to receive it.  

They were a church of newer believers in a hostile land.

They were, along with the rest of the early Church, trying to figure out what it meant to live in the New Covenant.

Many who professed faith in Christ were being severely persecuted, imprisoned, and even killed.  

On top of all that, and central to this letter, the Colossians were being bombarded with a dangerous heresy that was, in effect, a “different gospel,” which is no gospel at all.  

And on top of that still, while they had the entire OT text, the NT was not yet finished.  

Grace, as you know, it’s really hard to be in a place that’s really hard.  Genuinely not knowing what God would have you do in that place is exponentially harder still.  Have you ever felt that?  Have you ever prayed a prayer like this for yourself or someone you love?

“God, I would be willing to pay any price that obedience would cost me in this moment, but I don’t know what obedience ought to look like.  It’s one thing to suffer for righteousness, but it’s something entirely different to suffer not knowing if what I’m doing is right or not.  Please fill me with the knowledge of your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding in order that I may act in a manner worthy of and pleasing to you.”

Again, if you’ve ever prayed a prayer like that, it shouldn’t be hard to put yourself in the shoes of the Colossians or Paul who was praying for them.  They needed to know the truth about God and what He would have them do.

Essentially, then, in light of what we’ve seen regarding God’s revealed will, in asking God to fill the Colossians with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, Paul was asking for four things:

It’s one thing to want to honor God in a situation.  It’s something else to know precisely what that means.  Paul was asking God to grant both to the Colossians…to fill them with (1) the knowledge of His (revealed) will (what He wanted from them), (2) in all spiritual wisdom and understanding (how to put into practice what God wanted).  

I want to end the sermon by putting two more enormous and essential questions to you: 1) Do you want to know God’s will?  And 2) Are you willing to walk the path God has paved for you to get it?

Do You Want to Know God’s Will?

Do you want to know God’s will?  On the surface, this might sound like an obvious question with an obvious answer, but I encourage you to really consider it.

Of course, there are many things that everyone of us would love to know God’s will concerning; some among us, desperately so (like I described as a young 20-something with huge decisions in front of me).

You might even have a list of things you’re eager for clarity on.  

But, if you’re being totally honest, there are also areas of your life that you would like to keep just as they are, that you’d rather not know the will of God for if it would mean needing to change them.

Likewise, if you’re being totally honest, there are also areas of your life that you already know what God would have you do, but you’re not doing it, because you don’t like His will.

And, if your being honest, there are areas of your life that you gladly, mistakenly think are in line with God’s will.

The bottom line is that none of us are living entirely in line with God’s will, because none of us are perfectly sanctified, and because none of us are perfectly sanctified, none of us truly want to live entirely in light of God’s will.  All of us still have appetites for things of this world, things of our flesh, things even of the devil.  What God wants for us is often scary for those not yet wholly conformed to Christ (which is all of us).

Do you want to sacrifice your only son on an alter if that’s God’s will for you as it was for Abraham?

Do you want to lay on your side for a year as an enacted prophecy against God’s people if that’s God’s will for you as it was for Ezekiel?

Do you want to marry a prostitute and name your kid “no mercy” if that’s God’s will for you as it was for Hosea?

Do you want to sell everything you have and give it to the poor if that’s God’s will for you as it was for the rich man?

Do you want to follow Jesus unto severe persecution if that’s God’s will for you as it was for His first followers?

Those are just some of the hard things God willed for His people (explicitly called them to) in the Bible.   Do you want to know God’s will even if it means something like that?  

And so, before you say yes to that question, consider carefully what it really means—your entire life, down to the smallest detail, entirely conformed to God’s will for you (no matter how radically different it would be, no matter what it would cost you in earthly terms, no matter what it would mean leaving behind or taking on, no matter what it would do to your reputation or family or job or comfort or life)?

By the grace of God, in faith, though, we say YES!, Grace Church.  We say “Yes,” even if with some measure of fear, knowing that whatever God has for us is infinitely greater than every alternative, no matter how difficult or painful.  We count everything as loss, as trash, compared to Christ.  Truly, we know that to live according to the revealed will of God is Christ and to die because of it is gain.  We say “Yes” in the knowledge that God’s revealed will is worth more than the finest gold and greatest earthly treasure.  We say “Yes” in faith, knowing that it is the surest sign that our hope really is in Jesus.  It’s often hard, but we say “Yes,” knowing it’s always right.

Are You Willing to Walk the Path God Has Paved for You to Get it?

Finally, then, are you willing to walk the path God has paved for you to know His will? Saying “Yes” to the first question requires saying “Yes” to this one as well.  

But make no mistake, Grace, walking the path God has paved for us to get His revealed will doesn’t happen by accident.  We must not only choose it, but we must continually choose it.    

In simplest terms, discovering God’s revealed will for any situation we find ourselves in, is a matter of rightly gathering, interpreting, combining, and applying all the relevant passages of the Bible to that situation.  

If you want to know if you should get married and to whom, for instance, learning God’s will means having a grasp on all the passages in the Bible that speak to the nature of marriage and the things God requires of you and your spouse in it.  Then you begin praying that God would help you love and conform to His design, equip you to fulfill your roles in it, and give you eyes to spot a someone who shares those things as well.  

Walking this path, as you can certainly imagine and have probably experienced, is often difficult.  Finding all the right passages can be daunting.  Properly interpreting them is often elusive.  Faithfully combining them to gain a comprehensive understanding of God’s will is usually tricky.  And then knowing specifically how to apply all of that is regularly intimidating as well.  

Doing any of those things means at least three things according to God’s revealed will.  It means reading the Bible, praying continually for the Spirit’s help, and making use of all the means of grace God has given.  

That’s the path God has paved for us to walk to get His will.  Will you walk it with us, Grace?

If so, in closing, I invite you to consider some specific decision you need to make in the coming days/weeks.  When you walk the path God has given you to discern His will for that decision, there will often be two or three options that you can choose from.  Rightly applying God’s revealed will to our decisions usually means there are several jobs that would equally honor God, a number of people who would make a God-honoring spouse, two or three ways you could serve the Church, etc.

Whenever that’s the case, whenever we walk the path God has given us to discern His will for our circumstances and several options seem equally faithful to His Word, we are free to choose the one that is most appealing to us in the glad confidence that God’s providential will, will prevail.  

This is how Paul prayed for the Colossians for their circumstances and this is how I pray for us now.  

Although we will never have a perfect grasp on everything God has said and what it means to apply it, we can get closer and closer as we grow in understanding and making use of His means of grace.  And along the way, the gospel is good news that whenever we offer our obedience in genuine faith, in Christ, God will receive our imperfect obediences as righteousness.  

God has revealed to us everything we need to know to know His will, to know what it means to live in a manner worthy of Him.  He does so through His Word, with the help of His Spirit and Church.  Let us, therefore, give ourselves in increasing measure to being a people of His Word, Spirit, and Church.  And all of that because Jesus Christ, as Paul proclaimed, is over all and in all!

Colossians 1:9-12 –

9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

I’ve been asked how long we’re likely to be in Colossians quite a few times already.  It’s a reasonable question on several levels; one I wonder about myself.  The short answer is that I don’t know.  And one of the main reasons for that, is that it hinges on the question of how much of the theology/doctrine of Colossians am I going to preach.

This morning’s sermon is an example of what I mean.  In this passage, Paul let the Colossians know that he was praying for them, asking God (among other things) to cause them to be ever “increasing in the knowledge of God” (v.10).  As I hope to have made clear last week, knowledge of God is the most significant and critical knowledge of all.  It is impossible to live in this world as it is and as we ought apart from knowing who God really is.  

Paul most certainly understood that and said as much in this passage.  In that way, he introduced the doctrine of God.  What he did not do, however, is unpack that doctrine in any significant way.  He’ll say more about God throughout the letter, but most of the knowledge of God he has in mind is merely assumed and asserted.  

He does that often in this letter (introduces a doctrine, but does not expand on it).  The question I’m faced with, then, once again, is how much do I expand on the doctrines Paul introduces.  

There’s a risk in doing so too much. By doing so, I’d not be preaching Colossians as much as I’d be using Colossians as a launching point for a class on doctrine.  That might be OK for Berea, but it is not OK for preaching.  That kind of preaching undercuts our understanding of the diversity of the books of the Bible and it essentially devolves into topical preaching.  

At the same time, there’s risk in preaching too little of Paul’s doctrine as well.  The risks there are in not making plain all the things that would have been plain to the first audience and in undercutting the unity of the collected books of the Bible.  

Finding the healthy path between those ditches is what I’m after.  Pray for me.

As I unpack Paul’s doctrine of God, then, you’ll see the big ideas of this sermon: (1) God is who He is, (2) Who God is, is woven through every line of this letter, and (3) The nature and purpose of everything is rooted in who God is.  The main takeaways are to (1) Prayerfully and carefully learn who God really is and (2) Order everything according to that.   

God is who He is, who God is, is woven through every line of Colossians, and most significantly and staggeringly, the nature and purpose of everything is rooted in who God is.  Given those truths, it ought to be self-evident that we really, really need to learn who God is.

Already in Colossians, Paul has assumed and asserted a handful of aspects of God’s nature.  Consider what we find in that regard in just the first fourteen verses of the letter.  

In 1:1 (and 25) we catch a glimpse of Paul’s belief in God’s sovereignty when he describes his apostleship/life’s mission as having come “by the will of God.”  We see basically the same thing in the fact that Paul prays to God in 1:3 and 9 as the one who hears and can respond.    

That Paul understood God to be gracious and peaceful are assumed in 1:2, 6.

Paul knew God to be generous and good.  Those attributes are embedded in 1:3-5, 12 where Paul gives thanks to God for granting faith, hope, and love to the Colossians.  

God is the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul notes in passing in 1:3.

Woven throughout 1:3-14 (5, 6, 9) is Paul’s conviction that God is Truth.

In 1:8 we see that Paul has an understanding of the Holy Spirit as the giver of mutual love within the church.  

God is worthy of our full devotion for Paul (1:9).

Paul knew God to be omnipotent, having “all power” and “glorious might” (1:11, 29).

And God is the King who delivers sinners from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light (1:13-14).

I hope it’s easy to see what I said earlier: That although everything in Colossians is rooted in Paul’s beliefs about who God is, most of what Paul believed about God is merely assumed and asserted.  

To help you get a better grasp on what Paul believed about God, then, we’re going to take a higher-level look at eight of the most fundamental aspects of God’s nature for Paul.  This is critical both because (1) all his NT writing and his entire ministry were built upon these convictions and (2) because these are the things he was asking God to reveal to the Colossian church as the foundation of their faithfulness.  

As I tried to show you in the brief overview of Colossians 1:1-14—which is equally true throughout all of the letter—these convictions leaked out of everything Paul said and did, even as they were at the heart of the ever-increasing knowledge of God that Paul prayed for God to grant the Colossians.  

We need this now in order to be able to recognize it throughout the letter and throughout our own lives.  Let’s spend a bit of time, then, considering that God is: Eternally Trinitarian, creator, sovereign, wise, good, holy, just, and gracious.  And with each attribute, I want to give you a few biblical examples of where Paul found it/where we find it in Paul, I want to help you see what difference that knowledge would make for the Colossians, and I want to briefly give you an example of what difference it makes for us today.  

The simple fact is, Grace Church, we will either learn from Paul that we ought to be able to trace every single aspect of our lives to some aspect of God’s nature or we will continue to live disordered lives.  

For instance, we cannot be the kind of parents we’re made to be apart from understanding the Fatherhood of God.  Likewise, we cannot be the kind of spouse we’re made to be apart from knowing what it means that Jesus is the bride groom of the Church.  We cannot work as we’re made to apart from a mature grasp on God as orderer and sustainer.  We cannot enjoy leisure apart from knowing that God is our Sabbath and satisfaction.  We cannot properly look at the stars without knowing they declare the infinite glory of God.  Even more fundamentally still, we cannot know who we are apart from knowing that God as our maker.  And above all, we cannot glorify and enjoy God forever apart from true and increasing knowledge of Him.  

Everything in us and around us has its meaning, place, and purpose in God.  I really want that to make sense to all of you such that the most obvious prayer in the world will be, “God, grant me ever-increasing knowledge of you so that I might live the full life Jesus came to bring” (John 10:10).  And in that same way, I want it to be obvious to you all why Paul’s prayer for God to grant the Colossians increasing knowledge of Him was the necessary foundation for their ability to persevere in faithfulness through trial and temptation.  

Eternally Trinitarian (Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 40:28; 1 Timothy 1:17; Matthew 3:16–17; 2 Corinthians 13:14)

Let’s begin with the most fundamental aspect of the nature of God, that He is eternally trinitarian.  Because it’s the most fundamental aspect of God’s nature, we’ll spend a bit more time on it than the rest.

God is eternal in that He has no beginning and no end.  He (and He alone) has never not been and will never not be.  This is hinted at in the first words of the Bible, “In the beginning God…”.  The same idea is in Colossians 1:17, “[Jesus] is before all things…”  The underlying reality of both is that before anything else was, God eternally is.  

The idea is even more explicit in Psalm 90 and in a different letter that Paul wrote (1 Timothy).

Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

1 Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal… be honor and glory forever and ever.

What’s more, God has eternally existed as Trinity—one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit.  

I think it’s fair to say that more wrong things have been said of the Trinity than right things.  It is almost certainly, the most mysterious aspect of God’s nature.  

At the same time, what can be truly said of the Trinity is fairly straightforward.  Consider this definition.

“The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. These definitions express three crucial truths: (1) the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God.”  (Matt Perman)

There are specific and explicit passages to consider on the divine nature of each person of the godhead, as well as on the oneness of God.  Perhaps you can spend some time looking them up in your DG.  But for our purposes, I want to simply point to a passage in Matthew’s Gospel and then Paul’s echo of that in 2 Corinthians, that speak of all three persons together in a way that only makes sense if God is triune in nature. 

Matthew 3:16–17 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” 

2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 

Paul has already explicitly mentioned all three persons of the godhead in the first 14 verses of this letter.  Father – 10x , Son – 6x, and Spirit – 1x.

All of Paul’s doctrine is built on the eternal trinitarian nature of God.  And more to the point here, much of Paul’s help for the Colossians—Christ over all and in all—as well.  Christ is over all and in all precisely because of His participation and place in the eternal godhead.  

And so it is for you and I, Grace.   Our hope in God’s promises is well-founded because He will never not be around to keep them.  Our salvation is possible only because of the Triune nature of God.  And most practically, we are able to have sweet, continual communion with each Person of the godhead because of the unique and remarkable ministry to us of Father, Son, and Spirit.  You can (and should) spend the rest of your life working that out.  

Creator (Genesis 1:1; Colossians 1:16)

Picking up the pace, after that (after eternally trinitarian), the next most fundamental aspect of God’s nature for Paul is the fact that God is Creator of all that has been made.  

To finish the verse we read earlier, Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth;” light (v.3), sky (v.6), dry land and bodies of water (v.9), plants (v.11), the sun, moon, and stars (v.14), fish and birds (v.20), land animals (v.24), and Adam and Eve, in His very image (v.26).   

The point, I think, is plain: God alone created everything outside of Himself.  

For Paul, that was critical for two main reasons.  First, because it means that everything belongs to God, is what God says it is, and is accountable to God.  And second, because it points to one more aspect of Christ over all and in all.  

In the passage we’ll come to next he says it this way, “For by Him [Jesus] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him” (1:16).    

Why, Colossians, why, Grace Church, would you ever go after any “Jesus ands” when God created you and He did so by, through, and for Jesus?!  Why would you try to find your identity and purpose in anything other than the one who made you?  Why would you look for wisdom, understanding, and satisfaction anywhere besides the One who is those things?  You already belong to Him, so why would you futilely try to run from that?  He is more than enough.  He is over all an in all in a way that nothing else can compare to.  

Sovereign (Psalm 115:3; Daniel 4:35; Ephesians 1:11; Colossians 1:17)

Third, God is sovereign.  

“When we say God is sovereign, we mean he is powerful and authoritative to the extent of being able to override all other powers and authorities… Nothing can successfully stop any act or any event or design or purpose that God intends to certainly bring about.” (John Piper)

Psalm 115:3 says it like this, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”

Daniel 4:35 …none can stay his hand…

In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul explained that God “works all things according to the counsel of His will” (1:11).  And in this letter, in 1:17, Paul declared that in Him “all things hold together.”

God is sovereign.  But why does that matter?  Again, for Paul, there are two key reasons.  

First, as the late R.C. Sproul said, “If there is one maverick molecule in this universe running free from the sovereign control of God, we have no reason to believe any future promise that God has made, because that one maverick molecule may be the very thing that will destroy those plans. But thanks be to God, there are no maverick molecules running loose outside of the scope of God’s sovereign government.”  In other words, it matters to Paul because God’s ability to accomplish His purposes and keep His promises hinges entirely upon it.  

And second, familiarly, it matters because it is why Jesus is over all and in all and why any “Jesus and” is absurd.  Grace, the Colossians need not follow any “and” because Jesus alone has all authority in heaven and earth.  

It is critical that God is eternal in order that His ability to keep His promises might never run out.  It is critical that He is creator because that means we are who He says we are and for what He says we are for.  It is critical that He is sovereign because it means that He can hold together all that He made and do all that He promises.  And, as we’re about to see, it is critical that He is wise because that is the basis for believing His plans are worth succeeding.

Wise (Romans 16:27; Colossians 1:16-17)

God is wise.  I love this brief explanation and grounding of the wisdom of God.

When we say that God is wise, “We mean…that all knowledge, all understanding of the essence and interrelation of all His creatures and all their actions, resides in Him. More than that, we mean that God is the wisdom He possesses. He is ‘the only wise God’ (Rom. 16:27)…In this sense, God doesn’t “have wisdom,” He is wisdom.  (David Strain)

My best attempt to get to the heart of God’s wisdom is this: God is wise in that He has perfect knowledge of how things are and how they relate to one another.  

For the Colossians to endure the trials and temptations that were bombarding them, they needed wisdom.  And Paul knew that since God is wisdom, the wisdom they needed would be found in God and received from God alone.  Jesus Christ is that wisdom, since all things are from Him and for Him and to Him, and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:16-17).  All “ands” are, therefore, imitators or liars.  

O, Grace, that we might learn this lesson too.   If we were able to take away all folly and semi-sanctified common sense from this room, what would be left?  Who among us is living consistently with the fact that all wisdom—wisdom for science and art and government and marriage and parenting and immigration and law enforcement and gender and medicine and churches and salvation—begins with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10)?  O that we might look to God alone for all wisdom and understanding and avoid the countless pitfalls and endless pain that comes from looking anywhere else.  That’s what Paul prayed for the church in Colossae and that’s what I pray for the church in Wyoming.    

Good (Nahum 1:7; Psalm 34:8; Psalm 31:19; Mark 10:18)

Next, God is good.  One definition of God’s goodness states: “The goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does is worthy of approval” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 197).  

That’s a fairly technical way of saying that in God and His world there are things that are rightly to be desired (morally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc.) and all of them are rooted in God.  Everything God is, does, gives and commands is intrinsically right.  

Nahum 1:7 The Lord is good…

Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! 

Psalm 31:19 Oh, how abundant is your goodness

Mark 10:18 And Jesus said…”No one is good except God alone.”

Of all the attributes we will cover, God’s goodness is probably the most assumed and embedded in Colossians.  It’s everywhere in this letter (and all of Paul’s letters).  To read anything Paul wrote through the lens of the goodness of God is to see it in every crack and crevice.  For him, there is simply no doubt about the fact that everything that is in and of God is worthy of praise.  For him, it makes as much sense to question the goodness of God and His plans as it does to question the hotness of fire or the coldness of ice.  God is good in the same way that fire is hot and ice is cold.  It’s an intrinsic aspect of His nature.  

Therefore, Paul was unhesitant to prescribe to the Colossians the good will of God in the midst of their challenges.  He knew that it would make certain aspects of their lives harder, but in this life gooder is often harder.

And so it must be with all of us, Grace.  Although God’s charges to us often go against the wisdom of the world and always against the desires of our flesh, they are always, always, always thoroughly good and infinitely better than every alternative.  We can trust God and His commands because He is perfectly pure in His goodness; because He is good.  

In His wisdom He always knows what’s best for us and in His goodness, He always desires it for us.  

Holy (1 Samuel 2:2; Psalm 96:9; Isaiah 6:2-3; Colossians 1:21-22)

The sixth aspect of God’s nature that is hardwired into Paul’s mind and heart, and woven through this entire letter, and central to Jesus being over all, is probably the most emphasized in the Bible: His holiness.  God is holy.  And there’s no one I’d rather hear talk about that than R.C. Sproul.  

… when we want to call attention to something that’s particularly important [we] give it emphasis…

Well, the Jews… [often used] a simple technique, a verbal repetition. … the Apostle Paul when he’s writing to the Galatians and warning them of the dangers of departing from the gospel … He said, “I say unto you that if anybody preaches unto you any other gospel than that which you’ve received, even if it’s an angel from heaven, let him be anathema…Let him be damned.” …But he doesn’t stop there. He immediately goes on to say, “Again, I say to you, if anyone preaches unto you any other gospel than that which you have received, let him be anathema.”

In other words, Paul emphasized the danger of preaching a false gospel by wishing damnation on any person who does, twice in a row.  There are many other examples of that in the Bible (of double emphasis).  

Sproul continues, “Ladies and gentlemen, there’s only one attribute of God that is ever raised to the third degree of repetition in Scripture. … the Bible doesn’t simply say that God is holy or even that He’s holy, holy but that He is holy, holy, holy. … This is a dimension of God that consumes His very essence…God alone is holy.

1 Samuel 2:2 There is none holy like the LORD

Psalm 96:9  Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!

Isaiah 6:2-3 Above him stood the seraphim… 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

“The holiness of God refers to the absolute moral purity of God and the absolute moral distance between God and his human creatures.” (Richard Lints)

In other words, God’s holiness is His set-apartness, His uniquely infinite value, His moral purity, His absolute perfection…and all of those things, threefold; holy, holy, holy.

We see this in two main ways in Paul’s writing.  First, we it in the fact that the ruin of mankind—our enmity with God—results from the fact that we are measured, not against one another, but against the holiness of God, of which we all fall infinitely short (Romans 3:23).  

And the second way we see it is in Paul’s charge to the Colossians to be holy; to put off the old man and on the new man in Christ (3:1-17).  

Both of those senses are embedded in Colossians 1:21-22, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.”

Again, the holiness of God is significant for the Colossian believers because “Jesus and” living is always contrary to God’s own holiness and the holiness He calls His people to, and therefore must be rejected entirely.  

Acting according to the “philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (2:8), as the Colossians were being tempted to do, was diametrically opposed to God’s holy nature and the nature He was working in them.  

For us, Grace, the holiness of God means that none of us can stand before God on our own, uncondemned.  I vividly remember believing as a kid that I’d certainly go to heaven when I died because I measured up well against Hitler.  But I will not be compared to Hitler and neither will you.  We will be compared to the holy God.  We must tremble at that so that we might look to Christ for the mercy and grace He alone can give.  He is over all and in all because He alone is holy, holy, holy.

Just (Deuteronomy 32:4; Isaiah 30:18; Psalm 89:14; Colossians 3:25)

We’re almost done. The second to last characteristic of God that we’re going to consider is His justice.  God is just.  “Justice involves seeking lawful equality without favoritism to particular persons” (Trier, EDOT, 454).  In other words, God’s justice means that He gives to everyone all and only what they deserve.

Deuteronomy 32:4 all his ways are justice…just and upright is he.

Isaiah 30:18 the Lord is a God of justice

Psalm 89:14Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne

In Colossians 3:25 Paul wrote, “For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.”  That means everyone will face judgment, but it also means that our judgment will be regardless of age, race, wealth, tribe, tongue, gender, or religion.  God’s judgment will be measured, as we saw, against one thing and one thing only: His perfect holiness.

God cannot be bribed, He does not consider the appearance of a person in His judgments, He is never confused or limited in His understanding, He is just.  

For the Colossians, this meant that everyone who persecuted them for their faith in Jesus or attempted to lead them astray from it would come under God’s perfect, just judgment.  There is a real sense of relief in that.  But it also meant that the things Paul was commending to them were of no small consequence.  Adopting any “Christ and” philosophy or tradition would come under the same perfect judgment of God.   

For us, perhaps the most significant aspect of God’s justice is in the humility, sobriety, and gratitude it brings when we learn its implications.  What I mean is, we often hear people (even among us) claiming that their circumstances aren’t fair (their sickness or abuse or mistreatment at the hand of a sibling).  And there is, of course, usually a sense in which that is true on a horizontal level.  

But on a more significant level, a vertical level, God’s justice, rightly understood means that every minute of every day that we have breath, no matter our circumstances on earth, is infinitely better than we deserve.  As we consider the final attribute of God that Paul built his life, doctrine, and ministry upon, I think that will become even clearer.

Gracious (Psalm 145:8; Joel 2:13; Nehemiah 9:31; Colossians 1:6)

Finally, then, and in conclusion, if we combine the first seven attributes of God, we have a God who is awesome indeed.  We have a God of unparalleled glory and majesty.  We have a God who is above all other gods and in all things.  But we also have no hope.

If God were only eternally Trinitarian, creator, sovereign, wise, good, holy, and just, He would be worthy of praise, but we’d be ruined.  The attributes we’ve considered make it clear that God is God, but also that we have sinned and fallen short of His glory, deserve His wrath, and that any chance we have of being reconciled to God cannot come from our worthiness or our ability to perform or our power to redeem ourselves.  

Any hope we have, therefore, is in God being more than just those things.  Indeed, He is!  God is eternally Trinitarian, creator, sovereign, wise, good, holy, just, and gracious!  

Psalm 145:8 The Lord is gracious and merciful…

Joel 2:13 Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious

Nehemiah 9:31 You are a gracious and merciful God.

In Colossians 1:6 we read of Paul’s thankfulness to God for filling understanding of His grace in truth.  

Paul knew that the Colossians only hope of receiving knowledge of God, believing knowledge of God, and living in light of the knowledge of God was the grace of God.  Similarly, he knew the only hope of the Colossian Christians to reject “Jesus and” heresy was the grace of God.  And their only hope of understanding, loving, and trusting in the fact that Jesus is over all and in all was the grace of God.

Colossians 1:21-22 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.

Colossians 2:13-15 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Indeed, Grace Church, may we be ever-increasing in the knowledge of God, that we might live lives worthy of God, through faith in the Son of God, in whom (2:3) “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

These are not merely interesting ideas to consider or true things to ponder.  They are fuel for worship and obedience.  This is our God and He is infinitely worthy of our praise and allegiance.  Treat this knowledge less like facts to memorize and more like the treasures of limitless worth they are.  As we learn to delight in God through this increasing knowledge, no pocket of our lives will remain unaffected.  And all of that because Jesus Christ is over all and in all.

Colossians 1:9-12 –

9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

What is the goal of Bible study?  Or, when you study the Bible, what are you after?  Maybe even more to the point, what biblical passages inform your understanding of the goal of knowing God’s Word?   

The first time I was explicitly confronted with those kinds of questions was about ten years ago.  I was going to be teaching hermeneutics (a fancy word for Bible study methods) on a TLI trip.  Within the first few pages of the curriculum, I came across the heading: “The Goal of the Bible: ___”.  As soon as I saw it, I knew that I’d never consciously filled in the blank, but I should have.  The fact that I hadn’t was both surprising and a bit disorienting.

I began running possible answers through my mind, but I never got passed high level answers like “Glorifying God” or “Learning what God has told us” or “Finding God’s will or God’s plan”.  

As caught off guard as I was with the initial question, I was even more caught off guard by the curriculum’s answer.  As I mentioned, I wasn’t sure what the answer should be, but I was sure the answer I found in the teacher’s manual wasn’t on my radar.  The answer it gave was: Practical wisdom (knowing how to live).  

For reasons I still don’t fully grasp, that answer just didn’t sit right with me for a long time.  I think, maybe, it just seemed too simple, too ordinary, too practical, too under the sun.  I’d drunk a lot of big God theology Kool-Aid by that point and it felt like anything other than “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever” or “to delight in the sovereignty of God over all things” was too man-centered, too down to earth.  

Of course, it is true that all things ultimately exist for the glory of God (including the Bible and its study), and I knew, of course, that God calls us to live in certain ways, but I’d never quite fit those two puzzle pieces together before then.  The Spirit was kind to do so that day.  Glorifying God must begin with right doctrine, but it must always end with right practice.  I learned then that God theology is the most practical theology of all.  

Our passage for this morning shines a bright light on that.  In it, Paul helps us to see in simple, explicit, biblical terms that the goal of Bible study is to enable God’s people “to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” (aka, practical wisdom).  

As we consider our passage for this morning, I want to help you see the big idea in it: Living lives that are worthy of the Lord and fully pleasing to Him requires right thinking, right living, and the grace of God.  The main takeaway, then, is to give ourselves to prayerfully studying all of God’s Word and prayerfully applying it to all of our lives.    

The heart of this passage is, once again, Paul’s prayer that the Colossian Christians would live lives worthy of the Lord.  We find that within his recounting to them, his prayers for them; and with that, we find amazing help in understanding what it means to live a life that is fully pleasing to God and how to go about it.

We Cannot Walk Worthily Apart from the Grace of God – Paul’s Prayer of Supplication (9)

To back up just a bit, in v.3, Paul mentions that every time he prays for the Colossians, it includes a time of giving thanks to God for the blessings He’d already given them (namely, their faith in Jesus).  In our passage, Paul continued to describe his prayers for the Colossians, mentioning that he also asked God for things they still needed.  There are two things I want you to see in that regard.

First, Paul is a model of the kind of consistency these kinds of prayers of supplication ought to have.  He recognized a significant need in the church at Colossae and committed himself to taking that need before God until God answered his prayer.  

We see this right away in v.9, “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you…”.  We’ll come to the content of the prayers Paul never ceased to pray in a few minutes, but the first point here is that there were prayers he never stopped praying.  

To be clear, Paul was not saying (as it kind of sounds like) that he had been praying without stopping (every minute of every day) for months.  Instead, simply, he’s saying that he’s taken certain needs of the Colossians to God consistently since he first became aware of the needs.  

Think back to our member meeting last Sunday.  As elders, we asked you all to prayerfully consider four options for addressing the space issues we have here on Sundays.  Our hope is that you would have begun praying that day and that you’d continue praying until the Lord brings some resolution to our situation.  We’re asking, in Paul’s 1:9 language, that you’d not cease praying for this until God moves in it.  

Praying like that requires love, intentionality, discipline, and trust.  It requires love in that you won’t pray for it once, much less all the way through to resolution, if you don’t treasure Christ and long for that which is best for our church.  It requires intentionality in that it won’t just happen if you don’t write it down and make a plan to keep it in front of you.  It requires discipline in that, as we all know, it’s far easier to begin a good thing than it is to finish it.  And it requires trust, because who would keep praying if they didn’t believe God beckons, hears, cares, and will be faithful to His promise to work for our good?  

Paul prayed like this and I commend this kind of prayer-life to you all as well.  Get a prayer journal.  Have certain times of day (or days of the week) that you set aside to praying for the things you write down.  And don’t stop praying until God’s answer is clear.  

We can’t pray like this for every single request we take before God.  But a right understanding of prayer, the world we live in, and the God who hears our prayers, means that we must do so sometimes—that there are some needs that are worth pleading with God for, as did the persistent widow in Luke 18.  

The second thing I want you to see here is that Paul prayed like this because he knew that the things the Colossian Christians needed most were not possible apart from God’s grace. 

Therefore, he prayed for God’s illuminating grace.  The Colossians needed God to open their eyes if they were to see what is true of God and His will; and so Paul asked God for this grace for the Colossians.  

Paul also prayed for God’s sanctifying grace.  The very heart of Paul’s prayers were for God to grant the Colossians new minds and new affections.  They not only needed to see what was true, but they needed to learn to love it above all.  And, therefore, Paul prayed for God’s sanctifying grace.  

And Paul prayed for God to grant strengthening grace to the Colossians.   He knew that the Colossians’ only hope of living as God intended them to through this trial was through God’s power.  And so he asked God to grant it.

Everything the Colossians needed comes only by God’s grace.  Paul knew that faith-driven prayer is the most significant means of God’s grace for Christians…and so he never ceased praying for the Colossians.

Grace, as a pastoral aside, I would commend three things to you regarding your prayer life.  I’m simply going to name them, but I’d encourage you all to press into them in your DG this week.  First, your prayer life is probably the best indicator of your spiritual health and maturity.  Second, it is usually best to pray the Bible.  And third, a robust prayer life consists of a balance between prayers of adoration (God, I praise you for being / that you are ___ ), prayers of confession (God, Your Word calls me to ___, but I have failed to honor that.  I am sorry for my sin.  Help me remember the gospel and walk in light of it), prayers of thanksgiving (God, thank you for being kind to me in that ___ ), and prayers of supplication (God, please fulfill this need in my life).  

So far, the body of this letter has been a masterclass on that kind of prayer life.  That is, in vs.3-12, we’re seeing a lengthening description of Paul’s exemplary prayer life on behalf of the Colossian Christians.  

What, then, did Paul specifically ask God for on the Colossians behalf?

We Cannot Walk Worthily Apart from Knowledge of God’s Will (9, 10)

The beginning of Paul’s without-ceasing prayer was that God would fill the Colossians with the knowledge of Him and His will.  We see that at the end of v.9.

9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding…

He echoes that prayer at the end of v.10, again letting the Colossians know that he continually asked God to cause them to be continually “increasing in the knowledge of God…”.  

Knowledge of God, knowledge of God’s will, spiritual wisdom, and spiritual understanding.  Those are the things Paul first prayed for the Colossians.  Paul’s prayer was, at its heart, a plea for God to fill them with an accurate understanding of, the truth concerning, who God is and what He wanted from them.  

Grace, again, I want you to consider two specific things regarding this prayer.  

First, I hope it’s obvious, but God is who He is, He demands what He demands, and everyone on earth will be held accountable to whether or not we conform to those things—whether we know them or like them or not.  It should be clear, then, that our current culture’s belief (and our own belief at times) that God and His will are ours to define and then take and leave as we see fit, is a lie from hell that only leads to hell.      

Paul’s prayer was a recognition that sin keeps us blinded to and repulsed by the things of God and the will of God unless God, by His (illuminating) grace, opens our eyes, minds, and hearts to them. 

The second thing I want you to consider is how God reveals Himself and His will.  Paul was asking God to fill them with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, but how does God do so?

For the Colossians, God did so primarily through the OT, Paul’s writings, and the Holy Spirit.  Today, in much the same, but in an even fuller way, God has given us all He requires us to know of Him and His will in the Bible.   And we have the same indwelling Spirit to grant us wisdom and understanding as we hear and read and study it.  

And so, Grace, the monumental questions this idea forces upon us are these: Do you long to know God and His will for you, for your family, for our church?  Do you want to know who He is in truth no matter what it means for your life?  Do you want to know what it means to live as He intends in every aspect of your life even if it causes changes and disruptions to your plans?  And are you willing to do what it takes to find those things?

If so, if your answer is yes, then pray the same prayer for yourself as Paul prayed for the Colossians, “My Father in heaven, may I be filled with the knowledge of Your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding?”  Pray it in the same way: Without ceasing.  And then give yourself to the Word of God, where God has revealed everything we need concerning His nature and will.  

Practically, prepare well for sitting under the preached Word.  Read the text in advance.  Pray for our preaching and for understanding and conviction for yourself, your family, and our whole church.  Ask the Spirit to open your eyes to these things, convict you of where you fall short, and to fill you with an eagerness to have your mind renewed.  And go to DG each week to be reminded of, discuss, and work together to apply the sermon.  

Practically, come to Berea.  Do your best to read the book of the Bible that we’re covering before you come.  Prepare you’re yourself and your family with things to look out for and questions to consider.  Go over your Sunday school kids’ homework assignments with them and prepare them to engage the biblical stories.  

And practically, have daily quiet time.  Slow down to meditate on Scripture and study it to the best of your ability.  You don’t have to read fast, but you do need to read systematically, taking in the whole counsel of God over time.  Consider picking up one of the reading plans in the back if you don’t have one and just start reading through one of the columns.  Use this time to hide the Word in your mind and heart (memorize it).  Pray slowly over whatever passage you’re reading for that day.  Come up with at least one question to ask someone else, one glory to share with someone else, and one command to obey with someone every time you get into the text.

I’m so thankful that so many of you are already doing these things in faith.  Thank God!

The fundamental principles here are that (1) Every aspect of the Christian life begins with true, spiritual knowledge and understanding of God and His will, (2) We gain that, by God’s design, through the reading of His Word and the ministry of His Spirit and Church, and (3) It is God’s grace alone that illuminates and draws us to it all.

Paul knew those things and longed for them for the Colossians, and so He didn’t stop asking God for them on their behalf.   

Let me say one more thing before we move on to the meat of the text.  Did you notice that Paul didn’t just pray for some measure of knowledge of the things of God?  He prayed that the Colossians would “be filled with the knowledge of His will” and “in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” and that they would be ever “increasing in the knowledge of God.”

This is chief among our aims for the rest of our lives on earth and among our chief occupations in heaven: To have our minds truly and entirely renewed and perpetually filled by God.  To fully, truly, entirely know who God really is, what He really wants, what it really means, and how to really go about it for His glory and our good.

The Essence of a Worthy Life (10-12)

As remarkable as all that is, as necessary as all that is, that’s not the end.  We need to be filled with the knowledge of God and His will, but as a means to an even greater end.  

In other words, we must always be cautious of thinking that understanding the things of God is enough.  I need to be careful about how I say this, but there are some who have made an idol out of the Bible and Bible study.  They love reading it as fascinating literature.  They love the poetry, the history, and the riveting stories.  It fills them with spiritual feelings.  They understand it in a way that makes them feel special.  It is their ticket into a certain kind of friendship or club or esteem.  They’re fascinated with the things of God, but it stops there.  They think many right thoughts about God and believe that to be sufficient.  

O, but the demons have many of those things, and stop there.  Jesus spent a good deal of His ministry on earth condemning those with exceptional levels of knowledge of God and His Word, but stopped there.  Grace, everyone who stops there, who stops with knowledge of God alone, does not truly know God.    

That’s why Paul’s prayer didn’t stop there.  He continued on, asking God that the church in Colossae “may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” and here’s the key (v.10), “so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord”. 

What’s the goal of Bible study?  What’s the goal of gaining knowledge of God and His will?  What’s the goal of our preaching, teaching, and personal devotions?  It is to enable us to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord; to live the life God designed us to live; to act in ways that are consistent with who God is and who we are; to allow us to do all that God requires of us.  

In other words, Paul didn’t merely want the Colossian Christians to know who God is and what He wanted.  He wanted them to fully know who God is and what He wanted so that they would live fully in light of it.  Knowledge of God’s will is critical, we cannot honor Him or live as He intends without it, and the more we have, the more we can honor Him and live as He intends, but we need those things, SO AS to walk in manner worthy of the Lord.  

Paul then names six elements of walking in a manner worthy of the Lord: (1) It is fully pleasing to God, (2) It bears fruit in every good work, (3) It is continually growing in knowledge of God, (4) It is empowered by God, (5) It is enduring, patient, and joyful, and (6) It is marked by thankfulness to God for granting such grace.  

Let’s take a brief look at each of those as a means of growing in them ourselves.  

Once again, let me say one more thing before I close.  Just as Paul didn’t pray for some measure of knowledge of God and His will (but for the fullness thereof), neither did he pray for some measure of transformation within them.  He prayed that they would be “fully pleasing” to God, that they would bear “fruit in every good work,” and that they would be “strengthened with all power” “for all endurance.”  

Living lives that are worthy of the Lord and fully pleasing to Him requires right thinking, right living, and the grace of God.  The main takeaway, then, is to give ourselves to prayerfully studying all of God’s Word and prayerfully applying it to all of our lives.  

As we turn now to the Lord’s Table, let it remind us afresh that Christ alone is our hope in life and death.  It is His work that our faith is in, even as we work out our faith in all of life for His glory.  

Colossians 1:3-8 –

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf 8 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

For a second week, we are going to consider Colossians 1:3-8.  Last week, I focused on answering the question: How can Paul’s tone be what it is here—thankful and joyful—when the point of the letter is to address a really significant and dangerous heresy?  The answer, we saw, is that there’s a unique kind of joy (a circumstance-transcending-kind-of-joy) that comes from living a life of faithfulness, among a faithful people, and, most importantly, with supreme confidence in the unfailing faithfulness of God.  

This morning we’re going to focus on a different question that the text also addresses: What is the gospel and what role does it play in Colossians?  In v.5, Paul mentions that the gospel had come to the Colossians and was bearing fruit in them and throughout the whole world.  But what is the gospel, what kind of fruit does it produce, who does it produce such fruit in, how does it do so, etc.?  These six verses don’t tell us everything there is to know about the gospel, or even answer all of those questions, but what they do tell us is good news indeed.  

Before I share the big idea and implication of this sermon, and before I pray, let me say a brief word about why I’m preaching this sermon from these verses.  Why not consider what the entire letter says about the gospel?  Paul certainly didn’t intend to say everything about the gospel in this passage, so what’s the value of getting an incomplete picture?  Those are reasonable questions.  My answer is simple.  This passage is so densely packed with gospel that I want to show you how Paul has woven it into every line of this letter right from the beginning, so you’ll be better prepared to recognize it in the rest of the fabric of the rest of this letter.  

With that, the big idea of this sermon is that the gospel is good news for every aspect of our lives forever.  Christ is indeed above all and in all.  And that is densely packed into these few verses, even as it is densely packed in all of Colossians.  The main takeaway, then, is to learn to live more fully in light of the reality of the gospel.  

If an outside observer were to follow you around undetected for a full week, 24/7, what would they likely conclude is the most driving force in your life?  

Would it be your job/the need to make money?  The desire to avoid anxiety or fear?  The pursuit of pleasure/entertainment?  The love of your family?  School/good grades?  A relationship?  Sports/hobby?  The opinions of others?  The need to succeed?  Taking care of someone?

What motivates you?  What primarily shapes your decisions?  What is your main frame of reference in life?

Whatever your answer was coming into this morning, my earnest prayer is that the Lord would use this sermon to increasingly bend it toward the gospel; such that from now on, when asked what most drives your life, motivates you, shapes your decisions, and is the lens through which you see yourself and the world around you, your answer will truly be: the gospel, the good news of Jesus!   

That is the answer that permeates this letter and Paul’s life.  It is the only answer that will allow the Colossians to respond the heresy confronting them in a manner that is pleasing to God and good for their souls.  And it is the only answer that will allow any of us to live the lives we were designed to live and for which Christ died.  

To be extra clear, if your first thought when presented with something new or familiar, hard or easy, suffering or sweet, good or bad, entertaining or boring, religious or secular, work or leisure, alone or in a group, with anything and everything, is anything other than how it relates to all that Jesus is and accomplished for those who believe in Him, then you will never experience that thing as you were meant to.

As we saw last week, Colossians 1:3-8 is largely about Paul’s faithful thanksgiving to God for God’s faithfulness to the Colossians and the Colossians’ faithfulness to God in the midst of trying circumstances.  

What I want to point out here is that the gospel was in and around and over and under and through all of that.  Again, we’ll see it all throughout this letter, but the fact that it’s so densely packed in these few verses ought to wake us up to its power and glory and necessity and all-encompassingness.  

Consider with me, then, nine expressions of the gospel, embedded into this opening paragraph and how your life wild be different if they shaped your perspective and aims and heart and mind.  

Jesus and the Gospel Are Inseparable (vs. 3, 4, 7)

First, Jesus and the gospel are inseparable.  No Jesus, no gospel.  He is all and in all.

I hope many of the points I share this morning are at least somewhat familiar, but this one most of all.  There is no gospel, there is no good news, apart from Jesus.  There is nothing that Paul believed more firmly than that.  That is why he thanked God, “The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  It is why he commended the Colossians for their “faith in Christ Jesus.”  And it is why he praised Epaphras for being “a faithful minister of Christ.”

As we’ll see at the very end of this sermon, and many times throughout our time in Colossians, there is no gospel apart from Jesus, because Jesus is the gospel.  He is the means by which there is good news for sinners and He is the good news for sinners.  

Jesus and the gospel are inseparable.  

The Good News of the Gospel Is Ours through Faith in Jesus Christ (v.4)

Second, the good news of the gospel is ours through faith in Jesus Christ.  We get a glimpse of that in the beginning of v.4.

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus…

One of the most significant aspects of the gospel is that it is ours through faith. Within that, there are two terms we need to consider more carefully: “through” and “faith”.  

In our culture, the term “faith” is often used to mean “wishful thinking;” something we’d really like to happen, but know to be really unlikely.  

“I have ‘faith’ that my team is going to pull it out (despite being down by 20 with less than a minute to go),” we often hear.  

Or, people say, “I have ‘faith’” that someone will pull through a significant illness when there’s no good reason to believe they will, and every good reason to believe they won’t.  

Because of that modern sense of the term, people often think that faith in Jesus is equivalent to believing fairytales or that they’ll win the lottery—not an absolute 0% chance of being true, but not far from it.  

The kind of faith Paul references here, though, is very different.  Rather than hope for something that is almost certainly false, biblical faith is complete trust/full assurance of something that is absolutely true, but also invisible.  

The author of Hebrews says it like this, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Paul’s words in v.6 come close to that.  There, he talks of receiving the gospel in faith as hearing and understanding “the grace of God in truth”.  To have faith in the gospel, we must hear the content of the gospel, we must understand it, and we must trust in it as truly true (more on that later).  

Culturally speaking, faith requires hope and a slim chance of truth.  If either ingredient is lacking, there is no faith.    

Biblically speaking, faith requires both trust and truth.  If either ingredient is lacking, there is no faith.    

The second word I want to focus on is “through.”  The good news of the gospel is ours through faith in Jesus.  

Do you know what a conduit is?  There are a number of conduits all around us right here in this room.  A conduit is a means by which something travels.  An electrical wire is a conduit through which electricity travels.  PVC pipe is a conduit through which water travels.  Fiber optic cables are a conduit through which data travels.  And faith is the conduit (and the only conduit) through which the good news of the gospel travels. 

When we combine what we just saw of these two terms (“faith” and “through”) with the previous point (Jesus is the gospel), we take an important step toward a fuller grasp on Paul’s understanding of the gospel.  Jesus is the good news.  Faith is the conduit through which the good news of Jesus flows from Him to us.  

Again, I am not claiming that in these verses Paul thoroughly unpacked these ideas (although he does that with a number of these throughout Colossians and all of them throughout his other writings), only that his belief in these ideas is embedded in these verses (and all of the letter).  Learning to recognize them upfront will help us get all that God means us to out of the letter.

Faith in the Gospel Always Bears Fruit (v.4, 6).

A third way we see the gospel woven into this opening paragraph is found throughout vs.4-6: The gospel, when received by faith, always produces fruit in increasing measure.  

Of this, Paul wrote, “… the gospel, 6 … has come to you…[and] it is bearing fruit and increasing… since the day you heard it…” 

We are right to wonder what, specifically, he meant by “fruit.”  Throughout the letter, we’ll see different kinds.  In v.4, though, we see the first of many, “We always thank God…when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints…

The Colossians had faith in Jesus and it bore the ever-increasing fruit of love for other Christians (“all the saints”).     

There are two equally grievous doctrinal mistakes that have been made throughout the history of the Church in this regard.  First, many have falsely believed that bearing fruit (being a good enough person, praying enough, going to church enough, doing enough good for enough people, giving enough money, reading the Bible enough, even loving all the saints enough, etc.) is the conduit through which the good news of the gospel flows.  That is the absolute antithesis of the gospel.  The whole point of the gospel, as we will see, is that it is impossible for anyone to bear sufficient fruit to make good news flow.  

A second common and equally grievous doctrinal mistake is that the only good news that flows through faith in Jesus is forgiveness of sins.  Many who have rightly realized that we can’t bear enough good fruit to produce good news for ourselves, have wrongly assumed that good fruit is entirely disconnected from the gospel.  But embedded in Paul’s opening words is the good news that through the same faith that forgiveness (justification) flows, so too does good fruit (sanctification).  Indeed, bearing good fruit is one of the surest signs that your faith is genuine, that it is indeed functioning as a conduit for the good news accomplished by Jesus.  

The Gospel Is Entirely Owing to the Grace of God (v.6)

Forth, the gospel is entirely owning to the grace of God.  Why is it that God has determined to make the good news of Jesus flow through faith, resulting in increasing fruit-bearing?  Only and entirely because of His grace.  

Paul refers to the gospel as “the grace of God” (v.6).

We’ve already seen that Jesus is the good news and faith is the conduit through which that flows.  

Grace is the only reason God sent His Son, Jesus, to be and bring the good news to a lost, sinful, undeserving, rebellious people.  Grace is unmerited favor.  It is a free gift of God.  It is God’s riches at Christ’s expense.  

And that (saved by grace in Jesus, not works of the law) was right at the heart of Paul’s ministry of mystery.  

The Gospel Is the Word of Truth (v.5, 6)

Fifth, the gospel is the word of truth.  We touched on this earlier as we considered the biblical notion of “faith.”  I said that faith is trust in something entirely true but also entirely invisible.  

It bears repeating that Paul firmly believed that every element of the gospel was/is true.  He makes a point of this in both vs.5 and 6.  

5 …. Of this [the hope laid up for you in heaven] you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel…

6 … [which is] bearing fruit and increasing…since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth…

Paul would elsewhere write that if any aspect of the gospel’s claims were false (particularly the resurrection), then everyone who trusts in it are fools to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:12-19).

All of this is critical and worthy of repeating because of the central focus of this letter (addressing the syncretistic ideas (the lies) being presented to the Colossian Christians).  The gospel is a dividing line in a number of ways, but especially in that it is true, whereas the myriad other claims being thrown out at the Colossians were all false.

Grace, young adults especially, the gospel’s claims are true, factual, and accurate, or there is no version of Christianity worth participating in, much less setting your eternal hope in.  Paul believed this with all he had, all the way unto his death…and so must you!  

Ask your questions.  Seek answers.  Test the gospel’s claims.  Don’t be afraid to press on the truth.  It can handle it.  It will not fail because it is true.  You need the Spirit’s help (more in a bit) to see and believe, but that’s because our minds have been corrupted, not the claims of the gospel.

The Gospel Is Good News for the Whole World (v.6).

Sixth, the gospel is good news for the whole world.

…the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing…

Even though God’s world-wide plans were clear from the beginning, many of His people missed that from the beginning.  God commanded His people to take the good news of His glory unto the world, but instead they stayed together and built a tower to their own glory.  Abraham and his offspring were blessed in order to bless, but they loved the blessing itself more than the God who gave it and so they tried to hoard it for themselves.  Under King David, Israel reached its pinnacle as a nation and was poised to truly be a light to the nations (as God commanded), but instead, they got so caught up in their success that the kingdom was soon torn apart.  

The good news of God and His promised Deliverer were always meant to go from God’s people to the whole world.  But for all kinds of reasons, until Jesus’ sent His followers into the world, it always got held up.

Paul’s description of the gospel going into all the world, was truly the fulfillment of God’s promises from of old.  It was never for one tribe, one language group, one people, or one nation.  The good news of Jesus was always meant for the whole world and by the grace and power of God it was finally going into the whole world and bearing fruit.

The Gospel Cannot Be Kept to Ourselves (v.7)

Seventh, the gospel cannot be kept to ourselves.  If you truly know and believe the gospel, you simply cannot be silent about it.  You must share it with others.

In that way, evangelism is one of the fruits born whenever the gospel is received in faith.  The Colossian’s could only believe the gospel because they heard it.  They heard it because Epaphras shard it with them (v.7).  And Epaphras shard it with them because true faith in Jesus always results in sharing Jesus.  

We all do this in lesser ways all the time.  Whenever you come across anything you really like, that really impresses you, that is really good for you, you cannot help but to share that with others—a new band/song that, a new product that works better and costs less, a super cute sweater that’s on sale for 90% off, a new restaurant with the best, most authentic smoked meat, a new movie/TV show that was so good you binged the whole thing, you get the idea.  We love sharing the things we love.  

Now imagine coming across something that is not only enjoyable, but also life-saving—a new medicine that not only cured your disease, but made you stronger, smarter, and better looking too; a new treatment that not only took away your pain, but also caused you to be able to paint the most beautiful pictures.  Wherever that’s the case, then it’s even more obvious that you cannot keep this to yourself, right?  In fact, in that kind of situation, it’d be wrong to keep it to yourself.  If you care about the person at all, it’d be your great joy to share it.

The gospel is all of these things eternally and infinitely more.  It’s not only good news for some joy, for some time.  It’s good news of all joy forever.  And it’s not only that it provides some measure of rescue for some limited time, but that it is the promise of rescue from infinite and eternal suffering.  

Paul’s understanding of the gospel is woven through every verse in Colossians generally, and 1:3-8 specifically, and one aspect of it is that it is such good news for a world in such a bad spot, that we cannot receive it and keep it to ourselves.  We must take it, as we’ve seen, to the whole world, no matter the cost.  

The Gospel Is Empowered in Us by the Spirit (v.8).

Eighth, the gospel is empowered in us by the Spirit.  Paul doesn’t say much about the Holy Spirit in this letter, but as with the rest of the points, his belief in the Spirit’s unique role in empowering every aspect of the gospel is embedded in it all.  We get an example of this in v.8.

7 … Epaphras … 8 … has made known to us your love in the Spirit. 

We saw earlier that the love the Colossians had for one another was the fruit of the gospel in them.  We see here that it was the Holy Spirit that caused the gospel to bear that specific fruit in them.  Again, that is always the case for every gospel fruit—the Spirit is the one who gives the growth.  

What glory it is that God is Father, Son, and Spirit and all three persons of the godhead work together to cause the gospel to take root in us.  Praise Father, praise Son, praise Spirit, as we see their gospel work in Colossians!

The Gospel Is the Good News that We Have a Certain Hope Laid Up for Us in Heaven (v.5)

Finally, you might have noticed that I skipped a pretty big gospel clause in v.5.  I wanted to end with it because it is the most explicit gospel claim and the most significant part of Paul’s argument in this passage.  And because of those things, it ties everything together in a really helpful way.  

To help you see all of that, let’s reread vs.3-6.

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth…

Try to follow along as I do my best to explain the gospel-logic of these verses.  

In v.3, Paul wrote that he was filled with thankfulness to God for the Colossian Christians.  We’re right to wonder why. 

He tells us in the next verse (v.4): He was filled with thankfulness because of their faith in Jesus and the love they had for one another.  We’re right to wonder where that faith and love came from.

Again, he answers that question for us in the next verse (v.5): The Colossian Christians had faith in Jesus and love for one another “because of the hope laid up for [them] in heaven.”  We’re right to wonder what that hope is and where it came from.

In very Paul-like fashion, yet again, he answers those questions immediately.  

The Colossian believers were just normal Colossians.  They were going about their day, doing their best to do their best.  They were surrounded by all kinds of ideas and truth claims and opportunities—just like all of us.  And then, entirely unexpectedly, along came this guy named Epaphras.  He had some ideas, truth claims, and opportunities that were different than any they’d ever heard.  

Epaphras’s message was “the word of the truth, the gospel.”  Paul called his gospel “the grace of God in truth.”  In other words, Epaphras’s message was the good news that God was offering them an awesome gift.  It was a gift that they could receive immediately and was being kept (by God) eternally for them in heaven.    

So what was this heaven-kept gift being offered to them?

We have to look ahead a bit to find the specific content of that gift, that grace, that object of the hope.  We see it first in 1:13-14, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

And we see it even more clearly in 1:21-23, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith…”.

So, here’s the logic: Epaphras shared this news with the Colossians—the good news that God was offering all of them the gift of deliverance from darkness’s domain, entrance into the kingdom of Jesus, redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation, holiness, blamelessness, and the approval of God (above reproach).  All this was accomplished by Jesus’ death, and it would be theirs if they would trust that God was keeping it all for them.   

They believed him.  They trusted that God had indeed laid all of that up for them in heaven.  Awesome!

Conclusion

And so it is for you and I, Grace Church.  The same offer, the same good news of perfect hope being laid up for us in heaven, the same gospel, is available to all of us.  And if we will receive it in faith, we too will receive all that Epaphras offered to the Colossians and that Paul thanked God for. 

As the rest of this letter will make increasingly clear, and the thing I want you to see with crystal clarity, is that when we do believe this, when our faith truly is in Jesus, when we truly receive the good news, the gospel, then no facet of our lives will be untouched or unshaped by it.  Every thought, feeling, desire, and action will all be shaped by the hope that is laid up for us in heaven.  

It will be impossible to imagine any aspect of ourselves or others—who we are, what we’re for, where our value comes from, etc.—apart from who Jesus is and what He’s done for us.    

It will be impossible to imagine any aspect of going to school—picking classes, listening to the teacher, doing homework, walking down the hallways, hanging out with friends, eating lunch, participating in extracurricular activities, etc.—apart from how it relates to our citizenship in the kingdom of the beloved Son of God.  

It will be impossible to imagine any aspect of going to work—which job we take, where our job is, how we work, how we interact with bosses and coworkers, the quality of our work, the hours we work, etc.—apart from how it relates to the hope laid up for us in heaven.  

It will be impossible to imagine any aspect of church—which church, why we come, what ministries we participate in and don’t, how we view others within the church, where we serve, how we prepare for and participate in worship, how we pray for and talk to one another, etc.—apart from the gospel-love we have for all the saints.

It will be impossible to imagine any of our free time and money—what we do and buy, who we spend them with, what brings joy and rest, what we look to for pleasure and where we find it—apart from the grace of God in truth.  

As Christians we strive to mature in our relationship with God.  And the central component of maturing in our relationship with God is learning to see all of life through the lens of the gospel.  Press into that this week.  Talk to others about it.  Find out where they’re doing that well with the Spirit’s help and where they are struggling.  

The gospel is good news for every aspect of our lives forever.  Let us learn together, therefore, to live more fully in light of it for the glory of God and the good of the whole world.  

Colossians 1:3-8 –

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf 8 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

As I pointed out last week, the primary reason Paul wrote this letter to the Colossians was to head off a potentially significant trial.  Colossae was filled with people of every religion, philosophy, profession, and allegiance.  The result was that the church there was ever-bombarded with the temptation to various forms of syncretism—adding things to Jesus for salvation or godly living.  Paul knew how dangerous, even deadly that was and so he wrote them a letter to explain the problem and plead with them to accept the solution: Christ over all and in all.  

The point I’m trying to make is that this was a serious letter about a very serious matter.  

And the reason that’s significant in relation to this sermon is that you’d never know it by the tone of our passage.  You’d never know that the purity of the gospel and the salvation of this small church was hanging in the balance by Paul’s words in vs.3-8, would you?   

Why is that?  

It is because there’s a unique joy (a fruit of the Spirit joy) that’s available to God’s people when we are surrounded by faithfulness.

The smallest trial can be devastating if we are walking in or among faithlessness or if we are uncertain of God’s faithfulness.  I’ve felt that many times.  Have you?  I remember seasons of trial where the discouragement they caused was greatly amplified by my ignorance (not knowing what faithfulness meant), my sin (walking in faithlessness), the sin of others, and my doubt that God would do what He’d said (according to His promises).  There are few places more devoid of joy and filled with despair than areas of hardship coupled with faithlessness.

But at the same time, the opposite is true as well.  The biggest trial can be navigated with peace and joy when we’re walking in faith, among a people who are walking in faith, and certain of God’s impeccable faithfulness.  I’ve experienced that as well.  And that was the case for Paul in our passage.  

In vs.3-8 Paul gives us a picture of a faithful God, faithful saints, his own faithful prayers, and the unique joy that comes with all of that.  Those things didn’t eliminate or even minimize the seriousness of the issue before him.  They didn’t erase Paul’s need to address the central (syncretistic) question or cancel his plea to the Colossians to receive his answer in faith.  But they did eliminate any temptation toward desperation or despondency that might otherwise have been there for him.  And, more significantly, they did replace those things with an overwhelming spirit of joyfulness and thankfulness.  

To help us all learn to share in this unique joy, from these few verses, we’ll consider God’s unwavering faithfulness, the Colossians remarkable faithfulness, and Paul’s exemplary prayers of faithfulness.  And as we do, I hope the big idea of this passage will become clear: Thanksgiving and joy during significant trial come from our faith in God’s faithfulness.  And the main takeaway is to cultivate a growing understanding of God, His promises, and His commands, in order that we might increasingly trust and obey (live faithfully), in order that we might walk in joyful thanksgiving whatever may come.

Once again, the very heart of this passage and Paul’s joy revealed in it is the perfect faithfulness of God to all His promises.  We see that in four distinct and awesome ways in our passage, beginning in the very first words of our passage.  

God Was Faithful to Keep the Colossians Faithful 

In the beginning of v.3, Paul directs his gratitude for every good thing he knows of the Colossian Christians to God.  That is, in spite of all the difficulties his letter represents, he finds peace in the knowledge that God was faithful to keep the Colossian believers faithful to Himself.  

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints…

It was the Colossians who were holding fast and walking in love, but it was God that Paul thanked.  That’s because Paul knew that any faithfulness in the Colossian believers was the result of God’s faithfulness to them.  It was God who called them into faith and it was God who sustained their faith.  Therefore, He was the primary object of Paul’s thankfulness and joy.  And joy rooted, not in our ever-changing circumstances, but in faith in the never-changing faithfulness of God to His the kind of unique joy that survives no matter the circumstances.

God Was Faithful as Father

A second aspect of God’s faithfulness that was at the heart of Paul’s thankfulness is more subtly revealed here.  It concerns God’s faithfulness to His Fatherly nature.  You may remember from v.2 that Paul commended “grace and peace” to the Colossian believers from “God our Father.”  

This idea (of God as Father) is continued and expanded in our passage.  This time, though, Paul notes (in v.3) that God is not only our Father, but He is “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” as well.

There are essential differences between the way God is our Father and the way He is Jesus’ Father.  For instance, while we bear the Father’s image, Jesus shares His essence.  While we were adopted as His children, Jesus is His eternally begotten Son.  And while there is nothing we can do to accomplish our adoption, Jesus accomplished it for us.

However, although there are differences, there are also ways in which God’s Fathering of us and Jesus is similar.  The most significant of which (for this sermon), is that God is a perfectly faithful Father in every possible way, both for Jesus and for us.  Paul knew that and was filled with thankfulness for that.   

Grace, part of being made in the image of God is to have a kind of father hunger—a God-infused longing for someone to look to for origin, provision, protection, direction, wisdom, identity, stability, love, and affirmation.  When our father hunger is met—when we have a father who is faithful to his God-given charge—it comes with a kind of stability that can weather most any storm.  How many scary things that happen during the childhood of kids with faithful fathers are entirely unknown to them, having been silently born by their fathers on their behalf?  How many trials born by kids without faithful fathers are entirely unknown by those with them?

And yet, God is a perfectly faithful Father in ways that the best earthly dads can’t come close to matching and the worst earthly fathers can’t come close to stealing.  Living in that knowledge, as did the Apostle Paul, brings a unique joy no matter our circumstances.  

God Was Faithful to Lay Up the Colossians’ Hope in Heaven

We see God’s faithfulness (and Paul’s joy in light of it) again in v.5.  There, Paul acknowledged that there was hope “laid up for [the Colossian believers] in heaven.”  Both the context and grammar of this clause (“laid up”) makes it clear that it was God who laid up that hope for the Colossians.  They did not and could not lay it up for themselves.  And as Peter points out (1 Peter 1:4-5), that hope “is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for …salvation…”.

We’ll consider this more closely next week, but for now, Grace Church, rejoice in the knowledge that God is eternally faithful to keep our hope laid up for us in heaven.  Paul knew that and we are right to join him in praising God for that faithfulness!

God Was Faithful to Save People throughout the Whole World

Finally, we see God’s faithfulness embedded in v.6, “the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing.  That the gospel was bearing fruit and increasing among the Colossians and throughout the whole world, was ultimately because God was causing it to do so according to His promise to do so.  He was faithful to His promises to make Jesus Christ a light to all nations, to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of Christ in them (1:27).  

Grace, we must settle now on something Paul seemed to know so well…that every good thing in us and through us, has been, is, and ever will be the result of God’s faithfulness to His promises.  We deserve nothing but His fierce and eternal judgment for our sin, but we get nothing in Christ but His eternal blessing.  He is our faithful Father.  He is faithful unto heaven.  And His faithfulness covers the whole world—every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.    

God’s faithfulness is why Paul was primarily marked by joyful thanksgiving even though hard things were happening.  Is that the case for you?  Are you able to say that as well?  Are you aware of God’s promises to you in Jesus, promises that He will be eternally faithful to, promises that, if you receive them in faith, will overshadow (not eliminate) every hardship with a unique joy?

The second aspect of faithfulness on display in this passage—the second source of Paul’s thanksgiving and joy in the midst of the serious trial—was the faithfulness of the Colossian Christians.  Epaphras had planted the church in Colossae and had spent time teaching them of its implications for their life.  In other words, he had a front row seat to all that God had done in and among them since the beginning.  Therefore, when he went to visit Paul and seek his counsel, he was able to tell in great detail of their faithfulness (8 [Epaphras] has made known to us your love in the Spirit”).

Paul rejoiced, therefore, through Epaphras’s report, in God’s faithfulness, which led to Epaphras’s faithfulness, which led to the Colossian’s faithfulness.  Let’s take a look at the forms their faithfulness took—Epaphras’s first, and then the Colossians.  

Epaphras Was Faithful in Ministering to the Colossians

Epaphras was faithful in ministering to the Colossians.  We see this in two primary ways.  

First, Epaphras faithfully shared the gospel with the Colossians that they might receive it in faith (vs.5-7).  

Of this [the hope laid up for them in heaven] you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you… since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant…

This was not a prestigious people.  It was not a resort town that Epaphras would have enjoyed traveling to for some recreational purpose.  It was not a mission trip to the Caymen Islands.  As we saw last week, it was a mission trip to a small, insignificant, has-been, Roman outpost.  

In other words, there was nothing to draw Epaphras to Colossae other than a supernatural faith in the “word of truth, the gospel,” a faith-driven, supernatural love for those who had not yet heard it, and a supernatural faith in God to cause some who heard his message to come alive in Christ.  

O, what a lesson that is for us, Grace.  Absent any of those ingredients (personal faith in the gospel, faith-driven love for the lost, and faith in the power of the gospel for salvation), we will remain comfortable and silent.  We will not share with our neighbors, much less strangers on the other side of the city, much less strangers on the other side of the world.  But Epaphras had all three by the grace of God and therein faithfully evangelized the Colossians.  

Paul knew of that and was, therefore, filled with joy and thanksgiving despite the challenges he faced.  O, what hope and joy there is in seeing God work in ways that cannot be explained by anything but the mighty power of God.  O, what trial-overshadowing power there is in seeing God’s miraculous work all around us.  

A second way we see Epaphras’s faithfulness among the Colossians is in the fact that he not only evangelized them, but also stayed with them to minister more of the counsel of God to them (v.7).

7 … He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf… 

It is a staggering gift to be given the basic truths of the gospel.  Indeed, we do not need to know all that Jesus taught to come saving faith in Jesus; only that our sin has brought the wrath of God upon us, that we are unable to rescue ourselves from it, and that Jesus Christ alone was able to absorb the wrath of God on behalf of all who would trust in Him.  

However, while we don’t need to know most of what Jesus taught in order to become a Christian, we do need to know all that He taught to become mature Christians.  We can share/hear the basics of the gospel in 10 seconds, but we need the rest of our lives to take in the rest.  

I imagine that we’ve all seen people stuck in spiritual infancy/immaturity.  They know the very basics of the gospel, they seem to genuinely have faith in it, but much of their lives are, often unknowingly and frustratingly, untouched by the rest of the counsel of God.  

Jesus commissioned His followers to offer both to the whole world (Matthew 28:18-20).  Epaphras was faithful to that call among the Colossians.  Paul knew that and it filled him with joy and thanksgiving.  

As a pastor, there are few greater joys available to me than to hear stories of you all ministering the Word of God to one another, helping one another understand God’s will for your lives and what it means to live it out in faith.  Stories like that are truly strengthening, healing, faith-building, and joy-filling for me; just as they were for Paul.

The Colossians Were Faithful in Receiving and Responding to the Gospel

By the glorious grace of God, Epaphras was faithful in sharing the gospel and its implications, and by the same glorious grace of God, the Colossians were faithful in receiving it.  

Paul rejoiced, having “heard of [the Colossians’] faith in Christ Jesus” (v.4).  He further rejoiced that they not only heard the gospel, but also “understood the grace of God in truth” (v.6).

It is a miraculous work of God every time one of His people is so burdened by love for Him and neighbor that we are compelled to share the gospel with someone in faith.  But it is no less a miraculous work of God when the people we share it with receive it in faith.  

Likewise, it is a miraculous gift of God every time one of His people is so burdened by love for Him and neighbor that we are compelled to unpack the doctrines of God for those who believe.  And it is no less a miraculous work of God when those we teach receive that in faith, as was the case with the Colossian believers.  

Not only did they receive the gospel in faith, but also Epaphras’s teaching, such that they were filled with “love … for all the saints” (v.4).  Not only did they receive his teaching as the “grace of God in truth,” through faith in it, it was “bearing fruit and increasing…since the day [they] heard it and understood [it]” (v.6).

Again, Paul recognized these things for what they were.  He recognized the sovereign grace of God that had taken hold of the Colossians, gave thanks to God for it, and that fueled his trust that God would continue to be faithful through their attempt to navigate the syncretistic heresy confronting them.   

The Colossian believers were in a tough spot.  What might have led to despair, however, led to the opposite for Paul.  Why?  Because he saw God’s faithfulness, Epaphras’s faithfulness, and the faithfulness of the Colossians.  He recognized all of that for what it was: the awesome, unstoppable grace of God.  Who can fret when such miraculous power is on display all around you?  

Rather than be consumed by difficult circumstances, as we are so prone to do, Paul stood back, eagerly anticipating whatever form God’s creative, perfect, future grace would take.  The result of all of these things being revealed to Paul by God and Epaphras, therefore, caused Paul to be strengthened in his faith.  

And in that, his natural response was to turn to God in prayer, thanking Him for His faithfulness and grace, and seeking more of both for the Colossian Christians (v.3).  

I mean to close, then, by making a small handful of observations on Paul’s prayer, which is an example of and admonition to faithful prayer for us all:

Faithful Prayer Is Always Directed at God

“We always thank God when we pray for you…” (v.3), Paul wrote.  This might sound obvious—who else would prayers be directed at, right?  But having watched nine seasons of Alone, I can assure you that it isn’t.  It’s still amazing and sickening to me to watch person after person, season after season, after weeks of slow starvation catch a fish and thank everything—the fish, whatever they made the lure out of, the river, the spirits—but God for it.  Like Paul’s all faithful prayers are directed at the One True God, maker of heaven and earth. 

Faithful Prayer Is Filled with Thanksgiving

“We always thank God when we pray for you…” (v.3).  Remember, the occasion for the letter is hardship, and yet Paul’s immediate and overwhelming response was one of thankful joy.  I’ve been forever marked by something I read years ago.  At every single moment, from now through eternity, the answer to the question, “How are you doing?,” for everyone in Christ is, objectively, “Better than I deserve.”  No matter how bad, how hard, how grievous our circumstances, they are infinitely better than what our sin warrants.  And, if for no other reason, faith in that alone ought to fill us with gratitude in every prayer.  Faithful prayers are filled with thanksgiving, which is a banner over all the days of the faithful.

Faithful Prayer Is Amazed by God’s Grace  

This is sort of the opposite side of the coin from the last point.  Paul recognized that it was only by the grace of God that there was “hope laid up for [the Colossian believers] in heaven…” (5) and that amazed him.  It was at the heart of his prayers to God for the Colossians.  It was God who laid it up and it was God who would keep it for them.  In other words, the Colossians’ future was secure entirely because of God’s grace for them.  Faithful prayer recognizes and is amazed by that.  

Faithful Prayers Are Offered through Jesus Christ 

Paul prayed for the Colossians consistently, thanking God in no small measure because they were marked by lives of faith in Jesus (v.4).  Paul’s prayer of faith would have been much different if the Colossians had been relying on keeping the law or good works or their own strength for salvation or spiritual growth.  Paul was filled with thanksgiving for the Colossians because they were trusting in Jesus and not themselves.  When God’s people get that, when we get that Grace, we have unlimited access to the unique joy of faithfulness.

Faithful Prayer Is Eternally Focused

When our hope is truly in God, when our faith is firm in His nature and promises, it will shape our day-to-day lives; it will give us peace in times of trial; it will allow us to endure every earthly hardship with a unique joy.  But it will also look to that which is to come—everlasting life with God in heaven (v.5) where trials are done forever.  Again, God had laid a certain hope up for the Colossians for all time, Paul trusted that, and his prayers and disposition were shaped by it.  

Faithful prayers are globally aware.  

Paul, in his prayers to God for the Colossians, celebrated not only what God was doing among them, but also that which God was doing “in the whole world” (6).  It’s so easy to focus exclusively on our narrow sphere of sight.  Faithful prayers, though, are global.  Faithful prayers are fueled by the awesome reality that Christ is over all and in all the earth.  When we see what God is doing among us, it strengthens our faith.  And when we see what God is doing throughout the whole world, it strengthens us all the more.  

Grace, let us join Paul in praying, filled with faith in the certain knowledge that God is always working an unlimited number of glorious things for the good of the world, all over the world.  A good friend of mine gave a really helpful message (and wrote a devotional) on this recently.   In the message he said, “Our entire pessimism is based off our finite and often mistaken ability to see what God is doing.”  If we only knew the 10 trillion ways God was at work for glory and good at every moment, we’d never be discouraged.  Paul prayed prayers filled with faith in that, and so should we.  

Finally, Faithful Prayer Is Concerned with Others  

Faithless prayers focus exclusively on ourselves and what we don’t have.  Faithful prayers focus on others, pleading with God on their behalf and thanking God for the grace in their lives.  Faithlessness is threatened by the work of God in others.  Faithfulness celebrates it with them and with God in prayer.  Faithlessness prays that others would love us.  Faithfulness continually expresses love for others.  Paul thought and prayed faithfully, which is why he wrote (and prayed) of Epaphras, that he is “our beloved fellow servant.” And that “He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf” (vs.6-7).  

Much of this opening section of Paul’s letter to the Colossians is a written description of the cause for Paul’s consistent, faithful prayers of thanksgiving for them.  And in that we see that his faithful prayers were directed to God, filled with thanksgiving, amazed by God’s grace, offered through Jesus, eternally focused, globally aware, and concerned for others.  

Because this was Paul’s mind and heart, these were his prayers.  And because these were his prayers, he was filled with thanksgiving and joy when most of us would be discouraged by the hardship that confronted the Colossians.  

To borrow from Ecclesiastes, God’s faithfulness and the Colossians’ faithfulness were like a rocket ship that took Paul above the clouds to see the sun at warp speed.  And that strengthened Paul’s faith in the goodness of God in every trial.  

The result of Paul’s faithfulness, awareness of the Colossians’ faithfulness, and trust in God’s faithfulness was, once again, thankfulness and joy.  He knew they had plenty of work in front of them, he knew the hardships that were already upon them, but He also knew that as long as they continued to keep their eyes on Jesus (to remain faithful to Him), they would continue to know the joy of the Spirit, come what may.  

I commend that to you all now, Grace Church, especially those of you who were just baptized into the name of the Triune God.  Your baptism is a declaration that you believe these things.  Live lives of faith, therefore.  Trust in the goodness of God’s commands and obey them.  Trust in the certainty of God’s promises and believe them.  Trust in the sufficiency of the grace of God and rest in it.  For when you do, you too will know the unique joy of faithfulness no matter your circumstances.  Let us seek this from the Lord and help one another cultivate it in our lives, for Christ is over all and in all.  Amen.