Written by: Ruth Gilson - Girl's Brigade
Colossians 1 v 1-4
From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am an apostle because that is what God wanted. Also from Timothy, our brother.
To the holy and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ that live in Colosse:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 because we have heard about the faith you have in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all of God’s people.
Notes
Credentials seem to matter. Our qualifications score points in the acceptability ratings. On a Cirriculum Vitae (CV) we spell out who we are, what we have done and why we are suitable to be chosen for a course, or a job, or maybe even a relationship….well, haven’t you ever been checked out by a curious parent?!
This New Testament letter written by Paul – a man with a real history for his CV ( check his story out in an earlier New Testament book called ‘Acts’) starts with a type of CV introduction. Paul tells us who and what he is, and why he is therefore qualified to write this letter to the Christians in the place called Colossae.
By doing this I think Paul unlocks a real key for us about being confident in our Christian lives. This is what he says:
I am an ‘Apostle because that is what God wanted’.
For many of us confidence in ourselves, or in our value, is an issue of doubt and challenge.
We compare ourselves with others –
Who is the cleverest in our family
Who’s the most attractive amongst our friends
Who in our Christian circle has the most/best gifts.
It seems as though there is an invisible scale of value in our minds, and often we don’t do too well in the chart.
The result?
Well, we develop a hesitation about our real value – to others, and to God.
Paul had a clear picture of his identity in God. His confidence to preach and teach, and to live his Christian life, came from the certainty he held about his personal CV. He was an Apostle because that was what God wanted!
What is God calling us to be and do?
Enjoy who God has made you!
Colossians 1 v 5-8
You have this faith and love because of your hope, and what you hope for is kept safe for you in heaven. You learned about this hope when you heard the message about the truth, the Good News that was told to you. Everywhere in the world that Good News is bringing blessings and is growing. This has happened with you, too, since you heard the Good News and understood the truth about the grace of God. You learned about God’s grace from Epaphras, whom we love. He works together with us and is a faithful servant of Christ for us. He also told us about the love you have from the Holy Spirit.
Notes
‘Everywhere in the world that Good News is bringing blessings and is growing….this has happened to you since you heard the Good News and understood the truth about the grace of God’.
When I first became a Christian – it was great……in part. If I’m honest there were many days when nothing seemed to change as a result of Jesus being in my life. School (I was 14) was the same, family problems didn’t dissolve and I still hated getting up in the morning!
I’m not sure that I would have announced that the Good News had brought me ‘blessings’.
I believed that my life had a new ‘hope’ about it, that God’s love was an absolute certainty 24/7, and beyond my life here, yet it was quite some time before I recognised this as a ‘blessing’. I was looking for immediate things – I guess we all do, and of course God does bless us with fantastic things in our daily lives!
The blessing Paul was talking of has more to do with the inner work of God’s Spirit in our lives. The hope he talks of is something that goes beyond immediate earth bound stuff we get hooked into – hoping for great jobs or grades etc – it’s centred on the truth about God’s forgiveness…again and again. It’s a hope that blesses us even when the important earthly things don’t go well.
Paul explains the route to this…. ‘and understood the truth about the grace of God’.
Hearing the Good News is an initial step to experiencing God’s blessing of inner hope. However we need to let God’s Spirit lead us in an ongoing journey of understanding. He will teach us to understand the truth about God, His character, dealings with others, interaction with the world - then we KNOW blessing
Colossians 1 v 9-12
Because of this, since the day we heard about you, we have continued praying for you, asking God that you will know fully what he wants. We pray that you will also have great wisdom and understanding in spiritual things so that you will live the kind of life that honors and pleases the Lord in every way. You will produce fruit in every good work and grow in the knowledge of God. God will strengthen you with his own great power so that you will not give up when troubles come, but you will be patient. And you will joyfully give thanks to the Father who has made you able to have a share in all that he has prepared for his people in the kingdom of light.
Notes
The key to a life of real depth as a Christian, one that pleases God?
According to Paul in this letter to a group of Christians in Colossae, it is 2 fold:
1. Knowing what God wants
2. Spiritual wisdom and understanding
These verses are a prayer this early church leader prays for the Christians he writes to. They have been struggling to grasp some of the truth’s about Christian living. In part that was down to lots of other teachings being popular in the city whilst this fairly young church was establishing itself. Paul encourages the group by praying for them.
Spiritual understanding is talked about a lot these days. It is valued, and many different belief systems emphasise their route to this wisdom.
Paul teaches that to live a life that pleases God, we must grow in knowledge and spiritual understanding and that the key to this is learning to know the will of God.
Paul emphasises clearly that without a personal ongoing knowledge of God’s will in our lives we will not in fact grow to understand how to please God.
Where does this knowledge of God’s will come from?
Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would lead Christians to the truth about God and would teach us how to follow him, and live in the truth about spiritual things (Check out Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel chapter 14 and 15).
That’s one of the unique things about being a Christian. Although we have to do our bit about choosing to live a lifestyle that pleases God – not always easy, His Spirit is actually in us teaching us to recognise what God wants, and giving us the strength to live it out!
Colossians
1 v 13-18
God has freed us from the power of darkness, and he brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son. The Son paid for our sins, and in him we have forgiveness.
No one can see God, but Jesus Christ is exactly like him. He ranks higher than everything that has been made. Through his power all things were made—things in heaven and on earth, things seen and unseen, all powers, authorities, lords, and rulers. All things were made through Christ and for Christ. He was there before anything was made, and all things continue because of him. He is the head of the body, which is the church. Everything comes from him. He is the first one who was raised from the dead. So in all things Jesus has first place.
Notes
Ever wanted a concise statement to get your head around about just who Jesus is, what his standing is in the world, and what he has done for humankind?
Well read today’s verses again…and again!
I’ve often thought that becoming a Christian is like turning a light on. For me this is a powerful analogy as I have suffered for years with a fear of the dark, and the only cure in my experience has been to switch on a light. The images and gripping thoughts that seem to have power in the dark absolutely disappear when light shines – it’s fantastic!
The church reading this letter from the Christian teacher Paul had been suffering from a sense of grappling with the dark. It’s not so much that they were afraid – more that they simply couldn’t see the truth about Jesus’ significance in their lives.
In fact they were mixing truth about Jesus with lots of other popular thinking and it was affecting the way they grew in Christian faith.
The power that darkness has for me is uncertainty – is that a shadow or is it real?
So Paul turns on the light!
God has freed us from any uncertainty about the world order, about personal guilt and sin, about the power of other gods or indeed of evil.
Read it again, and see the light!
Colossians 1 v 19-20
God was pleased for all of himself to live in Christ. And through Christ, God has brought all things back to himself again—things on earth and things in heaven. God made peace through the blood of Christ’s death on the cross.
Notes
Many people have, and do ask, how can a human person- Jesus- be God?
It’s a concept almost too wild to imagine, yet it is a basic truth in the Christian faith.
In Colossae, the place Paul was writing to in this letter, many non-Christians doubted the claim that Jesus was God. That is why Paul talks so strongly about Christ’s identity.
In truth, I find the concept too big for my finite mind. To imagine the absoluteness of all that is God – creator, sustainer, healer of all that is and ever will be in this world….well, how can I comprehend it?
Yet I do believe, and there’s the difference. To comprehend, grasp, humanly understand is a very different issue to accepting, believing, trusting it to be so.
What becomes clear in Paul’s statements is the place that Jesus has in the bringing together of all the fragmented elements of this world. It is His death that provides for the rifts between humanity, the world and the creator God to be healed.
Looking at the war torn, terrorist wounded, and broken world we encounter every day through the media and personal experience takes me back to the supremacy of God – in Jesus.
What else other than the absolute sacrifice of God Himself is powerful enough to reconcile this world – and bring peace in our equally poor sin dominated lives?
I am reminded of a verse in John’s gospel (chapter 3 verse 16)
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (New International Version)
Colossians 1 v 21-23
At one time you were separated from God. You were his enemies in your minds, and the evil things you did were against God. But now God has made you his friends again. He did this through Christ’s death in the body so that he might bring you into God’s presence as people who are holy, with no wrong, and with nothing of which God can judge you guilty. This will happen if you continue strong and sure in your faith. You must not be moved away from the hope brought to you by the Good News that you heard. That same Good News has been told to everyone in the world, and I, Paul, help in preaching that Good News.
Notes
Wow!
This is a powerful piece of letter. Just imagine how you would feel if you receive it in the post today.
God has made us his friend again!
Of course this implies one or two things:
There was a time when we weren’t friends with God
Something needed to happen to change this
God cared enough to make it possible
Interestingly Paul refers to the separation from God being something that happens in our minds and in our actions. In Colossae when the letter was written there would have been, like now, people who seemed very good and upright. However let’s not be mistaken – being good is not in itself a route to friendship with God.
Neither though is just a change in our thinking.
Friendship with God is about a whole person connection. Another version of the Bible describes this friendship as ‘reconciliation’. This means bringing together, it carries with it the idea of peace between enemies, acceptance of fault and forgiveness, a change of heart, actions that choose relationship.
Every friendship needs work. Every relationship requires honesty and perseverance. All friendships have things in them that would potentially threaten ongoing closeness.
In our lives some of this requires decision and action, and continuance. Some of it though is a sheer act of God toward us. However hard we try to find friendship with God, only the intervention of Jesus in his death makes it possible even in principle. No wonder Paul uses this first chapter of Colossians (read it through!) to speak so much about the importance of Jesus.
I wonder – is there anything in our minds or actions threatening our friendship with God today?
Colossians 1 v 24-27
I am happy in my sufferings for you. There are things that Christ must still suffer through his body, the church. I am accepting, in my body, my part of these things that must be suffered. I became a servant of the church because God gave me a special work to do that helps you, and that work is to tell fully the message of God. This message is the secret that was hidden from everyone since the beginning of time, but now it is made known to God’s holy people. God decided to let his people know this rich and glorious secret which he has for all people. This secret is Christ himself, who is in you. He is our only hope for glory.
Notes
Paul, before he became a Christian, watched as a Christian called Stephen was stoned to death because of his faith in Jesus.
To die for one’s faith is a not likely to happen to many of us – though it might of course.
To suffer for our faith though is far more likely.
Paul spent much of his life in prison because of his outright following of Jesus. Physically he wasn’t too strong either.
Yet in this letter he tells the Christians he was writing to that he is happy in his suffering.
Now I am not a wimp, but I’m not sure how I would face up to much suffering.
Paul’s perspective on his situation was really wrapped up in an inner sense of God’s calling on his life. God gave him this work to do – to tell the message of God.
This is what motivated him, gave him stamina, kept him going on his journey of faith and witness.
What about you and me?
I know that being an ‘evangelist’ is not my calling, God is using me in different ways. Yet the challenge remains, am I willing to be used by God – as he chooses – even if this means suffering in some way?
Mmmm, a rhetorical question for me maybe, but one we all face as we follow Jesus.
What is God calling you to do in sharing His message, are you ready to go for it?
Look at the encouragement here too…. Christ himself is in us. As Paul was committed to pursuing God’s call on his life, he knew His power within as a companion and confidence in all he attempted, and suffered, along the way.
word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken from the
Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by Word
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