Okay, this is the book of Colossians,
lesson number two in the series. If you notice, we're not giving titles to each of
the lessons because this is a kind of textual study. So the only indication of
the lesson is where we're at. So we're in chapter 1, just beginning by
going over verses 1 and 2. So last time when we got together for this class, we
began with a summary of Paul the Apostle's ministry, beginning with his
conversion and ending with his death in Rome in 67 AD. The idea being, if we
understood a bit of the history of Paul's ministry, we could more
easily put this letter into context. I also mentioned that when he was in
prison in Rome the first time he wrote several epistles, one of which was the
letter to the Colossian church. He wrote this one somewhere around 61 to 63 AD. We also
learned that this church, this Colossians church, had probably been established by Paul's
associates Epaphroditus and Timothy while Paul was in Ephesus for an
extended period of time during his third missionary journey, again, around 56, 57, 58 AD.
I mentioned that Ephesus was near the coastline and Colossae was about a
hundred miles inland. So Paul, while he was in Ephesus, sent out these two
evangelists to try to evangelize the area. And it seems that one of the
churches that they planted during this time was the church at Colossae. This
congregation, after several years, was running into some doctrinal problems, and
while Paul was in prison in Rome, Epaphroditus informs him of a
certain heresy that was raging in this particular place. Now I said that the
false doctrine was a form of higher thought, a higher thought
teaching, whose proponents said that their teaching was a more
elevated form of Christianity, a more elevated form of the gospel. And as I
mentioned last time, this new doctrine included various features. For
example, the worship of angels, the observance of Jewish laws and certain
traditions, the undermining of the Apostles' doctrine. These teachers were
saying, well, Paul's not much of an apostle. Are we really sure he's an
apostle? And his teaching, is it really credible? Perhaps you ought to
pay attention to our teaching. We're bringing you something new, something
more sophisticated. This was the approach. So while he's in Roman prison,
Paul sends a letter to these Colossian brethren, in an effort to demonstrate the
all sufficiency of Jesus Christ and His teachings, over the false wisdom being
taught to them by these heretics. So in our lesson today we're going to
begin the actual study of the epistle itself, the Epistle to the
Colossians. Notice the very simple outline of this epistle. The
salutation, verses one and two. We're going to cover that today. And then the
heart, the body of the epistle, all about Christ. Christ preeminent in
relationships, Christ preeminent in doctrine, Christ preeminent in ethics, and
then finishing his letter with the conclusion and greeting. So the thing that
you notice about Colossians is that it is Christ-centered. And it has as its
main objective to show that the true teaching about Jesus is the sole
response to this and all other heresies in the future. Paul does not take on each
point of the heresy - well, let me tell you about angels, these are angels,
and they - let me tell you about Jewish traditions and how they have no
binding on you. He doesn't go into a point-by-point defense of the gospel
against the false teachers, he just presents Christ. He says
here, this is the teaching. Compare what you're learning to this and
see which one has power, which one has authority. So we begin chapter one,
verses one and two, Paul writes, "Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and
Timothy our brother, to the Saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at
Colossae: grace to you and peace from God our Father." So the first verse, Paul, as was
the custom, introduces himself at the beginning of the letter, okay. And he
takes special care to include his title, apostle, in the introduction. Now we
know that the term apostle meant a messenger. That's all it meant. It meant a
messenger. He could have said, Paul a messenger. And there were many messengers
in the church at the time. Phoebe in Romans 16. This woman, she was
sent with a message, she traveled with a message, she was a messenger, she was an
apostle, okay, a servant. However, only a few could claim the title apostle of
Jesus Christ. That was a special term. These were the ones who were the special
messengers chosen by Christ Himself. So that's what Paul is establishing - who he
is. I'm not just any messenger. I'm an apostle, chosen by Jesus Christ. Paul even
reinforces this position by saying that his apostleship was not self-appointed,
but came about by the will of God. So this introduction was important
because what was at stake here was the credibility, not just of the doctrine, but
the credibility of the teachers, because they were undermining his authority as an apostolic teacher. So Paul is going to go on to give authoritative
teaching, so he wants to establish his credentials right from the start. This is
not just any message here. This is not just any messenger. This is a messenger
chosen by God to send you this message. So it's like, you better pay attention to
what I'm saying, because what I'm saying to you comes from God. Now, he mentions
Timothy, but he does this as a courtesy, because the people at Colossae, they knew
Timothy. But Paul does not include him as part of the authority base for
what he's going to be teaching. Timothy's role is that he is a brother
in the Lord, and that's his connection to Paul and the Colossians. Hi, I'm Paul, I'm the Apostle by the will of God. Oh yes, and I'm with
Timothy. Timothy, he's one of you people. And he's with me. Okay,
verse two. In the second verse, Paul recognizes the brethren to whom the
letter is sent, calls them saints and faithful brethren. These are not two
separate groups, but simply a reference to the different aspects of the same
group. They were saints, the Greek word here meant a holy one or a separated one,
those made holy. How? Well, by the blood of Christ. Those who were separated from sin.
How? Well, by the cross of Christ. All Christians are saints, not exceptionally
holy or martyrs. We see this in the Catholic church. For example, I
remember growing up, my aunt, her favorite Saint was St. Philomela. She
had pictures of St. Philomela. And she had a calendar with St. Philomela, because she had a - it was a special holiday. A special day in
the year was for her favorite Saint. And then one day the Roman
Catholic church decided, well, Philomela, she's not really a saint.
She's not really a saint. So they, kind of, brought her down a couple of notches. She was venerated. She was important, but she was no longer a saint. They took
away the special day. I remember my aunt being pretty
upset with all of that. All these years buying the holy pictures and the
calendars and everything - poof, all gone up in smoke. Well, I say this to
say that in that system, that idea, saints had a higher - they were
holier than the rest of the people. Miracles were attributed to them. But in
the Bible, the word saint simply denotes a person's relationship with God. If you
are separated from the world through faith, through obedience to
the gospel, you're a saint. Whether you're an elder in the church or
a preacher, or a Christian that's only been a Christian for a day, all of those
people, they're all saints. And so Paul is recognizing them for who
they are, they're saints, they're people separated. And then he calls them
faithful brethren. This referred to the relationship that all Christians share
with one another. So the saints portion is the relationship we have with God, the faithful brethren, of course, is the relationship we have with one
another. So when one falls away from Christ, for example, and His church, what
does that person become? That person becomes an unfaithful brother. When we discipline or disfellowship someone for unrepentant sinfulness or
unfaithfulness, we don't condemn them to hell. That's God's call. We don't have that power. We don't have that authority to
judge a person. Okay you're out of here. You're going - No. The only thing
that we can identify an individual is that they're unfaithful. This brother has
been disciplined, this sister has been disciplined. We've withdrawn fellowship
from this individual because of this unrepented sin over here. And what are
they now? Well, they're unfaithful brethren. That's what they are. Until such
time as they repent and they can be once again brought back to be faithful again,
but we don't get to judge. God does that. He gives us the authority and the
responsibility to discipline. Like your children, you discipline your
children, right, but they're still your children, even if they've done a bad
thing. So he then identifies the location and the church where his letter is
intended in the first place, but later on in chapter 4:16 Paul will instruct
them to pass this letter along to other churches. And that's the way things were
done in the first century. Now, the content was meant for them, but it was
applicable to all churches even until Jesus returns, because the heresies they might take a different form, but the heresies throughout history
always have the same objective, and that is to discredit Jesus Christ as the
divine Lord and to discredit His word as the infallible Word of God. That's always
the endgame for any heresy, any other religion. Islam, right, they all say, well, we
respect Jesus, He was a great prophet. Well, there have been a lot of
great prophets. Jeremiah was a great prophet and Isaiah was a great prophet, but
they were not the Son of God. So they deny His divinity. Within, quote,
Christendom, Jehovah Witnesses, yeah, Jesus, sure He's the Lord, He's the savior,
yes. But when you scratch down and you go deeper into their teaching, you find out
that they believe, well, He's a son of God. He became - He wasn't always the son of
God, but then He became the son of God. Just like you and I can become a son of
God. Well that's not what the Bible teaches. In the beginning was what
was the Word and what happened? Well, the Word became flesh. Well, I don't see
where He was always God. So always keep your eyes open for false
teaching. The end game all the time, either the Bible is not God's Word or
Jesus is not the divine Son of God. That's always the thing that they attack.
Going back to our letter, Paul then offers a blessing upon them that he uses
in other letters with other words. For example, in Romans 1:7 he does the same
thing. He offers them a blessing that only God can provide and one that is
very, very precious. Prosperity, health, long life, many children, the respect of
other people. All these things are blessings indeed, but grace and
peace, these two blessings exceed all of the others. Grace, God's favor,
God's gift of forgiveness, God's acceptance regardless of your
imperfection, God's promise of eternal life, these are only possible because of
God's grace, because of His attitude, because of His kindness and mercy. One
thing that Paul does, he takes a lot of ideas and he squeezes them down into,
just like, single words. They're like key words, okay. Grace is one of those
words. When he's talking about grace, he's not just talking about God's attitude,
God's mercy, what God has done for us. He's also talking about all the
blessings that we receive because of God's grace. And he scrunches those down
into a single word. So when he says, grace, he means all of that other stuff at the
same time. And then he says peace. Well, the felt result of God's grace is peace.
Peace of mind, peace within one's soul, peace with other people, peace with
oneself, and, of course, peace with God. All of the benefits of God's grace. So God's
grace are the benefits and peace are how we feel about those benefits. What
those things produce in us. So, taken together, these two are the very best
gifts that God bestows on sinful mankind. And Paul mentions that they are indeed
gifts that do not come from himself, but from the Father in heaven. In other words, Paul says, I'm not the one. Me, the Apostle, I'm not the one giving you
this. God is the one giving you this. Of course, these gifts: grace and peace,
they're in marked contrast with what these people at Colossae have been
experiencing with their new teachers and their new doctrines. There's a reason why
he starts with, grace and peace to you. Because these people here in
Colossae, according to Epaphroditus' report, these people are
experiencing confusion about the way to receive blessings, because
of the introduction of angels and intermediary spirit
beings by these teachers. So they don't have peace, they've got confusion.
Paul says that these gifts - grace and peace - come directly from God the Father.
He's the one who gives them. So they've not had peace, but rather turmoil and
debate within the new doctrines that they've had to deal with. So right away
he's saying, so how is it? Today we'd say, so how is that working for you?
There's this new higher thought, this more sophisticated gospel, how's that
working for you? How are you feeling that grace and peace.
And within the introduction of Jewish tradition and laws and food restrictions,
the concept of grace is probably being trampled as well. Never mind peace, grace too.
Christians, we are restrained by love, not law. Right? When we say, well,
what would the Lord have me do? He would have me act out in love. We don't say to ourselves, well what does the law say? How close to
the edge can I get without sinning? That's not the way we think. What
would love do? Right? That's how we think. We're new creatures. We live under the
dispensation of grace, not law. It's God's grace and love that not only free us
from sin, but also empowers us to overcome sin in our lives. It's amazing. So
these Colossians were being dragged back to living under the law by these
false teachers. I want to tell you something, and I mentioned this before,
every new religion does this in one way or another, because that's the only
option, other than being saved and living by God's grace. There's only two options,
theologically. Only two - grace and law. There's no other third, there's no third
option. There's no third option. Somebody said, well, what about atheism? Well,
you're under the law with atheism, because you're under
the law of the world. Gravity, death, you're still
under law. No religion can improve on the gospel of grace. God
offering us perfection and salvation based on our faith in Jesus Christ,
expressed in repentance and baptism. No other religion offers a better deal, if
you wish. Nobody can make a better situation, a more effective religious
experience. So what do they do since they don't go with grace? Christianity is the
only one that has grace. They go the other way, which is the law. For
example, Eastern religions, they have their rules of life, where through human
effort you keep trying for perfection one lifetime at a time, until you finally
reach some sort of oneness with the great above. Well, what is that,
if it's not law. Karma. People say, karma. What goes around comes around. Well, what do you think that is? That's law. The
principle of law. Islam imposes strict rules. And if Allah wants and feels like it,
you might go to paradise, but there's more law-keeping, especially social law.
Are you kidding me? Why do you think their main political and social principle is described as Sharia what, Sharia law. They want to put nations under their law and keep the law, but it's a
salvation by a system of law keeping. Every form of Christian sect
or cult has been based on obedience to the rules of a human prophet or leader
or a special kind of a doctrinal law. Sabbath-keeping for the seventh-day
adventists. No bloodletting for the Jehovah Witness. These are all law
principles. All a form of law-keeping, to obtain salvation. And it works.
Do you know why? You ever wonder why this works? I'll tell you why it works:
because people love to try to keep the law. They love to try to keep the law. It
appeals to their pride, because they can measure their progress in relationship to
one another. Salvation by law appeals to our pride. That's why it works.
Salvation by grace is such a humbling thing. I mean, it crushes your ego. You
can't make it. You're not good enough. You have to humble yourself. What is baptism if
not symbolically the greatest form of humility. Someone else takes you
and buries you. I mean, is there anything, symbolically, more humbling than that? So
the gospel of Christ, on the other hand, declares three simple truths: one, all
are sinners. Everybody is a sinner. Everybody is condemned before God, Roman
3 Romans 3:23. Let me just read the rules and then we'll go through the
scriptures, okay. Second thing, nobody can save themselves by law-keeping or
strategies. And thirdly, salvation is only by grace through faith in Christ. So
let's read that Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Can we twist that scripture to mean anything else other than all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God? Not, some have sinned or maybe, you can't sin. No, no.
Everybody's a sinner, right? Let's look at the other one. It says, "For the wages of
sin is death." Well, yeah, sure, everybody dies, "but the free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord." What is the greatest single proof that all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God? What is the
greatest single proof of that? Well, Romans 6:23. Everybody dies,
that's an irrefutable fact. Everybody dies. Well, wait a minute, the Bible says,
all have sinned and fall short of the gospel, the glory of God. And
then, everybody dies. The Bible says, the reason you
die is because you sinned. Everybody sins. And since everybody dies,
these two things complete each other. From Adam to the very last person that
will ever exist, all have sinned. Then no one can save themselves by trying to
keep law. No one can save themselves by an attempt at perfectionism, in any
of its religious or social forms. In Galatians chapter two, verse 16, what does
Paul say? "Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law..." Nobody by the works of the law. And then,
The only way to be saved from the condemnation that awaits us because of
our sins is through faith in Jesus Christ and no other. Does the scripture
say that? Yes. Acts four, "And there is salvation in no one else." Again, can that be
twisted to mean, well, there is salvation in these other guys if you're sincere Buddhist, or if you blow yourself up as a
Muslim. The scripture says, "There is salvation in no one else; for there is no
other name under heaven, no other name, that has been given among men by which
we must be saved." Very, very specific here. People who
are not Christians and even some Christians who call themselves, they
don't like the exclusive nature of the Bible. The Bible is exclusive. Why? It says
that there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. That's a hard
thing to swallow. And believe it or not, that's a hard thing to preach, because if
you get out - it's ok here preaching to the choir, but I mean, if you get out
there and you preach publicly to the public, oh my. You'll have people, oh, the
Bible doesn't really say that. Really? Well, you read it. You tell
me what it says. And then in Galatians 2:16b it says, "But
through faith in Christ Jesus even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so
that we may be justified [how] by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law,
since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified." So the
Bible is very specific as to the who - Jesus Christ. And very specific as to
the how - justification, forgiveness, acceptability, how? Based on your faith. So
some ask at this point, well, what about repentance and baptism? Where do these fit
into all of this? And the answer is that repentance and baptism are the ways that
Christ has given us to express our faith in Him. We are saved when we express our
faith in Christ Jesus by repentance and baptism. This is what saved by faith, not
only means, it's what it includes. If you don't believe, then you will express that
disbelief how? You will reject repentance and you will reject baptism. I never met
a non-believer who was anxious to be baptized. So back to verse number two.
Paul says that grace and peace that comes with grace, are things that come
from the Father. So in his epistle, he's going to show how the father bestows
these through His Son Jesus Christ. Note also that he says, our Father, meaning the
Father of Paul and Timothy and the brethren at Colossae. Let's remember
something else that is important, God is the creator of all men, but He is the
Father of His adopted children, Christians. So when some people out there
say - out there, outside of Christianity, they say, well God, we have God.
He loves all of us. Yes, why He created all of us. But not all of us can
call him Father. He allows Himself to be called father by those
who obey His Son Jesus Christ. So all men can call upon God as
their creator. Yes. But only Christians can call on Him as father or dad, as Paul
refers to Him in Romans 8:15, using the diminutive, daddy. Imagine,
daddy. Okay, so that's for - I don't want to get to verse three, because
the whole thought changes. So there, there's verse one and two. Next lesson
we're going to start on the second section, and that is Christ
preeminent in personal relationships. And if you have a mind, I know you you're
reading through your Bibles for April, but it also helps if you read
Colossians chapter 1:3-29. If you just go over that, if you've read it you'll
have a bit of an idea of what it says. Alright, that's our class for this morning.
