Good morning. How’s all the smiling faces?
There is a principle, and Kenny is an expert at it. He always stays engaged when you’re up here speaking. If you’re looking around, instead of—well, you know, he’s paying attention.
We don’t live in this assembly with preachers and laity. I might say that today. When we’re speaking, it’s a sharing; it’s a mutual sharing of the Word of God. So let’s encourage one another. It’s encouraging to stay awake—anyway, not just awake, engaged. Awake is my problem. If you go to sleep, that’s my problem. I don’t care if you’re asleep; just don’t snore.
Today we want to look at Colossians, Paul’s epistle to the Colossians. I thought it would be good for us to see what our brother had to say to the saints in Colossae, and how it might be helpful to us today.
If anybody is thinking of notes, my wife always likes an outline, and she’s teaching today, so maybe someone can give her this outline. Maybe I will.
First of all, this is a prison letter, written by Paul while he was in prison. I know I’ve said this before: he probably wrote Ephesians and Philemon at the same time, and those letters were probably delivered at the same time.
It is an encouragement to me that the man was in prison, writing letters to the churches. How many of us find ourselves in difficult circumstances, discouraged, and unable to get out? Might we be engaged and drawn near to the Lord? We often get into difficult circumstances by God’s will, by God’s permission, so that we will be drawn to Him. Paul was drawn.
Paul had never been to Colossae. Colossae, Ephesus, and Laodicea were all down there in the same neighborhood. He had spent extensive time in Ephesus, and probably the gospel reached Colossae through Epaphras. But Paul had heard that they were having an issue, so even though he had not seen them face to face, he wanted to write to them.
The occasion for the letter was that they were getting into error. The thing that struck me over and over as I read this is: a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
You may say, “Well, no, that didn’t get in. That was okay.” But have you ever thought of leaven leavening the whole lump? I’ve heard people say over the years, “Well, that’s really good, because a little leaven makes a whole loaf of bread.” That is not right.
Leaven in the Word has a negative connotation. Think about it: who bakes? Who’s a baker? William, tell me, how much leaven does it take to make a loaf of bread? A pinch.
Who remembers the Fleischmann’s yeast packets when you were a kid? Do they still make those? Same thing—yellow packages. You rip the top off and pour some leaven out. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Get it? A little error can ruin the whole thing.
That is why Paul was careful not to let them get by with it. That is why he was burdened, because if the Christian life and the whole assembly become full of error, it just goes down the tubes, off the track.
What was the error they were getting into? Scholars have written books on it, and I couldn’t understand it. I found a place in Unger’s Bible Handbook. Who has Unger’s Bible Handbook? It’s really a good book—a summary of books of the Bible. Not as good as Brother Kong’s book that summarizes the books.
Unger’s said this error was a mixture of ascetic legalism and a type of unsound mysticism. Does anybody know what all that is? I thought that was such a good explanation that I wrote it down, and it doesn’t make sense to me at all. So don’t write that one down, Glenn.
But anyway, it was human knowledge. It was man’s knowledge—self-improvement, picking oneself up and making something out of oneself without the Lord. That is why it was so problematic.
What was Paul’s approach to the saints? I think Paul’s approach to the saints is tremendously instructive.
Did he say, “Oh, Dora, just stop that. Just stop. That’s not right. Jerry, you stop it. What are you doing, Bob? That’s error”? What do you get when you approach someone that way? Defensiveness—and probably loss of communication.
That is a good thing we can learn. If we’re approaching one another, and as we relate to one another, don’t say, “Jerry, you dope.” That’s what I would do.
Let’s read a little bit in Colossians and see how he approached them. I think this is wonderful. Don’t put it up there—not this time, maybe later. I want everybody to find their own Bibles.
Okay, Colossians 1, verse 2. Everybody found it? You all have your Bibles out. I’m really impressed—printed Bibles out. I think everybody has a Bible on their phone. They’re surfing or texting or something, but that’s okay. That’s my problem.
To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God the Father.
We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints.
Which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth.
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
What a way to approach the saints. When we approach one another and fellowship with one another, we have to be very careful that we do so on the basis of our oneness in Christ—our common born-againness in Christ.
You know what he does not do? He does not approach them as being better than they are. This great apostle does not approach them looking down on them. Even in the Corinthian letters, I do not think he approaches them that way. He approaches them on the same level. He is a brother approaching the saints.
There is a word in verse 9: “knowledge.”
For this reason, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will.
Then further on, in verse 10: “increasing in the knowledge of God.” So what is Paul’s answer for the Colossians? I got confused with Corinthians in my brain. The answer is the knowledge of God—not knowledge about God.
The word used for knowledge here is epignosis. The basic word for knowledge is gnosis—G-N-O-S-I-S. That is just common knowledge, worldly knowledge. But this says epignosis: to know the truth, to have fully appropriated knowledge, living knowledge.
The Word is living. John tells us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. This is living, full knowledge of God appropriated in our lives.
It was the Father’s will that we have full knowledge, and that is only available through His Son, Jesus Christ.
John’s Gospel talks about this knowledge in the preamble to the Gospel of John:
There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.
That is spirit knowledge. The Word became flesh. Verse 14. And verse 16: “For of His fullness we have all received.” Verse 17: “Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.”
Again, Paul is saying, “Know the Lord, and you will stay out of this trouble. Know the Lord.”
We all finished 1 Corinthians, where Paul said:
We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness; but to those who are called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
The last thing in this introduction is a comparison of Colossians and Ephesians. They are often called twin letters, probably written at a similar time.
Colossians presents the Lord Jesus. Colossians 2:2 says that Paul’s prayer for the saints was that it might result in a true knowledge of God’s mystery—that is, Christ Himself.
Then, in Ephesians 1:22-23, the burden of Ephesians is the church:
And gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
We often talk about Christ being the head of all things, and Christ being head of the church. If we preach Christ, what do we get? The testimony of Jesus—the church, the Body of Christ. If we preach the church, what do we get? An organization.
Somebody said, “You preach the church, you get a cult.” That’s pretty extreme. But you preach Christ, you get the organism; you preach the church, you get an organization.
Now, number two in the outline—give this to my wife—is the person and work of Christ. It is the full knowledge of Christ.
It is a real temptation today to want to know about Christ, or to know Christian things. A teaching says, “Oh, I have the key.” Give me the key; now I know how to work something out. Or, “Just do this and you will get that.” A method.
I think that is where they were getting off. It was a method to spiritual things. But we have to be careful of methods. We need to know Jesus Christ.
The verse that always comes to my mind is Proverbs 3:5-8. We all know this. We probably have it on our wall at home.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
It will be healing to your body
And refreshment to your bones.
The Colossians were leaning on their own understanding of Christian, spiritual things. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Praise God. Lean not on our own understanding.
Paul continues to present Christ. The New American Standard heads up this section, beginning in Colossians 1:13, “The Incomparable Christ.” If we can meditate on these things, they are things to consider.
For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.
And He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
Stop and think about it: all things were created through Him. Something happened in my life that I have never forgotten. I have no idea how old I was—maybe eleven, twelve, or thirteen. Is that junior high? I don’t know, seventh or eighth grade.
One summer in the Chicago suburbs—we did not live in the city; we lived out at the edge—the sky was crystal clear at night. I have never seen it like that here. We lived far enough out that we did not get a lot of pollution. In August, the sky out there was just pristine, and I saw all these stars. I even saw shooting stars that time of year.
I thought, “What a great creation. How can that be? Who can explain it? This cannot be explained—but God.” He is the Creator. He explains it. We have eternity in our souls, and that cannot be satisfied except by Christ.
And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Have you ever thought about that? This world—certainly we know the social and political scene—would fall apart. But even the atoms are all held together by Him.
He is also head of the body, the church.
We are His Body.
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.
If we would see the Lord, trust Him, and believe in Him, I think all these things would fall into place.
In verse 20, He is the reconciler of all things.
And through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross—through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet now He has reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.
We were alienated, hostile, engaged in evil deeds. But praise God, we have been cleared from all the charges. Cleared—not a jury decision, but a godly decision that we have been cleared. Knowing that, let us keep short accounts.
What a great salvation we have. There is therefore now no condemnation.
The last thing I want to point out is that Paul presents this great Christ whom we serve as our life. He has shown us first that He is an awesome God, that we have been redeemed, and that Christ is our life.
That is the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
What a miracle: Christ in the Christian, Christ in each one of us—the hope of glory.
When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
Christ is our life. We have been born again, and we have that new life to live as the source of our life.
As I was thinking about Christ as our life, I do not want to overstate it, but I think we sometimes run the risk of making “Christ-life” a cliché.
Of all people, we have been blessed by having that exchange-life teaching, by knowing that we are new creatures in Christ. But sometimes that can become the answer to everything: “Oh, that’s not right. It’s the life of Christ, the life of Christ.” The life of Christ is wonderful. Let us make sure we do not make it a cliché.
Christ being our life cost Him greatly. He had to go to the cross, go to the grave, and rise again. Therefore, He has overcome death so that we can have that Christ-life.
The Lord even used the situation in John 11 to make an illustration. Kenny mentioned last week how the Lord was at home in Bethany. He had a place of rest. Yet among the ones He was closest to, He let Lazarus go to the grave.
How could He do that? How could He let Lazarus go to the grave—the people He loved? He left him four days. The sisters even said, “Oh, don’t go there. There is going to be a stench.”
But He raised him from the grave. What did He want to show them through this strong illustration?
I am the resurrection and the life.
It was a strong illustration to show that we need to come to the end of our natural life and appropriate His resurrection life.
In Matthew 16, the Lord asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The Lord said, “On this rock I will build My church.” Great story, right?
But the passage right after that says:
If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?
Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
To live in the good of the Christ-life requires us to deny ourselves and take up the cross.
I thought I might hand out something, since about this time everybody is falling asleep. There are fifty of them here, so every two people can have one. Don’t look at it.
Now you can open it. Number one: we are talking about the place of Christ’s life in us.
The first one says that before we are born again, self is on the throne. The circles are life. Who knows where this is from? Yes, that is Campus Crusade stuff.
The first picture is our unsaved life. Self is on the throne of our lives. Self is in control, and Christ is on the outside. Who has been in that place, realizing they were in hopeless trouble without Christ?
Now, number two: this is after we are saved. We are born again.
When we are born again, Christ comes into our lives. He is in the circle, but self is still on the throne. Saved, born again, new creatures in Christ—but in what condition? Carnal.
That is the issue we had in 1 Corinthians. They were saved, but they were messing up big time.
Now, this is what we are after: the Christ-life. This is where the Christ-life belongs. Christ is on the throne. Self is yielding to Christ. Interests are directed by Christ, resulting in harmony with God’s plan.
Who is persuaded that their self-life is a problem? Who in here is persuaded that their natural life is a mess? I am.
How do you get from self on the throne to Christ on the throne? By getting self off the throne—realizing that I cannot, but Christ can; not wanting anything to do with it.
If we know Christ in our life, the fullness of Christ, we are not going to get into a lot of the error that the Colossians got into. We are not seeking after error or merely seeking after teaching; we are seeking after Christ.
Colossae was into knowledge—deep knowledge, Gnosticism. They were into perfection, human perfection, and diets perfecting them. Oh, my. But Paul was after them to know Christ.
We have the same temptations today. I wrote some down. Religious systems keep us from the simplicity of Christ.
People will not like this, but clergy and laity is a real problem. Excuse me. I spent years in the Methodist Church. These were good people—I think they were Christians—but the preacher was up there dispensing Christ, dispensing Christ.
It is like having communion. I was at a communion in the last couple of years, and the preacher dispensed it. We have to go straight to Christ ourselves. Do not give in to a religious system.
There is a lot of deceptive teaching out there—the internet, Twitter, Facebook. There is a lot of it, and we can get sucked into all of it right today.
I am familiar with the televangelists, the TV preachers. If we listen to it, we can get full of it and miss the Lord. Go to the Lord. Do not just be listening to other stuff.
Think of what Mini Mike Bloomberg did. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars on all these TV ads. Who thinks he is a great and impressive guy after seeing those ads? Somebody must. Those were pretty impressive ads, weren’t they? He seemed like a good guy. Then he talked about a farmer being easy, just sticking a seed in a hole.
We need to be careful what we listen to and how we let that take our attention.
Another real problem, a teaching that we are all subject to, is humanism. The days we live in have a great religious movement going on in this world and in our country, and it is called humanism.
Here is the definition of humanism:
The meaning of the phrase secular humanism has evolved over time. This phrase has been used since at least the 1930s by Anglican priests, and in 1943 the then Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, was reported as warning that the Christian tradition was in danger of being undermined by a secular humanism which hoped to retain Christian values without Christian faith.
I think of things like abortion: “Well, we need to be nice to these ladies.” That is good, but it is twisted, right? It is secular; it is human perspective. Same-sex marriages and the sexual perversion that is poured out are based in humanism. We hear this stuff all the time. The focus is man. Be careful that we do not listen to it.
The last one is materialism. What is materialism? Things. The world is full of materialism, and it wants us to get into it. It wants us to be stuck with material things and find our satisfaction in them.
I think that is a way the world system demands your soul. Why? Because the people who own the company and give you a job want more stuff. I sound like Bernie Sanders—sorry—but it is true. We just have to be careful.
I know I have said this before, but years ago Mike Woods worked for IBM. People may not know this, but IBM was the computer business. You had to wear white shirts and a tie—there was a certain dress code.
It was driving Michael nuts because he was trying to be a believer, trying to follow the Lord, serve, and be involved in this. He came to Brother Kong and said, “They want one hundred ten percent. They tell us they want one hundred ten percent, one hundred twenty percent.”
Brother Kong looked up at him and said, “Give them fifty.”
Anybody threatened by this world system, give them fifty percent. If you are doing a good job, they will be thankful for it. They will take it. Do not believe them.
My boss used to come around. Quitting time was five o’clock, so he would come around about five twenty to see who was still sitting at their desk and give extra points.
Colossians 2:6-7 says:
Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.
For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.
Let Him lead your life. If He is head over all things to the church, He is certainly head over all things to each one of us. Trust the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding.
Colossians 3:1 says:
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
Keep seeking. Set your mind on. We have been raised up. We have a new life within us, and His Spirit is within us. We need to walk in the newness of life in Christ.
Who has heard the phrase “resident Boss”? The Holy Spirit in us is what is going to keep us out of trouble—listening, taking time, and listening to the Lord. Keep seeking. Keep seeking, and set your minds on.
What is the opposite of keeping seeking and setting our minds on something? Being passive. Passivity is a great problem for believers.
The things I talked about—the world and the world system—will consume us. How much time do we spend, not you guys, I am not talking about you guys, but on our phones? This is not a young people’s problem; it is an old people’s problem. How much time do we spend like this?
That is being passive. That is leaving your mind available to miss the Lord. TV—leave it. How many houses have you been in where the TV is on all day? You might not even be listening to it, but it is going into the background, and you are taking it in. Blah, blah, blah.
I am not picking on anybody. I have nobody in mind. But we need to weigh it before the Lord and be set free from worldly things.
We have a great gift to keep us free from deception: the Word of God.
This comes out of a tract from over fifty years ago for me. It talked about the Word of God and how important it is. I am not talking about the Word of God as head knowledge. I am talking about the Spirit of God touching our hearts by being in His Word, meditating on it, chewing on it, and considering it.
Bill Bright used to talk about assurance of salvation. I am going to read what they said about this train:
The promise of God’s Word, the Bible—not our feelings—is our authority. The Christian lives by faith in the trustworthiness of God Himself and His Word.
The train diagram illustrates the relationship among fact—God and His Word; faith—our trust in God and His Word; and feeling—the result of our faith and obedience.
The train will run with or without the caboose. However, it would be useless to attempt to pull the train by the caboose. In the same way, we as Christians do not depend on feelings or emotions, but we place our faith and trust in the trustworthiness of God and the promises of His Word.
Would you say, from looking at this, that feelings are a bad thing? Oftentimes people think being driven by emotion is a problem. But if we are full of the Spirit, in the Word, and the Lord touches us by His living Word, we are going to be really excited. We are going to have great feelings. The feelings come right along.
It is just that we do not start our approach from feelings. But it is so important to be in the Word and established in the Word of God. That is how we stay out of error.
If we are in the Word, meditating in the Word, and reading Christian books, there is not going to be time for these other things to come in and eat us alive.
What did Paul have to say to the Colossians? First, he was writing to them because they were getting into wrong teaching, into error. That was a concern because a little leaven leavens the whole lump. He did not want them to get off and get caught in something other than Jesus Christ.
Second, he appealed to them as brothers and sisters. He did not lord it over them; he appealed to them as brothers and sisters. That has touched me a lot lately, reading these epistles of Paul—how he appeals to them as saints.
He presented the answer to error as knowing Jesus Christ: full knowledge, epignosis of Christ; full of His Spirit; Christ on the throne in our lives; the resident Boss taking charge; and being in His Word.
If we gain Christ in the Spirit, we will be delivered from our natural life and make room for Christ. We need to be grounded and strengthened through Him, through His Word. We need revelation from His Word, breathed on by the Spirit of God, by that resident Boss.
Finally, keep seeking things above. Set your mind on the things above, and on Christ, who is our life.
Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for this help that comes from considering You. We thank You that Paul, in his letters, can be such an encouragement to us. Even though these were written so long ago, we do not want to miss what You have for us.
Keep us from leaven. Keep us from the world’s care. Oh Lord, have Your way in each one of us. May Christ be our life. May we get off of the throne and not try to manage things by our own understanding, but may we take You as our life and understanding.
May there be increase for Christ in the church. May there be an overflow of resurrection life in Your people among us that would testify that Christ is in our midst, that God is in our midst. Praise Your name today. Amen.