We'd like to turn today to Paul's letter
to the Colossians.
Colossae was a place that Paul had never
visited, but probably when he was in Ephesus,
he was there for three years, one of
his co-workers, Ephaphras must have gone across
and established the church in Colossae.
And so Paul knew a lot about that
church from Ephaphras, and he had a very
real interest in the development in that particular
church.
We can say that Paul's letter to the
Colossians is like a twin letter to his
letter to the Ephesians.
In Ephesians we saw the theme was in
Christ, you in Christ.
We saw that this morning.
In Colossians, the theme is Christ in you.
And we find that in verse 27, in
chapter 1, verse 27.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
So where in Ephesians we saw our position
in Christ, that made us rich with every
heavenly blessing, with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places, here it's the other side of
that truth, that because Christ is in us,
he can manifest through us that heavenly life
that was manifested when he walked on this
earth.
So we could say in another phrase, the
main emphasis in Colossians is, Colossians 2, verse
9, the fullness of God dwelt in Christ
in bodily form.
God, the fullness of God dwelling in a
human body.
First seen in Jesus Christ, and now Christ
dwelling in our human body, and manifesting that
divine life.
That's the theme of this letter.
And as we read through this letter, it
appears as though when you see the things
that Paul is correcting, like when we read
Paul's letter to the Galatians, you know that
the Galatians had the problem of legalism and
of trying to become perfect through the law.
The Colossian Christians seem to have been affected
by some of the teaching that was going
on around in that area, which seemed to
have affected them, which was basically in two
extreme forms.
We see that in the world today also
in false religions and cults.
One view was that the human body, being
made of earthly matter, was evil, and so
it had to be suppressed, and you had
to treat it roughly, and then only you
could be a spiritual person.
That type of teaching is found even today,
where through asceticism and bodily discipline, you seek
to be holy.
Paul speaks about that in Colossians, the latter
part of chapter 2.
The other extreme are people who say, well,
his body is not important.
It doesn't matter what you do with his
body.
Indulge every lust, and the main thing is
the spirit, and that leads to a lot
of immorality and fornication in the name of
religion, not just ordinary fornication, but you know,
temple prostitutes and all that, and through the
centuries, there have been these two extreme attitudes
to the human body.
One is like the attitude of yoga, and
you discipline yourself, and you have nothing to
do with even marriage, and sexual relationships in
marriage are wrong, stay away from all that
asceticism, and the other is the opposite extreme,
indulge every passion of the body, and both
of them, both these extremes tend to despise
the body.
The main thing is the spirit, and so
therefore, some of these people probably didn't believe
that almighty God could come in bodily form,
that God could actually become a man, and
walk on the earth, and even today, many
Christians who believe that Jesus Christ did become
a man, it's only in the back of
their heads.
It doesn't seem to have any practical relevance
to their daily life on earth.
The fact that Jesus Christ is, always was,
God, even when he was on earth, he
was God, and at the same time, that
when he came to earth, he was totally
a man, are two important truths.
If you lose a sight or understanding of
either of them, and their practical applications, in
that measure, your Christianity will suffer.
If you don't believe that Jesus Christ is
God, you have a lot of questions, and
then you're going to have a lot of
problems in your Christian life.
You're not really a Christian at all.
And on the other hand, is the other
extreme, where you don't recognize that he became
100% a man, just like us.
Made in all things like his brothers, it
says in Hebrews 2.17. God came in
human form, and that's why we can follow
him.
You could never follow him, if he was
just God.
But because he gave up those privileges that
he had as God, and lived on earth
with our limitations, therefore we can follow him.
So that's very important, that sin is not
essentially found in the body.
That's the point.
You must realize that it's not because you
have a body, that you sin.
And what is the clearest proof of that?
Jesus had a body, just like yours and
mine.
He was born of the seed of David,
of the sperm of David, which is the
literal meaning of the Greek word.
And yet, even though he had a human
body, just like ours, there was no trace
of sin in that body at all.
No conscious sin, no unconscious sin, no trace
of sin.
Completely pure, from birth till death.
Now here's another example of Satan, who has
no body, no human body, and he's full
of sin.
So here you have a contrast.
Satan who has no body is full of
sin, and Jesus who had a human body,
had no sin.
So we see that sin has got nothing
to do with the human body at all.
It's your choice, whether you're going to let
sin be manifest through this body, or whether
you're going to let the life of God
and purity be manifest through this body.
Every day we are making that choice.
Colossians deals with the fullness of God, dwelt
in bodily form.
Christ now dwells in you.
So that's the theme.
And there's a lot of emphasis in the
first chapter on the preeminence of Christ in
creation, and in redemption.
Just let's look at that.
In chapter 1, I just want to read
a few verses here and there.
First of all, he, of course, gives thanks
to God, like he always does for all
churches that he wrote to, in verse 3.
And in verse 9, he says, From the
day we heard of it, we have not
ceased to pray for you.
Here were Christians whom he had never met,
as we read in verse 7 and 8,
his co-worker, Epaphras, was the one who
had gone and established that church there, and
he came and told Paul about the wonderful
believers in Colossae.
And he says, We have prayed and asked
that you will be filled with the knowledge
of his will in all spiritual wisdom and
understanding.
A very interesting Bible study that you could
do on your own would be to study
through the prayers of the Apostle Paul.
There are many prayers of the Apostle Paul,
right through from Romans on to 2 Timothy.
And you find all those prayers, we saw
two of them when we studied Ephesians, were
always prayers for spiritual things.
He never prayed that these people would become
rich, or they'd have good houses to live
in, or that they'd advance in their jobs.
He never prayed for any of these material
things.
He always prayed for deep, eternal, spiritual things.
Because Paul was so gripped by the fact
that everything on this earth was only for
a short period.
It's like something like if you were taking
a journey from here to Delhi, and you
were going to settle down in Delhi for
the next 50 years.
Someone who is praying for you should not
be spending most of his time praying that
in the two-day train journey to Delhi,
you'll have a very comfortable time, and you'll
be able to eat good food, and wear
good clothes in the train, and sleep peacefully.
He should be praying more about things that
you'd be able to live in Delhi happily
for a long time.
So when we see that our life on
earth is only like a short journey moving
into eternity, Paul was praying that the way
they lived on earth would be in such
a way that when they get into eternity,
they'll have no regret.
That's so important.
So he prayed that they would be filled
with the knowledge of his will in all
spiritual wisdom and understanding.
Now there's a translation of this verse, I
think it's in the paraphrase by J.B.
Phillips of this episode, where he says, I'm
praying that you will look at things from
God's point of view.
To have an understanding or knowledge of his
will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding means
that you will look at everything from God's
point of view.
And that was Paul's prayer for the Colossian
Christians.
When you think of your human body, don't
listen to what all these philosophers in the
world are saying.
Look at it from God's viewpoint.
Jesus came in a human body, so don't
despise it.
Everything you face in life, look at it
from God's point of view.
That's a good prayer for us to pray
for ourselves.
Lord, help me to see everything that happens
in my life from your viewpoint.
How do you look at that?
That particular circumstance that came into my life,
that particular sickness, that thorn in the flesh,
that person who is treating me so badly.
There's all these things.
Let me see it from God's viewpoint.
Did it surprise God when that thing happened?
It didn't surprise God.
It did surprise me because I'm a human
being limited by time and space.
But God was not surprised.
And when I move back or move up
to God's viewpoint, I find my heart comes
to rest.
And many things on earth look very different
when I look at them from God's viewpoint.
It's a very good prayer for us to
pray for ourselves.
And if you can build a church where
people have learned to look at things from
God's viewpoint, you got a spiritual church.
You don't have a spiritual church just because
they engage in a lot of evangelism and
social activity.
No.
It's if they have learned to look at
things from God's viewpoint.
Because it's only then, as it says in
verse 10, that you can walk in a
manner worthy of the Lord.
You can never walk the way God wants
you to walk unless you, first of all,
have your mind looking at things from God's
viewpoint.
And only then, like it says in verse
10, will you bear fruit in every good
work.
And he speaks about being strengthened with power
according to his glorious might, verse 11, which
is a picture of the Holy Spirit.
In verse 15 is another description of Christ.
And I think it's one of the clearest
descriptions in the New Testament of the fact
that Jesus Christ on earth was God.
In case anybody had any doubt about it.
He is the image of the invisible God.
The firstborn of all creation means the one
who began all creation.
He is the image of the invisible God.
That means God in human form.
The one who began all of creation.
The beginning of all creation.
All creation in Genesis 1 began with Him.
We move on to verse 22.
Because He came in this fleshly body.
Notice.
He came in a fleshly body.
See, because even if you say body, some
people may say, well, it was not really
a fleshly body.
And there were those types of heresies in
the first century and later on where people
wondered whether Jesus actually came in a fleshly
body.
He says it was in that fleshly body
that He died.
And in order to present you blameless.
Now I want you to move on to
verse 24.
There's a beautiful verse here.
He says, I rejoice in my sufferings for
your sake and in my flesh I do
my share on behalf of His body, which
is the church, in filling up that which
is lacking in Christ's afflictions.
Now He already said in verse 22 that
in a fleshly body He suffered.
Now there's a very interesting phrase here which
I don't know whether you have considered seriously.
In verse 24 it says, there's something missing
or lacking in the afflictions or the sufferings
of Christ.
What is it that is missing or lacking
in Christ's afflictions?
Didn't He say on the cross, it is
finished?
And what does the Holy Spirit mean when
He says through Paul that I am now
filling up what is still lacking in Christ's
afflictions.
There's a great truth here.
See Jesus suffered all through His earthly life.
We read of some of those sufferings in
the Gospels.
But there were many, many, many more that
He suffered in His soul, in His spirit,
in His body that there's no record in
Scripture.
And when He finally died, He said it's
finished.
That's how He became a forerunner of salvation
for the whole world.
Now, when Paul was called to serve this
Christ, and if you and I are called
to serve this Christ, as I said the
other day, we have to be mini forerunners
for other people.
So, today we have a body like Jesus
had a body and the Holy Spirit now
seeks to lead us through the same pathway
of suffering that Jesus went through.
Not His suffering for the sins of the
world, that we have no part in, but
all the other suffering that He went through
of rejection, misunderstanding, persecution, and ridicule, and mocking,
and all types of things.
And, He says, in Jesus' case, if you
take a glass, in His whole lifetime there
was a measure of suffering that completely filled
up that glass, and on the cross He
said, it's finished.
Okay.
Now, I'm following in Jesus' footsteps, and I've
got a human body, and the Holy Spirit
has to do the same work in me.
Here's my glass, when I'm born again, it's
empty.
I've suffered nothing for Christ.
And gradually, as time goes on, I begin,
this glass begins to fill up with sufferings,
sufferings.
These are the sufferings of Christ.
It's what He endured when He was in
a bodily form.
Now, I've got this body, and Christ is
in me.
The same Christ who suffered when He was
on earth is now in me, and He
has to go through the same thing, now
through my body.
In ridicule, mocking, He said, the servant is
not greater than his master.
If they call the head of the house,
Beelzebub, what do you think they'll call you?
Worst names.
The world hates you because it hated me
first.
So all those sufferings, now it has to
be filled up in our body.
That's why it's a great privilege.
And He says, this glass is now to
be filled up.
There's still a lot left.
This is the filling up that He speaks
of here.
What is still lacking of Christ's sufferings which
He completed in His body, which has now
got to be completed in my body.
It's a great mystery.
Many people don't understand it.
Many people don't understand that when they're going
through suffering, and they're coming into fellowship with
Christ's sufferings.
I'm not talking about the suffering that you
suffer because you did something stupid or foolish.
Jesus never did anything stupid or foolish.
But He still suffered because His whole way
of life was contrary to this world.
His entire ministry was constant conflict with Bible
scholars.
And with all the great theologians of His
day, He was in conflict, conflict, conflict, conflict.
And they hated Him and finally killed Him.
It is the same today.
When we fill up the afflictions of Christ,
we find ourselves in conflict with the entire
religious system of this world and also with
a lot of so-called Christian theology and
religion.
We find ourselves in conflict just like Jesus
was.
People who don't know God but who got
a lot of cleverness.
Jesus was in conflict with them.
And they hated Him.
Who are the ones who called Him Beelzebub?
It was not the Greeks and the Romans.
It was people who had a Bible.
Who were the ones who persecuted Jesus the
most?
Who were the ones who killed Him?
Who were the ones who caused Him all
those afflictions?
Religious people with a Bible.
So if you're going to fill up the
afflictions of Christ, you're going to find religious
people with a Bible afflicting you because they
don't know God.
Jesus said that they hate Me, they persecute
Me because they don't know My Father.
And they'll do the same thing to you.
So when we fill up the afflictions of
Christ, we rejoice in it.
Because as we go, He says here, I
rejoice in these sufferings because as this is
filled up, I am doing, Paul says, my
share.
Each of you have got a share for
the sake of this new body of Christ,
the church.
That was His first body, a physical body.
Now He's got another body, the church.
And in this church, these afflictions are to
be filled up.
You've got your share and I've got my
share.
The difference is this, that Jesus suffered everything
in His body, but we suffer it in
the total body of Christ.
But you've got a share in that.
And I've got my share.
I cannot do your share.
What does that mean?
When you go through some suffering, I can't
be faithful for you.
So how can I help you there?
You've got to be faithful in your suffering.
When you suffer from your relatives, when you
suffer from your neighbors, when you're persecuted, when
people oppose you because you're following Jesus, when
they throw out your name as evil and
throw you out of the house perhaps because
you want to follow Jesus, that's part of
the suffering of Christ.
Rejoice at that time and say, Lord, thank
you for giving me the privilege of filling
up a little bit of the afflictions of
Christ for the sake of the church which
is His body.
That is how we have a ministry to
other people.
We do it for the sake of the
church.
I don't gain anything from it.
But if I go through this suffering, it's
like, why is it called part of the
fellowship of Christ suffering?
What did Christ gain by that suffering?
Nothing.
If Jesus came to earth to gain something
for Himself, we have to say He was
a total failure because He gained nothing for
Himself.
He lost everything.
Through Christ's sufferings, He gained nothing, but we
gained a lot.
And if you are in fellowship with Christ's
sufferings, you will gain nothing, but other people
will gain a lot through your sufferings.
Are you willing for that?
I hope all of us will say, Yes,
Lord.
I am willing.
I want to be in fellowship with Your
mind, and Your spirit, and Your attitude that
I want to suffer so that other people
will gain something through my suffering.
Because out of that suffering, it's like the
grapes being squeezed, or the olive oil being
pressed.
Have you seen how they crush the sugar
cane in a grinder?
They put those sugar cane sticks in there
and all that juice comes out.
And you think they're finished with it.
No, they put it back a second time.
Every little bit of juice comes out for
whose benefit?
Somebody else is going to drink it.
That's a picture of how God makes us
a blessing to other people.
You've got to be crushed, and you've got
to be squeezed in circumstances and trials and
from that, the radiance of Christ, the beauty,
the aroma of Christ comes forth.
That's the only way we can be a
blessing to other people.
That's how Jesus fulfilled His ministry.
And so we see here, He goes on
to say, now with this experience, verse 28,
we proclaim Christ, who came in this bodily
form, admonishing every man that is rebuking, correcting,
everybody in the church, teaching every man, it's
both prophecy and teaching, with all wisdom, and
what is our ultimate goal?
This was Paul's ultimate goal, that we may
present every man complete or perfect in Christ.
If Paul had a church of hundred people,
he says, I'm going to do everything possible
to make sure that all these hundred people,
not 99, but every man, every brother, every
sister, every child, becomes perfect in Christ.
And I'm going to exhort them, I'm going
to admonish them, I'm going to teach them
with all wisdom, because one day, I have
to present these people to God.
I tell you, there are very few pastors
and shepherds who have this burden.
They just want to preach and go, but
Paul had a burden.
Every single person here, I must know their
spiritual condition.
I would never take the responsibility of being
an elder in a church without taking the
responsibility of knowing the spiritual condition of every
single person sitting there.
And I've been an elder in Bangalore for
25 years, and I can say that I
have, to the best of my ability, known
in all these years, the spiritual condition of
every single person in my church, so that
I could correct them, rebuke them, give them
wisdom, encouragement, seeing their need, spoken encouraging words,
spoken strong words, because I want to present
them perfect in Christ one day.
I don't want anything from them.
I want to present them perfect in Christ.
And for their sake, for the sake of
the body of Christ, I have to go
through a lot of crushing in my private
life, that God deals with me in so
many ways, so that the juice can come
out from me, that other people can drink
and be blessed.
This is Christian ministry.
And to this, and for this purpose, he
says in verse 29, I labor, I work
hard, striving, look at these words, I labor,
striving.
How does he strive?
With the mighty power of the Holy Spirit,
verse 29, with which, first of all, God
mightily works inside me.
You know, God always has to work inside
me before He works through me.
He has to work inside you by His
Holy Spirit, and then work through you to
bless other people.
But if you ever serve other people in
a church, make these two verses like a
goal for you.
Verse 28, your goal to present every man
perfect in Christ, verse 29, the means by
which you reach that goal through the fullness
of the Holy Spirit.
In chapter 2, he speaks about, he says,
I pray that your hearts will be knit
together, verse 1 in love, that you will
have a full assurance of knowledge, of understanding,
in a true knowledge of God's mystery.
You know, this word mystery comes a few
times in scripture.
And I want to just mention something about
it here.
Mystery means a secret that can only be
known if God reveals it to you through
His Holy Spirit.
I has not seen, neither has he heard,
1 Corinthians 2, verse 8, 9 and 10.
Neither has entered into the heart of man
the things which God has prepared for those
who love Him, but God has revealed them
to us through His Spirit.
That's the mystery.
And there, in the scripture, if you look
up a concordance, you'll find that there are
only two mysteries that are called great mysteries.
Great mysteries.
There are other mysteries mentioned in the New
Testament, two that are called great.
One is the mystery that God came in
human flesh.
1 Timothy 3, 16.
Great is the mystery of godliness.
He was manifest in the flesh.
There's a mystery there.
It's the secret of godliness.
What is the secret of godliness?
Jesus came in our flesh.
Think about it.
Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what
that means.
That's the first great mystery.
Secondly, Ephesians 5, 32.
He says, this is a great mystery.
The husband-wife relationship.
Husband and wife becoming one flesh.
The two shall become one flesh.
Ephesians 5, 31.
This is a great mystery, but I'm speaking
not about husband and wife, he says in
verse 32.
I'm speaking about Christ and the church.
So the church being one flesh with Christ
is the second great mystery.
And this has got some connection with that.
What we said earlier about in our flesh,
suffering, because we have a fellowship with Christ
as our divine husband and bridegroom.
On both of these, we need revelation from
God.
Ask God to show you what it meant
for Jesus to come to earth and be
totally a man.
Just like us.
To be tempted like us.
To overcome like us.
And what it means that we now are
to follow in His footsteps.
Follow in the same way.
Suffer in the same way.
And overcome in the same way.
And thus build the church to be one
with Him as His bride.
This is the greatest ministry you can ever
do on the face of the earth.
There is absolutely nothing greater than that.
There are many good things you can do
in the name of Christ.
Paul said he spent all his life laboring
to do this.
To build a church.
And I believe that the greatest servants of
God are the ones who build a church.
Now I greatly respect other people who have
lived good godly lives.
I mentioned Mother Teresa the other day.
But, I would never spend my life doing
what she is doing.
I would spend my life doing what Paul
did.
Paul did not spend his life doing what
Mother Teresa did.
No.
God bless her.
But Paul said, I'm going to build a
church.
He did not do social work.
Because he knew that social work is ultimately
not going to establish God's kingdom.
I mean if you make people's lives comfortable
in a hospital or in a school and
dig better wells and make life easier for
them and send them to hell through a
smooth path, what's the use of that?
They were going to hell by the rough
path but you made the path a little
smoother and gave them a comfortable journey to
hell.
It's no use.
So Paul realized the most important thing is
to lead people to Christ.
The greatest Christian I respect in India is
not Mother Teresa.
It's Sadhu Sundar Singh who had a great
passion to reach people for the Lord and
who lived a godly life.
That's the man I've always respected.
And nobody would give him a Nobel Prize
or Bharat Ratna or any such thing because
you don't get such medals for building the
church.
That's the greatest ministry you can ever do.
That's what Paul did.
He never got involved in social work.
God bless those who feel they are called
to do that.
That's fine.
But the greatest work you can ever do
in this land is to build the body
of Jesus Christ.
Never forget that.
We don't despise others who do good things
in the name of Christ.
But if you want to do God's highest,
remember, there's nothing.
It's the church that's going to remain until
all eternity.
Okay.
It says further in chapter 2 and verse
11 and 12.
In Christ, you were circumcised with a circumcision
made without hands in the removal of the
body of the flesh.
That means just like in circumcision there's a
cutting off of some flesh, we were cut
off.
Our flesh was cut off on the cross.
I have to take that position.
This flesh which I carry around with me
is crucified with Christ.
And that's what I testified to also in
baptism.
I've been buried with him in baptism, verse
12, in which you also were raised up
together with him.
And just like every son of Abraham, of
the seed of Abraham had to be circumcised
after he became a child of Abraham.
How did you become a child of Abraham?
By being born into a Jewish family.
That's all.
It's the only qualification.
You were immediately circumcised.
In the same way, every child of God,
as soon as he becomes a child of
God, that is not by normal birth, but
by new birth, as soon as he is
born again, must be baptized.
Circumcision was only for males.
Baptism is for males and females because there
is no distinction now.
They become children of God.
You became children of Abraham by birth.
You become children of God by new birth.
As soon as you became a child of
Abraham, you became circumcised.
As soon as you become a child of
God, you must be baptized.
It's the same.
And so we see baptism here is a
symbol, like circumcision was, there of cutting off
of confidence in the flesh.
And we see further in verse 14 and
15 two things that Jesus did on Calvary's
cross.
One, He cancelled out this certificate of debt
that was against us.
You see, the law had made a list
of commandments that I had to keep and
I did not keep them.
And so every time I did not keep
God's law, I got into debt to God.
And the result was in my life I
had accumulated such a huge debt, sin is
like a debt I owe to God.
And Jesus came, paid the debt on the
cross, tore up that certificate and said, there's
no debt for you now.
That's the picture he uses of sin as
a debt to God.
Jesus tore up the certificate and said, you're
free.
That's one thing.
The second thing He did on the cross,
verse 15, was He took away the armor
from the principalities and powers who could harm
me.
Having triumphed over them in it and He
gave me their weapons.
It's something like, here are a whole lot
of demons who got guns, machine guns, pointed
at a helpless person like me and I'm
scared of them because they've got their machine
guns aimed at me and always shooting at
me and I have to run for cover
because these guns are firing all the time.
What did Jesus do on the cross?
He took away all their machine guns from
the demons and gave it to me.
Now who's on the run?
Have you seen that?
Have you seen that the weapons that they
had have been taken away from them?
Have you seen that we've got the name
of Jesus now?
Like we sing in that song, in the
name of Jesus we have the victory.
Tell me who can stand when we go
against the enemy in the name of Jesus.
That's a mighty weapon the Lord has given.
The name of the Lord is a strong
tower.
The righteous run into it and they are
safe.
We resist the devil in the name of
Jesus.
Satan and all his demons were defeated on
the cross once and for all.
Every demon, whenever you encounter a demon possessed
person, remember the demon inside that person was
defeated on the cross.
The demon does not have a machine gun
anymore.
It's been taken away on the cross.
You got something now to fire at that
demon in the name of Jesus.
It doesn't matter if you are the weakest
person, the weakest soldier in the army.
If he's got a machine gun and the
enemy does not have anything, that tough huge
goliath of a demon will fall.
Remember that.
And we've got the mightiest weapon of all
in the name of Jesus.
Further, he speaks in verse 16 onwards to
verse 23 about these various philosophies and methods
of holiness that people have thought of their
clever brain and their ideas and their reasonings
without revelation from God have produced of how
to become holy.
One is avoid certain foods, be a vegetarian,
don't drink certain things, keep certain festivals, go
on certain pilgrimages, verse 16, keep the Sabbath
day holy.
There are some so-called Christians who say
you can't be holy unless you keep the
Sabbath day.
And here Paul says to the Colossians two
thousand years ago, don't let anybody judge you
in such matters.
Don't let anybody tell you you've got to
keep the Sabbath day or you've got to
keep Christmas day or you've got to keep
any other day.
No.
These things are only a shadow.
The reality is in Christ.
When you have the reality, why do you
need the shadow?
And if Paul was living today, he would
have used a picture like this.
He said those are only a photograph.
You've got the reality.
I keep my wife's photograph with me when
she's not there.
When she's there, I'd be crazy if I'm
always looking at the photograph.
Why do I need the photograph when she's
there?
That's what he's saying here.
When you've got Christ himself, why do you
want all these symbols and pictures?
That was only a shadow.
It was only a photograph.
You've got the reality now.
You've got your husband himself.
Why do you want your husband's photograph now?
The Sabbath day was a photograph.
All those festivals and all that were photographs.
You've got the reality.
Then he says, don't let anyone cheat you
of your prize.
You know that there's a prize that God
has reserved for you in heaven.
Don't let anybody cheat you of it by
delighting in self-abasement.
That means a false humility.
I tell you there's a lot of false
humility among Christians.
False humility, which is spiritual pride, wearing the
garment of humility and pretending to be very
humble.
Get rid of all that false humility.
You know where they believe in worshiping angels.
You know you must not only worship God.
But when you translate that word angels, we
don't find Christians teaching us to worship angels.
But I'll tell you how this verse applies
to many people in India and other places.
The word angel, I told you, is messenger.
messenger.
And there is a lot of worship of
messengers in Christendom today.
Haven't you seen that?
Just like many Hindus worship their so-called
God-men.
Many Christians have got also little little God
-men.
Christian leaders whom they admire so much it
almost amounts to worship.
They never feel this man can ever make
a mistake.
He's perfect.
He's almost like Christ.
And they worship him.
Now to respect a godly man, to appreciate
him and to listen carefully to his advices,
all good.
But to worship, wrong.
And so worship of messengers, you think that's
humility.
It's not humility.
It's a false humility.
You don't become holy like that.
And then he says the answer to that
is, verse 19, instead of holding on to
that messenger, you must hold on to the
head.
This is Christianity.
Hold on to the head.
And the best messenger is the one who
helps you to get connected to the head.
And then the other way of holiness mentioned
that many people teach is through discipline.
Verse 20 and 21.
Don't handle this.
Don't touch this.
Don't taste this.
And with a severe treatment of the body,
verse 30, sleep on the floor, fast for
days so that you become holy.
And I'll tell you, I've seen a lot
of people who fast for many days, lose
their temper, have got bitterness.
I say, where has it made them holy?
They gossip.
They speak evil of others.
All this severe treatment of the body has
not made them holy.
But it's got an appearance of holiness.
But it does not deal with sin inside.
What is it that deals with sin inside?
Listen.
You have died.
Chapter 3, verse 3.
That's the way.
Take your position of death with Christ and
you have been raised up.
Chapter 3, verse 1.
That is the way of holiness.
The way of holiness is not by celebrating
these festivals and by worshipping messengers and severe
treatment of the body and yoga and discipline
and fasting and none of these things will
make you holy.
You can try it for centuries, you won't
be holy.
The way to holiness is like it says
in Romans 6, you got to die with
Jesus.
You got to take your place as dead
to this world and living with Jesus also,
not just dead.
A lot of people who speak about death,
death, death, death end up with this type
of yoga type of holiness.
It's all self-denial and discipline of the
body and all that.
But the life of Christ, the life of
Jesus in a human body, just like He
Himself lived on earth in a human body,
this is what the Holy Spirit seeks to
communicate to you and me.
And then, one proof of that will be
that your mind will be set, verse 2,
on the things that are above.
You're not always occupied with the type of
food you eat and earthly discipline, you're occupied
with the things above.
Your mind, that's where holiness begins.
See the contrast between your mind in chapter
3, verse 2 and the body in chapter
2, verse 23.
It's not by suppressing the bodily things that
you become holy, desires and passions.
It's by having your mind set on the
things above that the body also obeys the
Holy Spirit.
Christ is seated at the right hand of
God.
Let your mind be set on things above.
Since you have died with Christ, now consider,
verse 5, the members of your earthly body
dead.
In Romans, in Colossians, it's the same secret
of holiness.
What is that?
You have died with Christ.
Ask God to give you an understanding of
the way of the cross.
This is the secret of holiness.
How you died with Jesus and you rose
up.
It can be as great a crisis in
your life as when you were born again.
When you see this truth.
Okay.
We turn now to verse 13.
It says here that as Jesus, there are
many things here, it says we must put
away.
And in this renewal, verse 11, there is
no distinction in the body of Christ.
All are the same.
And you must bear with one another and
forgive one another just as Jesus forgave you.
And then it says in verse 15, let
the peace of Christ be the referee in
the margin, it says, be the referee in
your hearts.
How do you know when you're going astray?
How do you know when you missed God's
will?
There is a referee inside your heart.
Have you seen a football match?
You can never have a football match without
a referee.
Because everybody will be committing a foul.
But when you have a referee, as soon
as anybody commits a foul, he blows a
whistle.
Now supposing you're playing a football match and
the referee blows a whistle and you don't
bother about the referee.
Everybody stopped.
And you say, that's wonderful.
Everybody stopped.
Let me kick a goal now.
And you go and kick a goal.
And you kick another goal.
The referee will say, just bring the ball
back.
There are no goals.
You committed a foul here two minutes ago
and nothing is counted till you set this
foul right.
And then you're going to humbly bring the
ball back.
You've got to set the foul right.
All your goals are not counted.
Because he blew the whistle.
Now what's the application of this for our
Christian life?
When you find in your conscience, a whistle
is blown by the referee, you have done
something wrong.
You spoke in a harsh way to your
wife.
You did this wrong.
Or that money that you took was not
right.
You know what happens after the whistle is
blown?
Whatever you may do for the Lord is
not counted.
Every goal you scored not counted.
The Lord says, come back.
Set this foul right.
Go and apologize to your wife.
Don't go and do evangelism.
Go and apologize to your wife first.
All the goals you score will not be
counted.
Do you understand that?
Let the peace of Christ be your referee.
If you follow this referee, you'll never go
wrong.
And how long are you going to wait
till you obey the referee?
Have you seen football matches where they are
arguing with the referee?
No, I didn't do a foul.
Who wins finally?
The referee or the player?
Always the referee.
The referee's word is final.
He'll give him, I don't know, what is
it, a yellow card or red card?
There are various cards they give to sometimes
send them off the field if they argue
too much.
So don't argue with your referee because he
may send you off the field completely.
Whatever card it is to send you off.
Say, okay Lord, I'll do what you say.
Set it right and then move on.
What is the referee's sound?
How do you know the whistle is blown?
You lose your peace.
The peace is the referee.
Peace is gone.
You're agitated, troubled about something.
If you come to a church meeting agitated,
you should not open your mouth because that
agitation will come out of your mouth.
Never speak when you're agitated.
At home, if you're agitated about something, the
best way you can bless your wife is
by keeping your mouth shut.
Remember that.
When you're agitated, the referee is blown.
Set that foul right.
Every time your heart is agitated, something is
wrong.
Then he goes on to speak about something
very similar to what we read in Ephesians.
Chapter 5.
Give thanks in everything.
Verse 17.
Do everything in the name of Jesus.
Then wives, husbands, children, fathers, slaves, masters.
All the way from 3.18 to 4
.1. One more thing before I proceed.
Verse 15.
He said not only about this referee, but
he said be thankful for one another.
And he's speaking about the body here at
Greeks and Jews and circumcised.
Verse 11.
It's one very important requirement in the body
is to learn to be thankful for one
another.
I want to encourage you to listen to
the referee and be thankful for your fellow
believers.
And in the family, we already considered how
wives and husbands and slaves and masters and
children and parents must behave.
It says fathers.
Verse 21.
Don't exasperate your children.
Don't keep on nagging them, nagging them, nagging
them, nagging them, nagging them.
And they'll get discouraged.
Bring them up in a good way.
Husbands.
Verse 19.
Don't be bitter against your wife.
What a word.
In 365 days in a year, how many
days are you permitted to be bitter against
your wife?
Not even one.
When the Bible says don't murder, how many
days in a year are you permitted to
murder?
Not even one.
When the Bible says don't be bitter against
your wife, how many days are you permitted
to be bitter against your wife?
Not even one.
But some people think, yeah, murder is serious,
but being bitter is not so serious.
Who said that?
The same God who said don't murder also
said don't be bitter against your wife.
And if you're a serious Christian, you'll strive
to that goal where you're never bitter against
your wife even for a single day in
your life.
You'll be thankful.
Okay?
Masters, treat your slaves fairly.
Give them good wages.
Pay them properly.
Devote yourself to prayer.
Verse 2.
Verse 6.
Be careful about your speech.
Let your speech always be with grace so
that you always know how to reply to
each person who talks to you.
In everything that we say to people in
our conversation, there must always be grace.
Like I often told you, you may speak
like a lion in the pulpit as a
man of God, as a representative and mouthpiece
of God, but in your conversation, be like
a lamb.
Always with grace.
Always with kindness and mercy.
We move on to verse 12.
Here is a man called Ephaphras, the man
who established the church there.
He says he's always praying for you.
Paul says, what is he praying for?
That you people may become perfect.
You know, this was the burden of the
apostles.
That every brother and sister must become perfect
in Christ.
Fully assured in the will of God.
They were not happy with converts.
They were not happy even with people who
became disciples.
They wanted those disciples to become perfect.
They worked with them.
They were not so busy doing evangelism that
they didn't have time to build a church
to make people perfect.
That's God's plan for today.
And then, verse 16, he says, there's a
letter I've written to the church in Laodicea.
We'll come to the church in Laodicea in
Revelation chapter 3.
But notice here that Paul wrote a letter
to them.
And if they had listened to that letter
and taken heed to what Paul wrote, they
wouldn't have gotten to that problem that we
read in Revelation chapter 3.
Now that letter is not found in Scripture.
We don't know where it is.
God has not included it.
But I'm sure it was full of some
prophetic exhortations that could have saved that church
in Laodicea from the problem they faced.
Sometimes God sends a prophet to you to
give you a word.
You don't listen to him.
Years later, you suffer because of that.
Lastly, verse 17, he says to Archippus, it's
a beautiful exhortation, take heed to the ministry
which you received from the Lord that you
fulfill that.
He's not saying about what ministry other people
have received.
Leave them alone.
God has given you a particular ministry.
Fulfill it.
That was his exhortation.
There's a man mentioned here in verse 14
called Demas.
Demas at that point was a co-worker
of Paul, fulfilling the ministry God called him
for.
After a while, he got diverted and got
attracted to the things of the world as
we read in 2 Timothy 4 and went
astray.
Paul had experiences like that with some of
his workers, so he told Archippus, who was
in Colossae, you're a young brother, Archippus.
God has given you a ministry.
He's got a plan for your life.
He wants to do something through you, and
I say that to all of you.
Put your name in place of Archippus there.
I put my name in place of Archippus
there.
When I was a young man, I read
this verse, and I heard the Lord saying
to me through this verse, take heed to
the ministry I have given you that you
fulfill it.
Don't get sidetracked into something else, and I
want to say to all of you, don't
get sidetracked into social work if God has
called you to build a church.
Don't get sidetracked to sit behind a desk
if God's called you to evangelism or to
a prophetic ministry or a teaching ministry.
Take heed to the ministry God's given you
that you fulfill it.
Amen.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the challenge of
this letter, that Christ can be manifest in
our flesh today once again in our body.
We can do our part.
Help us to glorify you on earth, we
pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.