In my biblical exposition course, we've reached a point now where we are formally delivering sermons in a lab-type setting to our other group members in order to get feedback and take another step forward. Wednesday night will be my first go around. I've got the rough draft of the sermon typed up, so I thought I'd post it here since this class is one of the biggest reasons I've been completely unable to write with any sense of regularity in the past several weeks. It's over Colossians 1:15-23. The sermon, minus a lead and a few personal stories I'll include while speaking, is included below. Feedback is welcome.
A Dual-Threat Approach
Paul uses a combination of fact and personal experience in his letter to the Colossians. Writing to a small church who was being led astray by distractions and deception, Paul sought to re-focus them on what really matters.
Colossians 1:15-23
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifiting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
In an
effort to provide a rudder to a drifting group of believers, Paul uses a dual
threat approach. First, he offers them logic. “Let me give you a rundown of
what you know to be true about Jesus,” Paul says. “Let’s take a look at the
facts.” And he wisely proceeds to recenter their view of the gospel by
describing fundamental truths about who and what Christ is. Christ is not just
a good idea. He’s not just a good man who spoke well, healed a few people, and
offered relevant life advice. No, Christ is much more than that.
First, Christ is the Sovereign God of the Universe. He doesn’t just teach about God; He is God. Paul’s letter tells us that Jesus is the image of God (v. 15), the Creator of all (v. 16), and before all things (v. 17). He is preeminent (v. 18), the head (v. 18), the beginning (v. 18), the dwelling place of God (v. 19), proclaimed in all creation (v. 23).
Secondly, Christ is the Messiah. He is the Savior. He defeated death and sin for us. He is what all of the Old Testament was pointing towards. Paul writes that he is the firstborn from the dead (v. 18), the One who drew all near to Him through death (v. 20). He is the hope of the gospel (v. 23). He is the good news - that we’ve been forgiven, that our insurmountable debt is paid, that we’ve been offered an eternity in the presence of our Holy God.
This is why I do what I do, says Paul in verse 23. I became a minister to teach Christ-crucified.
Through this list of facts, the church at Colosse should clearly see Christ as the source of truth, worthy of all awe and worship. This should appeal to us as well. This knowledge should move us and strike our souls, piercing us with awe and understanding. It should give us pause, forcing us to consider what our actions say about what we believe about Christ. When I go about my day, do my job and interact with my family and my neighbor and strangers, when I’m alone or together, when I’m tired or not, do my actions say that I know Jesus, the Jesus who is Lord over all and my Savior?
Sometimes facts and logic aren’t enough. Often times, in fact. Familiarity can lead to forgetfulness. For many of you, what I just told you is not earth-shattering. You’ve heard this almost weekly in church services. You’ve heard it from your family or from a teacher or mentor. You’ve heard them so many times, that they tragically don’t necessarily jump-start your heart. The church of Colosse knew these facts as well. Paul was reminding them. But he does more than that in this passage. He goes after the heart as well as the mind.
What we see in verses 21 and 22 is Paul telling believers that not only has Christ changed the world and all of eternity, he changed you. This big, sovereign, God of all has taken you and transformed you. Verse 21 provides the before picture: you were alienated, you were hostile, and you were evil. You weren’t pretty good. You weren’t “okay, because I’m not as bad as some other people.” You, steeped in all of your sin, were reprehensible in the site of a holy and perfect God. And you didn’t change it. It wasn’t your hard work or your wisdom that did this. It couldn’t have been. Christ intervened. Christ changed you.
The after picture is there in verse 22 in all of its glory: you are now holy, blameless, and above reproach. You are now in the arms of the God who loves you and wants desperately to collect you back to your rightful place with Him.
If you have experienced conversion, if you have believed in Christ as your Savior, you know this to be true. You know just how different you are because of Christ. And for some of you, when you tell about it, when you talk about what you once were, and then talk about what Jesus is, the tears well up, because words just can’t do justice to what he’s done for you.
Christians - your story is a miracle. These two verses, this change in you, is the gospel. Those of you who have not believed this yet, you have been offered this miracle. This is the good news I have for you today.
So what do we do with this? We prepare.
You are going to face distractions.
Distractions are all around. Lies, too. It’s going to happen. What we need to make sure and do, therefore, is arm ourselves and prepare to combat them. We must know them, recognize them, and protect ourselves from them so that nothing stands in the way of our focus and understanding of the true gospel.
One obvious source of distraction is the way that tough times leak, or sometimes flood, into our lives. Work frustrations, relationship frustrations, money frustrations - they can all scream for our attention and ask us to make more of them than we do of God. All of us a sudden the immediate in our lives trumps our desire to focus on the ultimate. Today’s problems dwarf eternity’s promises. Despite the fact that we know better, that we’ve been commanded time and time again not to, we worry. Then that worry exposes a lack of faith, so then we worry about a lack of faith and about whatever trouble has spilled into our lives.
Another source of distraction, one that is much more sly, is blessings. For absent an ever-present spirit of gratitude, we begin to subtly believe that we are just fine on our own. When we are blessed with comfort, blessed with wealth, blessed with great kids and a great spouse and a great job and a great home to come home to where we are greeted by a great dog, God may become less relevant. We might even fall into that familiar lie: I did this. I earned this. More importantly, I deserve this. Suddenly, without ever realizing anything was wrong, we get to a point where we can no longer hold all things loosely except for Christ-crucified.
This lie is only one of many that we will face daily in our culture. And we are barraged by these lies. Told the lie once or twice, and we’re fully capable of standing up and calling it what it is. But told them repeatedly, everywhere we look, and surrounded by many who believe them and have sold their lives on the premise of their truth, we all of a sudden find ourselves in our own private battle to keep the truth solidly in our minds.
One of these lies is that you are behind. Right now. You are behind on retirement, behind on life accomplishments, behind in the corporate climb, and even behind in your spiritual life. You’ve got to hurry up and learn more, do more, earn more, save more, and be recognized for more, because you are behind. Not only are you behind, your kids are behind. You aren’t doing enough with them. Why don’t you have them involved in more activities? How will they ever compete in this world? They are falling behind their peers athletically, academically, and socially. And it’s all your fault. Hurry up and do something, or they will be left behind.
You are also attacked with lies about your identity. You will be tempted to define yourself by what you do, your marriage status, the accomplishments of your kids, or the size of your house.
And you will be told that you deserve more. No lie will feel quite as good to accept as truth.
What do these lies do to us? Exactly what they are designed to do - get us to believe in false gospels. All of a sudden we begin to believe that the good news of Jesus Christ is not Christ himself. Our hope is in something or someone else. Our hope is in our earthly home. We must ruthlessly and doggedly and passionately take care that we do not lose sight of the fact that Jesus, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, the head of the church and the creator of great and total and eternal change in us is the gospel.
The good news of Jesus Christ is not a comfortable life. It is not a pain-free life, or even a risk-free life. The gospel is not money or your dream job. It is not a perfect marriage and perfect kids. The gospel is not “Your Best Life Now,” as one prosperity gospel preacher promises. We do not come here to church to learn the Bible and sing praise and meet with each other and pray so that we will get these things. In fact, the gospel should remind us just broken our world is, so broken that it required a Perfect Sacrifice in order to save us. For these other goals are alternative gods, capable of grabbing our attention and praise and hope. They are capable of driving us deeper into a lie.
Instead, we must feed ourselves with a steady diet of logic and emotion, of heart and head, so that we remain Christ-centered. One or the other alone will not sustain us. We will either know much and feel little, or we will be enthusiastically in love with a God that we don’t know.
Fortunately for us, we can get both in the Bible. The Bible is filled with facts about who Jesus is. It is also full of emotional responses to those truths. Recently I personally found myself bogged down by an academic approach to the Bible. I was learning a lot, but I felt rigid and stiff in this knowledge. I wasn’t moved by it. The Bible became a puzzle to decode, a text to analyze. Over my 30 minutes to each lunch, I try to read a little bit in my classroom if I’m not eating with someone else. I decided to take the step during lunch to read only from the book of Psalms for a while. Now each day I get a dose of poetry, of passion, of a soul’s response to the goodness of God. And that has made the knowledge even sweeter.
We can speak and listen to each other’s stories about Christ’s work in our lives. Spend time with people who remind you of who Christ is and what He’s done. We can study together and question each other. We can reflect and write and read and pray.
Whatever we do, we must stay Christ-centered, swaying neither to right nor to the left, avoiding distraction and deception. And we can do this, through Christ, with Christ, and for Christ, with a full head and a full heart.
First, Christ is the Sovereign God of the Universe. He doesn’t just teach about God; He is God. Paul’s letter tells us that Jesus is the image of God (v. 15), the Creator of all (v. 16), and before all things (v. 17). He is preeminent (v. 18), the head (v. 18), the beginning (v. 18), the dwelling place of God (v. 19), proclaimed in all creation (v. 23).
Secondly, Christ is the Messiah. He is the Savior. He defeated death and sin for us. He is what all of the Old Testament was pointing towards. Paul writes that he is the firstborn from the dead (v. 18), the One who drew all near to Him through death (v. 20). He is the hope of the gospel (v. 23). He is the good news - that we’ve been forgiven, that our insurmountable debt is paid, that we’ve been offered an eternity in the presence of our Holy God.
This is why I do what I do, says Paul in verse 23. I became a minister to teach Christ-crucified.
Through this list of facts, the church at Colosse should clearly see Christ as the source of truth, worthy of all awe and worship. This should appeal to us as well. This knowledge should move us and strike our souls, piercing us with awe and understanding. It should give us pause, forcing us to consider what our actions say about what we believe about Christ. When I go about my day, do my job and interact with my family and my neighbor and strangers, when I’m alone or together, when I’m tired or not, do my actions say that I know Jesus, the Jesus who is Lord over all and my Savior?
Sometimes facts and logic aren’t enough. Often times, in fact. Familiarity can lead to forgetfulness. For many of you, what I just told you is not earth-shattering. You’ve heard this almost weekly in church services. You’ve heard it from your family or from a teacher or mentor. You’ve heard them so many times, that they tragically don’t necessarily jump-start your heart. The church of Colosse knew these facts as well. Paul was reminding them. But he does more than that in this passage. He goes after the heart as well as the mind.
What we see in verses 21 and 22 is Paul telling believers that not only has Christ changed the world and all of eternity, he changed you. This big, sovereign, God of all has taken you and transformed you. Verse 21 provides the before picture: you were alienated, you were hostile, and you were evil. You weren’t pretty good. You weren’t “okay, because I’m not as bad as some other people.” You, steeped in all of your sin, were reprehensible in the site of a holy and perfect God. And you didn’t change it. It wasn’t your hard work or your wisdom that did this. It couldn’t have been. Christ intervened. Christ changed you.
The after picture is there in verse 22 in all of its glory: you are now holy, blameless, and above reproach. You are now in the arms of the God who loves you and wants desperately to collect you back to your rightful place with Him.
If you have experienced conversion, if you have believed in Christ as your Savior, you know this to be true. You know just how different you are because of Christ. And for some of you, when you tell about it, when you talk about what you once were, and then talk about what Jesus is, the tears well up, because words just can’t do justice to what he’s done for you.
Christians - your story is a miracle. These two verses, this change in you, is the gospel. Those of you who have not believed this yet, you have been offered this miracle. This is the good news I have for you today.
So what do we do with this? We prepare.
You are going to face distractions.
Distractions are all around. Lies, too. It’s going to happen. What we need to make sure and do, therefore, is arm ourselves and prepare to combat them. We must know them, recognize them, and protect ourselves from them so that nothing stands in the way of our focus and understanding of the true gospel.
One obvious source of distraction is the way that tough times leak, or sometimes flood, into our lives. Work frustrations, relationship frustrations, money frustrations - they can all scream for our attention and ask us to make more of them than we do of God. All of us a sudden the immediate in our lives trumps our desire to focus on the ultimate. Today’s problems dwarf eternity’s promises. Despite the fact that we know better, that we’ve been commanded time and time again not to, we worry. Then that worry exposes a lack of faith, so then we worry about a lack of faith and about whatever trouble has spilled into our lives.
Another source of distraction, one that is much more sly, is blessings. For absent an ever-present spirit of gratitude, we begin to subtly believe that we are just fine on our own. When we are blessed with comfort, blessed with wealth, blessed with great kids and a great spouse and a great job and a great home to come home to where we are greeted by a great dog, God may become less relevant. We might even fall into that familiar lie: I did this. I earned this. More importantly, I deserve this. Suddenly, without ever realizing anything was wrong, we get to a point where we can no longer hold all things loosely except for Christ-crucified.
This lie is only one of many that we will face daily in our culture. And we are barraged by these lies. Told the lie once or twice, and we’re fully capable of standing up and calling it what it is. But told them repeatedly, everywhere we look, and surrounded by many who believe them and have sold their lives on the premise of their truth, we all of a sudden find ourselves in our own private battle to keep the truth solidly in our minds.
One of these lies is that you are behind. Right now. You are behind on retirement, behind on life accomplishments, behind in the corporate climb, and even behind in your spiritual life. You’ve got to hurry up and learn more, do more, earn more, save more, and be recognized for more, because you are behind. Not only are you behind, your kids are behind. You aren’t doing enough with them. Why don’t you have them involved in more activities? How will they ever compete in this world? They are falling behind their peers athletically, academically, and socially. And it’s all your fault. Hurry up and do something, or they will be left behind.
You are also attacked with lies about your identity. You will be tempted to define yourself by what you do, your marriage status, the accomplishments of your kids, or the size of your house.
And you will be told that you deserve more. No lie will feel quite as good to accept as truth.
What do these lies do to us? Exactly what they are designed to do - get us to believe in false gospels. All of a sudden we begin to believe that the good news of Jesus Christ is not Christ himself. Our hope is in something or someone else. Our hope is in our earthly home. We must ruthlessly and doggedly and passionately take care that we do not lose sight of the fact that Jesus, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, the head of the church and the creator of great and total and eternal change in us is the gospel.
The good news of Jesus Christ is not a comfortable life. It is not a pain-free life, or even a risk-free life. The gospel is not money or your dream job. It is not a perfect marriage and perfect kids. The gospel is not “Your Best Life Now,” as one prosperity gospel preacher promises. We do not come here to church to learn the Bible and sing praise and meet with each other and pray so that we will get these things. In fact, the gospel should remind us just broken our world is, so broken that it required a Perfect Sacrifice in order to save us. For these other goals are alternative gods, capable of grabbing our attention and praise and hope. They are capable of driving us deeper into a lie.
Instead, we must feed ourselves with a steady diet of logic and emotion, of heart and head, so that we remain Christ-centered. One or the other alone will not sustain us. We will either know much and feel little, or we will be enthusiastically in love with a God that we don’t know.
Fortunately for us, we can get both in the Bible. The Bible is filled with facts about who Jesus is. It is also full of emotional responses to those truths. Recently I personally found myself bogged down by an academic approach to the Bible. I was learning a lot, but I felt rigid and stiff in this knowledge. I wasn’t moved by it. The Bible became a puzzle to decode, a text to analyze. Over my 30 minutes to each lunch, I try to read a little bit in my classroom if I’m not eating with someone else. I decided to take the step during lunch to read only from the book of Psalms for a while. Now each day I get a dose of poetry, of passion, of a soul’s response to the goodness of God. And that has made the knowledge even sweeter.
We can speak and listen to each other’s stories about Christ’s work in our lives. Spend time with people who remind you of who Christ is and what He’s done. We can study together and question each other. We can reflect and write and read and pray.
Whatever we do, we must stay Christ-centered, swaying neither to right nor to the left, avoiding distraction and deception. And we can do this, through Christ, with Christ, and for Christ, with a full head and a full heart.
