Colossians - What It's All About

One of my favorite verses in recent years has come to be Isaiah 41, 13, which says, for I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear, I will help you. Isn't that a great promise to know that at times when we are in difficult circumstances and great distress, we feel someone holding our hand and look up to realize that it is Christ Himself. It is the Lord who holds our hand, walks with us through the dark valleys of this life. Well, there seems to be a great fascination with Rome these days. I read just this past week in USA Today that there are a number of productions, major productions that have either been made in the last three or four years are now in process of being made about the days of Rome and the Caesars and what all went on in Rome. Well, I want us this evening just to go back in our minds to the city of Rome for a few moments. The date is AD 60 or 61 and as we look at that city, we find a man just about ready to leave that city for a long trip back home to the Roman province of Asia. His name is Ticacus and he's been in Rome because he's part of a missionary team of the Apostle Paul. In fact, he has been in prison with Paul for several months. If you look closely, he looks like he's been there even longer than that, but now he's released from prison and he's on his journey home. The work must go on. On his journey home, if you look a little closely, you find he's got three letters that he's carrying. No postal system for private citizens in that day. There was a postal system, but most private mail was carried by individuals and Paul is sending three letters with this man named Ticacus. One letter is to the church at Ephesus, to the Ephesian church. The letter we have in our Bibles, to the Ephesians was sent to the church at this occasion by Paul through Ticacus. The second letter is a letter to a friend by the name of Philemon. Philemon has become acquainted with Paul and Paul knows him well. Philemon is a man, a wealthy businessman who has had something happen in his household, a slave that had worked for him called Onesimus, had stolen some money from him and taken off to Rome, probably to escape to the big city and evidently did something to get thrown in. Prison four met up with the apostle Paul, Paul won him to Christ, and now Paul is sending him back to the city of Colossi to once again reunite with his master Philemon. So the second letter is a personal letter to Philemon explaining that situation. The third letter that this man carries is the letter we're going to begin looking at tonight, the letter to the Colossians. This was a letter to a church that met in Philemon's house in the city of Colossi. So the book of Colossians is directed to this group of believers meeting in the house of Philemon in the city of Colossi. And I'd like to have you open your Bibles to the book of Colossians where we tonight will begin a series of studies on the book of Colossians. And tonight I want to introduce that study. We'll just give some introduction, talk a little bit about the church and the city and so forth. Let's begin by talking about the Colossian church. As far as we know, Paul had never visited this city nor had he established this church. You say, well, why is he writing them a letter? Well, we're going to talk about that. But as far as we know, Paul had never visited the city or he did not establish this church. He gives us a hint to that effect in chapter 2 and verse 1 when he says, I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Leotusia and for all though, for all who have not met me personally. That indicates that he had not been the Colossi, he had not been the Leotusia, he did not establish personally those churches, although he had had some contact with them. So why is he writing them a letter? Why does he feel responsible for this church if he's never visited there and he did not found this church? Well, the answer is found back in the book of Acts, chapter 19. So let's take a moment to go back to the book of Acts and see a little bit about Paul's ministry in this part of Asia, Acts, chapter 19. The 19th chapter of Acts describes an outstanding ministry of the Apostle Paul in the city of Ephesus, which is about a hundred miles east of the city of Colossi. Ephesus is a coastal city, a large city, a major city in the province of Asia, which is one of the Roman provinces, kind of like a state in modern day Turkey. In Ephesus, Paul had just a fantastic ministry, if we just kind of glanced through, look at a few verses here in chapter 19, look at verse 8. This is his ministry in Ephesus. Now, Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God, but some of them became obstinate, they refused to believe and publicly maligned the way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of tyrannis. This went on for two years so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. So what's happening is radiating out from this city of Ephesus is a huge impact of the ministry of Paul, where the Bible can actually say that everybody in the whole province, Jew and Greek, had heard the gospel because of this tremendous ministry of the Apostle Paul and evidently others who were ministering with him. If you look down at verse 17, we find a little more. When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor, speaking about the reaction to a miracle that had taken place earlier. Verse 18, many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to 50,000 drachmas. In this way, the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. And then, in verse 26, if you'll notice another kind of summary statement of this ministry. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray, this is an accusation against him, he has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that man made gods or no gods at all. So just these little glimpses of his ministry and Ephesus tell us that there was a tremendous impact of that ministry for a hundred or more miles outside of the city of Ephesus. For these two years, the gospel is just blazing through new territory in this Roman province of Asia. Now, I think we have a map for you tonight that can kind of show if you can see this, where we're talking about. Of course, Jerusalem is down here, Paul's journeys are indicated on this map. Right here is Ephesus. Ephesus is a coastal city, a major port city, huge city, very important in every way in this part of the Roman world. And you can see Leotusia right here. Colossia would be just to the east of Leotusia. I don't believe it's on that map. I don't think so, but it is just like Bluefield Princeton would be Leotusia and Colossia, about ten miles apart. And so in this whole area from Ephesus, all of this province of Asia had heard the gospel, including the city of Colossia. Now, what had happened is evidently a man by the name of Epaphaelus had come from Colossia and had gotten under Paul's ministry, had heard the gospel from the Apostle Paul and took it back to Colossia. It is probably Epaphaelus who began the church, not Paul, but Epaphaelus who began the church. Now, if you look back at Colossians, we'll see that Paul mentions him a couple of times in a way that leads us to believe, Epaphaelus was the pastor of the church, or at least the founder of the church. In chapter 1 and verse 7 of Colossians, Paul says this, you learned it, speaking of the gospel of God's grace, you learned it from Epaphaelus, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the spirit. So he says, you heard the gospel from Epaphaelus, he's here in Rome now, and he's told us about how you're doing, but he is a faithful minister and a fellow servant. If you look at chapter 4, verse 12, you find another reference to Epaphaelus. 4-12 says, he is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Leotusia and Heraphaelus. So here is this man, Epaphaelus, who has heard Paul, probably in Ephesus, and has gone back to his hometown to start this church in Colossi, has faithfully ministered the Word of God there. He has now joined Paul in Rome, possibly also in prison with him, and sends his greetings back to his home church in Colossi. But he has also brought news of the Colossian church to Paul. He's brought some good news, as Paul said there in chapter 1, he's told us of your spirit, so he's brought some good news, but he's also brought some bad news. And the bad news is what forms the basis for this letter. The bad news is that there is a false teaching, almost a cult that has taken root in Colossi, and it's affecting the church there. And he warns Paul that there are bad things, doctrinally going on in the church at Colossi, and it needs some attention. So Paul writes this letter to correct the doctrinal errors in the church at Colossi, ones that are beginning to affect the church. So that leads me to talk for a few moments about the Colossian error. What was wrong in Colossi? What was going on there that Paul wrote this letter for? Paul saw in the report of a paffress an error that posed a very serious problem and was a very serious threat to the church at Colossi. And I think in order to understand this letter, we have to see what that threat was. We have to understand and see what was it in Colossi that was so dangerous. What were the elements of this cultic group or this false teaching that had begun to affect the church, and Paul was warning them about? Well, there are lots of things written about this, and it's a little difficult to really put the Colossian cult into a package and just presented as, you know, it's like this cult or that cult, there are strands of false teaching that we can pick up from the warnings that Paul gives, and the corrections he gives in the book. And you put those all together, and it doesn't fit with anything we really know about the ancient cults that were very prevalent. It evidently was some kind of off-brand false teaching kind of localized in that area, but there are several elements of false teaching that support this cult, and I want to talk about those for a moment, because they are very prevalent even today. And the book of Colossians is a good book for churches today to stay away from false teaching of several kinds. So let's take a look at what the false teaching was in Colossian. Several characteristics, about six of them. I guess the first one was Jewish legalism. There was a little bit of Jewish legalism in this false teaching. If you look at chapter two, verses 14 to 17, you'll find Paul talking about that. Let's go back to verse 13. When you were dead in your sins, and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us, and that stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphant over them by the cross. Now, just pause for a moment. In verse 14, he has made it clear that the cross canceled out the law, the written code, the Jewish law, the Old Testament, Mosaic law, that stood against us, the Mosaic law that condemned us, that showed us we fell short of God's glory, that we're all sinners. God does not expect us to live up to the national law that was given to Israel. That is a serious error that afflicts the church today. So he goes on to say in verse 16, because that law was nailed to the cross. Verse 16, he says, therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration, or a Sabbath day, these are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ. What he's saying is don't go back to these Old Testament observances, the observances taught in the Mosaic law, certain religious festivals, at certain times of the year, or new moon celebrations every month, those were Jewish holy days, or even the Sabbath day. He's saying don't go back to that kind of teaching, which was found in the Jewish law, those things were only temporary. They were only a shadow that pointed to the fact that there must be something real over there. Whenever you see a shadow, you think, there's something over there. I mean, I'll be able to see it yet, but I can see the evidence of it. And something on the other side of this shadow is very real and is causing the shadow. Paul says these Old Testament things in the law were just the shadow. And the reality was Christ. All of these things just kind of pointed toward Christ. Christ was the fulfillment of all of these Old Testament observances. So why go back to observing the Sabbath day, or the new moon celebration, or rather religious festivals, or other Jewish legalistic observances? There was a little bit of Jewish legalism in this cult that Paul warns against. And we need to be on guard against that today. It's very easy for those things to slip into good Bible believing churches, just like the church at Colossi. And so we need to be on guard and be warned that we are no longer under the Jewish law. That doesn't mean the whole Old Testament is canceled. The Old Testament is two-thirds of our Bible. It's inspired by God. It's still God's word. But we have to understand that the purpose of the written mosaic law is not for church observance. It was for the nation of Israel. Now there are lots of other things in the Old Testament that still apply to us, and that we still should learn from and live by. Obviously, that reflect the character of God and his desire for holiness for his people. But the specific regulations that were designed for Israel were no longer to live by. Regardless of who tells you that we are still under certain food laws, or certain holy days, laws, or anything like that, that's part of the error that Paul's warning against. So take note, Jewish legalism still alive today, still being pushed at the church today, we need to be on guard against it. The second element of this cult and Colossi, or this error in Colossi, was Greek philosophy. If you look at chapter 2, verse 8, you see a reference to this. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. Evidently, there was some kind of philosophy that was kind of in the mixture of this false teaching. It was probably Greek philosophy. That was the philosophy of the day in New Testament times. And it probably, in line with some other warnings in this epistle, probably had something to do with platonic, platos old philosophy was that everything material is evil, everything body, bodily or material that you can touch, see all that, that's evil, and only spirit is good. And that kind of philosophy fed into a full-blown cult a little bit later in the first century called Nosticism, which took that kind of philosophy and applied it to the life of Jesus and said Jesus Christ, the man, could not have been the Son of God because he had a material body, physical body. That's evil. He could not have been the Son of God. So there are a lot of strains of this false teaching running around in the first century. In the Colossian church, it evidently was some kind of philosophy. We don't know exactly all that it was, but in order to sound intellectual, you got to throw a bunch of philosophy in there along with the Jewish legalism. And that makes it sound really clever and articulate and academic, and boy, this must be really something. So there was a little bit of philosophy stuck in there, too. And then the third element was what's called asceticism. Now you'll see that spilled for you on the screen. asceticism is an extreme self-denial. It has to do with kind of in line with that Plato's philosophy that anything material is evil. Basically, asceticism teaches that the body and anything physical is evil. And so you need to renounce that. Any physical pleasure, any physical thing that would be delightful or pleasurable to you, that's evil. And so that's to be renounced and you're to live on some kind of higher spiritual plane. Now if you'll look at chapter 2, verse 20, you'll see some of this coming through. He says, since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why as though you still belong to it, do you submit to its rules? And then verse 21 gives three examples of these rules that we're not to submit to. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Now please understand that verse 21, taken out of its context, has been used to teach views of separation that are not biblical. Paul is not saying, verse 21 is for you, live this verse. He's saying verse 21 is an example of the kind of rules of asceticism that this cult was teaching. Anything that you can touch, taste or handle, stay away from. Notice it goes on in verse 22. These are all destined to perish with use, these rules, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body. But they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. Now, asceticism basically said, stay away from food, you know, have starve yourself to death. Don't marry, that's a physical pleasure that you shouldn't be involved in if you're really going to be spiritual. Stay away from all social contacts, in its extreme forms, it led to many people in the first century and for a couple of centuries after that, kind of going out and living in caves. And trying to get away from everything in the world, thinking if they just got away from everybody and every material thing, you know, gave away sold everything they had, nothing that you could see, touch, touch, taste, handle, you stay away from as much of that as possible, and you'll live on some kind of high spiritual plane. And Paul says, that's just a bunch of baloney. It's just an appearance of wisdom and self-imposed worship and false humility, like you're really something great. Paul says, that's just junk. There's nothing to that because it does not help you overcome temptation. You see, the problem is you can get away from everybody, you can get away from any physical or sensual pleasure, whether it's food, relationships, whatever. You can get away from all of that, thinking that you will be able to live on a higher spiritual plane and you know what you will find? And most of these early ascetics did find this. They carried their sin nature with them. They couldn't get rid of that. And so it didn't matter what kind of stimuli they had around them. They still had that sinful mind and sinful nature that still brought them temptation. And so Paul says, that's not the way to become spiritual, but there are still people today who teach that that's the way to become spiritual. Just stay away from a bunch of stuff, you know, and you'll be spiritual. That's not the way to become spiritual. Paul's going to tell us how to become spiritual in chapter 3, and we'll see that later on. The fourth mark of this collusion error that we still hear sometimes today is exclusiveness. Like, you know, I got some truth that you don't have. I'm on a different plane than you spiritually. You know, I'm kind of on the inside, you know, and maybe one of these days you'll get where I am. You know, it may not be said that way, but that's the way it comes across. Look at chapter 2 verse 18. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. Paul is not pulling any punches here, is he? You know, he's talking about people that base everything on experience. Well, I've experienced this, I've seen this, I have felt this, and you know, when you're talking with people like that regardless of what you say the Bible says, it doesn't make any difference to them. They're on a higher plane than you are. They felt something, they've experienced something, they've seen something, and they talk a lot about that and not about the word of God. And Paul says, he's got an unspiritual mind, he's puffed up with idle notions, is really all that is. So be careful about an exclusiveness that says, you know, I know the voice of God, you don't, but I do, I've heard this, I've experienced this, and let me tell you, that's still alive and well today. It really is. I still hear it from time to time. But people who say, well, you know, I've experienced or seen this or heard this or felt this in a particular church, I don't care what you feel. But feelings are not what we base our beliefs on. Now it's a wonderful thing to sense the presence of God and to sense that you're in His presence, and I've felt those kinds of things, but I don't dare believe what I believe based on what I've felt. That's dangerous. And so some kind of exclusiveness that says, well, I've felt this, I've experienced this, and you poor benitant souls may get there someday, but you're not quite on my level yet. That's just false humility Paul says. There's nothing to that. And the same kind of exclusiveness Paul rejects in chapter 3, verse 11, where he says, when you're in Christ, verse 10, he says, verse 11, here, there is no Greek or Jews, circumcised or unsurcumcised barbarian, sithian, slave or free, but Christ is in all and is all. So what he's saying is that there are no distinctions in Christ. It's all about Christ. It's not about me, it's not about you, it's not about what any of us have experienced or heard or seen or felt or anything like that. It is all about Jesus Christ and what this book presents about Him. So a kind of exclusive little club that's been on the inside of some secrets that God has, be careful of that. That is one of the fastest ways to false teaching. And anyone who comes along and says, well, I've experienced this, I've felt this, I've seen this, and kind of smiles at you like, you know, you're kind of down here, and I'm up here. Be careful of that. Watch out for that. That's dangerous. That's very dangerous. It's one of the things Paul warns against. The fifth part, is it fifth? Yeah, fifth part of this thing that Paul warns against is a defective view of Christ. And this is the core of what Paul's going to address in this letter, a defective view of Christ. In chapter 2 verse 8, he has said, see to it that no one takes your capital through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition, and the basic principles of this world. Now here it is, rather than on Christ. Anytime the Lord Jesus Christ and the biblical teaching about Christ takes a back seat to human tradition and basic principles of this world. And we'll find out what that phrase means as we go through the book and talk about that a little more closely. Anytime the Lord Jesus Christ and what the Bible teaches about him takes a back seat to that kind of thing, we're in trouble. It's a defective view of Christ because Christ, as Paul will tell us in this book, is to be preeminent in all things in the church. He has to be the focal point in the church, and he is in creation as well. In chapter 2 verse 19, Paul speaking about this person who delights in false humility in verse 19 says he has lost connection with the head. That's Christ, from whom the whole body supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews grows as God causes it to grow. See, a person like this is all about himself or herself rather than about Christ. They've lost touch with Christ and talking about him and magnifying him and exalting him. It's all about them and what has happened in their life. And so Paul says, you've got a defective view of Christ. Now, one of the most dangerous signs of this cult in Colossi and of some teaching like it today is the sixth part of this error and that is the claim to be Christian. Taking all of this stuff and putting it together, Jewish legalism, Greek philosophy, asceticism with all its rules about what you're to stay away from, exclusiveness, like I'm on a higher plane than you, and a defective view of Christ. Mix that all up in a pot and then call it Christian. And there is a lot of stuff like that still going on today. You can hear it all over your television set. You can read it in popular books today. Be careful. Be very careful. Who you begin to listen to and swallow. I mean, we should test everyone by the word of God, including anything that comes from this pulpit. And we should test it by the word of God. Make sure it's biblical because that's the only thing that will stand the test of eternity. So that's the problem. That's the error kind of putting together some of the strands of thought that Paul rebukes in this letter. That's what he's going to talk about, the Colossian error in this book. Now, that leads me very quickly to an overview of the book. I want to give you an outline of the book of Colossians. And I think we also have this on the screen. So let's just take a look at it. Here's the introduction to the book. In fact, this one of Paul's longer introductions almost compares with Romans for an introduction where Paul gives them greeting in the first couple of verses. A long Thanksgiving for them and a five, six verse prayer for them that is just a masterpiece that we'll look at in a couple of weeks. After this long introduction, Paul begins to talk about his main theme in the book. If we can get up the next part of the outline there, and that is Christ's Lordship. If I were to pick a theme of the book, and this is what we're going to center our teaching around in this book in Colossians, if I were to pick a theme, it would be the Lordship of Christ. That's the center part of this book. That's what this book is really all about. So Paul talks about Christ's Lordship in creation in the church and the church in chapter one. You can see that he talks about his person that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is God in human flesh, his position in creation, and in the church, and then he talks about his work for the church. He's a reconciliation, and then his work through his servant, Paul, in giving the gospel to the church. So Jesus Christ is preeminent, he is Lord in creation, and in the church. Then in chapter two, we have the next part of the Lordship of Christ, and that is his Lordship in doctrine. This is the real heart of the book where Paul warns against the false teaching. What he does first is he expresses his concern for the church in the first five verses, then presents true doctrine in verses six through fifteen. He will describe what it means to be saved and to be in Christ and to be centered on him, and then he will warn about this false doctrine as we have seen, and we're going to look at three elements of it when we get down there to the end of chapter two. Then in chapters three and four, we find Christ's Lordship in the believer's life. That's the practical part of the book. You know, Christ is not only Lord in creation and the church in doctrine. He is also to be the focal point of our Christian lives, the way we live. And so he talks about in verses one through four of chapter three, the power for the Christian life, then he gives us the principles of the Christian life. The principles of the old life, principles of the new life, those are putting off the old man, putting on the new man, that kind of thing, and the character qualities that go along with really living out the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And then after verse seventeen, he gets to the practicality of the Christian life. It becomes very practical at this point where he talks about the Lordship of Christ in the home, with husbands and wives, parents and children, servants and masters, and then church members. How Christ is to be the Lord of our relationship with each other in the church. And then Paul gives in the last part of this book one of the longer conclusions and his epistles too. Again, it rivals the long conclusion in Romans for such a short letter. It's a very long conclusion where he mentions a lot of different people and gives us kind of a behind the scenes look at first century church life. It's a really fascinating part of the book and we'll take a look at it when we get there. But that's an overview of the book. Lordship of Christ, in creation in the church, in doctrine and in the practical Christian life. It's all centered around the Lord Jesus. It's a wonderful book in that regard. Let's take the last five minutes or so to look at the first two verses. So we're going to look at Paul's greeting in verses one and two and we'll close with that. Verse one, Paul and a apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossi, grace and peace to you from God our Father. Now you'll notice three things about the greeting. First of all, we're introduced to the author. The author is Paul. And he says, I am an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. So the first thing Paul says about himself, the author is that he is an apostle. Now the word apostle literally means sent one. One sent out with a commission with a message. One sent out by someone to represent that person. But in the New Testament an apostle was someone who was sent out in a special sense. Actually the word is used in two ways in the New Testament. Sometimes it's used more loosely of just people who are sent out by someone to represent them. But it's also used in a more technical sense, a more specialized sense of one sent out by the Lord Jesus to represent him. Now in order to be that kind of an apostle, it's quite clear from the book of Acts chapter one when the apostles gave the qualifications for who they would choose to replace Judas. It's quite clear that they knew that an apostle had to be one who had seen Jesus Christ and had been directly commissioned by him into the ministry. And it's quite clear also in the New Testament that an apostle was one who was part of the work of Christ in founding the early church, starting the early church, laying the foundation. Ephesians 2.20 says the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. So they laid the foundation of the church, got it started in the first century. Because of their specialized ministry, God gave them special powers, special gifts, miraculous sign gifts that were signs credentials of their ministry. And the gifts which no longer exist today, like the ability to heal people and speaking in tongues and those kinds of sign gifts, those the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 12-12 were the signs of an apostle. They were designed to be the credentials that told us these men were sent from God. Now Paul claims to be an apostle even though he did not minister with Jesus during Jesus' earthly ministry. So how does he fit in with the other group of apostles, the other 11? Well Paul himself in 1 Corinthians 15 says, I'm like an apostle born out of due season. In other words, he realizes that chronologically time wise, he doesn't fit with the others, but he was uniquely especially chosen by God and commissioned by him. Where did he see Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus when he saw the Lord Jesus and heard his voice was blinded by that glorious light of the person of Christ and Christ specifically commissioned him into the ministry and put him into the ministry. So Paul was an apostle, but he hastens to say not only wasn't the apostle, he was an apostle by the will of God. You see Paul used the title of an apostle to show that he had the authority to address the problem in the Colossian church. He had not visited Colossi, he had not been to that church, he had not founded that church, but he had the authority to deal with the problem in that church because he was an apostle. But he wants to make it clear that he was an apostle, not because of his own success or ability or worth, he was an apostle by the will of God. God had put him into that position and it had nothing to do with his great learning or ability or anything like that. It was by the will of God. So he's an apostle by the will of God. In verse 2, he also mentions Timothy, who's with him in Rome at this time, is being a coworker with him. But in verse 2, we're introduced to the readers. First of all, look at who they are. He says to the holy and faithful brothers, that's who they are. They are holy, first of all. Now, did you know that everyone here who knows Jesus Christ as Savior is holy also? You say, well, my husband doesn't think, or my wife doesn't think I'm very holy. But there's an interesting use of this word there. The King James has the word saints. In the New Testament, the word saint, the word holy simply means to be one that is set apart for God. And in this context, he's talking about people who've been set apart in salvation. They've been taken out of the world and set apart to be God's children by salvation. So everyone who's saved is a saint. You don't have to live an exemplary life and do wonderful things on this world by way of service. And then when you die, some church official canonizes you as a saint. That's not what he's talking about. Anyone who's set apart to Christ in the gospel is a saint. If you're saved, you're a saint. Turn around and look at your wife and say, you are a saint. You know, don't do that. But that, but she is if she's saved. You're a saint. But you're also a saint and you are a holy or a faithful brother. Not only are they saints, they're faithful brothers, who they are. They're character, faithfulness demonstrated that they were saints, that they were saved. And also demonstrated they had not yet been caught up, at least the ones he's addressing, had not yet been caught up in this error that was afflicting the church. That's who they are. But then notice where they are in verse two, they are in Christ at Colossi. Do you know every one of us has two residences. One eternal, one temporary. If you are a Christian, you have two residences. One is in Christ, one is at Princeton, Bluefield, Rockigab, Perisburg, wherever you live. You are in Christ and you are at a particular geographical location. It's very important that we keep those two things in balance. In Christ gives us our spiritual identity where we live gives us our mission field, our place where we represent Christ in this world. And if we ever get either of those out of balance and we begin to think of ourselves as only people who live in Princeton or in whatever town and we forget that we're in Christ, then we lose something of our effectiveness and being his representatives. But also on the other hand, if we only think about the fact that we're in Christ and we forget that we are at Princeton or at Rockigab, or wherever, then we lose our opportunity to live in a real world in real life affecting real people with a real message that will change their lives. And so we need to understand we have two residences. We are in Christ, we are at a particular physical location. And then quickly the desired blessing in verse two, grace and peace to you from God our Father. Familiar greeting with Paul, grace and peace, the two things this old world needs more than anything else, the grace of God in Christ, his gracious favor given to us in his Son, and the peace, the inner calm and assurance and spiritual health that will carry us through difficult times. There is nothing this world, nothing we need anymore than grace and peace. What a great blessing that is to have. Well, that's how Paul begins this wonderful book and as we go through it in the next few weeks, next few months possibly, we will see that God has a lot for us here both to warn us about and also to build us up with all centered around the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's bow in prayer. Father, we are thankful for these letters written to real people in real churches 1900 years ago. And yet very applicable to us today. Lord, help us to learn from this wonderful book the things that you want us to learn and apply them to our lives. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.