Sermon Supplements – Page 28

Why Beg for Crumbs when you Have the Bread of Life? (Colossians 1:24–29)

The mystery of the gospel isn’t very mysterious for the saints, therefore, beware of the mysterious. The mystery religions of Paul’s day had a hierarchy of knowers. One ascended the ladder by means of rites, experiences, and acts of piety. It seems that false teaching blending pagan mystery religion and Jewish mysticism was attempting to make inroads at Colossae (i.e. Colossians 2:18–19). Be certain, it’s made its way well into the church today. Beware of spiritual Christian caste systems.

You don’t need the mysterious when the mystery entrusted to the apostles has been revealed to you. Jesus is sufficient. This means the Scriptures are sufficient. You don’t need angels, saints, or oil to get a spiritual high. Talk of second blessing is laughable when the first one gave you everything. Prophecies are puny compared to the revelation of the mystery given to the church through Christ’s apostles. Anxiety for a fresh word is like the billionaire worrying if his social security will come through. Why beg for crumbs when the apostles hold forth the Bread of Life?

Sarah Young says she hears from Jesus. Like a modern apostle, she passes along her revelation in a book she titled Jesus Calling. It’s sold over ten million copies. Therein she says, “This practice of listening to God has increased my intimacy with Him more than any other spiritual discipline, so I want to share some of the messages I have received. In many parts of the world, Christians seem to be searching for a deeper experience of Jesus’ Presence and Peace. The messages that follow address that felt need.”

Jesus is the final word and His apostles are His final word on Himself as the final Word. No others are necessary.

In contrast consider John Piper’s testimony of hearing God speak to him. He begins, “Let me tell you about a most wonderful experience I had early Monday morning, March 19, 2007, a little after six o’clock. God actually spoke to me. There is no doubt that it was God.” After many paragraphs that could cause concern that Piper is siding with the likes of Young, he clarifies:

“And best of all, [these words] are available to all. If you would like to hear the very same words I heard on the couch in northern Minnesota, read Psalm 66:5–7. That is where I heard them. O, how precious is the Bible. It is the very word of God. In it God speaks in the twenty-first century. This is the very voice of God. By this voice, he speaks with absolute truth and personal force. By this voice, he reveals his all-surpassing beauty. By this voice, he reveals the deepest secrets of our hearts. No voice anywhere anytime can reach as deep or lift as high or carry as far as the voice of God that we hear in the Bible.”

You don’t need more than Jesus. You don’t need more than His word.

If (Colossians 1:21–23)

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 shifting 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. —Colossians 1:21–23

This once/now contrast is only a reality if. Colossians 1:21 is true of all men. All men were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, but for many, there is no contrasting now, as evidenced by the failure of this if. This is not to say that a Christian can revert from their now of reconciliation to their once of alienation. It is to say there is evidence that they never made the transition. Who they once were, they’ve always been and still are.

This is not an if of grounds, but an if of evidence. When a doctor says, “If you have these symptoms, then you have the flu,” the symptoms are not the grounds or cause of the flu. Coughing doesn’t make you sick; being sick makes you cough. Symptoms are not he grounds of sickness; they are the evidence of sickness.

Continuing in the faith does not make you reconciled, any more than sneezing makes you sick. Continuing in the faith evidences reconciliation. If one is reconciled, they necessarily show forth this evidence. “For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end (Hebrews 4:13).”

The saints of old spoke of “the perseverance of the saints,” whereas we hear “once saved always saved,” or “eternal security.” Perseverance does not say less but more than these other terms. “Once saved always saved,” taken alone, is a neutered version of perseverance. “Eternal security,” is a good enough term, but often disguises an emasculated doctrinal definition. Perseverance says God’s saving grace not only secures your justification and glorification, but keeps you on the road of sanctification that runs from one to the other. Listen to how the Westminster Divines teased this out.

They, whom God has accepted in His Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.

This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ, the abiding of the Spirit, and of the seed of God within them, and the nature of the covenant of grace: from all which arises also the certainty and infallibility thereof.

The flip side of perseverance is preservation. We persevere in the faith because God preserves our faith. What God gave, He keeps. By God’s power, we are guarded through faith for salvation (1 Peter 1:5). We will remain faithful because God is faithful (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24). Our continuing is the result of His sustaining (1 Corinthians 1:8–9).

If you do not continue, your once is your now. “But I walked an aisle, I said a prayer, I have a Bible with a date in it, I was baptized, my parents and my pastor told me I was saved.” There are two serious problems here. First, you’re grounding assurance of your salvation in something you did in the past instead of what Jesus did in the past. Second, you’re not meant to find assurance about your future by looking for grounds in the past, but evidence in the present. Is there fruit that you have the root of salvation in Jesus’ work of reconciliation? Are you continuing in the faith right now, stable and steadfast, not shifting?

If not, don’t try to continue in a faith that you’ve never had. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved with so great a salvation that you will continue in the faith.

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” —Jude 24–25

Creating Word, Sustaining Word, Redeeming Word (Colossians 1–20)

Jesus created the spheres and circles of the universe and set them spinning. From the macro-cosmos of Jupiter its 53 named moons, the Sloan Great wall of galaxies, and the colossal star UY Scuti, to the micro-cosmos of uranium 235, protons, and quarks—all things visible and invisible—all were made through Jesus.

Further, Jesus is no deistic spinner of the watches He has made. He is no grand designer of perpetual motion machines. The universe was not an epic pitch of the omnipotent one, wherein he wound up and let go. Jesus not only creates, he sustains. By His word creation is—always, at all points of its is-dom. It came into being by His word and is sustained in being by His word (Hebrews 1:3). You walk around on, breath in, and are made of nuclear energy. Micro-cosmos, capable of undoing you a million times over, are not simply held together by His hand, they are by His hand. They don’t have an independent existence. Jesus doesn’t simply do maintenance on the stars. He does stars at every point of their existence.

Jesus doesn’t complete the watch to set it in motion independently of Him. He motions it at all times. Man makes a generator because he is limited. He can’t produce electricity. Man isn’t more intelligent than God because he can make a hands off machine. God is unlimited in wisdom and power, such that, nothing works without Him; including you and your generator. God never has too many irons in the fire.

But what are all these ticks and tocks ticking and tocking towards? Has an alarm been set? Is a consummatory suppertime comming? Yes; one day this old creation will grow up, mature, and be born anew—a new creation, and then, the marriage supper of the Lamb. The cosmos isn’t an experiment. Men toy with magic and science and find power that undoes them. Jesus created and sustains that He might be preeminent in the redemption of all things by the blood of the cross. The Word delivers no impromptu speech. Every word—creating words, sustaining words, redeeming words—every word is scripted, with the basic plot outlined in the Scriptures.

Relapsing into Thankfulness (Colossians 1:12–14

Intoxicated with Christ, Paul is a thanksgiving addict. Though Paul transitioned from thanksgiving to supplication in v. 9, you get the sense that he’s about to lapse back into thanksgiving in vv. 12–14. In his petition, Paul turns from “you” to “us” and “we,” as He reflects on the Father who has qualified, delivered, transferred, and redeemed them in the Son.

Following on the heels of this, Paul bursts into a hymn of praise of Christ in vv. 15–20. There is a thin border between praise and thanksgiving, and the borders are always being crossed. Praise and thanksgiving have weak boarders because they must visit one another. Praise is an expression of thanksgiving, and thanksgiving is a form of praise.

Thanksgiving is natural. As Paul reflects on why the Father is worthy of thanks, he can barely contain himself. A walk worthy of the Lord (v. 10) is a walk of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is fitting, it corresponds to who God is and what He has done. Christian thanksgiving is natural. It isn’t a forced or fake. It isn’t insincere of coerced. It is a habit the saints should naturally fall into.

Pray to God as God (Colossians 1:9–14)

As we turn from Paul’s thanksgiving (1:3–8) to his supplication (1:9–14) we might do so thankfully anticipating a conviction reprieve. “Paul’s thankfulness was convicting, but now he’s asking for stuff. This should be lighter on the heart. I’m good at asking for stuff.”

After the thanksgiving section we feel as though we ask too much and say thanks too little. Upon reading Paul’s petition, we’re jolted, seeing that it’s not that we ask too much, but too little, like a mortally wounded soldier begging a master surgeon for a bandage. Both our thanksgiving and petitions prove shallow. We ask for idols, when there is God to be had.

The deeper conviction in contrasting our prayers with Paul’s isn’t found in what Paul does, but why he does it. Paul’s prayers are God-centered. Our thankfulness and petitions are often small because they’re focused on small reference point. Draw a circle three meters in circumference around our feet. This is our bubble of thanksgiving. This is our sphere of petition.

The way to rectify our prayer problems isn’t found in simply doubling down on effort. This is likely nothing more than another expression of self-centeredness. Begin with God. Here is a simple principle to radicalize your prayer life, pray to God, as God. How’s that? Before you speak to Him, hear Him speak through His Word concerning who He is and what He has done. “There is a direct correlation,” John Piper writes, “between not knowing Jesus well, and not asking much from Him.”

Change the reference point. Both our thanksgiving and our petitions should be God-sized. We can never do either too much. We may do them sinfully quite frequently, but never excessively.

Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much;
None can ever ask too much.

—John Newton

The Deep Theological Moorings of Thankfulness (Colossians 1:3–8)

When we read Paul’s thanksgivings in the opening of his epistles, we’re oft rightly convicted, but wrongly act. We pray so little, and when we do, we express our discontent. We don’t say thank you for the food on our plate and we complain about the lack of dessert. Being reprimanded, we double down our efforts for a spell. But that only lasts until we’re given Brussels sprouts again.

Thankfulness does not flow merely from the shallows of a resolve of will. Thankfulness has deep theological moorings. If you want thankfulness to go up, your doctrine must go deep. Trying to mimic Paul’s thankfulness by just praying is like trying to build a replica of the Empire State Building, but just building up, without doing the necessary sub-structure work.

There are several deeps to Paul’s thanks, but lets just unearth a few. Paul thanks God concerning the Colossians’ faith in Christ and love toward the saints. He doesn’t thank the Colossians for their belief and love. Praise is due to God. Dig a bit and you see that total depravity (Colossians 1:21-22) is one reason Paul gives thanks. Faith and love being a sovereign gift (James 1:17; Ephesians 2:8; Acts 11:18, 2 Timothy 2:25), springing out of regeneration (1 John 4:7. 5:1), which was worked in his saints through the fruit bearing gospel (Colossians 1:6; 1 Peter 1:23–25) is another.

And on we could go, but you’ve seen enough to realize this, theology opens our eyes to reality, a reality that necessitates thanksgiving in the highest to the Highest.

Mail Call and No Letter? (Colossians 1:1–2)

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

—Colossians 1:1–2 (ESV)

Paul writes this letter, but he writes as an apostle of Christ Jesus. We say Colossians is one of the Pauline Epistles, but we mustn’t say that louder than we say it is the Word of God.

Whom is the risen Christ addressing through His apostle in this letter? The saints and faithful brothers at Colossae. Ahh, of course. Apostolic letters are for saints, long dead ones. Mail call has come and you’re left without a letter. All the cool kids got a Valentine, but none for you. Figures.

Saints is a term we’re afraid of for two reasons: 1. the heretical teaching of the Roman Catholic church and 2. fear of any accusation of arrogance should we use it as the Bible does. But we are Protestants. We exclaim sola scriptura! We shouldn’t retreat from Biblical terms. We should reclaim and defend them.

It is not humility, but pride which keeps saints from our lips. Failure to use the term saint means we’re finding our identity in who we were out of Christ more than who we are in Christ. The saints are those who are set apart in Christ. If you are in Christ, you are a saint. Sainthood is not a result of personal holiness; personal holiness is a result of sainthood.

But alas, this is a letter for ancient saints, those who resided in Colossae. We’ve got the same name, but the address is different. The New King James Version has a subtle but meaningful variance in translation from the ESV quoted above. “To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse (1:2a).” The NKJV unnecessarily adds “who are,” but has “in Colossae” instead of “at Colossae.” The same English preposition is used in both instances, just as it it in the Greek text. The more important locator is in Christ. If a tornado hits a city, and you are in that city and in a storm shelter, being in the storm shelter is the more important of places. What Paul writes has far less to do with Colossae than Christ. A sinner might stand in Colossae in 61 AD and this letter have nothing to do with them, but everything to do with you standing on another continent in the twenty first century because you are in Christ.

This letter was meant to be cyclical, passed along to other churches (Colossians 4:16). Paul wasn’t an apostle of certain churches, but of the Church. The Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus being the cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). If you are in Christ, you are saints, and this letter is meant for you. Any insight you might gain into Colossae and the church there, serves then not to distance you from this letter, but to better understand what Christ wants to say to you through His apostle.

Functional Atheist (Psalm 10)

“In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, ‘There is no God.’ ” —Psalm 10:4

There is not in my judgement, a Psalm which describes the mind, the manners, the works, the words, the feelings, and the fate of the ungodly with so much propriety, fullness, and light as this Psalm. So that, if in any respect there has not been enough said heretofore, or if there shall be anything wanting in the Psalms that shall follow, we may here find a perfect image and representation of iniquity.” —Martin Luther

All sin is atheistic. It matters not what your creed may be, sin is functional atheism. Sin behaves as though God were not.

Sin seeks to de-god God and to deify man. As in the garden, sin disbelieves God’s threat, and trusts the promise of God-likeness.

The puritan Ralph Venning, writing at a time when plagues were dreaded, in a book originally titled The Plague of Plagues, captured this well. “In short, sin is the dare of God’s justice, the rape of his mercy, the jeer of his patience, the slight of his power, the contempt of his love, as one writer prettily expresses this ugly thing. We may go on and say, it is the upbraiding of his providence (Psalm 50), the scoff of his promise (2 Peter 3:3-4), the reproach of his wisdom (Isaiah 29:16). And as is said of the Man of Sin (i.e. who is made up of sin) it opposes and exalts itself above all that is called God (and above all that God is called), so that it as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing itself as if it were God (2 Thessalonians 2. 4).”

Sin is atheistic. Yea, it is more. It is anti-theistic, anti-God, anti-Christ. Who is anti-Christ? The whole of fallen humanity.

Well Mixed (Psalm 9)

The psalms up to the ninth are pretty easy to pigeonhole. At risk of being accused of profiling, I’ll confess it’s pretty hard not to categorize the sixth psalm as a lament. The seventh is a stereotypical imprecatory psalm, and the eighth psalm is unmistakably a hymn. So as to cover my tracks and be politically correct, let me add that none of these categories are absolute or watertight. In contrast, the ninth psalm doesn’t so neatly fall into place. It is a mixture of thanksgiving, praise, imprecation, and lament.

At the risk of further offense, we might say that this otherwise masculine psalm seems to have a feminine emotional state. Yes, all of these emotions can come together, not only in one psalm, but in one person—the poet-warrior David. Not only can these diverse moods go together, they should. The emotional hue of many worship gatherings today is a tepid pastel pink. We’re neither burning red or cooling blue. We don’t know how to lament or rejoice, so we settle for cheap laughs and peppy talks. We have more goofy than glory.

The psalms invite us to a wider emotional range. A range corresponding to reality, that is to say, to God. John Calvin wrote, “I have been wont to call this book not inappropriately, an anatomy of all parts of the soul; for there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror.” The psalms teach us that not only must our minds be discipled to think truth, but our hearts must be disciplined to feel accordingly. This doesn’t mean we become monotone emotionally. It means the colors become righteously vivid.

If this psalm is mixed-up, it’s mixed up in a good way, like cake batter. Bitter vanilla and sweet sugar come together to make something better together than they could’ve independently.

Stars and Sucklings (Psalm 8)

Yahweh’s name is majestic in all the earth. It is no surprise that God who set His glory above the heavens is also majestic in the earth, but it is surprising how He magnifies His name on earth. From stars David turns our attention to sucklings. The God who sustains the sun at 53 thousand degrees Fahrenheit establishes strength and stills His foes using babes.

Some have gone to pains to argue how it is that children do this. Who are these toddlers and sucklings? Not simply children, but God’s children. When Jesus responded to the priest’s indignation at the children crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”, by quoting this psalm, it was not so much their age, but their act that made them “children.”

God magnified His name over the Egyptian gods by redeeming Israelite slaves. He defeated a giant using a shepherd boy. Once barren Hannah sang,

The bows of the mighty are broken,
but the feeble bind on strength.
Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,
but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.
The barren has borne seven,
but she who has many children is forlorn (1 Samuel 2:4–5 ESV).

Hannah’s song was taken up and amplified in Mary’s,

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever (Luke 1:46–56 ESV).

God’s people, His children, are the toddlers and sucklings through whom God stills His enemies, as they proclaim the most surprising twist of all, Jesus Christ, crucified, thereby defeating His foes, drawing men to Himself, and magnifying His Father. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:27–29 ESV).”

The God who created UY Scuti—a star so big that if it replaced the Sun it would swallow up Jupiter—stills His enemies using sucklings. How majestic is His name in all the earth!