The Introduction To The Scripture Lesson…
Our New Testament Lesson for this
morning comes from Colossians. This is a
very short book of the New Testament.
You can easily read in about 15 minutes.
The book was written by St.
Paul, who wrote most of the books of the New
Testament. Like all of Paul’s books,
Colossians is really a letter. This
particular letter was one that Paul wrote while he was in prison, and he wrote
it to a group of Christians he’d never met.
In all of his travels, he’d never visited the city of Colosse (1:4-8, 2:1). Christianity was brought to that city by a man
named Epaphras, a native Colossian (1:7).
Epaphras visited Paul in prison and he told the apostle some good news
and some bad news about the Colossian
Church.
The good news is the people of that
church have great faith and are working to spread the Gospel. The bad news is, people outside the church
are trying to shape and influence the church.
Here it is 2000 years later and we are going through pretty much the
same thing today. The world is trying
very hard to tell the church what we should believe and what we should
teach. The world is telling us that it
is arrogant for us to teach that Jesus is the only way to God the Father. The world is telling us that the ethics we’ve
taught for the past 2000 years are outdated.
The world is proclaiming all sorts of New Age faiths. And the church is listening. And the church is adopting the teachings of
the world, and the church is setting aside the teachings of the Word of God.
What is happening today was happening
in the city of Colosse.
The world was telling the church
that Christ was not both divine and human.
The world was telling the church that people must be saved by works, not
faith. The world was telling the church
that angels should be worshiped. And
that church was listening to the voice of the world, rather than to the Word of
God.
So Epaphras visits Paul, and tells
the apostle about what is happening in the church -- the good news and the bad
news. And Paul sits down and begins to
dictate this letter.
He doesn’t begin the letter in the
style of our letters today -- “Dear Colossians…” but rather he begins the
letter in the style that was used back in Paul’s day. He starts in this way…
Colossians 1:1-14
Paul, an apostle of Christ
Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ
at Colosse: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in
Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints--the faith and love
that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have
already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All
over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been
doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all
its truth. You learned it from Epaphras,
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. For this reason, since the day we heard about
you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the
knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a
life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every
good work, growing in the knowledge of God,
being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so
that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to
the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in
the kingdom of light. For he has rescued
us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he
loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
In this, the opening verses of his
letter, Paul hasn’t started dealing with the bad news that Epaphras has brought
to his attention -- that the church is struggling to keep its faith pure of
outside influences. Instead, he starts
off by praising the Colossians for the good that is in their church, and by
encouraging them in verse 10 to “live a life worthy of Christ.”
“Live a life worthy of Christ…”
-- Easier said than done.
In the movie, Saving Private
Ryan, actor Tom Hanks plays an army captain who is among those American
soldiers who took part in the D-Day Invasion of World War II. Shortly after the invasion, this captain is
put in charge of a special mission -- save Private Ryan. Ryan’s brothers have all been killed in
different battles during a short period of time. Only he survives among his siblings. The military decides Private Ryan must be
located and returned safely home to his family.
But the search is not easy. Many of the men in the group are shot and
killed along the way. The cost is
incredibly high. At one point, the
character played by Tom Hanks talks to his men and in frustration says, “This
Ryan had better be worth it. He’d better
be a genius or something. He’d better
live a long life and do something like invent a longer lasting light bulb or
something.”
Finally, they find Private
Ryan. But before returning to safety,
the captain is shot. Mortally wounded,
he looks up at Private Ryan and with his last breath, says, “Earn this.”
It is a touching moment.
The captain died for this private, and the private had better live up
to that honor.
Christ died for us, and we’d
better live up to that honor.
Our lives should reflect that the sacrifice made by Christ was worth
His life.
It is a tall order -- live a life
worthy of Christ. In the movie, Saving Private Ryan, we
get a glimpse of this. A man is about to
die. He orders the soldier for whom he
has given his life to live up to his sacrifice and to earn it. No one would want to sacrifice his or her
life for nothing. We would want it to
count for something. We would want the
person for whom we died to live a life worthy of the life we were giving up.
So -- Christ died for you. Your life, therefore, had better be worth
that sacrifice.
How do we do that?
Paul wrote his letter in the Greek
language and what we read in English as a phrase is actually a single
word. “Live a life” is the single word
that actually means “walk.” (peripatesai)
In fact, some English translations
render it this way. The King James
Version, for example, says, “Walk worthy of the Lord.”
Now how does one live -- or walk
-- in a manner that is worthy of the Lord?
Well, if you take a look at how one
literally walks, we do it with two legs -- at least, if we are born healthy and
keep our health.
St. Paul tells us that we live worthy, or
walk worthy, by using two spiritual legs.
Take a look at what he says in his
letter, in verse 10: “We pray that you
may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way:
bearing fruit in every good work,
growing in the knowledge of God.”
One leg is bearing good fruit and
the other is knowledge of God.
Or put another way - One leg is action, the other education.
Think about education. Time and again, the Bible affirms the value
of knowledge and understanding.
Psalm 119, verse 66 has a prayer in
which the psalmist begs God, “Teach me knowledge and good judgment.”
Proverbs 1, verse 7, says, “The fear
of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and
discipline.”
One of the things that has always
been a part of the Presbyterian Church is that we have valued education,
knowledge and understanding.
Years ago I served a church that had been established in 1779. It is the oldest Presbyterian Church in Tennessee and it had a
great history. Shortly after that church was organized, the pastor and elders
opened the first school in the community.
A short time after that, the pastor opened the first college in the area.
That’s the way it was all over this country. Many of the first schools were started by
Presbyterian ministers and churches.
This tradition continues today.
Presbyterians value education and knowledge. Our own congregation demonstrates this with a
college scholarship program.
We believe that knowledge is
important. When we learn about Calculus,
we are not just studying numbers -- we are learning about the principles by
which God operates the universe. When we
study astronomy, we are learning about the universe God created.
St. Paul once told his student St. Timothy,
“Study to show yourself approved unto God.” (II Tim 2:15, King James)
You want to live -- or walk -- in a
manner worthy of Christ?
Use your mind.
Study.
Learn.
Grow in knowledge and understanding.
Learn all you can about God’s world,
and God’s Word.
The other leg we need for our
spiritual walk is “action”
-- taking what you learn from God and putting it into the actions of your day
to day living.
In the words of Jesus and the
Apostles, this was called “bearing fruit.”
You can grow a good plant of some
sort, but if you are a farmer, you expect that plant to produce some decent
fruit of some sort. Otherwise it is
worthless. God has planted us. He expects us to produce decent fruit in our
lives.
Much of my life has been spent in South Carolina, and most
people in that area take advantage of the wonderful soil and climate and plant
these wonderful gardens. I would plant
corn and peanuts and potatoes and okra and squash, and all sorts of
things. And they would grow. They would produce great crops. “Bear fruit” as the Bible would say. Once in a while, I would plant something that
failed -- and that failed miserably.
Green beans for example.
One year I planted lots of green
beans. But between the unusually dry
weather, and all the deer that would come into the yard, I harvested one green
bean.
I don’t mean I had one plant filled
with good green beans. I mean I had one
single green string bean.
You have to be on a pretty strict
diet for a single bean to be worth anything.
God expects us to produce some
decent fruit in our life. He expects us
to do great things that are worthy. We
don’t earn God’s love or salvation that way -- we earn that freely by God’s
grace. But having experienced God’s love
and salvation, we ought to respond by living, walking, a life worthy of Christ
-- we ought to want to produce a life that “bears good fruit.”
Are you producing fruit in your
life?
Do you show love to
others?
Do you give
generously to others?
Do you join in ventures such as the Family Promise project or other missions of our church?
You don’t have to build a college or
hospital in order to bear fruit. Bearing
fruit is in the day-to-day way you live your life. It’s in the simple things.
St. Paul tells the Colossians that if they
are to face up to the world’s secular influences and live a life worthy of
Christ -- walk in a manner worthy of Christ -- then they must use their two
legs -- actions and knowledge. Or as he
says in verse 10: “bearing fruit in
every good work and growing in the knowledge of God.”
Now, sometimes, in our physical
lives, we find we need some help in walking.
Two legs are not always enough.
We need canes, walkers, wheelchairs, or even artificial legs.
The same is true in the spiritual
realm. And Paul tells us in Colossians about three
things that can assist us in our spiritual walk. There are many other aids to our spiritual
walk, but Paul mentions these three in this particular passage. They are three simple gifts God offers us
that can enhance our spiritual walk and help us to “live in a manner worthy of
Christ.”
“And we pray this in order that you
may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing
fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according
to his glorious might so that you may have
great endurance
and patience,
and
joyfully giving thanks to the Father…” (Col
1:10-12)
Endurance, patience, and
gratitude. Three gifts from God that
will strengthen you in your walk with God.
Endurance – most of us would
prefer escape rather than endurance.
Many times we find ourselves in situations that are uncomfortable, or
even frightening. We pray for escape. We want OUT.
We want to move from being in a bad situation, to being in a good
situation.
We want out of having cancer.
We want out of dealing with an elderly and
sick parent.
We want out of being in a difficult job.
But often times, God doesn’t offer
escape. He offers endurance – the
ability to cope with the situation.
St. Paul wrote a letter to the Philippians in
which he said (Phil 4:11-12), “ I have learned to be content whatever the
circumstances. I know what it is to be
in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of
being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether
living in plenty or in want.”
He didn’t say this from his home,
writing comfortably in his favorite chair.
He wrote this while in prison, with chains around his feet and hands,
and a death sentence written on his calendar.
God offers you the gift of
endurance. Accept that gift and learn how to use it – it will help you in your
spiritual life or walk.
Patience is the second gift
to aid us in our walk. Patience and
endurance – two things that are pretty close to being the same thing. But there is a slight difference. Endurance
helps us deal with situations. Patience
helps us deal with people.
It is not easy to deal with
people. Others around us are often
selfish, mean spirited, unfair to us, and sometimes just downright hateful to
us.
Colonel George Washington Goethals was the man who was responsible for
the completion of the Panama Canal. It took years to complete and the project was
filled with big problems – financial, engineering, weather, labor –
everything. But his biggest challenge
was the growing criticism back home from those who predicted he'd never finish
the project.
Finally,
a colleague asked him, "Aren't you going to answer these critics?"
"In
time," answered Goethals.
"When?"
his partner asked.
"When
the canal is finished."
And a decade later, the canal was
finished and the patient Colonel finally had an answer to all the criticism of
the people.
Endurance deals with
situations. Patience deals with people.
Gratitude is the
third gift that helps us in our spiritual walk.
While endurance deals with situations and patience deals with people,
gratitude deals with God.
Years ago I had a youth director named James. He had a little boy named Grady. Those two had a great relationship. James was telling our youth about how God
gave his only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us because he loved us so
much. James went onto say that he loved
the youth of the church very much – and would do almost anything for them. But he did not love them enough to let his
son Grady die for them. However, IF for some reason James decided that he would
give his son to die so that someone in the youth group could live, then James
would expect a tremendous outpouring of gratitude. James put it this way,
“You’d better call me every day and say, ‘Thank you.’ You’d better visit me and say, ‘what can I do
to show my gratitude?’”
There is no way you can live a life worthy of Christ if you don’t have
gratitude in your hearts for what he has done.
At the end of the movie, Saving Private Ryan, the scene
jumps out of World War II and suddenly it is 50 years later. Ryan is now an old man visiting the cemetery
near the beaches of Normandy.
The war is long over.
The place is no longer violent, but
peaceful.
He knells down at the tombstone of the army captain who gave his life
so that Ryan might live. He breaks out
in tears. His wife is at his side and
she reaches out to try to comfort him.
Ryan looks at her and asks, “Have I been a good man?”
The question he really is asking is, “have I lived a life worthy of
this man’s sacrifice?”
It’s a question for us. Are we
living a life worthy of Christ's sacrifice for us?