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Introduction to Colossians By Stephen Bignall

where Colosso was, and we've said what happened to it.
It's basically ceased to exist in the 12th century.
But who were these people?
Were they like the Philippians, to whom Paul wrote so lovingly,
to whom he had preached the gospel personally?
Were they individuals like Kevin or Niall or Andrew,
intimately known to me?
Were these people intimately known to Paul?
It would appear that they weren't, except for perhaps Epaphras, who was their pastor.
Was the church established by an apostle turning up in the town of Colossae,
preaching the word and souls coming in,
as with Lydia and those women who were down by the river at Philippi,
it would appear that that is not the case.
We do know that the apostle Paul went to Asia in his third missionary journey.
You see, the Holy Spirit, in his second journey, closed the door.
Sometimes when God closes a door, we become anxious and frustrated,
and the temptation is to think somehow that the work has been thwarted
and that perhaps our desire to see the gospel flourish is greater than God's.
But that's not how the early disciples saw these things.
They simply saw it as God guiding them to do his will in whatever place he led them,
and they were content to move from one place to another.
They were said to go into Asia, the door was closed.
They rejoiced because it seemed that Macedonia was the place in which
they were sent to minister the gospel.
And then in the third missionary journey, Paul finds himself in Asia,
the place that was denied to him years before.
And he's there for two years and three months.
And as is his custom, he first goes to the Jews,
and they bear with him for some time, and people are converted.
But then they can no longer stand the simplicity and the sufficiency
of the doctrine of Christ, and they eject him and the believers.
And so he goes to a public lecture room or a school, this Tyrannus's lecture room,
and he begins to teach daily in the school of Tyrannus the doctrines of Christ,
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
One commentator says this was probably the first series of lunchtime lectures
that ever took place in the gospel.
You see, we know that there are places like St. Matthias down in Sydney
where there are lectures in universities where faithful men gather workers
or students and preach the gospel to them.
People come in at appointed times between the busyness of their day and their study.
And this is what Paul did.
And one of these converts from these lunchtime lectures may well have been Epaphras
because he seems to have some intimacy and knowledge of Paul.
And very likely Epaphras took the gospel back to his native city,
and there he began to preach the gospel.
As Paul says in verse 7 and 8,
Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf,
who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
So here's Epaphras. He's now visiting Paul in Rome.
He's travelled a thousand miles on foot or by donkey or ass
to get to Paul, who's imprisoned in Rome,
to bring him news of the gospel's flourishing fruit in Colossae
and around the regions of Herapolis and Laodicea,
three cities close together, nestled in a little valley in Asia Minor,
a hundred miles to the east of Ephesus,
where Paul taught for those two years and three months.
Suddenly the gospel's broken out in that place
and there are three churches established, three churches,
the church in Laodicea, the church in Herapolis
and the church which we're considering here in Colossae.
Now Colossae was compassed by its neighbours during its history.
It became smaller and smaller and smaller.
Herapolis and Laodicea had much more going for them.
We don't know the history of the church at Laodicea.
We don't know the history of the church at Herapolis.
We know a little about Colossae.
Something was eating away at the foundations of that church.
Something had come in that threatened the safety of the believers in that church
and the message, the purity of the message that they were to bring to the world.
Epaphras has come to give Paul news of this congregation
and it's good news and bad news.
It's not all hearts and flowers but it's not all gloom and doom.
And isn't that the case in most churches, most true churches of the Lord Jesus Christ?
There is so much for which we can thank God
and there is so much for which we must plead with God that He would not deliver us up to it.
There's so many things that have the potential to break out in any church
and consume the congregation to the point that the gospel is lost
and that the Spirit is grieved.
And this was the danger here at Colossae.
So Paul is writing not to unbelievers,
not to those who are so given over to heresy that he can no longer call them God's people.
He's writing to Christians who are troubled by errors
and who are in danger, in danger of making shipwreck of their faith.
And the question we want to ask ourselves is what tone does he take?
It's very important for us to understand how does the Apostle Paul greet God's people?
Invariably, how does the Apostle Paul greet God's people?
You see because in our age how we greet God's people
is often marred by our own traditions and our own thoughts and our own feelings.
But this wasn't the case with the Apostle Paul.
It's often marred by our concern that they are in error.
And what we do often is we have to work ourselves up about the error
until we can bring ourselves to the point of speaking to them about it.
And in the process we quench love and we come in anger or in agitation or in frustration
and our language becomes very militant and very definite and very aggressive.
And that isn't the language that the Apostle Paul adopts in writing this letter to the Colossians.
In the first two verses of this epistle, Paul establishes who it is that is writing to these people.
It's God. It's God.
God is writing to the people at Colossae.
We find that because Paul says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God.
He's an ambassador, one cent.
He's an ambassador of Jesus Christ, by God's will.
So it's not Paul coming in the strength of his office as an apostle, primarily.
It's Paul coming by the will of God as the ambassador to the Colossians,
writing to them on God's behalf, writing the words that God would have spoken to the Colossians.
In our day, many people speak with authority, so-called. They claim authority.
And in Christendom, men claim authority.
And they often claim it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But somewhere along the line, they arrogate to themselves,
they take to themselves an authority that's only bound up in who they are and what they have done.
Paul never did that.
I was talking to a lady who is the mother of my boss at NIB.
She's a lovely woman. I believe she's a Christian.
She's very caught up in signs and wonders.
And all you hear about are all these people that you've never heard of who have got power with God.
You never actually hear a great deal about God himself and what he says in his word about the matter.
Personalities dominate, but it's not with the apostle Paul.
He uses one name, Paul. And after that, he speaks in terms of what God has done.
An apostle is someone who's set aside by God in God's Son to do his will.
You see how he talks? He puts himself in the background.
He says, I'm writing to you from God. And Timothy, our brother, is here with me.
You see, he brings it right down to the level of family.
Brothers and sisters in Christ. Timothy, our brother.
You see, Paul is part of the church, even though he's an apostle.
He's part of the church. He's our brother.
And then he exalts the place of the Colossians in God's side.
He says to the saints, to the saints, to those who are called out by God,
to those who are set apart by God, to those who are holy in God's sight,
consecrated to the purpose of glorifying him on the earth.
So it's almost as if he magnifies the position of the Colossians and their faithful brethren.
Now, they're troubled by error.
They're holding to things that can rob them of the liberty they have in Christ.
And yet Paul says, faithful brethren. Why is that?
Because they still have the heart of the matter.
They are still holding to the head, which is Christ.
They are still trusting in his work on the cross to make them acceptable with God.
They are not wholly given over to these things. They are troubled Christians.
And so Paul speaks to them first of the will of God in this matter,
that something should be written to them to instruct them.
Their position in this, that they're God's people
and that they've been faithful hitherto.
And then he brings them a gift. He brings them a gift.
He brings them grace and he brings them peace and he brings it from the throne of God.
And that's what he says in the latter part of verse 2.
He says, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
He doesn't say, may you find grace and peace through God.
It's not primarily a prayer. It's the announcement of a gift.
He sends with that letter the comfort that God has sent grace and peace into their midst.
Now grace is God's unmerited, undeserved, full favour.
He's telling them that God's eyes are towards them,
that he is full of loving kindness towards them.
And peace is the fertile, stable ground in which fruitfulness can flourish.
Peace is that quiet, fertile ground in which spiritual fruit can flourish and be brought forth.
And Paul's saying, the Lord sends this to you by my hand.
The Lord sends you grace and peace.
And who is the one who sends them grace and peace? It's God.
But it's also the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ.
The reason why Paul in these two verses mentions the Lord Jesus Christ
three times with the name of God is because one of the things that the Colossians were suffering from
was a temptation to believe that Christ was not sufficient to bring them to God,
not sufficient to keep them in the will of God
and to furnish every gift that God would have them to bring to bear in this world.
They were being told that, yes, you've got to begin with Christ, but there's so much more.
So much more.
And the Colossians were being tempted in different areas.
They were being tempted to believe that there was a spiritual fullness that they had not yet received.
Something beyond the knowledge of God in Christ,
something beyond their hearts being changed and the mentoring into newness of life,
something that, if you like, progressed beyond the bare and simple necessity of the saving work of Jesus Christ.
They were being told that there was a new freedom that they could enjoy.
They were being told that there was a new power that they could lay hold of.
There was this terrible world of principalities and powers, spiritual beings,
and within this world there were angels and there were demons, and this is true.
But what they were being told was, if they needed help in this world,
they were not only to appeal to God and to seek it in Christ, but they could appeal to these angelic beings.
They could venerate these angelic beings and have assistance from them.
And that was contrary to the gospel of Christ.
We know that the apostle, in his vision of the revelation of Jesus Christ,
an angelic messenger comes to him and he goes to bow down before the angel's feet.
And the angel says, see that you do it not. Don't do it. Don't venerate me.
Worship God. Worship God.
They were being tempted to be drawn away into spiritual mysteries
where they could gain this extra power, this extra help.
You can almost hear the voice of the false teachers.
Well, the Lord Jesus needed an angel in the garden, didn't he, to strengthen him?
Well, if the Lord Jesus did that, we should do that as well.
Well, in the Old Testament, the angels came and announced different things to different prophets,
and didn't an angel stand with Joshua guarding over the people?
Wasn't there an angel that came to Mary and Joseph and told them God's mysterious and marvelous will,
that Mary should be the mother of Christ?
That Joseph should be responsible for him parentally in his infancy and as he grew up?
Didn't an angel come and do these things? Well, we should turn to angels.
Look how God uses them. They're very powerful and important beings.
And we know from our paganism, we know from the darkness that we existed in when we worshipped idols,
that there are dark and terrible demonic powers. The angels war against them.
Sure, we should call on the angels to help us to fight against the temptations and the powers
that we know we worshipped in our pagan lives.
And there was discipline. They had spiritual discipline.
Got to get a bit of discipline, get a bit of form, live a disciplined life,
live a life that's pleasing to God, mortify the flesh. But they went further than that.
They said there are things, you don't touch them, you don't taste them, you don't handle them.
Because if you handle them and touch them and taste them, you'll defile yourself with sin.
So you've got to keep away things that were just legitimate.
Food laws, food laws. Certain foods were going to make you more sinful or less spiritual.
There's all this sort of nonsense. But it appealed to the mind of these newly converted Christians.
Because it was the stuff of the world.
It was the mechanisms by which men have always sought to have power with God and to please God.
And that's what Paul says. In chapter 2 he says,
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy, in verse 8, an empty deceit,
according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, not according to Christ.
Christianity is different from the basic principles of the world.
The principles by which the world has always determined its religion.
The world of fallen men has always determined its religion by a set of basic principles.
That men have to work their way to God.
And they've come up with all means of doing that.
Terrible means, ridiculous means and everything in between.
Traditions build up and they reoccur in societies.
There are traditions that are forming in our societies that have over and over again risen to the fore in the centuries before us.
Hedonism, the love of pleasure, has risen to the fore again in our society.
But it existed back then amongst the Grecians and the different nations that were influenced by the Greeks and their hedonism.
So there was a reason why Paul wrote this epistle.
They were in danger. They were in dire danger.
But before Paul comes to speak to them of their danger,
before he comes to lay out clearly for them Christ as the supreme, the sufficient, the only saviour,
the one who will thoroughly equip them to every good work in this world,
he establishes what state they are already in, the state they are in.
He establishes this, why he's thankful to God.
So he's thankful to God for them and this is primarily where I wish to do it.
All the rest was sort of introduction.
You've got a people dwelling in a little town in Asia Minor that's getting smaller all the time because its neighbours are crowding it out.
They've believed in God. They are preaching the Gospel.
Epaphras brings a good report but now they're troubled because errors are coming in and threatening and God determines to write to them.
And he puts a thankfulness in the heart of the writer first and foremost.
A thankfulness. We need to grasp this.
There are a lot of Christians with whom we do not agree in externals.
Or there are Christians who hold to different errant teachings which do not affect salvation.
Salvation comes through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
His life for mine. His death for me.
My sins nailed to the tree when he died at Calvary.
God's forgiveness coming through his sufferings.
His resurrection being for my justification that in God's sight I should be declared righteous.
There are many Christians who hold to errant views of perhaps how God brings new life into a heart.
When God brings new life into a heart.
And sometimes God and gracious men become very antagonistic and censorious in their language as they seek to correct these Christians.
And I think we've got to guard ourselves against that. We've got to take apostolic pattern here.
We've got to take apostolic pattern.
We've got to give thanks to God.
Give thanks to God praying always for those believers who possess three fundamental graces that set them apart from the unbelieving world.
That show that they are the beloved of Christ.
There are three fundamental fruits of the gospel that typify a believer.
And where those things are present and we need to approach someone and to greet them with the purpose of correcting them or encouraging them in the faith.
Our first and foremost attitude should be thankfulness.
Thankfulness to God.
Thankfulness to God first and foremost for these three things.
That they have faith in Christ Jesus.
That they have love for all the saints.
That they have hope which is laid up for them in heaven.
These are the three fundamentals which should fill us with thankfulness whenever we need to approach brethren with whom we disagree.
What is this faith in Christ Jesus?
Well, anyone who is here who is a believer, Shelley's putting her finger up.
Shelley could tell me. I know she could tell me because she has it.
She's trusted in Christ for her salvation.
She's entrusted her whole existence to Christ.
She's cast herself at His feet.
She's looked unto Jesus.
She's looked and she's lived by her own profession.
There was a time when she walked in darkness.
She had no faith.
She had no trust.
She could not entrust herself to Christ.
Now she walks in faith.
She has entrusted herself to Christ.
She continues to do so.
Every believer has faith.
It's the gift of God.
It's the gift of God.
And every believer has love.
Now, love can diminish, but it cannot be utterly quenched.
Many waters cannot quench love.
But wherever the love of God is present, and we've spoken before in sermons about brotherly love,
wherever the love of God is present, there will be love for God's people.
And it will demonstrate itself in action.
There will be service.
It may not be an amazing type of service, an extraordinary type of service,
but there will be service.
There will be a girding as Christ girded Himself in the upper room.
He girded Himself with a towel and He washed the fisherman's feet.
He washed the tax collector's feet.
He washed the zealot's feet.
He washed the feet of the men that He called out of the world.
And He wiped them.
And He gave them meat and drink.
And He gave a pattern for every believer who was to follow on,
a pattern for those apostles and a pattern for those who would believe on Him through their word.
And it's a pattern of love.
Where the love of Christ dwells in the heart, it's demonstrated in a love for the saints.
But what was it primarily that undergirded both these things?
What was it that made these people go out of their way,
not to become preoccupied with their current situation in Colossae?
It's a city. It's shrinking.
You know, I can imagine the civic community was meeting together to try and work out
how they could stem the shrinking of the city of Colossae.
The tradespeople would be worried.
Herapolis was getting a lot of trade.
Laodicea was getting a lot of trade.
There were political machinations.
They were under the yoke of the Romans.
There were religious debates going on,
people wanting to get together,
probably a little bit of an attempt at ecumenicity,
trying to make their cultures and their religions meet
so they could dwell together in this one city of Colossae.
There were work pressures. There were slavery pressures.
Some of them were slaves. One of them ran away.
And the book straight after Colossians talks about that.
Onesimus ran away from Philemon, his master,
with all these complications of first-century Roman domination.
But the Colossians could love.
They could entrust themselves to Christ constantly and persistently
because of a hope that they possessed,
a hope that Paul says here undergirded the other two graces.
Paul says,
Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus
and of your love for all the saints
because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven,
because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven,
they saw, they saw that in heaven, in Christ,
there was an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled
and that fades not away.
And their lives, their lives were someone else's.
Their lives were Christ's. They were slaves.
They were slaves to Christ because they saw in heaven,
in the eternal state, in the changeless habitation,
in the city whose builder and maker is God,
that they had an inheritance,
immeasurable, incomparable to anything on the earth
and they could give themselves.
For man in the 20th century,
that is the hardest. Western Christians,
and I'm probably reiterating something
that's been working its way out in my experience,
hammering itself into my mind
and tearing into my heart my own failures so often.
Do we believe that there is an inheritance,
incorruptible and undefiled that fades not away?
But more than that, do we believe that sacrificing our lives now
is worth that inheritance?
Do we? Do we believe that?
There's so much to tempt every one of us.
People tell us that we've got to have careers.
They tell us we've got to have possessions.
They tell us that we've got to enjoy ourselves,
got to see a bit of life, get a life.
Isn't that, you know, someone comes up to someone and says,
Get a life.
You know, everything is here and now.
Only one life.
Make the most of it.
Make the most of it. Grasp it while you can.
It's the spirit of the age.
It's a doctrine that has its genesis in hell.
It began in hell.
That's what the devil said to Adam and Eve.
Live for now.
Have self-determination now.
Grasp hold of your life. Make the most of it.
Here and now. You only get one shot.
Only get one shot.
That's an error. It's a lie. It's wrong.
We must fight against it. It's like trying to step out of mud.
It sucks on your leg and it clings to your skin
and it wants to draw you back down. It's the world.
Brethren, I speak to my shame and to myself and to you whom I know.
I'm speaking to Christians.
If you're not a Christian, you are enslaved by this.
If you are a Christian, then you are enslaved by the love of Christ
and you must overcome this temptation.
This world will be destroyed.
This life will come to an end.
The pleasures, the aspirations, the material possessions,
the enjoyments of this world will all crumble into dust
as surely as that city of Colossae is dust and ruins in Asia Minor.
Go there and you will not find an enduring city. It's gone.
What remains of the Colossians?
This word of God to them and to His Church for 19 centuries
is all that remains of the Church and the people and the city at Colossae
and one other thing.
In heaven, there is the Church of Colossae.
For 19 centuries, that hope which is laid up for them in heaven
has been no longer a hope, an enjoyment, an enjoyment, a possession
that they've known the height and the breadth and the depth
of the love of God in perfection for 19 centuries
and there'll only be one higher thing that they can enjoy
and that it will be when we who believe in Christ
and all who shall believe in Christ finally gather with them
and consummate a great marriage supper with the Lamb of God
and are wedded to Him forever to do His will and to enjoy His love
and the Lord has done this. The Lord has done this.
And how did He do it?
And that's the next point.
How did the Lord bring this about?
This great hope that welled up within their breasts
that gave them the measure by which to gauge everything in this life
that came forward in faith and love as they acted out their discipleship
and they acted out their calling.
They pursued it and they followed it.
Well, it's in verse 5 and the latter portion.
Because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven
of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the Gospel
which has come to you.
That is the means by which faith, love, hope come.
It's the word of the truth of the Gospel.
See, this was another temptation that the Colossians were subject to,
to believe there was more than the word of the truth of the Gospel.
There was more needed.
There was more to be known.
There was more to be experienced other than Christ
and His word, His truth, His Gospel.
In an age when men and women cry out to us
to recognise the validity of the dark and foolish pursuits
that they call religion, we must not, we cannot even countenance
telling them in any way that that is acceptable to God.
It wasn't acceptable 19 centuries ago.
It wasn't acceptable from man's first fall.
Esau was rejected, sorry not Esau, Cain.
Cain was rejected.
Abel was accepted.
God accepts only this.
He accepts the soul that comes in faith to Him,
drawn to Him by its need,
seeking Him in the means that He's appointed
by the man whom He has ordained, Jesus Christ.
And if ever an age needed to know that,
if ever a church had to proclaim that to its generation,
it's us.
It's us in Australia and it's not easy.
It's costly, it's hard, it sounds harsh.
We've been brought up,
those of us who weren't raised in Christian homes.
I wasn't raised in a Christian home for 21 years.
I ran according to the course of this world and it's hard.
You've been indoctrinated, you've been taught
that you mustn't offend by not accepting
other people's opinions in regards to religion.
You know there's two things you never argue about
if you're an Australian, religion and politics.
That's what my father always told me.
Never argue about those two things.
But the fact is that God has revealed one way,
one way to Him.
It's the man Christ Jesus.
He reconciled, and this is without sterling
at one of my brethren's texts,
He reconciled all things to Himself by Him.
It says here in verse 20 of chapter 1,
whether things on the earth or things in heaven
having made peace through the blood of His cross.
Why is it, why is it that the Gospel alone
is the way, the truth, the life by which a man can approach God
or a woman or a little child can approach God?
Why is it that Jesus Christ is exclusively God's appointed Saviour?
Well again, this whole epistle smacks of the reason why
because by Him all things were created that are in heaven
and that are on earth visible and invisible
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things, all things were created through Him and for Him.
This is how the truth came to the Colossians.
This is why Paul is thankful to God.
But there's something else that's amazing here.
It didn't only come to the Colossians.
We go on to verse 6 which has come to you.
It's come to you Colossians, it's a plural word.
It's not just you individually but you all gathered together
as it has also in all the world, all the world
and is bringing forth fruit as it is also among you.
See how Paul just turns it over very neatly.
He says it's come to you, this church here,
as it has in all the world the cosmos out there
and it's borne fruit in all the world out there
as it has amongst you, the church here. Isn't that lovely?
Shows the breadth of the Gospel.
Shows it's fruitful here and out there
and that's what we mustn't lose sight of.
Don't lose sight of the fact that the Gospel has come into all the world.
Otherwise we wouldn't be here.
Believer or unbeliever here tonight.
You would not be here tonight if the Gospel had not come into all the world.
You wouldn't because there'd be no reason for this gathering
but look where it's come.
It's come from Asia Minor to the southern most country in the world
in the southern hemisphere, Australia.
It's come all that distance over 19 centuries.
It's spread from the west in Britain
to the east in Canada or the Soviet block.
Every geographical region, the Gospel has gone forth.
Every tribe and tongue and nation is hearing the Gospel.
More and more and more it's been translated
and heralded and proclaimed in the world.
Look, we often forget
because in our crumbling, decaying western civilisation
we don't see the revival that perhaps our forefathers in the face saw.
I often think that the west is in its twilight
in all the madness of a decaying republic,
in all the madness of Rome as it fell to pieces
that was eaten from the inside out.
But if you go to Asia, I was reading in Reformation today
there's a Chinese preacher and he's preaching to thousands
and he's not a Pentecostal, signs and wonders,
you'll be zapped, you'll be healed, you'll have power with angels
and be able to speak in other tongues.
He's a man who preaches the Gospel of the grace of God.
He's preaching to thousands.
The Gospel is going forth into all the world
and it's bringing forth fruit just as it has here in Ella Moore Vale,
here in Newcastle, here in Australia.
That's what it's doing.
You see, the hope that we have in heaven,
the hope that we have in heaven
is brought about by the fruit of the Gospel in our lives.
It changes men and women, boys and girls,
it will change you, it will change your lives,
it will change the way you view this world,
it will give you a bigger view, a better view, a heavenly view
because this world is going to be a very difficult place for you.
Whether you are the most successful person in the world
or the least successful, it's going to be a very difficult place.
The richest men in the world still get sick,
they still struggle and they eventually die.
And so do the poorest people,
the people who are the most beautiful and comely and handsome of form
and the fittest and the athletes that we promenade at the Olympics.
They become old and die.
Donald Bradman couldn't hit a century now if his life depended on it.
He's a dear old man, I don't even know whether he knows Christ
but he's an old man and he'd be lucky to be able to stand an innings,
standing over once he was the darling of the cricket spectator,
once he was the finest sportsman in that arena,
fluid motion, an average of 99 point something.
Now he's an old man.
We're going to be disappointed in this world
and it is going to hold nothing out to us when we have to pass from it.
We're going to want to hang on to it and our hands are going to make furrows
if we're dragged into eternity without Christ.
How does the believer go into eternity?
He goes into eternity or she goes into eternity in the same way
that they have lived on this earth with faith in Christ.
With love towards the brethren, taking sweet farewell of those who remain behind
and looking forward to seeing the saints who are there before them and with hope.
They're passing through a doorway into the celestial city,
into the innumerable company of angels,
into the church of the first born from the dead, into the presence of Christ.
It's a marvellous hope and that was Paul's attitude towards his poor erring brethren.
It was firstly thankful because they had the gospel
and he could go to them then and he could lay out before them
all the beauty and the wonder of their saviour
and he could correct them and try to restrain them from the folly of their hearts
and from the foolishness and wickedness of false teachers
because he loved them and because he knew they were in Christ
and because he set the groundwork first.
And that brethren is, I hope, something of an introduction to the book of Colossians,
something of an introduction to the church of the Colossians
but more than that to the message that came to the Colossians that bore fruit
and you notice by whom that message was being taught and sustained
by a faithful minister, by a dear fellow servant,
by someone who was bringing Christ on their behalf to them
and who was not backward in declaring to Paul their love in return,
their love in the Spirit, that's verse 7 and 8.
God raises up faithful men and they can often be,
when error comes in, the most tried of all.
Pray for your pastors, pray for other pastors, pray for churches like Smithfield
who desire a faithful servant, a fellow servant in the ministry
that this Gospel might continue to bring forth fruit in our generation.
May God bless you, may we enjoy these evening series together,
may we see why Christ is pre-eminent and alone the sufficient saviour
and alone the one to whom we must turn
and may we be blessed as we see that, for Jesus' sake.
Amen.
We're going to sing hymn number 346.
I ask you, as you sing this hymn,