Platonists And Judaizers In The Sheepfold - [Colossians]

Bethlehem Bible Church iconBethlehem Bible Church

3 views

0 comments

00:02
was afraid that he would either do one of two things, that he would either forget everything he was going to say, or that he would say everything he had learned in four years of seminary in the first six minutes.
00:17
And so he asked the pastor, who was an experienced, very experienced preacher, he asked him, you know, what shall
00:26
I do if I get up there and I forget everything that I was going to say? And the pastor said, just, you know, you have the scripture verse you're going to use, just say that to yourself over, and it'll all come back to you and you'll be able to preach.
00:45
So, he got up in the pulpit, all of the singing was done, and the offering had been taken, and all of that stuff, and he looked out over the congregation, and it was just jello.
00:58
And he couldn't remember a thing that he was going to say, and so he said, kind of like this, behold,
01:07
I come quickly, that was the passage he was going to use, behold, I come quickly. And then he looked back at the congregation, and nothing.
01:18
So he took a step back, and he said, behold, I come quickly, looked at the congregation, nothing.
01:28
So he took two or three steps back, and said, behold,
01:33
I come quickly, and as he did, he stepped toward the pulpit, but he tripped right here, and he did a somersault over the pulpit, and he landed right in the lap of a little old lady that was sitting right here in the first pew.
01:50
And he said, oh man, I'm so sorry, and he got up, he's dusting himself off, she said, that's okay, young man, you warned me three times, and I wouldn't move.
02:00
So you guys here in the first rows, you've been warned, all right.
02:11
Well, you probably thought we were going to have an audiovisual extravaganza this morning, and we were, except the technology changes, you know.
02:22
I have a dumb phone, a lot of you have smartphones, and I have a laptop computer that has only one output on it,
02:32
HDMI, like you put into your flat screen television. And our projector here has only a
02:39
VGA, and so the two will not combine. And so we're going to have to do some visualizing this morning as we look at the book of Colossians.
02:49
They always ask me for a title, and that's always a, oh man, what is the title?
02:55
The title is Colossians 1. Okay, no, but, so I've called this Platonists and Judaizers in the
03:04
Sheepfold, and I want to look at the church at Colossae this morning as we get there, and then next week we're going to be together, and we'll kind of wrap it up with just exactly what the problem was there, and what the blessing was there in Colossae.
03:21
So if you will turn to Acts chapter 18, that's where the story of the church at Colossae begins.
03:34
Or scroll down if you have one of those tablets.
03:42
You know, one of the things with you guys with the tablets that are always scrolling down, and you're not going to know whether Daniel got eaten in the lion's den before Paul fell off the ship and got bit by a snake, because it all just scrolls by you, at least in the book.
03:58
You kind of have an idea of where things happen, even though it's not totally chronological.
04:05
But if, that's all right, if you're a tablet person, we understand, we understand. All right,
04:11
I've been trying to get over the end of this cold this week, and so let's ask the
04:23
Lord to help me keep my thoughts coherent, so that you don't all fall asleep, all right?
04:30
Heavenly Father, we're grateful for your word. We pray now as we look at the church at Colossae and all that went on there, and in that part of the world at this time.
04:41
We pray that you would bless our hearts, that you would encourage our hearts, that you would encourage us with the depth of your word, and the breadth of your word, and the scope of it all.
04:54
And we pray that you would help us to apprehend a little more the great salvation that has been obtained for us by the
05:02
Lord Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray this morning, and at this time, my glorify him, we ask in his name, amen.
05:13
Now, you're going to have to do a little visualizing. Can you all see this map of the Mediterranean up here?
05:20
Okay, over here, over here is Italy, like that, got that?
05:27
Okay, over here is Israel and all of that part of the Mediterranean Sea that is there at the far western end of the
05:40
Mediterranean Sea. And up here is Asia Minor, okay? And then over here would be
05:47
Greece and all of that. You got that? Just keep that right in your eye. That's what was going to be on the screen this morning, but you're going to have to do it yourself.
05:55
If you have a Bible with you, it's one of these books, okay? If you have a Bible with you, you can turn in the back of it, and I don't know if the pew
06:04
Bibles have these or not, but there might be a map that shows Paul's second missionary journey.
06:12
And that's where we're going to pick up the story of the Colossians. And you say, is that a pew
06:18
Bible? No, it is not. It's not a pew Bible, okay. That's where we're going to pick up the story of the
06:25
Colossians. It's always good for us to get context. Probably you have heard
06:30
Pastor Mike say 138 times, context, context, context, context.
06:37
But the context is not only in the text that comes before and comes after a particular passage.
06:44
The context is the context of culture, and we're going to be talking about that during these two weeks.
06:51
It's the context of geography, and that's on the map that you see before you here, okay?
06:58
And it's the context of history. And if you get those contexts right, you can place what you're doing right at the right place.
07:08
I read recently that millennials, we don't want to mention any names here, but their initials are 20s and 30 -somethings, okay?
07:17
That millennials believe that history began with their birth. And I want you to know, if you are in that state of mind, we want to disabuse you of that.
07:32
There are a couple of things that happened before you arrived on the scene that actually are important, okay?
07:39
And so we're going to look at some of those as it relates to the church at Colossae this morning.
07:48
Asia Minor, Asia Minor, you want to keep that Asia Minor in mind up here, okay?
07:56
As we look at this, Paul has left on his second missionary journey from Antioch, from Antioch, gone all over here,
08:07
Greece, and so on. We get down to the 18th, 17th, and 18th chapters of Acts. Paul is in Athens where he does the great sermon there on Mars Hill, and then he goes to Corinth.
08:18
And in the Apostle Paul's inimitable style, he preaches there in Corinth for a while, quite a while, and then there is a riot, and he gets beat up and thrown out of town.
08:31
And that was Paul's evangelistic style many times. But when he leaves
08:37
Corinth then, he heads off, heading back toward Jerusalem first, and then to Antioch to the church that he's going to report to because they are the sending church.
08:48
Let us be reminded this morning that it is churches that send missionaries.
08:55
Missionaries are not lone rangers that just go on their own someplace to deliver the gospel. Churches send missionaries.
09:01
It's been that way since day one of any missionary enterprise.
09:08
And Paul was one of those missionaries, and he's on his way back to Antioch to report to the church at Antioch.
09:15
When we come to chapter 18, the end of chapter 18, after Paul has been beaten up and thrown out of Corinth, it says at verse 18, after this,
09:30
Paul stayed many days longer and then took leave of the brothers, set sail for Syria, Antioch, and with him
09:37
Priscilla and Aquila. At Sencri, he had cut his hair for he was under a vow.
09:44
And they came to Ephesus. To Ephesus. That's an important feature now of not only of this episode that we're going to look at here, but it is an important feature in the progress of the gospel from this time on.
10:03
The book of Colossians is written about AD 60, 62, something like that.
10:09
From the time of, from that time on, Asia Minor assumes a great deal more influence in the outreach of the gospel and then in the progress of the gospel than it has up to this time.
10:27
In any case, Paul comes to Ephesus. I'm sure some of you, maybe many of you have been to Ephesus with Pastor Mike.
10:34
Stick your hand up if you have been. It's kind of a little, it's an inland city now, isn't it?
10:40
But at this time, it was on the coast because the sea had not filled in around it.
10:48
And it was the great import -export city of Asia Minor, present -day Turkey at that time.
10:55
Paul comes to Ephesus. It's a major cosmopolitan city.
11:02
Perhaps more than a million people in that city. Rivaling even Rome in its population and in the things that are there.
11:11
And it is a major place for reasons which we will get into. He comes to Ephesus.
11:20
And then he does what he usually does. He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the
11:26
Jews. That's how Paul always started. He went to the synagogue. He talked with the Jews about Jesus, the
11:32
Messiah, and preached him to them. They usually got mad, threw him out of the synagogue, and he went somewhere else.
11:39
But he didn't have time to do that on this trip. He was there just a little while, and they asked him to stay a longer period.
11:48
He declined. Why? Because he was on his way back to the church at Antioch, first to Jerusalem, then to the church at Antioch, where he would report what had happened on his second outing as a cross -cultural missionary.
12:02
But on taking leave of them, he said, I will return to you if God wills.
12:08
And he set sail from Ephesus. Now skip over to chapter 19.
12:14
He goes to Jerusalem. He goes to Antioch. He reports all that's happened at Antioch. And it happened that while Paulus was at Corinth, and some time goes on here between chapters 18 and 19.
12:31
It's a while. While Paulus, who we didn't read about, was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country.
12:41
Some translations say through the upper country. In other words, he didn't get on a boat this time and head back.
12:47
Now let's look at our map. He did not get on a boat over here at Antioch and head back across the
12:52
Mediterranean toward Greece and so on. Instead, he went overland over the upper country, and he went on the roads that roughly parallel.
13:04
And if you're looking at a map, you'll see the Meander River down there on that map in what is present -day
13:11
Turkey, Asia Minor. So he went overland, and he went overland for a purpose.
13:17
And the purpose that he went overland for was to get back to Ephesus. He had told them he was coming back, if the
13:25
Lord will. And that's how he starts his third missionary journey, going overland to arrive at the city of Ephesus.
13:34
The story of John's disciples is there. We're not going to read that this morning for time's sake. And Paul, he,
13:41
Paul, entered the synagogue at Ephesus and for three months spoke loudly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.
13:51
But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way before the congregation, you notice that translation there?
14:01
Christianity there is called the way. Christians were first called Christians at Antioch, and it was a term of derision.
14:11
All right, you say, well, why was it a term of derision? It was a term of derision because of politicians.
14:18
When the emperor would come to town, in fact, Judy and I just looked at a deal, at a documentary about Henry VIII, you know, and Henry VIII traveled around England.
14:28
He had 800 people with him all the time, all trying to get something out of Henry VIII.
14:36
You notice when our politicians travel along to speak, especially in the age of television, there's always a bunch of smiling, clapping folks right behind them, nobody in opposition, and so on.
14:52
When Caesar would come to town in New Testament times and in times before that, he would also have the entourage with him.
15:03
And they would clap and cheer and smile and all of that stuff that we see even today, and they were called
15:10
Little Caesars, Caesareans, okay? Little Caesars, and that was the guys that clapped and smiled and shouted and said, oh, how wonderful he is, and so on and so forth.
15:23
We have the same thing today, of course. So when they said at Antioch, these followers of the way are
15:31
Christians, they were saying, these are just the people that yell and stamp and shout and cheer for Jesus, who we know is dead, even though they keep talking about his resurrection.
15:45
And it was a term of ridicule. Oh, you guys, you Christians, you are the clapping seals for Jesus.
15:53
That's what that came down to. But here, it's translated, followers of the way.
15:58
Some became stubborn, continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way before the congregation.
16:04
He withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.
16:11
This continued for two years. So he's in Ephesus the second time. The first time he's only there a week or two.
16:19
The second time he's there at least three months and two years, some think maybe longer, okay?
16:26
That's important. So keep that in your mind. There will be a quiz at the end of this hour.
16:33
All right, never mind. I'm not going to do that. This continued for two years so that all...
16:38
Now watch it. All the residents of Asia heard the word of the
16:43
Lord, both Jews and Greeks. Now get the picture. Paul is here lecturing daily, presumably in the hall of Tyrannus, a kind of a lecture hall affair.
16:53
He's there teaching all the time. And the testimony of the scripture is that all of Asia heard the gospel because he was there in Ephesus.
17:04
It doesn't say Paul ran around Asia preaching the gospel. It says because he was there at the hall of Tyrannus in Ephesus, major city, major seaport town.
17:15
And here's why that's important. All the exports and imports for Asia Minor came through Ephesus, okay?
17:23
So Paul is in a major place. So guess what's happening with imports and exports?
17:28
As imports and exports are going through Ephesus, so are the people that are involved in importing and exporting.
17:36
And that's thousands of people. It's thousands of people from all over the place in what is present -day
17:44
Turkey, then referred to as Asia. You will see on your map there, you will see that there are all kinds of trade routes running through Asia Minor.
17:55
Why? Everybody's got stuff to get to Ephesus or stuff to get from Ephesus or something like that.
18:03
Get it? And that brings us to Colossians chapter 1, all right? I'm sure this book has
18:18
Colossians in it. Okay. Paul gives his usual greeting.
18:28
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Oh, by the way, there is a movement extant now, 20 centuries later, in so -called evangelical
18:39
Christianity. It's getting so you hesitate to say you are an evangelical
18:44
Christian anymore because of some of the weird stuff that goes on in the name of evangelical
18:52
Christianity. That used to be the biblical Christians. Now we have some evangelicals saying, you know,
18:58
Paul, he didn't really get all that right about justification by faith and all that stuff.
19:05
Because Paul was just a commentator. He was not really an apostle.
19:11
He was just a commentator because he was not one of the 12. Because he had these ideas that extended what
19:20
Jesus had taught and taught us about justification by faith and so on. I want you to know, if you hear anything like that, you can just take it and drop it in the trash can.
19:30
Because the apostle Paul thinks he was an apostle. The Corinthians said the same thing 20 centuries ago.
19:38
We don't think he's an apostle. He's not very powerful when he comes here. You know, he doesn't even speak well.
19:45
He's kind of ugly on top of that. And Paul wrote to them in 1 and 2
19:50
Corinthians. Paul wrote to them and said, in essence, you wait till I get there. I'll show you how an apostle deals with the churches.
19:59
So make no mistake, regardless of what a German liberal theologian may tell you,
20:05
Paul the apostle was an apostle. An apostle, not a, it's a large
20:11
A. One of those eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ who was commissioned, in essence, to reveal to us through the
20:21
New Testament all that we know about the gospel. That's just a footnote, probably.
20:26
It's not in your translation, all right? He writes, he's by the will of God, he writes.
20:32
And Timothy, our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our
20:41
Father. Now, where is Colossae? Okay, can you see our map up here? Okay, here's
20:46
Ephesus up here in Asia Minor. You go about a hundred miles up the
20:53
Meander River. If you have a map in front of you, have you found the Meander River? Anybody find the
21:00
Meander River? Well, you're going to have to do this at dinner because I don't have time to wait.
21:08
All right, the Meander River is there in the southern part of Turkey. And it is the feature from which we get the
21:17
English word, meander, because it meanders like this for a hundred miles, way in that direction in the southern part of Asia Minor.
21:28
And then another branch comes off about a hundred miles up the river, another branch comes off and heads off to the west and south a little bit.
21:38
And that is the Lycus River, L -Y -C -U -S. Do you see that? Okay, and there, just beyond where the
21:48
Lycus River comes into the Meander River are the Tri -Cities. I call them the
21:54
Tri -Cities. They are these cities, Heropolis, you go, oh yeah,
22:00
Heropolis, you've never heard of that, okay. Heropolis, Laodicea, you've heard of that, haven't you?
22:07
Yes, you have. And Colossi, the principal, those cities are about 10 miles apart.
22:13
And if you can see them on your map, or if you could see a map that had them all on there, you would see they are just like a little triangle way up the river there.
22:24
Now, in the Tri -Cities, and Laodicea was the principal city in the
22:29
Tri -Cities, not Colossi, but Laodicea, all right. There they raised sheep, there were mineral deposits there, and so there was a lot of stuff moving through Ephesus from the
22:45
Lycus River Valley. That's important because we're going to come to that right now without saying
22:51
Lycus River Valley, all right. So, we always thank God, the
22:56
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you Colossians, and not only the
23:01
Colossians, but the Laodiceans and the Heropoly, I don't know what people from Heropolis call themselves, but you know, the
23:08
Heropolyans or something like that, all right. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, you notice the definite article there, in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing, as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.
23:45
Now watch it, just as you learned it from Epaphras, Epaphras?
23:53
Yeah, Epaphras. You learned it from somebody else, because at the beginning of chapter 2, Paul says to these
23:59
Colossians, he says, I have great concern for those at Laodicea and for those of you who have never seen my face.
24:07
And so Paul had never been to the church at Colossae. He was in Ephesus lecturing at the school of Tyrannus.
24:15
And this guy Epaphras, and it's Epaphras, the emphasis is on the first syllable as in septuagint, okay?
24:27
This guy Epaphras went down the river or along the trade route taking stuff, no doubt doing business between the
24:36
Lycus River Valley and Ephesus. While there, he must have heard the apostle
24:42
Paul at the school of Tyrannus, at the hall of Tyrannus, preach the gospel.
24:48
And there he came to know Paul pretty well. Not only did he come to know Paul pretty well, he went back up a hundred miles, back up into the
24:57
Lycus River Valley, and there he founded the church at Colossae and at Laodicea and at Hierapolis, okay?
25:06
I like these books like Colossians and like Romans because the people that are the subject of these books are people that had never seen an apostle.
25:20
They are people that came to Christ because of the testimony of someone who came to them, delivered the gospel to them, and they believed.
25:31
And the reason I like that is because 20 centuries later, all of us have believed on the testimony of somebody else that came, and ultimately we have believed in the
25:44
Lord Jesus Christ because of the testimony of the apostles, okay?
25:50
You remember John chapter 17? I'm not going to turn there this morning for time's sake, but in John chapter 17, getting down about verse 20, it's in the right -hand column about that far down on the page, okay?
26:04
The prayer of Jesus on that day turns from the disciples themselves who he had been praying for, and he turns a corner and he says, and now
26:16
I want to pray for all of those, Father, who will believe in me because of their testimony.
26:24
That's us. On the night before his crucifixion, the
26:30
Lord Jesus looked down through all of these centuries and he saw us and he prayed for us because we have come to him because of the testimony of the apostles.
26:44
These Colossians are in the same boat that we're in. They had never met Paul. They had never met
26:50
John. They would meet John, but they hadn't met him yet. They had never met any of the apostles, and yet here a guy goes 100 miles to Ephesus.
27:00
He hears the gospel from the apostle Paul. He goes back up the river, and there he tells people what he heard, and they believe, and they are brothers and sisters even as we have become brothers and sisters by that very method that has gone on.
27:16
I like these kinds of books. They're all about us, okay? Epaphras.
27:26
Now, where's Paul when he's writing this? He's in Rome in prison. A few commentators say they think he was in Ephesus in jail because of the riot that occurred there, but I don't think so, and I don't think most people think so.
27:39
He's in jail in Rome. That's very important because there's another Colossian that you know that we haven't named yet this morning.
27:50
He was a rich Colossian, probably a businessman, probably had business in Ephesus.
27:58
He himself might also have met the apostle Paul as well as Epaphras did.
28:04
Can anybody tell me his name? Philemon, okay?
28:12
Philemon was a resident of Colossae, maybe later to see.
28:19
Anyway, he lived up there in the Tri -Cities. That's important because of what's to happen next.
28:25
Paul is in Rome in prison. He says this about Epaphras.
28:33
Let's watch our map now. Here's the Lycus River Valley right over there by the woodwork.
28:40
Here's Ephesus. Epaphras, he goes back and forth from Ephesus to the
28:47
Lycus River Valley to Colossae on business, back and forth, back and forth.
28:53
The apostle Paul ends up in prison in Rome way over here, and now here's the testimony about Epaphras.
29:04
Epaphras is a faithful minister of Christ, and I think the ESV guys got it right here.
29:10
He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, on your behalf.
29:18
Some translations, King James I'm sure, says our behalf, but the earliest manuscripts say your.
29:29
Now what happens is the whole pronoun thing gets muddied up a little later on. In any case, your is a good translation.
29:40
So, you get the picture? Here's Paul over here in Rome, a thousand miles or more away from the
29:48
Lycus River Valley where there are three churches that have been founded by Epaphras, and these three churches send
29:55
Epaphras over to help
30:01
Paul, to minister to Paul who is in jail over in Rome, and the testimony about Epaphras is, this
30:08
Epaphras is you guys over here with me. That's what he's saying.
30:15
Now, let me get out of the Sunday school lesson for just a second and talk like the missionary, okay?
30:23
And I would do this if I was in a missions conference in your church. I would probably do this sometime during that time.
30:31
When a missionary comes rolling through here, and I guess that would include us, because we came rolling through here about 23 years ago, okay?
30:43
And bless your hearts, you have been instrumental in our going regularly to the grocery store, all right?
30:55
And we thank you for that, and we love you for that, all right? But understand this, when we were in Bolivia, when we were at the
31:06
Neutralized Bible Institute in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and I was teaching outgoing missionaries, and Judy was teaching some of their kids, outgoing missionaries, we were there on your behalf.
31:22
It was as if Bethlehem Bible Church was
31:31
Bethlehem Baptist Church when I left it. And that's okay. It's all right. I'm not all huffy about that, all right?
31:40
And here's why. Because you're all Baptist. You can call yourself whatever you want.
31:46
But I know it's a Baptistic place, you know? All right. We were there on your behalf, and on the behalf of others who were a material part of our going there.
31:59
Here's the deal. In Acts chapter 1 verse 8, Jesus said, you're going to be witnesses.
32:06
He said this to the apostles, and there was about 120 there in Acts chapter 1. He said, you're going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth.
32:20
And then he said, and I'll see you later. Haven't seen him yet. He hasn't come back yet.
32:27
And so the commission was given to the church to get the gospel out to the ends of the earth.
32:33
Now, here's the truth. The truth is not everybody can or will be a cross -cultural missionary, okay?
32:41
I'm not going to ever preach a sermon in this church that goes like this. If God hasn't called you to stay, why aren't you out of here?
32:47
I'm not going to do that. There are a hundred reasons why not everyone can go.
32:54
But watch this. Every person sitting in Bethlehem Bible Church is responsible for that great commission to the ends of the earth, even though you're sitting here in West Boylston, Massachusetts.
33:10
And while we were in Bolivia, and while we were in Waukesha, and while we were down in North Carolina representing the work of the mission to pastors and churches and prospective missionaries down there, we were, you were there.
33:25
And we were your eyes, your ears, your hands, your feet. But you were there.
33:31
That point of view begins there in Colossians.
33:38
Here's Epaphras, who is a faithful servant on your behalf,
33:45
Colossae, and he's here with me. Now, that's the historic geographic look at how this whole
33:55
Colossian thing gets going. Let me extend it just a little bit further, okay? Because we're going to run out of time, and we're going to run out of time.
34:07
And I'm going to practice the bailout school of homiletics, right? When it's time, I'm going to bail out. All right.
34:14
Here's the deal. Paul is in Rome in prison. Epaphras has been sent to him.
34:23
But before that ever happened, back up here in the
34:28
Lycus River Valley, at the estate of wealthy Philemon, there was a young slave that stole from his master.
34:41
This is not a good thing in century one. He stole from his master, and he took off.
34:49
Now, if you had stolen from your master, which was worthy of death in the first century, if you had stolen from your master, you would not come to West Boylston, Massachusetts to hide out, okay?
35:02
We are living up in Berry Plains, you know, us and the other ten houses there, okay?
35:10
If you were Onesimus, the runaway slave, you would not try to hide out in Berry Plains.
35:17
You know why? Because tomorrow we'd know you were there. So what you do is you head out to the most cosmopolitan, biggest place you can find, and probably you start by heading toward Ephesus.
35:32
It's a big city. You get lost in Ephesus. But from Ephesus, Onesimus put more miles between he and his master
35:41
Philemon, and he goes to Rome. Now, this is a beautiful story of the sovereignty of God.
35:50
The young guy goes to Rome. The apostle Paul is in prison there.
35:57
A guy from back home, Epaphras, is there, okay?
36:02
And somehow in a city of more than a million people, Onesimus, the runaway slave, meets up with a guy in jail.
36:16
Paul, the apostle. And there, he comes to Christ.
36:23
So the whole little one -chapter book of Philemon is a letter back to Philemon saying to him,
36:31
I'm sending Onesimus back to you, and he's a brother now. Paul also says, and whatever he stole from you,
36:39
I'll make it good if it's really that important to you. Philemon. Paul goes on to say in that letter, he says, and when
36:48
I come, I might get there. You have a guest room ready for me. It would probably be Paul's first trip up the
36:55
Lycus River Valley, okay? And so what happens is
37:00
Paul writes the letter to the Ephesians. He writes the letter to the Colossians. He writes the letter to Philemon.
37:10
They roll them all up, give them to a guy named Tychicus, and they send
37:15
Tychicus and Onesimus back up to the
37:20
Lycus River Valley. And Onesimus is received not as a runaway slave worthy of death, but as a brother.
37:28
If that is not a testimony to the sovereignty of God, I never heard it. I never heard such a thing.
37:35
That is a beautiful, beautiful story. Okay, now
37:41
I've got to figure out where we're going to bail here. You've got the history now.
37:50
You've got a little of the geography of how this all worked. The question is, why was this letter written?
37:58
Why did he do that? Because we find some stunning things in this letter.
38:03
I would say the most stunning thing of all in this letter is what
38:08
I'm going to read to you right now. Chapter 1, verse 15.
38:14
He, Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, meaning the preeminent
38:23
One in all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
38:34
All things were created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things. And in Him all things hold together.
38:41
And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything
38:46
He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
38:53
And through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.
39:04
You say, how'd they get in that letter? This great testimony to the preeminence of Christ.
39:11
Think about this. Is there anybody in Colossae that thinks that Christ might not be preeminent or could not be preeminent?
39:22
And the answer, of course, is absolutely. There are people there.
39:29
Next week when we come together, we're going to take a look at this whole business of one's worldview, all right?
39:41
And you need to understand that the Colossians were saved and came to Christ, which is a change in worldview.
39:52
Do you get that? Because you came to Jesus Christ, your worldview changed.
39:59
You say, it did? I didn't know that. Next week you're going to know, all right?
40:06
When the Colossians came to Christ, their worldview changed and it became something quite opposite to the worldview of the culture all around them.
40:20
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus this morning, your worldview, whether you know all the ins and outs of it or not, your worldview, the way you look at the world, the assumptions you make about how the world works, all of that is different from the worldview that prevails around us.
40:41
You need to understand that. I'm sure you can turn your television set on and some guy will say, just come to Jesus.
40:50
Your car will get bigger. Your business will get better. Your marriage will be better. You'll smile and laugh all the time.
40:56
It'll be great. And by the way, send us some money at the end of this broadcast. And I'm sure all of that you can hear on television.
41:05
But I'm here to tell you that if you come to Jesus, you have stepped into a war, not into a place of great prosperity.
41:16
Because the worldview that comes from the book and from the Savior is absolutely antithetical to the worldview that is all around us.
41:28
And if you don't understand that, I think it was A .W. Tozer that said Christians need to understand that the world is a battleground.
41:37
It is not a playground. It is a battleground. And if you don't understand that, then it's time that we begin to talk about some of those things so that you understand.
41:49
Now, if you ask a lot of people, what is your worldview? They would go, my what? Okay, but get this.
41:56
Everybody has a worldview. Everybody, no exceptions.
42:02
Not even the kid that's sitting in his mother's basement and has done nothing for the last 13 years but play a video game.
42:11
That kid has a worldview. Worldviews cover,
42:19
I'm going to distill this, and I'll give this to you in writing next week, okay? Worldviews cover what you think about four different areas.
42:29
Now, it depends on who you read. You know, if you read James Sire, it's 17. But if you listen to me, we can get it down to four, okay?
42:37
What do you think is really real? What's really real? Okay. How do you get at the truth?
42:45
What is truth? Pilot, what is truth? He thought that was a wise saying. Well, it wasn't.
42:52
It wasn't. Okay. How do you decide what's right and wrong? We're having a little trouble with that in our country these days.
43:00
22 people killed in Chicago in the last two days. I think we're having a little right and wrong problem in our country, okay?
43:08
And what do you think about the nature, purpose, and destiny of man?
43:16
You can just kind of distill the whole thing down into those four categories. I'm going to talk about them next week. And we will talk about those four categories for the
43:28
Colossians before they came to Christ, after they came to Christ. We'll talk about those four categories for us.
43:37
What's our view of how the world works? So if you don't have that right, then you have to live in conflict.
43:46
Let me give you a perfect example of conflict. Recently, in the last 10 days, a poll was taken of millennials.
43:53
I'm sorry, I don't mean to pick on you millennials, okay? If you're a millennial, just think, the guy really thinks
43:59
I'm 45, so it's okay. All right. A poll was taken of them about several things.
44:07
Many millennials, 57%, as I recall, of millennials say, you know what? I think that the government of the
44:17
United States ought to be smaller, it ought to do less, it ought to be reined in, and so on, okay?
44:27
Later on, in the same poll, they asked the question, do you think the government ought to be doing more?
44:35
Yes. You talk about confusion and inconsistency and contradiction, it's all around us.
44:46
Let me leave you with this, and I will really do that this time. This is not the pastoral in closing now, okay?
44:55
When you depart from the worldview of the Bible, when you take that first step away from the worldview that the
45:03
Bible describes, you take a step into irrationality, because you cannot account for the way the world really works except with a biblical, and let me say it this way, with a
45:18
Christian biblical worldview, all right? If you have something else in mind, you'll have to make a separate little box over here in your head to keep that going while you hold this intention over here.
45:34
You know what the problem with our culture is? Our culture is a lot of people walking around with a hundred little boxes in their heads that are all in conflict, and yet when you walk into one box, it all looks okay.
45:50
But you dare not look around the corner at what else you just said back here 10 minutes ago. And that is part of the, may
45:58
I say, schizophrenia neuroses of this culture.
46:05
We do not hold our worldviews in rationality.
46:12
Okay, it's really enough. Comments, questions? Sorry, it's too late. You can't ask them. All right, let's pray.
46:19
Thank you, Lord, for your Word. Thank you for these people at Colossae. Thank you for their example to us.
46:27
Thank you for Epaphras, the guy that bothered to give them the gospel. Thank you,
46:33
Lord, for the story of Onesimus that displays your sovereignty in such wonderful grace.
46:42
We're grateful to have been here now this morning. Again, we thank you for the great salvation that is in Jesus.