Introduction to Colossians - Colossians 1:1-2 - Pastor Iljin Cho

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June 27, 2021 - Morning Worship Service Faith Bible Church - Sacramento, CA

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Well good morning and welcome to Faith Bible Church. This is a momentous day for many reasons.
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Number one, it's the Lord's Day. We also have Pastor Ilgen with us to preach his first sermon, official sermon here.
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He's been at this pulpit before but today it's his maiden voyage. So we're really excited that they're here as we're preparing our hearts for worship.
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A word that comes out a lot is that we say a lot, we get very used to it, and that's rejoice.
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And again I say rejoice. Philippians 4 says, Rejoice in the Lord always.
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Again I will say rejoice. And it's a word that we kind of just say and we don't think about it necessarily.
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But it's not backed by emotions. Emotion can be helpful in our worship but it really comes from the heart.
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It's really thinking about your relationship with the Lord. And so we want to start at that, you know, foundational level and then from that there will be an outspring of joy and in our worship.
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Sometimes that's difficult to do. It is a command. We are to rejoice always. We're commanded to do that.
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That means we don't have a choice. That means always. How do we do that? And Pastor John has spoken to this verse a couple times.
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Be anxious for nothing but in everything in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
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That's the only way we can do it. We need to put everything in at His feet at the cross.
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So would you join with me as we commit this service to the Lord? Lord God we thank you that we've been gathered here today that we can fellowship as fellow believers,
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Father, in your church. Lord we commit all that we do today that the hymns we sing, the words that are preached,
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Father, would go forth and touch each life and touch lives beyond the walls of this church.
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Father we pray for those that aren't here in our midst but are watching this. Lord I just we pray that your hand would be upon them that they would find that conviction to eventually come and fellowship again with us,
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Lord. So we look forward to that day. Father we pray today that we would just honor you and everything that we do that you would be pleased,
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Father, that as we desire to to worship you in spirit and in truth. So Lord we commit our service and go before His Father and we just rejoice because you are a mighty, great, loving
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God and one that just desires us to fellowship with you always and rejoice in you always.
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So we thank you in Christ's name we pray, amen. Please turn with me to Colossians chapter 1 verses 1 through 2.
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Colossians chapter 1 verses 1 through 2. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our
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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Word of God. Let us pray.
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Father as we start a new sermon series on Colossians we pray that our lives would manifest what it means to have
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Christ in the center of our lives. In our thoughts, in our words, and in our actions
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God help us to depend on Christ alone and know that he is all in all and in him there's all wisdom and knowledge and there's nothing we can do to add to our salvation.
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I pray that you would speak through me and it would be by the power of the
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Holy Spirit not on my own strength nor on my eloquence. God I pray that you would work in all of our hearts and renew all of our minds through your word.
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In Jesus name, amen. So I would like to start with a question what do
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Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormons have in common?
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A rather a bizarre question to start off the first official sermon but an important one nonetheless.
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They regard Jesus highly but he is regarded lower than who he truly is.
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First Islam considers Jesus as a prophet but not as their risen
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Lord. The Jehovah's Witnesses elevate Jesus as a
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God small g yet they do not consider him as equally divine as God the
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Father. Thirdly the Mormons believe that Jesus was created by God the
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Father hence in one sense Jesus and Satan who is also created are brothers.
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However Jesus Christ the Son of God the second person of the Trinity is more than just a prophet.
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He is equally divine as God the Father and lastly Jesus was never created but the
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Creator himself and why is this important for us to know?
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Because there is a pattern of false teachings that often downplays Jesus Christ and his work on the cross as insufficient.
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In fact many low views of Christ stemmed from the church as well.
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In the medieval times the Western Church started venerating
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Mary as the mother of God and many believed that they needed to go through Mary in order to have access to God.
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Of course by God's grace the Reformation changed that trajectory and the
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Protestants discarded such perverse practice because we believe Jesus through his atoning sacrifice is the only way to God and he himself is
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God. We don't need another human to come between us and God.
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Sadly the insufficient view of Christ and his work on the cross has popped up its ugly head in the modern evangelicalism.
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Oftentimes the gospel is assumed in church ministry.
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Churches and Christian organizations often call their mercy ministries where they're feeding the poor, giving out clothes to those who don't have clothes, and visiting the sick and they call that gospel work.
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This seems very trivial but it has a huge implication.
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Unless the good news of Jesus Christ is proclaimed those ministries have nothing to do with the gospel.
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What does it matter if a person is no longer hungry if his eternal state is under the wrath of God?
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What does it matter if someone is kept warm temporarily if she's living in guilt and shame?
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No clothes can clothe that. They just cannot call it the gospel work.
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Christians have to proclaim the news that the Son of God Jesus faced the judgment for our sins on the cross so that we may be forgiven.
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If Christ's work and Jesus are just assumed in the church we implicitly live with the insufficient view of Christ.
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Hence this letter is relevant to us today because Colossians out the centrality of Christ and the sufficiency of the cross.
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Paul exhorts the church to hold fast to Christ whom they have heard before.
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Do not let go of what you have heard since the beginning of your faith. Do not seek elsewhere to find deeper teachings.
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Do not practice various rituals to attain some higher level of faith.
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To the Colossians Paul proclaims that Christ is all in all.
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Christ is fully sufficient for them and Christ is fully sufficient for us.
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Today we will be looking at this letter from a bird's -eye view to see who is the author, who is the church, and the author's greeting.
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Who is the author, who is the audience, and his greeting.
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First let me set some background. The city of Colossae was located in Asia Minor, the modern -day
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Turkey. It was 10 miles away from Laodicea, which was a wealthy city and we know that city from Revelation 3, right?
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The lukewarm city, very wealthy. This letter was written around the early 60s
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AD when Paul was in prison. Although Paul did not get to visit the church prior to writing this letter, his close friend
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Epaphras, who was the pastor of this church, reported to him what was going on and Paul felt the urgency to write this letter to a church he's never met.
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First we must go over who is the author. The Apostle Paul has the authority from God to address the church.
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That's the first point. The Apostle Paul has the authority from God to address the church. He starts with Paul, an
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Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy our brother. Similar to many of his letters,
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Paul wrote the most number of letters in the Bible. Colossians starts with the introduction of the author.
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Here it is clear that the Apostle Paul wrote the letter. The word
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Apostle means a messenger, someone who is sent.
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In other parts of the New Testament, the term Apostle describes a traveling evangelist, similar to a modern -day missionary who's sent by a church.
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However, in this context, the term Apostle carries a greater weight, more authority.
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First notice whose Apostle Paul is. Paul is an Apostle of Jesus Christ.
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What does this mean? Our Lord and Savior Jesus himself sent
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Paul. Paul is not sent by any men or churches. Jesus sent
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Paul and we can recall how Jesus sent Paul, commissioned to be the
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Apostle in Acts 9. In that account, Paul was personally selected and sent by Jesus to be one of the
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Apostles of the church, someone who has authority to address the church.
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Second, Paul is an Apostle by the will of God. This means
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God purposefully commissioned Paul to be an Apostle for the early church. Paul starts out his letter with his credential and authority to address the church in Colossae because he intends to correct them.
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If he showed up just correcting them without this credential, it would not have made sense.
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Third, we are told that Timothy is with Paul. Yet notice that the title
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Apostle is not used for Timothy. Neither is for Epaphras, one of the church leaders of Colossae, referred as an
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Apostle in verse 8 of chapter 1. What does this mean? The Apostleship is reserved for those whom
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Christ personally commissioned by the will of God. Commissioning an Apostle is an act of divine appointment.
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This means any modern man or woman who is called an Apostle, and does not merely mean a messenger or a missionary, is a false
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Apostle. Paul's level of Apostleship, after all, is qualitatively different.
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He is sent by Jesus by the will of God the Father. Biblically, this commissioning stopped after Paul in the first century.
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Hence, no one can write a letter to a church now and call it scripture. Paul could do it, but no one's
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Paul. No one can claim that his words are divinely inspired by God, or that there is newer revelation from God.
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No, the Apostolic ministry stopped after the Apostles died in the first century.
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Hence, anyone claiming to be otherwise is a false teacher and must be removed from the church.
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After establishing the authority to address the church, the Apostle Paul brings up his concerns of false teaching in the church.
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And this happens in the body of the letter, which I did not read, and we'll go over this. After all,
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Paul has not visited this church yet, so it was very important to set the foundation correctly before bringing up any problems.
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And because we will go through this letter thoroughly in the following weeks, today I will give you just a broad overview of what kind of problems the church in Colossae was facing.
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We will refer to the false teaching at this church as the Colossian heresy. A heresy is a teaching or belief that is overtly distorted, so twisted, from the original teaching found in the
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Bible. And anyone who holds to a heretical view and does not repent is not considered a
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Christian, because the heresy changes the truth of God's words so much that it leads to a different religion.
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Hence, a worship of a false God. This means we have to be clear and cautious when we use the term heresy.
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We will see why the Colossian heresy was dangerous enough for the Apostle Paul to address the church that he's never visited.
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Now, it is hard to pinpoint what was exactly taught by the false teachers, because we do not have the records of those doctrines.
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They didn't survive. However, when we look at Paul's words in the letter, we can learn a lot about the
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Colossian heresy. First, the Colossian heresy did not outright reject
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Jesus Christ, but viewed Christ as a mere stepping stone.
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The false teachers tried to add on to Christ. Hence, Paul emphasizes in Colossians 2 verses 3 through 4, "...in
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Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments."
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Paul, by using their language, the language of the false teachers, wants the church to remember that Christ is all in all.
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From the beginning to the end of our faith, there's no hidden mysteries or secret wisdom, a knowledge that we need to know about him.
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Therefore, we reject other persuasive arguments that draw our attention away from Christ.
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Second, because they viewed Christ as insufficient, the false teachers urged the church to submit to various Jewish practices.
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Colossians 2 .16 is an example. So, let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths.
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Because we are under the new covenant instituted by Jesus, the church is not under the
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Mosaic covenant to keep the ceremonial laws regarding food and festivals. To place ourselves under it would be to view
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Christ's new covenant as insufficient, incomplete. What more can
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Christ do for you if he has already given his own life? Why must you return to the old covenant to submit to the ceremonial laws to be made clean?
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Perhaps it would be similar to stubbornly playing with a candy wrapper found on the ground at an amusement park even after your parents paid for the entrance ticket.
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Look up to Christ. Third, the false teachers appealed the church to practice asceticism and mysticism.
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This is different from the Jewish laws mentioned above. Asceticism is a practice of denying material good, such as food or anything enjoyable, or punishing yourself physically.
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And many mystics practice asceticism to reach a higher state of faith. Paul tells the
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Colossian church to not to submit themselves to the ascetic regulations such as Colossians 221.
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Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle. This could be a proto -Gnostic teaching, which is a teaching that came before Gnosticism.
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Gnosticism was a big heresy a hundred and two hundred years after the letter was written, but it's a beginning glimpse of it.
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And Gnosticism is a view that the physical realm is evil, yet the spiritual realm is great.
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Thereby the Gnostics would deprive themselves of the physical goods, like food, and try to seek the hidden spiritual knowledge that only a few could attain.
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And we can see here that the Colossian heresy came from various sources.
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And we can see some Gnostic influence, some Jewish influence, and some ascetic influences as well.
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Hence it was syncretistic. It was a smoothie of mixed false teachings.
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And it is important for us to remember Paul's warning against these false teachers, because the world has not changed.
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The world didn't get better. False teaching to distract us from Christ is rampant.
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Here are some modern -day religions that echo the Colossian heresy. First, Mormonism.
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Similar to the Colossian heresy, Mormons do not outright reject
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Christ, but rather admire him. The view, they view
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Jesus as insufficient and inadequate though. In fact, they view God the Father as once a created being, a human just like us.
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They make God into our image. Additionally, they place dietary restrictions on their followers, similar to what we see here in the
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Colossian heresy. Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle. They're forbidden from drinking caffeinated drinks, and are taught to eat meat and fish sparingly.
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What happens if they follow the code, this regulation? According to the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, and I'm quoting from their book, and this is not inspired, and all saints who remember to keep and do these things, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones, and shall find wisdom and great treasure of knowledge, even hidden treasures.
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Doctrine and Covenants 89 verses 18 through 19. By following their restrictive diet formed in the 19th century, they are promised wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures.
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This sounds very much like what Paul was fighting against. As Christians, we know that we are free from any dietary laws, or the old dietary laws of the
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Old Testament, because Christ declared all things clean, right? Check Mark 7 19 or Acts 15 28 through 29.
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For Christians, there's freedom in what we eat. Christians who are purified by Christ's blood, should not live as though they are dirtied by foods.
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Neither does a dietary plan from the 19th century guide us to hidden treasures of knowledge.
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In fact, Paul says the opposite. In Christ are hidden all the treasures and wisdom and knowledge.
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We need not to look elsewhere. We must rely on Christ and His Word. However, that's outside the church, and no one here considers the
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Mormon Church a Christian church. What do we see in the church today?
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For one, we always want to go beyond the gospel. Christ and His salvific work on the cross.
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There's always temptation, there's always the temptation to run towards something other than the gospel, something new, something that tickles our ears.
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And this is happening all over the seminaries and churches today. Sadly, I've heard a professor say that the substitutionary atonement is too white and racist for many seminaries, because apparently the white theologians came up with it, such as Martin Luther.
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How can the glorious doctrine that Jesus took my place and faced the wrath that I deserved be too white?
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I can get that from Scripture, and I don't have to be white to read that. Also, some pastors no longer mentioned the crucifixion in their
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Christmas Eve services. We chase after the new and forsake the old, but that's not how the
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New Testament views Christ and His work on the cross. First Peter 1 12 says, the glory of the
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Son of God suffering on the cross for our sin is something the angels long to look.
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The heavenly hosts are at the edge of their seats by the sight of God humbling himself to die for the wicked people.
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They're not looking for something new. He took your place in sin so that you could receive
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His righteousness. Brothers and sisters, instead of constantly chasing after loftier, newer doctrines and discarding the old, perhaps we ought to stop and treasure the old that we have been given.
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One old hymn powerfully illustrates this. Tell me the old, old story of unseen things above, of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love.
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Tell me the story simply as to a child, but I am weak and weary and helpless and defiled.
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Tell me the story slowly that I may take it in, that wonderful redemption, God's remedy for sin.
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Tell me the story often, for I forget so soon the early dew of morning has passed away at noon.
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The church is never too good for the gospel. Now we know the author and his purpose for writing this letter, we must ask, to whom is
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Paul writing? To whom is Paul writing? This leads to my second point.
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Paul writes to the saints and faithful brothers in Colossae. First, we need to define these terms so that we're all on the same page.
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The church is composed of the saints. A wooden translation of this word would be the holy ones.
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What does holy mean? Holiness is first and foremost one of the most important attributes of God.
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God reveals Himself as supremely holy. One of the best illustrations of this is in Isaiah 6.
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As Isaiah, the prophet, is in the temple, the holy and living God shows up.
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Around this God are seraphim, elite angelic beings, who fly around God proclaiming constantly of His holiness.
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In fact, they cover their eyes and their feet out of pure reverence toward this deity.
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Out of their mouths, a repeated praise. Holy, holy, holy is the
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Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. Holy, holy, holy is the
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Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. In one sense, holiness means utterly other.
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There is none like God. There's no one like the
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Lord. Even the angelic beings, they're called the holy ones, cannot look at Him directly as they cover their eyes with their wings.
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God is not like the angels nor any of His creation. He is who
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He is. Isaiah can barely describe this encounter with words. Now knowing that, we have to know that as God's people, we are not in one -to -one correlation but analogically holy.
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This means our holiness is not the same as God's holiness. After all, we cannot be
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God. However, there are certain similarities of holiness that we also reflect of God's holiness as His people.
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For example, in 1st Peter 1 15 through 16, it says, but like the holy one, that's
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God, who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior, because it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy.
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The people of God reflect to the world what kind of God they are worshiping by how they live.
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For Christians, we are different from the world in our actions, our words, and our lives, our thoughts, our desires.
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Holiness marks the people who belong to the Holy God. Second, the church is faithful.
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This word modifies what kind of brothers the church is and read brothers and sisters because, like in Spanish, when you have a plural noun, it's masculine, but it has both genders, right?
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Because the church is both men and women. So what does faithful mean?
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People who are trustworthy, people who are dependable. For the younger generation, it means they got your back.
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Faithfulness is a characteristic of a Christian because Christ is faithful.
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In Colossians, the word faithful is used to describe various ministers whom Paul is fond of and is working with.
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Colossians 1 7, just as you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bondservant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf.
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Colossians 4 7, as to all my affairs, Tychicus, my beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bondservant in the
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Lord, will bring you information. 4 9, and with him,
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Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of your own.
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They will inform you about the whole situation here. Because the
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Colossian ministers are faithful, the message they proclaim and the work they do are trustworthy.
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Pete Paul, Paul trusts them in his ministry. So far, the church is holy and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ.
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Third, the church is in Christ. As you read through Paul's epistles, you may have noticed that Paul uses this phrase quite frequently, in Christ, in Christ.
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This is not a filler word, just as how we use like, that we would use in our conversation and does not add to the meaning.
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I like say like this all the time. No, Paul repeats in Christ multiple times because of its significance.
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It's worth repeating over and over and over again. What does in Christ mean?
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In Christ signifies the realm of Christ, the reign of Christ, the rule of Christ. Whereas the synoptic
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Gospels would say, the kingdom of God. What does it mean to be in Christ?
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Colossians 1 13 illustrates this beautifully. For he,
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God, rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved
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Son. Before we trust Jesus Christ as our
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Lord and Savior, all of us were born into the domain of darkness. We were in sin.
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Our identity was in sin. We were enslaved to sin. We were identified with the first Adam who rebelled against God.
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But God in his mercy and grace sent his Son to deliver us from the domain of darkness and to transfer us to his kingdom, the kingdom of his beloved
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Son, so that our new identity is in Christ.
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No longer in sin, but in the realm of Christ. We have become citizens of a different kingdom.
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Instead of being shackled to sin, we serve and worship a kinder and more loving
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King. This King not only liberates us from the old kingdom, but he brings us into his new kingdom.
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He clothes us in his righteousness. He makes us new in himself.
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And what are the implications of this new identity? One great exercise
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I'd recommend to all of you this week is to read the whole book of Ephesians, which is a sister letter to the
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Colossians, as it was written around the same time and thematically they overlap tremendously.
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Moreover, Ephesians is known for its abundance of in Christ phrases.
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So many. Every time you see the phrase in Christ, highlight it or write out the verse on a note card.
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Then recite each verse over and over again and think about what it means to be in Christ.
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That is your new identity. Saturate your mind with the reality of being in Christ.
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For example, when we take a look at Ephesians 1 3, blessed be the
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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
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We praise and thank God the Father because he has blessed us. He has blessed us with a minimal blessing.
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He has blessed us with enough blessing to get through life. No. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
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Anything and everything God can bless you with, he has done so in Christ. Do you know the implication of your identity in Christ?
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This means you cannot earn any more blessing than you have already been given in Christ. You're not defined by your worst performance nor your best, but your identity is bound up in Christ alone.
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You're no longer your past blunders nor present sins, but your new creation made in Christ who atones.
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This is why it is so important for the church, us, to view ourselves how the
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Bible defines us to be. Holy and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ.
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We can't just skip over this introduction. It tells us so much. This means we need to be careful of how we evaluate a local church.
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It is easy to criticize a church by its outward appearance. However, the
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New Testament does not speak of programs or buildings as qualifications for a good church.
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A church is not insufficient if it lacks a youth group or separate kids program.
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A church is not insufficient if it lacks various instruments or your preferred genre of worship music.
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A church is not insufficient if it lacks a coffee bar. However, a church is dangerously deficient if it lacks holiness.
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A church is dangerously deficient if it lacks faithfulness. A church is not a church at all, but rather a dying worthless human organization if it is not in Christ.
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What qualities do we look for when we visit a local church? Do we look for programs that will suit our family or the godliness of the people you're worshiping with?
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What is the content of our prayer for the church? God, we need a new roof over our head, the walls to be redone, a new room.
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Although it is good to ask for material things from God, He does say, ask. It must not be the only thing we pray for.
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We ought to pray for the church to reflect how God intends the church to be in the
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Bible. God, please help us to be more faithful and set apart from the world.
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God, help us to remember and live as people under Christ's reign rather than the
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Roman rule. After identifying himself in the church,
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Paul greets the church. How does Paul greet the church? Paul greets the church with grace and peace from God.
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First, I need to address the discrepancy that exists in various English translations. You may have noticed that some translations like the
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KJV and the NKJV have the phrase and the Lord Jesus Christ after it, while the newer translations omit the phrase.
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The older translations have the phrase and this is due to the fact that we do not have the original letter to the
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Colossians, but there are thousands of ancient copies of this letter.
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This may seem like a daunting thing to have so many copies, but it is a marvelous thing.
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We are not just relying on one copy, but we can check the authenticity of God's Word by examining thousands of copies from as early as the second century.
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What's more astounding is that despite a few discrepancies that these copies do have, the meaning of God's Word does not change.
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Here is an example of such. Certain copies have the phrase and the
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Lord Jesus Christ, and certain copies do not. While some of the older translations have the phrase, many of the modern translations such as the
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NASB, ESV, NIV, NRSV, so on, they do not have the phrase.
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This is because we recently found older manuscripts that were not available during the composition of the older translations such as the
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KJV and the NKJV goes with that. Therefore, the modern translators thought it would be more accurate to go with the older manuscript found, which omits the phrase.
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It's closer in time with when Paul wrote the letter. After all, the older manuscripts are generally closer to the original text.
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Here, I would argue that the difference does not change the meaning of the text at all, with or without the phrase.
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After all, it is well attested in the whole Bible that the grace and peace come from God, and it is equally true that grace and peace from God through Jesus Christ, especially in the
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Christ -centered Colossians, it is the case. Hence, this minute difference does not change the meaning of the text, and we can rest at ease.
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Now, let's go over what grace and peace mean and how they relate to God. First, grace means an unearned gift.
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Gifts are not earned. His favor, God's favor and love toward us is not because we're good, but because he is gracious.
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Not because we deserved it nor earned it, but because he is gracious. In order to see the extent of God's grace, we must look at our sinful state, because what we truly deserved and earned was his wrath, yet God gave us salvation.
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We deserved condemnation, yet God gave us adoption. That's grace.
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At such high cost, his son on the cross bled and died.
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Now, how does God give us grace? By establishing peace between us.
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Peace is a common greeting in the current and ancient Jewish culture.
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They say, Shalom Aleichem, which means peace unto you. You've heard it. You've read it in the
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Bible a lot. In the Hebrew culture, peace is more than just the lack of violence, right?
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In your household, if there's no bickering, you say, oh, that was peaceful. But, peace in this context means relational wholeness.
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The relationship is complete. It's unblemished. It's stable.
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It's pure. However, our sin breaks the peace between God and us, because we offend the
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Holy God whenever we sin. We deserve to face his wrath, and this is where God's grace comes in.
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How does God deal with us? Instead of pouring out his wrath on us, he graciously redeems the shattered relationship through his
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Son, Jesus Christ. Colossians 1 20, And by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
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Do you see why the discrepancy that exists in the modern translation and the older translation does not matter in the context of Colossians?
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It is true that grace and peace comes from God. He is the source of grace and peace, but it is also true that grace and peace comes through his
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Son. It is precisely Jesus on the cross who graciously purchased peace between you and God with Christ's blood.
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Jesus faced the violent wrath that we deserved so that he could reconcile us to himself, thereby bringing peace between God and us.
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This is why Paul's greeting is so much more than just a conventional cultural greeting.
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Grace and peace come from God our Father through his Son's gracious act on the cross, which bought us peace.
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It is precisely in his Son we see and receive God's grace and peace for us.
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This is why we cannot lose our interest in Jesus. We never graduate from the gospel.
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We must not lose our wonder and gratitude for what Jesus has done for us to bring us peace.
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And this is the beginning of Colossians, where the focus is on Christ alone.
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Let us pray. Father, we are so thankful for your mercy and grace that you would send your
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Son to die for our sins, to bring us peace in our lives.
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And God, we thank you that we get to reflect who you are rather than who we are. And God, I pray that you would make this church to be more faithful and holy for your sake.