“The Lens of the Gospel”

Col. 1:9-20

Intro.:  What kind of glasses are you wearing? 

In my time with the children, I suggested that the Bible gives us a particular way of seeing things.  But the truth is that we are influenced in the ways we see things by a lot of considerations other than the Bible.  (Sometimes we describe optimistic people as folks who see things through rose tinted glasses.)  The word ‘culture’ describes the shared ways of doing and seeing things a group of people hold in common.  Those shared ways influence them profoundly. 

Of course, the most important cultural fact about us is that we’re part of Red Socks Nation.  Others may be forgiven for thinking that factors such as that we speak English, live in Metrowest Boston in the 21^st century, and have a certain level of education are more important! 

            The first century believers in Colossae were being influenced by a strange way of understanding the world, which twisted the way they understood the gospel.  There was a view, being promoted by some of them, that God was utterly isolated from matter and would have no direct contact with it.  The only contact God had with matter (which includes people) is through intermediaries—angels and lesser “gods,”—some good and some evil.  They were very sensitive to those intermediaries, and their “world view” took those intermediaries quite seriously. 

From this starting point, it’s easy to see, that when they heard about Jesus, who did good in his earthly life, and died on a cross to redeem them from their sins, they were tempted to think of him as one of the helpful intermediaries—but not as God in human flesh.  The leaders of the congregation knew that this would distort the gospel, so they visited the Apostle Paul for help, and he wrote the letter to the Colossians, from which our text comes. 

·        Easy to be condescending to ancient people—“they believed so-in-so, isn’t that quaint?” 

·        But our vision isn’t perfect either—so I’d like to raise the question again:  what kind of glasses are you (or we as a congregation, or we as a culture) wearing?  And perhaps more unnerving:  do we even know we’re wearing them? 

Let’s turn to our text, and understand that the first part is Paul’s prayer for this congregation, and the second half is a statement about Christ. 

(9)For this reason, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking  that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, (10)so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.  (11)May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully (12)giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.  (13)He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, (14)in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 

(15)He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;  (16)for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-—all things have been created through him and for him.  (17)He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  (18)He is the head of the body, the church;  he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.  (19)For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, (20)and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross. 

I.          Last half of passage is an orthodox statement about Christ which Paul wanted the Colossians to hold.  He knew that if they saw Him in that way, they would see the world differently.  And that is equally true for us:  what we believe about God profoundly affects the way we see everything else. 

            A.        Beginning with vs’s 15, Paul describes Jesus’ relationship to God.  “He is the image of the invisible God.”  God, of course, is spirit;  but unlike the view held by some of the Colossians, God is intensely concerned with the material world.  God created it, and God redeemed it.  In the words of John, “God so love the world that he gave his only son...”  The word “image” here is the word used to describe the likeness of the emperor’s head on a coin:  an accurate visual representation.  The word “son,” used in verse 13, carries the connotation of “like his father.”  Jesus is nothing less than God in human flesh.  Jesus’ actions and teachings are God’s actions and teachings. 

            Vs. 19 puts it this way, “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”  This is but another way to emphasize the identity of Jesus with God.  It underlines that Jesus was in His very essence, God.  And the more we are grasped by this, the more we will believe and trust his words.  At the same time, the more humbled we will be by the fact that he cares individually for us, for we saw that he cared deeply for the individuals he encountered in his earthly life. 

            B.        Vs. 15-17 speak of Jesus’ relationship to creation.  He is called “the firstborn of all creation.”  That could sound like Jesus was created, but that’s not the intent.  The firstborn had the place of honor, and this is Paul’s way of saying Jesus is pre-eminent over all. 

            The text goes on to say that “in him all things in heaven and on earth were created…”  In other words, Jesus was the agent of creation.  These are almost the same words as occur in the beginning of John’s gospel. 

            Notice that the idea current in Colossae, namely that God has nothing to do with the material world doesn’t fit.  Either they had to throw out that way of seeing the world, or the Christ they worshipped was someone other than who he really was and is. 

            Perhaps the best summary of Christ’s relation to creation is in the end of vs. 16 and 17:  “…all things have been created through him and for him.  He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” 

            When I think of creation, I think of the awesome power He yielded to create the universe.  Yet he restrained that power and allowed himself to be crucified for us.  The lengths to which our God will go for us are amazing! 

            C.        There is a final role Paul describes, Jesus’ role in salvation and the church. 

In vs. 20, Paul says that through Christ, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. 

            It was God in Christ who took the initiative in bringing all the fallen creation back to himself, and it was done through the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross.  This was not our idea, it was God’s. 

Looking back now to pick up Vs. 18 Paul said, “He is the head of the body, the church;  he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.” 

            Next, Paul reminds us that Jesus was resurrected from the dead—and he was the first to be resurrected—we shall follow him. 

            These things lead quite naturally to Paul’s conclusion:  “…that he might come to have first place in everything.” 

·        Jesus is God in human flesh; 

·        Jesus is the agent of creation and the one for whom and through whom it was all created; 

·        Jesus is the savior and head of the church. 

The point Paul is making, of course, is not only that Jesus is supreme in these various ways, but that Jesus does not fit into another system of understanding the world.  Jesus is the system;  Jesus is the one through whom and for whom it all exists! 

It has been said that Christianity is Christ!  We see here how accurate that statement is. 

II.        Paul’s prayer for the Colossians. 

            We started in the middle of our text, and it will help us now to return and look at what moved Paul to talk about the greatness of Christ.  What we find is that Paul was praying for the church.  As far as we know, Paul had never been to Colossae.  The church there had been founded by a man named Epaphras.  Epaphras went to Rome to see Paul, who was there under house arrest, and they talked about the situation in Colossae.  Then Paul wrote the letter and sent it back with Epaphras.  He told them that he prayed for them constantly, and then he told them what he prayed that God would do in their midst, and as he told them what he was praying for, he was virtually compelled to tell them who he was praying to. 

We have seen that the way the Colossians understood Jesus influenced the way they (and we!) see the world.  For this reason, Paul prayed that they would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will.  But the things Paul prayed for also tell us a great deal about how a believer sees the world.  You might say they tell us something about the glasses Paul himself was wearing. 

            In vs. 10, he prayed, “that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in the knowledge of God.”  That’s a mouthful, but well worth unpacking.  Leading a life “worthy of the Lord” could simply mean “be ethical,” but when you add “fully pleasing to” God, the sense is that he is praying for growth in Christlike character that would revolutionize the lives and relationships of those who exhibited it, and be deeply fulfilling to them. 

To “bear fruit,” has the distinct ring of “fruit of the Spirit,” which Paul described in Galatians as a combination of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  My guess is that he has something like this in mind as he prays for the Colossians. 

At first glance, this prayer might seem like Paul telling these people to get their lives together, and cultivating those qualities sounds like a lot of hard work and discipline.  But remember that he is asking God to strengthen and motivate them to do this—and that sounds good to me. 

Let me add a personal note:  I must say that as I reflected on Paul’s prayer, and thought about leading a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, and bearing fruit in the knowledge of God, and I contrasted that to the rat race that I find myself in too often, I stopped and prayed that God would grant that prayer for me.  And that is a prayer I plan to keep praying.  And I’m praying that prayer for you, too.

            In the next verses, Paul prayed for God’s strength for the Colossians, and it was for a particular purpose:  to be prepared to endure everything with patience.  In other words, Paul didn’t have in mind a situation of triumph.  He may have been thinking about the possibility of persecution, or he may simply have been thinking about living faithfully with the ups and downs of day-to-day life.  If so, it’s something we understand well. 

Then he added another dimension:  living with this “while joyfully giving thanks to the Father.”  This is not denial;  it is simply being conscious of God’s goodness in reaching out to us in Christ, no matter what happens to be occurring right now—good or bad. 

III.       What kind of glasses might we be wearing? 

            We have entered into Paul’s prayer for the life Colossian congregation, and adopted it for ourselves.  Further, we’ve seen how that prayer builds on the character of God, and who God in Christ actually is.  So we return to our question:  What kind of glasses might we be wearing?  Here are a couple of illustrations. 

            We all have the glasses we received from our families.  One message I got from my family was a discouraging one, and it amounts to “you’ll never measure up!”  I can’t say that I found this exact passage when I committed my life to Christ, but its ideas are sprinkled through the New Testament.  The gist of what God showed me in the time following was this: 

·        that God created me, and gave me the gifts He wanted me to have; 

·        that He had transferred me to the Kingdom of His Son (vs. 13);  and

·        that He had called me to live a life worthy of the Lord, and to bear fruit (vs. 10). 

I’m grateful that God gave me this set of glasses through which to see myself and the world. 

In our culture, the individual is king.  The church member wearing the glasses of the individualist will freely ask God to heal their wounds and meet their needs and desires;  but that person is not likely to ask God to mold their needs and desires to the contours of His Kingdom.  To take that step requires the glasses that Paul prescribed for the Colossians:  

·        that Jesus was God in human flesh; 

·        that He was the agent of creation;  and

·        that He was the Savior and Head of the Church. 

To take that step requires that Jesus not be seen through some other lens, but that Jesus be the lens through which all of life is seen.  To take that step requires that Jesus be King in every sense of that word. 

M. Sidney McCollum

November 21, 2004

Back to Top

Back to our Home Page

For questions/comments on this page, please click to e-mail: PCISwebmaster.

The contents of this site are copyright © 2004, Presbyterian Church in Sudbury. All Rights Reserved.