T.C. Lo (盧天賜弟兄) on February 13, 2011 at
The House of Christ's Love
|
Scripture: Colossians 1: 15-20 Outline:
|
Colossians 1:15-20 and 2:10
Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Col 1:16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
Col 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Col 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
Col 1:19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,
Col 1:20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Col 2:10 and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.
Every Christian experiences
Even non-Christians who come to church will eventually sense the presence of these three elements through the songs they sang, the sermons they heard, the prayers they felt and the cell groups they joined.
Someone has said, “Faith is to believe something you know for sure that it won’t happen.” This is not true faith. This is blind faith.
Two boys were skating on a frozen lake. One was on thin ice and another one was on thick ice. The boy who was skating on the thin ice said with confidence, “I have a lot of faith.” The other one who was skating on the thick ice said, “I am afraid, I don’t have very little faith. Which one of the two was safer? The one who yelled out loud that he has big faith did not make him safer than the one who claimed small faith. Faith is important, but in whom you put your faith is more important.
Author Lee Strobel said, “The last thing I want is a naïve faith built on a paper-thin foundation of wishful thinking or make-believe. I need a faith that’s consistent with reason, not contradictory to it; I want beliefs that are grounded in reality, not detached from it.” What he meant was: Faith is to move in the direction where the evidences point. We have countless evidences pointing to the reality of Jesus Christ. Therefore, true faith means to take a step to receive Jesus as your personal Savior.
In Jesus, we have forgiveness and promise of Heaven; He makes salvation available to all people. All we have to do is to turn from our sin and accept the otherwise impossible grace through our FAITH in Him. In short,
Faith = (Forsaking All, I Trust Him)
One of the most popular stories from Greek mythology is the myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was condemned by the gods for having betrayed the celestial ranks by revealing divine secrets to mortals. They sentenced him to roll a massive stone to the top of a hill, watch it roll down again, and repeat the exercise endlessly. His hell was in having to execute a pointless act from which nothing ever came, except a vain repetition that compounded the emptiness. Not by one step, nor by a thousand, nor by ten thousand, was he able to expiate the sin against the gods that brought on this cursed fate. How much Sisyphus longed for forgiveness but he could do nothing to rescue himself from futility.
Today, we are not much different than Sisyphus. We roll the stone of humdrum of monotony everyday: We got up every morning; we wash, change and eat breakfast then go to work. We come home, eat dinner, watch TV, take a shower and go to bed. This cycle repeats again and again. The Bible without the last two chapters of Revelation is not worth reading. But thanks be to God because we have hope. In this world, we see sadness, sickness, unjust treatment, and death, But one day, Jesus will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away (Rev.21:4). This is our glorious hope. And our hope is based on the grace of forgiveness from our Lord Jesus.
The Bible teaches us that the greatest commandment is love. “To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices" (Mk.12:33).
Saint Laurence was a deacon in the Christian Church, who was quite generous, especially to the poor. He lived in Aragon of the Roman Empire of the third century. During one of the persecution, he was ordered to bring to a Roman official some of “the treasures of the Church.” What he brought were some poor, downtrodden, and lame people, and he said to them, “These are the treasures of the Church.” For this response, he was roasted to death on a gridiron. Today in the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, area there is a day shelter for homeless people named after him---St. Laurence Chapel. This shelter feeds the homeless, provides a mailbox, job counseling and referrals, a shower and bathroom, chapel services, a telephone, and more.
The Romans Empire is no more, but the influence of Christ’s love remains. Napoleon, the French military genius, had once said, “Love is mightier than sword.”
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
LOVE, FAITH, and HOPE converge in Jesus Christ and His atoning work on the cross. And the atoning work of the cross can be explained in these familiar verses:
Php 2:6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
Php 2:7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
Php 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
Here is the turning point. The supremacy of Christ becomes evident:
Php 2:9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
Php 2:10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
Php 2:11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Here, we learn a very important principle: Suffering precedes glory. Many times we seek glory but want to bypass suffering. Jesus’ supremacy is rooted in His humility and His power. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the blameless slain Lamb of God (Rev.5:5).
Now we are moving to the core of the sermon:
The Church at Colossi was attacked by the kind of heresy which was the precursor of what would transpire into the second-century Gnosticism. Instead of relying on Grace, some believers were misguided by false teachers to believe in human speculations. The heresy has six components but perhaps we just mention the first four.
|
Heretic Perspective |
Paul’s Counter Perspective |
|
Ceremonialism |
|
|
Asceticism |
|
|
Angel worship |
|
|
Deprecation of Christ |
|
|
Secret knowledge |
|
|
Reliance on human wisdom and tradition |
|
The lack of recognition of Christ’s supremacy is the core problem of the underlining heresy at the church of Colossi.
In spite of the heretic influence, the church of the Colossians has not degenerated into a chaos. The church was by and large still in good order and firm in their faith (Col.2:5). Paul always thank God for
But it was not enough. Paul felt he needed to pray for them (Col.1:3). The question was: Praying for what?
Paul (actually, in all his prison letters) always wanted believers to know God’s will. The word “know” is not “aware of general knowledge (gnosis)”, but emphatically means “fill you with the knowledge (epignosis) of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (v. 9). Knowing the will of God’s would lead us to walk a Christian life.
Paul was born Hebrew, brought up in the Greek culture, and was a Roman citizen.
Paul said that Christianity also talked about Light, Knowledge, and Glory too, but not the kind the humanism talk about. Colossians Chapter One:
Col 1:9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
Col 1:12 …giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
Col 1:27 …to them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Jesus is the exact image of God. He is the representation of who God really is. Jesus said:
“He is the image (eikon) of the invisible God” (v.15a)
o Image is always a derived representation (衍生而出的代表). God is invisible but Christ is God’s representation. “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is (eternal present tense) at the Father's side, has made him known” (John 1:18). This kind of representation goes beyond his incarnation, this representation is eternal.
o God always (past, present, future) uses his Son to represent him.
o As mentioned in Philippians chapter four. “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness (morphe)” (vv.6-7). The word “Morphe” refers to:
§ Type of His manifestation.
§ Form of His existence.
It takes enormous prejudice to thrust on Genesis our modern question of whether God created the world in six days or fifteen billion years. To answer that question wasn’t the intention of Genesis at all, and no portion of Scripture ever claims to be a piece of scientific material intended to satisfy a twenty-first-century thinkers. In this struggle, both the “Young-Earth” side and the “Old-Earth” side miss what Genesis is really about:
o God is the Creator---God is personal and eternal. He is a living God who communicates with His creation.
o The world didn’t come about by accident---Our world is designed as a home for humanity and all the creatures of the world.
o Life couldn’t be lived alone---The jewel of creation is man and woman, a pairing meant for relationship with God and each other.
o Humans were made as moral entities---God set human beings in place and entrusted the world to them. They have a choice in how they respond.
“He is the firstborn (首生的) over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things (forever present tense), and in him all things hold (立, 即維擊) together (Col.1:15b-17).
“Firstborn” is not the chronology of time; it does not imply the heretic view that Jesus was created. It refers to His fullness and glory. Furthermore, if all things were created by Christ, then time was created by Christ. If time was created by Christ, it follows that Christ exists before the time. If Christ exists before the time, it means He exists in the state of timelessness. In other words, Christ is eternally preexistent. The universe was created
o by Him
o through Him
o for Him
He defines the realm of creation. He rules over and maintains the creation. He is the purpose of the creation. The universe (flowers, stars, all living beings) declares His supreme glory, wisdom, and continuous flow of power.
After God has created the physical world ready for human to live, He made a man and named him Adam. God saw it was not good for a man to live alone, God opened up Adam’s rib blood and water flowed out from his side, a woman was born. God named her Eve. After Adam woke up from the deep sleep, God called Adam and Eve to His presence and instituted the marriage between them and pronounced them husband and wife. God set up an order in the marriage system by assigning Adam to be the head over Eve. Eve was Adam’s bone of bones and flesh of flesh (Gn.2:23).
On the cross, we saw a similar picture: the Roman soldier used a spear to pierce Jesus’ rib and blood and water flowed out from His side. Jesus died but later He was raised to life. After the resurrection, the Church was born. God pronounced Jesus the groom and the Church His bride. Christ was made the head of the church and the Church was His body.
Christ existed before all things, and in union of Him all things have their proper place (Col.1:17 Good News Bible).
He is the head of His body, the church; he is the source of the body’s life. He is the first born Son, who was raised from death, in order that He alone might have the first place (supremacy) in all things (Col.1:18 Good News Bible).
These two verses link the creation and the church together. In both cases, Christ has the supremacy---the supremacy over His creation and the supremacy over His Church.
Jesus is NUMBER ONE.” Even though everything fails, He is still firmly NUMBER ONE.
Resurrection is crucial to His supremacy. If you take away resurrection, you take away Christianity. Resurrection is a proof of His supremacy. Jesus’ resurrection (first born) guarantees our future resurrection which is our glorious hope
The Book of Colossians can be summarized in two verses:
The first verse:
Col 1:19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness (including the original creation, redemption, and final fullness) dwell in him. (因為父喜歡叫一切的豐盛在他裡面居住。)
This verse implies that Jesus is God because whatever God has, Jesus has them also.
Because Jesus has God’s fullness, He is qualified to perform the job of reconciliation. If He is not perfect, how can he restore all things from chaos to order? Hence, verse 20:
Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to Himself. God made peace through His Son’s sacrificial death on the cross and so brought back to Himself all things, both on earth and in heaven (Col.1:20 Good News Bible)
ALL problems, no matter how big, are solved “through his blood, shed on the cross.”
The second verse:
Col 2:10 and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. (你們在他裡面也得了豐盛。他是各樣執政掌權者的元首。)
This verse implies that whatever Jesus has we have them also because we are His body of the same life. What a privilege we have that Christ’s supremacy overflows to us!
Finally, Paul stated the purpose of writing this letter:
Col 2:2 My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ.
What is this mystery of God all about? The word “mystery” appears three times between the end of Chapter One to the beginning of Chapter Two (1:26; 1:27; and 2:2).
Furthermore, the mystery of Christ can be expounded:
A story of two sisters: Corrie ten Boom (April 15, 1892 – April 15, 1983) passed the first fifty years of her life in quiet spiritual devotion and cheerful domestic activity with her extended family in the town of Haarlem in the Netherlands (荷蘭). Having given her life to Jesus at the age of five, she was always active in religious service such as starting a Christian “Girl Scout” movement, called “The Triangle Girls,” and a club for mentally retarded children. And then the war came, Corrie and her family hid Jews in their home until one day in February 1944 they were betrayed to the Nazis. Corrie, her sister Betsie, and other members of her families were taken away to prison or to concentration camps, from which few of them ever returned.
In the dreaded Ravensbruck (u上有兩點) camp in Germany (Note: another notorious death camp is called Auschwitz known for its gas chambers), Corrie and Betsie took every opportunity to tell others about God. They had been able to smuggle Bible, so they held daily Bible studies. Frail and seven years older than Corrie, Betsie became ill, but her faith remained strong. She said, “Corrie, when the new year comes, we will both be free. Finally, Jesus wiped away their tears. With the new year, they were indeed both free. Betsie dies in Ravensbruck. Corrie was released from the camp, as she put it later, “by a clerical error of man and a miracle of God.” She returned to the Netherlands and eventually embarked on a ministry that took her to sixty-four countries and thirty-three years and endeared her to millions of people around the world through her testimony to the grace and faithfulness of God. While In her suffering, Corrie said, “God has given me a vision. We must go around the world and tell everyone who will listen to the truth that we have discovered here---the love and glory and the supremacy of Christ. This Holocaust survivor had written a famous line that inspires many who were in suffering:
There is no pit so deep the love of God is not deeper still
(地獄巳夠深, 但神的愛比地獄更深)
Could Corrie ten Boom have been inspired by Charles P. Jones’ 1900 devotional hymn “Deeper, Deeper”?
Deeper, deeper in the love of Jesus
Daily let me go;
Higher, higher in the school of wisdom,
More of grace to know.