“He rescued us from the power of darkness” (1:13).  Do you believe there is a power of darkness?  I read the news, I see what’s going on around the world and in our own society, our own culture, even in the church, and I believe.  I’m the pastor, though; I’m supposed to believe that sort of stuff.  How about you?  That’s really the point.  If you don’t believe there is a power of darkness, I’m not sure what the attraction is for you in what God offers us in Jesus Christ.

Paul tells the faithful in Colossae, that, through Jesus, God has “transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (1:13).  We may think of a transfer as an administrative matter, like being transferred to Dallas or San Angelo, or an educational matter, like transferring to the University of Houston.  Routine stuff.  What Jesus does is not routine.  At root, this word transfer means carrying across, bearing across.  Like saying the ferry carried me across the bay.  Christ bore a cross, he carried it; he carried us over, there.  Christ carries us; he bears us.  Across what?  Across the sentence a just God pronounced on our injustice, the penalty a pure God declared for our impurity, across the chasm we could never span.  You may remember Evel Knievel and his many attempts to get across vast distances, many of which ended in failure and serious injury.  Without Jesus, we are all like Evel Knievel, only without the luck, the equipment, the planning, the experience, the skill, or the courage: the distance from where we are to where God is remains too much for us.  We can’t get to Him.  He can get to us, though, and He did, He does.  That should tell us something about God.

This power of darkness, we can call it evil.  It is.  Scripture calls it sin.  You may think of sin as bad mistakes, profound lapses in judgment: serious, with real consequences here, but without eternal consequences.  Hey, we all do stupid stuff, right?  Scripture is a bit less gentle: sin is evil.  Maybe we can perceive that.  If sin keeps on, unchecked, if it’s given free rein, yeah, hurt, abuse, result, and that smooths the way to evil.  What sin really delights in, ultimately is in ruining, destroying, and killing.  Sin is at work in two directions at once: sin ruins things around us, outside us, and sin simultaneously ruins within.  Sin kills within, too.  Paul never speaks of sin as something neutral, as a purely legal matter.  For Paul, as for Jesus, I believe, sin is an active force, the active force of the ruined will.

That doesn’t mean the will has been nullified; it means the will has been ruined: it cannot function properly.  It is good for nothing eternal.  It will need a total overhaul.  It’s going to be in the shop for a while.  Only God can do that overhaul, and He comes to us, in Jesus Christ, He comes, in the Holy Spirit, to rebuild us.  Sin aims to kill.  God makes alive, joyfully alive, fully alive, forever alive.  That’s the foolishness we hold on to as those who believe in, trust, and love Jesus.

Paul begins many of his letters in a very similar way.  He identifies himself as “an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God” (1:1).  Not by Paul’s will—quite contrary to what had been his will!  Jesus called Paul to reality as Paul was on his way to go hurt, destroy, and maybe even kill Christians.  Loving, trusting, and believing in Jesus was the furthest thing from Paul’s mind.  In Jesus, God truly can turn lives around.  The best evidence for hope that we have is Jesus.

Paul is writing “to God’s people” at Colossae (1:2).  Beloved, we are God’s people.  That’s no small thing.  There are those who are not God’s people, some only temporarily: God will lead them into the kingdom, too, maybe even through us.  Others will remain apart from God’s people.  Reflect for a moment on the source of the difference: why us and not them?  Because we’re good and they’re bad!  Hardly.  Because we are holy, and they are sinners!  No, that’s not it.  By His own will and by His own counsel, for His own purposes, God has chosen us to be among His people.  We demonstrated nothing to make God take a second look at us.  We have no occasion to be smug or self-satisfied.  We can’t boast about ourselves.  All we can ever boast about is our God.  It’s a humbling thing, a beautifully humbling thing, to become aware that God is at work in your life, to rebuild you, to be in relationship with you, to nurture you among God’s people, because He wants to and only because He wants to.

In this part of Paul’s letter, he speaks of his deep gratitude for what God is doing among them.  What is God doing among us?  If God isn’t here among us, truly at work, I don’t really see much point in coming together every week; I hope, when you come here, Sunday after Sunday, or as often as your schedule allows right now, you are coming because you are sensing the presence of God, here, doing something, something good, something true, something holy.  In earthly terms, we all have something better to do, right now.  If you are here, you are here by the Spirit, thanks be to God.

Paul calls special attention to the faith and the love he has heard of in the church at Colossae—their faith and love are becoming legendary.  What church is legendary around here, and for what?  As I read the weekly ads for the local Church of Christ, I feel like they are legendary for being absolutely sure that you and I are deceived and doomed.  First Baptist seems sort of legendary for its youth program.  The Methodist church might be legendary for their food pantry, I’m not sure.  The Episcopal church could well be legendary for all the acreage they hold.  For what is Bethel legendary?  VBS?  I hope so, I think we have a really great team here that puts mind, heart, and soul into it, each year.  Are we legendary for our love?  I know Jim was 100% committed to cultivate that among you, and, over twenty-five years, real progress was made.  Are we legendary for our faith?  What would that even look like?

Paul understands that this legendary love and faith at Colossae arise from the hope that the faithful have, hope offered in the Gospel, “the word of truth” (1:5).  This Gospel truth, this Gospel hope, is evidently, plainly, at work in and among the believers.  Their faith and their love, for one another and for all fellow believers everywhere, is evident, genuine.  Paul says this is the proof of the power of the Gospel, which is even now at work “in all the world [. . .] constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth” (1:6), truly understood.  We are a small part of a big thing: the work of the Spirit of Christ through the Gospel all over this world.

Constantly bearing fruit, constantly increasing—this is the essence of faith and love; this is what makes a church’s faith and love legendary—not just among its own members—every church is legendary in its own eyes!—but in the local area, among those who maybe don’t know much about church, among those who sort of always thought it was all bunk and mendacity.  Word gets out.  Word gets around.  It’s supposed to: the Word is supposed to get out; the Word is supposed to get around.

Paul is writing because of the beautiful things he is hearing about the church in Colossae, and because he is hearing some things that cause him concern.  False teaching seems to be creeping into the church.  That was a common and serious problem in Paul’s day: the Church was young, and the apostles constantly had to contend for the truth of the Gospel.  People were coming into the church with all sorts of beliefs, some in harmony with God’s Word, some very much out of harmony with God’s Word.  I’m so glad we don’t have to deal with such things, now!  (He said with irony.)

Beloved, faith and love are who we are because this is who our God is: God is fully faithful, and God is love.  Sin knows that.  Sin seeks to ruin.  Sin will seek to ruin the truth, to ruin the Gospel, by ruining faith and ruining love.  It won’t always do this in obvious ways.  If sin trumpets its presence, no one in the church is going to take the bait.  Sin works much differently, even as it worked in Eve and Adam.  God says no—or at least someone reported that God possibly said no, but it seems okay to me, it looks alright to me.  If it looks okay to me, it must be okay.  No is just Yes waiting to happen, after all.

So, Paul writes to recall the faithful to the truth in love and faith, so that faith and love will continue to bear fruit and increase, for this is the will of God for us in Jesus Christ: abounding, increasing, praising, blessing all along our way to life forever, love forever, grace and glory forever.  We have the Gospel message.  Do not add to it.  Do not take away from it.

Paul prays that our faith, in heart and mind, would be protected, that we would continue to be “filled with the knowledge” of God’s will (1:9).  Where do you go to learn the will of God?  Church?  That’s good, but we’re here only once a week for an hour, or so: is that really enough for all that you will need to deal with, and for the unexpected things that come along, the rest of the week?  Do you go to prayer?  Good!  Make prayer a habit.  Make time for it.  Have faith that God will impart things to you as you pray—He has things to say and give you, even as you say and give things to Him through your praying.  Where do you go to learn the will of God?  Scripture?  I hope so!  I certainly hope so!  I really believe, I want to emphasize, that it is my conviction that you cannot and will not grow as a disciple without spending time in God’s Word.  How much you read, what you read, how often you read, with whom you read, is in your hands, but be reading the Bible, and do seek help in understanding.

Paul prays that  the faithful, that we, shall increase in knowledge of the will of God.  Wisdom comes from that knowledge.  If you want to be wise, learn more about God’s will.  Knowledge of God’s will is wisdom.

          Wisdom is to be applied: applied to your life and offered, humbly, prayerfully, to others, so that a community of faith and love may bear fruit and increase.  Paul writes that the aim of getting wisdom, increasing in the knowledge of God’s will, is to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (1:10).  Please God in all respects, in every dimension of your life—this means putting God first, putting God at the center, not as the icing on the cake or the cherry on top, not as the one to whom you turn after you have done something or said something, but as the one to whom you turn first always.  First in your working, and first in your playing; first in your loving, and first in your sorrowing; first in your spending, and first in your planning.  Please your employer, please your friends, your spouse, your doctor, your accountant, your teacher, your coach, all as you are able to in good conscience.  First and always, seek to please God: the rest must follow from that.

As we grow in the knowledge of the will of God, as we grow in Christian faith and in Christian love, we will encounter resistance.  Soft, at first, but harder and angrier the fuller our hearts become with Jesus.  “How can you think like that?”  “How can you believe such things?”  “You really believe that?”  “I can’t be friends with someone who believes such things.”  “We can no longer employ someone who believes such things.” (That’s illegal, actually, but there are legally safe ways to fire someone you don’t want around.)  “Can we really allow someone to remain in business who believes such things?!”

Paul prays for the faithful, that they would be “strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience” (1:11).  We say there is no crown without faith or love.  There is no crown without steadfastness and patience.  Steadfastness is faith under trial.  Patience is love tested.  We’re not looking for any pyrotechnic displays of faith or love: we’re Presbyterians, for heaven’s sake—even you Baptists who just can’t keep away, God bless you!  Paul prays for our endurance: this is a most Christ-like thing.

Endurance sounds hard, dry, tiring, not very pleasant.  Do I have to?  Can we just, you know, skip over that endurance part?  The good news is that sin is not an endurance runner.  Sin sprints.  Sin is an excellent sprinter.  Sin tries to overawe us, overwhelm us, with its speed.

The fruit of endurance, as Paul names it, is joyful thanks.  Isn’t joyful thanks the result of wisdom, the result of faith and love?  We look back, and we begin to perceive, and things become clearer to us, and we know, we really know, that God was with us, all along; Jesus right alongside us; the Holy Spirit, diligently, patiently, skillfully at work within us.  And why?  Why us?  Why me?  Why you?  God’s will.  God’s choice.  God’s counsel.  God’s purposes.  God’s love.  Grace—the joy of God overflowing into our empty cisterns.  Grace—God giving us the abundance He asks of us.

Amazing grace.  Amazing love.  Amazing God.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.