Personal Reflections on Colossians | Guest Speaker: Bryan Robinson

Alright, good morning.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I'm excited that you guys are all here.

Russ is obviously not here.

But like Rad said, for whatever reason you're here, I'm thankful that you're here, and I hope this next hour can be an hour of rest, of a place where you can relax and amidst a season where it's very busy.

Maybe this Christmas was your first season of not having someone at the table, or first season of uh of a divorce, or just just all the expectations of the season weighed heavy on you.

And uh if we can't find rest at church, we we don't find it many other places.

So I hope I hope that this next 30 minutes or this hour that you've come can be a place where you can you can know you're loved and know that you can have rest here.

Um if you'll bow your heads, I'm gonna say a quick prayer.

Uh Heavenly Father, I do thank you for Christ the Redeemer Church and I thank you for this group of people specifically that you've brought, um, and thank you for those here today.

I pray um that we would remember all that we have in you through uh what Paul has written to the Colossians, and just thank you for these verses, and I pray that we don't forget them and live on our own efforts and on our own strength.

Thank you for loving us as we are.

In Christ's name I pray.

Amen.

Um, my name is Brian Robinson.

I'm one of the elders here at our church.

Uh I am married to Mandy for 16 years.

Someone say, I've heard someone say, I outpicked my coverage, which is probably true.

Um, it is true, actually.

Um I have four kids.

Uh Sydney is 12, she's over there.

Uh Meg is 11, Allie is five, and James is four, and they're all back in the bag making lots of noise.

Uh and I'm a dentist, so I'm very comfortable with conversations that involve me being in control one-on-one, and the other person is laying back like this.

And I'm not as comfortable standing up here in front of a lot of people.

So please have mercy among uh for the speaker, because I know Russ Matterson.

Russ is out of town, thankfully, uh for him, he has a break to be with his family.

Um, so and originally Russ, um, when Brad and Russ and I were meeting a few months ago, we were talking, he gives us his dates of when he's not gonna be here.

And uh I said, you know, I'll I'll talk on the 28th.

There probably won't be that many people there.

Can't go through that.

So um, so I I volunteered to teach, and I didn't know that he was going through Colossians, um, but uh anyway, so I was thinking about possibly going through the next few verses that he was ending on last week.

So he said, Russ, when you when you know where you're gonna end, just let me know and tell me the verses that I'll be picking up on.

And so about two weeks ago I got a text from Russ, and I want you to experience this how I did.

So I got a text from him, and it says, Hey Brian, I'm gonna finish on Colossians 3.17.

So if you have a Bible, um, open it.

If you don't, I'll read it for you.

But so Colossians 3.17 ends, so that would mean I would begin with Colossians 3.18, which says, Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord.

We're not going to talk about that today, because I have not gone to seminary, and I'll let Russ handle that next week.

So come next week and learn about submission all you wives.

But that will not be my take.

Um, I actually it's kind of funny that that I'm talking about Colossians because if you had uh if you had asked me what's your favorite book of the Bible, or what book of the Bible has made the biggest impact on you, personally, I would say the book of Colossians.

Um and it's me, or not even me, it's it's just divinely ordained that that Russ picked this verse.

I didn't know that I was gonna be talking about the Colossians.

I didn't know he was gonna be going through that when we talked about me teaching.

And I'm passionate about the book because it's made such a big impact on my life.

Um passionate about a lot of things.

I'm passionate about being a dad, being a husband, SEC football, passionate about that.

I went to Georgia Tech, so get this jacket, but even though growing to the orange pole, it's exciting, but not as exciting as like the tradition of SEC football, ACC basketball life.

But um the thing I'm most passionate about is talking about grace and how it's really changed my life.

Um back in 2011.

These verses in Colossians that I'm gonna talk about had a huge impact on my life.

Um I'm gonna go ahead and read uh these verses.

Um, I think in the bulletin, it it starts in verse 9, and we gotta uh I'm gonna go ahead and read it.

It's verses Colossians 1, verses 9 through 14.

Colossians 1:9–14

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints and light.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

I think the uh the important thing to note in these verses are these verses are in the past tense.

They talk about what we already have.

We have been qualified, we have been delivered.

In Christ we have redemption.

Paul is praying for the Colossian Christians to grow in their awareness and their understanding of what they already have.

Um, one definition of contentment that I like is contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of what you already have.

Uh the trouble with the Colossian Christians, and the reason Paul is talking to them in this way, is they had spiritual amnesia.

They forgot what they already had in Christ.

They had redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Uh, and when we forget what we have, just like I do today, I run to idols.

Um, I'm going to talk a little bit about idols.

Um, I used to think it was just a golden path, but I think it's much more.

And I think we have idols today.

I know I do.

Um one definition of an idol is what we look to to get our love, acceptance, worth, or security.

Um, so another definition I've heard Tim Keller say it's usually a good thing that we turn into a goddamn.

So it's something that's, you know, pretty good, like personal acceptance or approval.

That's not a bad thing, but when we when we make that our all, it becomes something that can't bear the weight of what we're giving it.

Um one of my favorite definitions of an idol actually came from uh the young theologian Jack Respus, who's in the crowd, and he said, we were talking in Sunday school about idols, and he said, Is that kind of like the first thing that you think about in the morning?

And I've thought about that a lot, and I think that's a really good definition of an idol, and it's helped me kind of realize what mine are and what I'm looking to as a savior.

Um, spiritual maturity is not moving beyond the gospel, but more deeply into it.

So Paul is not challenging the Colossians to behave better.

He's telling them you need to believe better, period.

And then that will affect your behavior.

Um Russ has been talking a lot as he's been teaching this book about indicatives and imperatives.

Um I like I said, I went to tech, I'm not a grammar guy, so those words I kind of zone out a little bit, but bear with me, they're they're easy and they're important.

The indicatives, Paul writes in Colossians, the indicatives come first.

And the indicatives are what has been indicated or what has been done on our behalf.

So these verses that I'm reading through are what God has done for us.

And Paul talks about those in the first two chapters of this book.

The second two chapters of this book, he moves on to imperatives, which are a description of what our lives will look like when we know the indicatives.

And I think prior to 2011 and prior to really understanding this book, I skipped to the imperatives.

My nature is to go to the action items.

Like I want to know what I need to do.

In the past, when I would start reading the book of Colossians, I would read, Grace to You and Peace from God our Father, I would read, May You Be Strengthened with All Power.

You know, what does that mean?

It's kind of like a yada yada through the best part.

What does that mean for me today?

So I want to skip to the part about my wife submitting to me, or skip to the part about, you know, the imperatives, what I'm supposed to be doing.

Um, and the mistake there is I can't I can't do it on my own.

Like I I can't.

Um and I think Paul writes this very intentionally, he does this in his other letters, that the indicatives, what has been done on our behalf, come before the commands or what we are to do.

Um of my least favorite sayings, and forgive me if you love this saying, this is just my personal deal here, is fake it till you make it.

And I think I don't like it because I am terrible at faking it.

I'm not good, and when I do fake it, uh everyone knows I'm faking it anyway.

So I'm not, and probably everyone knows you're faking it too, I'm guessing.

But one story to illustrate this point, I have a very strong-willed four-year-old son whom I love.

Um, and one day at the end of work, uh I got home, it was a busy day at work, we have four kids, I'm helping, uh, dinner, clean up after dinner, we got baths, we got a lot going on busy in the house.

And so at the end, uh I'm putting, I have the task of putting this young man to bed.

And uh at this point in the day, he wants to play a little game where he I'm I've got his pajamas, and I'm like, come on, James, come come here, let's put on your pajamas.

I'm gonna go to bed because I'm done.

I'm ready to be on the sofa, done with my responsibilities.

And uh James has a different plan that night.

And James's plan is very joyfully, he wants to run away and then come back and then run away and see how close I can get to snatching it.

So he's playing this game with me, and I'm not I'm not a willing participant in this game.

And I um I did not lose my temper, I did not raise my voice, but there's probably a little bit of steam coming out of my like I'm I'm tired of this game.

You know, James come back.

It happened about five or six times.

So finally I capture James.

I get him, and I'm putting on his pajamas, putting on his top, and uh a thought began to pop into my head.

Very early parts of this thought were good job.

You know, you didn't lose your cool.

You didn't, what a great data.

And and right then, right then, right when I was thinking these things, my four-year-old son says to me, I'll imitate James's voice, uh, he looks at me, he's eye to eye.

He says, Daddy's face is angry.

And he, I was, and I thought, I was doing a good job faking it.

Um thought that I pridefully, you know, was a wonderful role model for the son, but he saw right through all that.

He knew that I was ready to be done.

And I think that's what happens when I try to do the imperatives on my own.

There was not a point in that story where I was like, Lord, I know that I'm patient in you and I have Christ.

I never did that.

And uh and I think that's the mistake, is I run to the commands quickly, and when I do that, I burn out quickly.

I can't do it.

Um, I'm not that good.

Um, and I think that's what why Paul is talking about in Colossians.

That's why he orders this book the way he does.

Um, so how do these biblical truths that Paul is talking about to the Colossians, how does that meet us in our daily grind?

How does that meet us in the midst of our pain?

Um I think most of the time God speaks to me and he speaks to us in times of pain, in times of hardship.

Um C.

S.

Lewis said, God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts to us in our pains.

Pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf soul.

Um I think that's true for me.

And I think the reason for that is normally in life, I am I'm the firstborn son, I am a Pharisee.

Like I like to be in control, got my hands on the tennis position and wheel, and uh normally I feel in control of my life, and when bad things happen and I apply my strategies and they don't work, I slowly turn my hands open and surrender.

And I think that really happened to me in a real way in 2011, and my experience has been since then the normal Christian life is just that that over and over.

How did my hand how did I get back?

I'm in control again.

Help me, help me, because I'm at the end of my rope.

I don't know what to do.

Um, I need help.

And that became real for me in 2011.

The earthly things that I personally looked to for my worth or my identity um came crashing down.

And I think um that is when God used these verses, my my heart was softened because I was not prideful.

I was done.

I was at the end of my rope.

Someone says, God's office is at the end of your rope, and I believe that to be true.

Um so in 2011 there were two main events that happened to me.

One was um the divorce of my parents.

They'd been married for 39 years, and uh they went through a divorce, and it was challenging for me.

It was an emotional thing.

I was in my mid-30s, glad I wasn't young and not a child and lived at home, but it's still very difficult to see your parents, people that you love, um, hurting in different ways.

And my my brothers, too.

My younger, I have two younger brothers, they were both hurting.

And so you just feel like, what can I do to fix this?

You know, I remember telling my kids, and my kids were crying, and oh, it was emotional, I was angry, um, it was hard, and I was out of control of that situation.

I couldn't do anything to fix that.

Uh, the other thing that was happening more on a daily basis was, like I said, I'm a dentist, I work with a couple other dentists, and we have an office uh down on Cherokee Street, and um, we had a situation where there's a big conflict with one of my partners, and that was a daily stress.

It's kind of like um like a conflict with a neighbor.

Um, like you would go to work and he's still there.

There's still conflict.

Uh, every day there's just constant conflict, and I'm not a conflict guy, I run from conflict, I'm not a big fan of that.

Um, and at one point, with that conflict with this partner who eventually left, um, he told me that you've never earned anything.

You don't deserve what you have, you don't know what it's like to have to build a business.

Um and those are hard words to hear.

I mean, I think we we have doubts about ourselves that maybe I'm maybe I'm not this guy who who, you know, I'm not this dentist that people think that I am and I'm not successful.

But for someone to say it was pretty challenging to hear that.

Um so um those were hard things, and it was at that time in my life that that God brought me these verses.

So, what's the good news?

You know, um what I thought I needed to get my security.

I thought that I needed people to think, hey, he's a he's an intellectual guy, he's a smart guy, he's a hard worker, he's built that all himself.

But obviously, these words crushed me.

So I was looking for someone else's approval for my salvation, basically.

Um and the good news is um we don't have to earn approval and acceptance because Christ has already done that for us.

Um in verses 12 through 14, it Paul tells us in Christ we are already qualified, in Christ we are already secure, and in Christ we are already redeemed.

And I don't want to go past that word redeemed.

Um church is named uh Christ or Redeemer.

Redeemed literally means a releasing made by payment of ransom, or it means bought back.

I need help outside of myself.

Um so we've come to believe that our identity is directly tied to what we achieve, attain, accomplish, and how successful we can be at winning others' approval.

And I think when we look at these verses and get off the cycle of performing, because performing ends up in two things, or it did for me.

It ends up in either pride, like I had when I was putting account upon a kid, like I'm doing it, or it ends up in guilt when I crash and burn.

And that's exhausting.

It is a treadmill that you don't get off.

So when we look to these verses and we see we have, verse 14, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, um, our identity is not in something we can do or someone we can become.

It's in Christ.

Um back to my little story, when I was in the pit with my parents' divorce and uh my partner saying those things about me, um, I remember where I was when he said that, and I remember how I responded, and I have very mixed motives in everything actually.

And most of my motives in my response to his statement about I didn't earn anything was to make it mad by.

Because I knew if I went back and said, yes, I do, it would try to, it would just end up in an argument.

So when this when someone said to me, You haven't earned it, you don't deserve it, I looked in the paper, I thought, I don't, I didn't deserve it.

I don't, I didn't do anything to earn this.

God gave me these opportunities.

And again, I didn't, my motives were not pure.

I I just wanted, I just wanted to make mad, really.

But as I said those words, it felt like I was underneath a hot shower.

It felt like I don't have to earn it.

It felt good because it was true.

And I think it's true of you too.

And to get off of that cycle of earning, um, there's so much freedom there.

And I think that's why I'm passionate about these things.

Um, and this is just a story about how God has worked in my life.

I think the spirit is different in everyone's life, and I think it will work differently in yours, and that's exciting too.

Um, one last quote about freedom.

Um, a pastor in Florida said this about the freedom that you experience when you're off that performance cycle.

Um he was going through a hard time when he wrote this, and this quote is above my desk.

I just love it.

It's kind of long, so bear with me.

Um He says, Contrary to what I thought, I did not need easing circumstances, relief from difficulty, and distance from pain in order to be free.

I was learning that the freedom Jesus secured for me is not freedom from pain and suffering here and now.

Rather, it's freedom from bitterness, anger, fear, resentment, self-pity, offense, and suffering.

It is freedom from my burdensome sense of I deserve better, the encumbrance of entitlement.

I was realizing that only the gospel can free us from the enslaving pressure to defend ourselves.

That's real freedom.

God-sized freedom.

So, how does this affect us money?

How does this affect you when you go back to work?

Um, I think some good questions to ask yourself are where are you restless?

Where is it that you're, you know, tired?

What are you looking in your present disappointment or your present trial?

What are you looking to?

What are you craving that you already possess in Christ?

Um, and back to Jack's question: what's the first thing that you think about in the morning?

Um I think the answers to all those questions can help us see some of the idols in our lives that we have.

But the truth is, and Paul tells us this in Colossians, the truth is in Christ, we are already qualified.

We are already accepted, we are already redeemed, we are perfectly loved.

Not like a future version of you that's like cleaned up self, but you sitting in this little red chair in a preschool.

You are loved perfectly today, right now.

The you that no one else knows, the you that's hiding things, you are perfectly loved.

And thank God for that.

Um pray.

Heavy Father, I do thank you for for these verses.

Help me, help us to remember them.

Help us to know that we don't need to look to the things of creation to give us what the Creator can give us.

Um the things that we look to cannot bear that weight.

Um, but help us to remember in Colossians what you've said and how you see us, that you love us.

And uh Lord, I'm just so grateful for what you're doing in this church.

I pray that you would continue to make the next step clear.

Thank you for your son.

I thank you for your grace.

In his name I pray.

Amen.