Process, People, and Power

If you have your Bible with you,

book of Colossians.

of a Colossians.

don't know if you know this, but

right at the very beginning of

No, not so laugh.

Seriously.

Yeah, for the guys who refuse to

find it right about there in your Bible.

It's among the IANS.

Ephesians, Philippians, and then

And today I'm going to start the

And I really, I just want to put

place to help you grapple with and wrestle with Colossians.

Because in in for me personally,

weightiest letter.

serious complexities.

Paul's writings as being like,

some stages.

high up there.

is beautiful.

of lose the forest for the trees

want to do is I want to put 3

help us as we approach this new book and we run through the

series and Colossians.

do is I just really want to

was put in place that brought us

I want to talk about the people involved and the people it was

sent to.

the power behind this book, this

And I think if you're able to

it'll land far better and your

your understanding of who he is.

So firstly, the process by by now, hopefully you're there,

you've found Colossians. I want to read the very first

and the very last verse of Colossians to give you an idea.

I think this morning I'm going

hat on and then get into my

But I want to spend some time

thing because it's an absolutely

But verse one, it says Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the

will of God and Timothy.

as well to God's holy people in Colossae.

Pretty straightforward.

He's writing to a church called the Colossians Church in

Colossae.

verse in Colossians, Colossians 418 says the following says I,

Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.

Remember my chains, Grace be

Why does he say I write this

Why doesn't he say I write this letter in my own hands?

Now, this isn't a rabbit hole.

specificity so that you can

this book.

process.

in my hand because I think a lot

Scripture, we think Paul wrote

Paul wrote Colossians and Romans

I don't know if you've seen

painting of Paul writing

We have it here.

we think.

sort of sitting there with his

he's writing.

It's the Colossians.

How's the weather?

rugby?

I have Paul as an apostle of

and Timothy, sorry, what was

And Timothy is also here, but

with Scripture.

ancient Near Eastern times,

scribes and scrubs were there.

fact that scrubs would be the

And maybe you think, well, it's because, you know, Paul wrote

like a doctor.

scripture.

hieroglyphics that we had to

Or maybe you've got a scribe

write really small and you can

And maybe your picture is of

scribe has got the the quill and

apostle by the Lord Jesus

And Timothy, what's that?

And Timothy, I've got to mention

your picture.

out of sync with everything that

letter writing.

couple reasons, which I'll get

But the first thing you need to know about the letter to the

Colossians was that it was

So.

Yeah, mahogany desk and air

he's writing this.

That's the first thing you got

So the second thing you need to realize specifically about the

the New Testament books was that

by a single person.

setting.

letter to Colossians, you'll see

that, hey, listen, mention my

You also got Aristarchus in

being a fellow prisoner.

is in prison writing this letter

there in prison with him.

Tychicus and Anonymous and Mark and Justice and Epaphras, the

guy who planted the church, they

this letter because what they

planted the church, must have

because stuff was happening in

And so he shares his story with Paul and he says, hey, listen,

you know, a few things are going

You know, what do I do with,

They, they're becoming very

mysticism.

discussions sitting there in

be saying, well, OK, well, we

to address this.

would actually pretty much teach

he's like, Allison, this is one of my problems.

And so he's busy teaching the

possibly leading to salvation

And then what would happen is

I don't know if you know this

iPad was called the wax tablet.

And so you've got this piece of wood with a thin layer of wax on

And so he's writing that what's cool.

But the the wax tablet is if you, you know, once you control

alt delete, you just take it out into the sun.

The wax gets a little soft and then you rub over it again, you

know, spelling mistakes, old school to picks.

And so that he would have these wax tablets and he'd be

scratching in there. Some of your ideas.

And then he'd also include parchments.

So in at the end of second Timothy, we find Paul calling

for his parchments, but the the Greek word is membranos.

So it's kind of like this thin little membrane where he had

notes on. And the reason why I had this

was because Paul used to fine tune his arguments.

He didn't just sit there going like, what should I tell them?

So for example, when Rory first arrived at 3Ci, he preached A

sermon where he used the illustration Go boy key.

I don't know if you've heard that illustration.

You know, he's told that same story at Glen Ridge and at

Cedars because it's the best way he can communicate the father

heart of God is this story. It's not that he's running out

of material. It's just it's a really great

way, approachable way. And Paul would do the same.

So he had these wax tablets and these parchments, these

membranes, and he would actually reuse a lot of his arguments.

So if you're ever reading through the New Testament,

you'll notice that there's about 1/3 of Ephesians is found in

Colossians and a lot of what's in Colossians is found in

Philemon. And, and he's got these thoughts

happening here, you know, in, in a prison cell with these

membranes and parchments and, and wax tablets.

And then once he sort of put his argument together, he would then

Colossians. And then the scribe would go

away and he'd put the finishing touches and he'd come, you know,

prisons in those days, but he'd arrive and he'd sort of read it

to Paul. And then Paul and the guys who

put it into ChatGPT and say, listen, can you make this a

little bit more compassionate and pastoral?

And then they send him back and he'd make some changes.

And then finally, you've got this letter to the Colossians.

So tell you this entire story, this weighty process, because

all of it would have been saturated in prey, saturated,

saturated and counsel and consideration the weightiness of

letter that was going to be brought to them.

And we're going to encounter some of that.

And it's the reason why we finally get this little letter

to the church in Colossians. And historians say how crazy is

this? Historians say this this entire

process would cost between 8 to 10 denarii, which in today's

financial terms is round about 15,000 Rand, 15,000 Rand to

write this letter. So you got to know it is done

with deep thoughts, deep intentionality, much prayer and

consideration leading of the Holy Spirit to give us this

treasure. The letter to the Colossians.

I tell you the process because it puts weight on the second

thing I want to highlight, and that is the people.

So because once this letter has now been written, they didn't

have, you know, it's not like he licks it, puts it in an envelope

you know, we have couriers, they had carriers.

And so a document like this was considered extremely important,

not just because of the cost, but because of the nature of the

And so that would give it to very specific carriers because

if, and they believe that this was written in Rome, if it has

to be sent from Rome, that's about 2000 kilometers, It's

going to take weeks, possibly even months for this thing to

arrive. So you've got to put it in

trustworthy hands. It's got to cross oceans and

rivers and roads and be handed to the church.

But what's important to know is when this book gets delivered,

what they used to do in the ancient Near East is it would be

with this wax seal. It was then handed to the person

And then if it was a government letter, what would happen is

give the letter to Annie. She checks and sees, OK, the

seal is still in text would break it.

She just sort of give her a glance over and then hand it

back. And then the the Courier, the

carrier would actually then read this.

It was very la de da and official in in this moment.

But what would happen here, and this is what I'm going after,

what would happen in the church was it would be handed to

Apophis. He'd read through it, then

handed back to the carrier. And the carrier would not only

read it, but would explain as they go along.

Would you know the Patras has a question or someone in the in

the congregation has a question like what do you mean by that?

You'd refer to something that Paul had taught while they was

he compiling this letter in the prison and would clarify that

kind of like what I'm doing right now.

So the carriers or the carrier was essentially the person

entrusted to preach this letter for the very first time.

And I say that because the people here are key to

understanding the letter to the Colossians Church, because Paul

not only followed the leading of the Spirit when he wrote

Colossians, I believe he followed the genius and the

leading of the Spirit when he determined who it was, it was

going to carry this letter. I want to show you who it was.

If you look, where are we? Chapter 4, verse 7, it says

Tychicus will tell you all the news about me.

He is a dear brother, faithful minister, fellow servant in the

Lord. Verse 9 says he is coming with

Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you.

They will tell you everything that is happening.

So you've got Tychicus, you've got Onesimus.

And then verse 16, just, you know, to prove my point, after

this letter, letter has been read to you, see that it is also

genius have, led by the Spirit, sent these two men for very

specific reasons.

two gentlemen.

I call him hoofseun.

what it means to be saved, what it means to minister, what it

means to be born and raised in

So we find out Tychicus was a

sent to.

say, for example, you come to

about Affies.

you know, or anything more a

or you don't know about the

the city.

know the context, to know the

shortcomings, to know that the

And so Tychicus is appointed

But more than that, what we find

Romans, Tychicus was part of a team that took this massive

financial gift to the church in Jerusalem.

And we're talking large amounts because it was sent this

finance, these finances were sent because it was meant to

alleviate the poverty in Jerusalem, as well as the fact

they say it was to express unity and gratitude to Jerusalem

church from the Gentile Christians.

So don't miss this. Tychicus is someone who's

trustworthy financially. He's also respected by the

churches. He's well known among the

leadership there. He's spiritually mature.

He's earned Paul's confidence. He's essentially he's part of

Paul's inner circle, Tychicus. But he also knows Paul.

He's traveled with Paul. So who better to know and confer

display the wonder of Christ than Tychicus?

Now, why do I tell you all of this?

Well, two reasons. One, because I want to call

those of you who have a story like Tychicus.

So in our midst, they are Saints like Dennis and Annie, seasoned

Saints. You've been through church,

you've been in church, you've been raised in church.

You've been in three CR for many, many years.

I want to call you The Who have Sians in our midst.

You know scripture, you've seen God work, you've experienced

miracles, you've you've witnessed redemption and rescue.

knees.

carry the gospel like Tychicus

again by the Christ of the

See, because one of the reasons why I believe Tychicus was sent

was because he is captivated by Christ.

The last thing Paul would have

worth sin with rules and

Someone who had lost their first

Can you imagine carrying the

their first love?

seasoned Saints.

Was worship just worship?

Now it's a little uncomfortable having a black man lead

worship. You know those lines don't land

on your heart no more, and it's not expressed.

You're not standing there shaken by and moved by worship.

Can you imagine if Tychicus had lost his first love?

I honestly believe Colossians would have been dead in the

water. You know the elders, we we're in

You see, those of us who are

love Jesus.

and put bums on seats or money.

We are, we live on the very edge of formula and function.

The poor saw AntarcTychicus's heart, a love utterly captivated

kilometers, but I have to send you there.

What about our life group leaders?

You're sick and tired of them wetting your bed.

They leave the kids with. I'm talking from experience.

Yeah, sure. We had like a 13/14 year old.

They just couldn't keep it in. And he would sleep on our bed

and life group would end. And you go back and it's like,

you know, and Dennis, he just talks and talks and talks and

you just can't get a word in it. Hypothetically Speaking, of

course, but I want to call you seasoned Saints.

I want to call you to carry the gospel anew.

I want to ask you, has your quiet time become dull and

routine? Have you lost the wide eyed

wonder of Christ? We dare not.

If we as senior Saints are going to be carrying one of and

forming one of the riverbanks for the gospel through the book

of Colossians, we dare not have lost our first love.

Beautiful. I want to call you to be

captivated by Christ, but I want to caution you.

Don't be the older brother. Yeah, Jesus tells the parable of

older brother that doesn't get much attention, but he has lost

his first love. He is not behaving like a son.

He's behaving more like a servant.

And the scary thing about the prodigal son is that it's the

older brother who stays outside while there's the wicked,

debauched runaway younger brother gets called in.

And this is my charge to you. Because we are going to be

confronted with the highest of highest, the most glorious,

magnificent description and narrative around the God that we

hearts have grown cold. Is Tychicus alive inside your

bones, or have we grown, grown cold?

I've been so deeply challenged by this because you read

Colossians and it is just adjective upon adjective.

And you can just go like, yeah, that wasn't underlined.

Let me go and say something that has life.

But that's only half the story. We also got Onesimus.

Onesimus, this story is even more remarkable.

Onesimus, we've discovered in Scripture, was a slave.

It's highly likely that he was born into slavery, which meant

he was the legal property of somebody else.

And to make things worse, he wasn't the best of slaves.

Paul, Paul, the guy who wrote Colossians, actually refers to

he he writes something to Onesimus's master, and this is

how he describes Onesimus. He says he was formerly useless.

That's a real Gold Star.

yeah, everyone kind of

Put that on your CV.

here.

that he was a slave in was a

away.

Maybe that's you.

way is saying, you know, you're just deconstructing your faith.

Maybe you've come to that point where you carry so much shame.

I love those words.

shame that you just was, you

I'm going to run away from the

I'm going to run away from my

I'm going to do my own thing.

Onesimus did.

thing is, well, they're not so

Thing was, if you were caught as

allowed to be beaten.

If they figured out you're a

permission to beat them.

many times they would be

Now, this might be more like

No.

Yes.

The things I've done, I deserve to be beaten and branded or

executed for my sins and my

But you know what?

that Anonymous didn't encounter execution.

He encountered Grace.

ended up in prison and came face

Paul himself, got saved in prison by Paul and got so

radically touched by the gospel that Paul's saying, I can

think of no other to send with Tychicus than Anonymous as a

demonstration of this gospel that he carries.

You know, they, they say I read a, a comment that I'll just read

letter to the church in Ephesus and mentioned a Bishop named

Onesimus. And according to church

tradition, it's this useless, runaway, deserving of death

slave who encounters the gospel and is so radically changed

according to church tradition, they believe he becomes one of

the leaders in the church in Ephesus.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Because maybe maybe this is your story.

Maybe while we go through Colossians, you know, where near

Maybe you'll pick it up again because you know, that would be

pretty helpful. You don't do life group because

you're an introvert and you know you don't like these happy

clappy peoples. Maybe that's more your story and

Tychicus, you as Tychicus types be.

Let's carry the gospel, but the anonymous types as we go through

You need to discover in the book of Colossians that the gospel

never begins with you. Pursuing God begins with God

pursuing you. It's worth the price of entry

just there if you can understand that the gospel, this love story

pursuing you in prison, useless, but he is besotted with you.

And the crazy thing is, Onissimus leaves as a slave and

goes back as a son, the younger brother in Jesus parable.

If Tychicus represents the older brother, the younger brother

represented by Onissimus in the parable, he leaves as a son, but

morning. Maybe you'll pluck up the

courage to come again next week. Could I invite you to not come

with slave mentality? Oh, I'm going to be boppered.

You know, God's mad at me. But understand that this gospel

is born in the heart of God for you, not in your heart.

How do I make right and to come week in and week out as we go

through Colossians and discover what they discovered.

I mean, Can you imagine the picture?

They get up and they're reading this and there's one verse there

Onesimus would have gone back his He used to stay in Colossae

at the home that he ran from. So Onesimus is standing,

sharing this to God's holy people.

I bet they're probably going like, yeah, to us we're holy,

but an isthmus has to receive it himself.

Or you read a little bit later where it talks about in Two

Chronicles, us 2IN Colossians 213 and 14 says when we are dead

in Christ. And you've got Tychicus saying I

needed that. Can you imagine these two

running a commentary on this portion of Scripture through

their lives essentially as exhibit A of what God will do in

And so my invitation to you, if you on this side, on that side,

if you come as Tychicus, my invitation to you is what's your

captivate you and set you a light.

And if you come as an Tychicus, allow the book of Colossians to

grab a hold of a heart, hard, fearful heart, and allow God to

woo you in together and discover the power in

Colossians.

a close discover the power of

The process is one thing, the

But if you can encounter the

never be the same again.

because I want to tell you a

Gordon.

Rich Gordon because he's a very ordinary, nondescript guy in

the church, not known for anything really, except for

one thing. He has an incredible revelation

of the gospel and the beauty and the wonder of Christ.

And everywhere he goes, this preacher dude, it's all he does

is he makes much of Jesus Christ.

And the doors have opened for this guy.

And it's confounding because he preaches the same sermon, he

tells the same stories, and he sings the same song.

So I've asked the band Adele, can you give us AC?

Amen. Thank you.

I'm not going to sing this. Don't you worry.

And this is the song that he teaches them to sing.

You're sure? you.

So he gets up, he tells his testimony, he shares about

Christ and he says, all I want to do is I want to help you

encounter Christ and fall in love with him again.

And so he's been invited. He's he's preached at a stadium

in Brazil to 50,000 people, same thing.

But the crazy thing is every time he exalts Christ, the

Spirit fills the room to the point where people struggle to

minister. He was in Holy Trinity Brompton

last year. I don't know if you know, HTB,

it's they're very British, they're Anglican.

And there's Rich Gordon preaching the same sermon,

telling the same story, singing the same song.

But one of the things he feels to do, and it's crazy Annie,

because he felt just to highlight Psalm 133.

And he says this, he says, you know, there's one thing when

you've got a Taika kiss on that side and an Onissimus on this

side in the same church, and you're all on your own journey.

and the younger brother mess

the squeaky clean hoofseun, he

Christ is the center.

God pours out his blessing.

pleasant.

And brethren, when Tychicus types and Onesimus types

gathered together and then he read this, he says this.

It goes on to say it is like

running down on the beard,

And while he is reading this,

the in the back part of the

oil, there's oil.

elderly, well to do man who is

palms of his hands and so rich

that's what you have in an

He's climbing over these pews.

guess over to the very back.

he shouts, there's oil in the

And the Spirit of God hit that

could barely stand to minister.

But he only preaches one message.

It's the very message we find in Colossians.

Jesus. Jesus is enough.

If you're a Tychicus, Jesus is still enough.

Do not lose the wonder of this Jesus.

If you're an Onissimus, do not lose the wonder of the grace and

He is sufficient. He is the head of the church.

He has disarmed the powers and authorities and nail them to the

loves you, He wants all of you. And when Christ is enough, when

Jesus is exalted, there's oil in the church again, the

absolute supremacy and sufficiency of Christ.

And we're going to look at this Christ over the next few weeks.

hearts.

sang the song, got the T-shirt.

But I want to ask you, would you allow him to take your hand and

your whole life to you so that you can't help falling in love

with him? And I know that this word is

going to fall on fearful, dark, shadier.

You might call yourself useless hearts.

I'm going to ask you to would you come again?

Would you come? Let Jesus woo you, date you,

take a hold of your hand and your whole life to you, and

trust that each and every one of us would be eternally changed

because of our encounter with Christ.

I'm going to close and pray, Father.

I just want to thank you that you have given us not only

Christ, but you have given us all things.

You've given us access to you, to your presence.

But Father, I know that in this room we're all on a journey,

some of us running to you, some running away.

And I pray that as we go through the book of Colossians, you

would take our hands and we would fall head over heels in

love with you, Jesus. I know we got very

sophisticated, very complex people here, and we got very

simple, very shameful people here too.

We still need Jesus, We need you, Lord Jesus.

And I want to ask through the simplicity of your word, that

your oil would flow again in 3Ci.

Ask this in Jesus name, Amen.