Freedom Letter #2 - Colossians

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Well, good morning.

I thought the junior high guy seemed really really promising.

Very good looking.

Thanks for laughing at that.

It's good.

I'm not actually mid-stage here.

There you go.

Well, actually, I have one other announcement before I forget.

Let me give that.

It wasn't on the video, but starting uh this Friday, we're gonna have a large group worship gathering for college students and young adults.

Very good.

And that will be the first Friday of each month.

So it's starting uh this Friday for the first time.

And that will be a night of passionate worship, discussion, and prayer.

And it it meets in the arena.

So enter from the right side of the building if you're coming in from the street, and enter through the arena doors at 7 p.m.

this Friday.

7 p.m.

They'll have specialty coffee drinks.

It's actually in the note, available free of charge.

So I might come, even though I'm not that age, get a coffee and leave.

We should all do that.

That would be funny.

And we're encouraging everyone in that age range to invite friends and come, and we're gonna kick this off in a really big way.

7 p.m.

on Friday.

You got it?

Well, let's uh let's pray and we'll get started this morning.

Jesus, we're just excited to uh learn more about you this morning and to talk about you and uh just uh open our our minds, just give me a clear mind as uh as we look at Colossians, and we're just gonna enjoy uh just hearing from you this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So the scene is, I just thought of this illustration just a while ago, so I haven't thought this through, but the scene was like 20 years ago.

I got out of college, and uh I was music major in college, like music theory, and that was my thing.

And I had grown up and they always had me up on stage doing stuff, and I was you know the piano player that did all these like flowery hymn arrangements and stuff.

So I did a lot of stuff on stage, and I would sing a little bit, and so I I wrote a few songs, and I kind of had to do that in college as part of you know the learning process.

And so I had a kind of a decent number, kind of the whole contemporary Christian thing was, you know, 20 years ago.

And uh and so a lot of people encouraged me at that time.

Well, you need to, you know, play these for somebody, or take these things in Nashville and see what they like.

And the way the story goes, by the way, it's not like, oh yeah, I got a great song, and I was I've been a computer programmer for the last 20 years.

So let me just give you the the end of that story, but it's still a funny story.

So I I was like, well, that's good.

I I don't mind doing that.

I got a lot of encouragement for people, and so I finally found some in uh somebody that I could go see.

And it was like, you know, they always represent themselves like this, some amazing person in the industry, and I'm gonna give you honest feedback about your songs, and we're gonna do this.

And so I went to the meeting, and it's kind of like any awkward job interview kind of thing.

And you walk in, and this guy had just gold records everywhere, you know, just to completely intimidate.

And uh, and I'm like 20, 21, 22 years old or something like that.

And so you're supposed to bring like a cassette, it's 20 years ago, a cassette with uh four or five of your songs.

And so we sit there, and it was so awkward, because he just plays like a little cassette player, plays the songs, and he just sit there and listen.

So he's behind his desk, and I'm sitting in the chair, and he listens, he's going, hmm, he's tapping along, hmm, all right.

Five songs, you know.

It's like, oh, this is painful because you know you know him so well.

And finally he gets to the end and he says, Well, Ben, here's the thing about your music.

First of all, musically, it's fine, it's great, you know, you got all the chords, it's it's good, it's interesting, you got a hook, you know, it's a lot of people don't have that.

I don't want you to change anything like that.

And he's like, but the thing about your music is like the lyrics.

The lyrics, he leans in like this, and I'm like, oh, here it is, I'm gonna get constructive criticism.

What is this?

You know, maybe I'm I'm getting too deep here, I need to maybe change the verses, I need to get into the chorus, and maybe the bridge doesn't apply.

You know, sometimes I would, you know, borrow an idea from a different song and bring it in for the bridge, and I shouldn't be doing that.

And this guy, he knows what he's doing.

And he says, here's the thing, with your music, it's like, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

And I'm like, what?

And it was so strange the way he said it, so shocking.

It's not what I expected to hear.

He's like, that's the that's the only problem with your music.

It's like you talk about Jesus way too much.

And I'm like, but this is Christian music, you know, and it's it's like it's written on the CD, you know, the cassette tape.

And it's, you know, that was part of this.

Did it not say that on the little promo they gave you?

And he's like, oh yeah, but still, it's just you talk about Jesus so much.

And he's like, you can't do that.

And I'm like, this is so strange.

It was, you didn't have to see the guy to know just how surreal it was, you know, because in my brain, like a 22-year-old, I'm like, well, is this like persecution or something?

And God's like, no, this is just weird.

This guy's, you know, you don't get any credit for that.

And the guy says, and it got even stranger, he leans forward and he says, Here's what you need to do, Ben.

You and I, we're gonna make some money.

Here's how we do it.

You, you gotta think when you write a song, you gotta get Ethel off the freeway.

And I said, What are you talking about?

He said, You gotta get Ethel off the freeway.

He says, We say that in the industry, the reason we say that, and this is 20 years ago, everything's changed, so if you write songs, don't disregard everything I'm saying.

But he says, You gotta get Ethel off the freeway.

We say that because, you know, 72% of Christian music is bought by uh women, and they're slightly older than you might think, that are that buy it, maybe five or ten years older, then you might be thinking who's gonna buy that, and so that's why we call her Ethel, which I didn't like because my grandma's name is Ethel.

Amazing piano player, role model.

So he's like, we're not connecting right here.

And he's like, so you gotta imagine Ethel's driving down the road and she's in her minivan or her station wagon and she's hearing your song, she's got two screaming kids in the backseat, and she's thumbing through the radio stations, and we've known statistically that you got 10.2 seconds to lock her in and make her feel a little bit better about herself, that's her life that's really difficult, and you gotta get her off the freeway, for some reason, go into the Christian bookstore, buy your cassette.

And he's like, So you need to get to the hook faster, and it needs to please don't talk about Jesus so much, and then keep the music the same way, you bring that back in a month, and we'll do this.

And I was like, wow, what in the world?

So I didn't really know where to go with that, honestly, as a early 20s.

But I only give you that illustration because if that gentleman happens to be here this morning, he's gonna really not enjoy this message.

Because it's just it's gonna be all about Jesus.

This is the book of Colossians this morning, and the book of Colossians, if you read through it, it is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

In the most respectful way, it's all about that.

And so, and it's really it's deep waters.

The whole thing kind of reads like a hymn, but that's what it's all about.

And it's a great thing to be reminded of.

So this is kind of also an extension of what we did last week.

Uh, is there anybody here that was not here last week?

A good many people.

Okay, you guys can go ahead with your hands raised and leave because you'll be lost.

We've got a coffee house out there, uh, specialty drinks.

But no, we'll catch up real quick.

So last week we talked about the book of Philemon in the Bible.

Uh, Philemon, uh, Paul, this famous guy, church planner in the New Testament, he had a deep relationship, on one hand, uh, with a guy named Philemon, and he had met Philemon probably when Philemon had visited uh the city of Ephesus.

And he has this deep relationship with him.

Philemon became a believer.

He's anchored in there, Paul is.

And then Paul also has this relationship with a guy named Onesimus, and Onesimus had visited Paul when Paul was in prison under house arrest, but Onesimus was Philemon's former slave.

And Onesimus had robbed Philemon and on his way out of town stolen some stuff.

But Onesimus knows Paul, and so Paul's anchored into that relationship also, and Paul desires to have uh these two guys to reconcile to one another.

And so he brings them back together uh in hope.

And so he goes to Philemon and he gives, because Philemon's hanging out there with Paul while he's in prison, and he gives Philemon this one-page, very personal letter that commends him uh back to Philemon.

And he sends him home to the small town of Colossae, where they they both lived, and courageously he takes this letter and walks it back.

You know, either a hundred miles if he's in Ephesus or 1200 miles if he's in Rome, and he walks this letter back home.

And so that's that was all last week.

Paul being anchored into both sides and bringing, reconciling uh two people together in hope.

And this week, this is uh, but if you remember, we said there's two scrolls that were actually sent back on that road.

There was the scroll that Paul gave to Onesimus, and that one-page letter that Onesimus walked home.

But traveling with Onesimus was another man named Tychicus.

And Tychicus was carrying the letter that Paul wrote to the entire church in Colossae.

A little bit longer, four chapters instead of one.

And Tychicus probably also had the letter to the Ephesians with him.

But they probably went back together to Colossae and delivered this.

So, as we mentioned last week also, uh, the man that had originally planted the church in Colossae was a guy named uh Epiphrus or Epaphras.

No idea how you pronounce that.

And so Epaphrus had planted this church, he had also known Paul, basically, everybody knows Paul, uh, visited him in Ephesus and become a believer.

Paul mentored him, and he's the one that started a bunch of these churches uh in Asia Minor.

And so Epaphras, at some point, he's back in Colossae, he's originally from Colossae, and he's active in this church, and there's something going on in this church that concerns Ephrus, and that makes the lights go really brighter.

And so Epaphras makes this journey back to where Paul is in prison, either in Ephesus or in Rome, and he shares all this news with Paul.

Uh he's this is his sob story about his church planting experience in Colossae.

We don't really know what he said.

We don't know if he journeyed at the same time that Onesimus did, but they both kind of ended up with Paul there in prison.

So Paul's response to this uh this information from Epaphras about the crazy things going on in the church is what we have in the book of Colossians.

So, but before we dive into that, I just make sure we have uh have the scene here set.

You know, the the church there in Colossae, a small church, probably just a few dozen people, it met in a house.

But uh, but even if it was a little bit bigger than that, much different dynamic than what we have here uh at his hands.

Uh Paul had never visited this church in Colossae.

Uh he didn't plan it directly, so he didn't know any of these people.

Uh the town had been a little more prosperous a few years prior to this, and it had been recently upstaged by a few of the other towns surrounding, like Laodicea and Heropolis, and they were a little bit bigger and about 10 miles away.

So a little bit of a ghost town, small church, maybe some crazy stuff going on.

Epaphras, the original guy, travels back to tell Paul about this.

Paul's currently in prison, and if he's in prison in Rome, or maybe even if he's in prison in Ephesus, depending on who's holding him captive, then you just visually you have to understand Paul's probably this whole time chained to a soldier.

That's how they did the house arrest.

So that's kind of how he lived his life.

And for who knows, years he might have been like this.

And so Epaphrus comes, visits Paul while he's chained to this Roman soldier, and he's currently probably in the company of this fugitive slave Onesimus from last week.

So it's a really strange scene.

So what could we possibly expect that would be positive that would come out of this?

You know, if if this had been me, you know, if I had been Paul sitting in prison like that, you know, and feeling the victim, that's how I would have felt.

And my buddy from years ago comes and visits me and tells me his sob story about church planting, I probably would have been sarcastically like, uh, you know, a Paphrist, that's really that's really difficult, all your problems there and in church planting in in Colossi.

You know, you know what's also difficult?

Being in prison.

That's really difficult.

And being chained to this guy, Sammy the soldier.

He's not Sammy, but I call him Sammy.

He hates that.

And you know, I tell you what, I have a quick letter I'd like to write to you about what you should do about the church in Colossae.

Here you go.

Don't worry, I'm almost done.

Here you go.

Let me fold this up.

And Epaphras is like, thank you, Ben, thank you so much.

I can't wait to see what you've written.

I want to be encouraged.

Oh, I see you've only written three words and they're written in all caps.

It just says, uh deal with it.

Yeah.

That's that's what I would have done in that situation.

It's so hard to imagine in that situation what Paul does.

Because the letter that Paul writes back to the church in Colossae, even though he's in prison chained to this Roman guard, is the most epic book you'd ever read.

It is the most dramatic.

The whole thing reads like a hymn.

That he would have this perspective about immense freedom while he's in prison like that, even despite all this stuff that Epaphrus is describing going on in the church, even knowing this relationship between Philemon and Onesimus, and you got this slavery, so many things would discourage me.

And Paul comes back with this amazing, positive letter in Colossians that we're gonna look at.

Um, one more quick background note on that before we we dive into Colossians.

So we don't really know uh any of the specific teachings that were going on, or maybe some of the odd stuff in Colossae that prompted this letter back from Paul.

Uh the best we can do is maybe try to infer that from reading the book of Colossians and try to try to guess what it was.

But that doesn't necessarily follow.

Just because somebody says something, it doesn't mean it was a big problem.

It might mean that they were really good at it, and he wanted them to be especially good at it, you know.

But in just in general, about the the uh the cities around there, the pagan cities, in general, they they just had dozens of gods.

This would be the culture that the church would be planted in.

And there was a God for everything.

So there would be a God for their city, and if things were going well in the city or were difficult there, then it was that God's fault.

Or there would be a god of the sea, and if you're going on a voyage, you needed to pray to the God of the sea, hope for the best.

There would be a God of war.

If you're gonna go to war, you gotta pray to that God, hope for the best.

If you're in love, there's a God for that.

And so there was not this logical kind of divide between your daily interactions in life, your physical stuff, and the unseen world.

Everything kind of had this script that was behind the scenes, and life was confusing and difficult, but that maybe helped give a little bit of a story to things.

But it probably also made for a pretty confusing and paranoid kind of way to live, too.

And so it's easy when we know, you know, remind ourselves that's the culture, to kind of think, well, we're a couple thousand years beyond that, and we don't think like that anymore, and and uh we don't struggle with that kind of thinking.

I'm not sure that's actually the case.

Um because we have our own kind of listing of mysterious powers and and principles that we try to blame for our own inaction.

You know what I mean?

Um of the examples that I that I read from uh from a commentary here, it's uh you know, it's easy for us to take that too far.

How we have this mysterious force that's around us, and we kind of we want to blame that for what we don't, we might not do.

So the example would be that I saw given, like in politics, there'll be an injustice in government.

And so we're all so used to hearing politicians say, well, the reason for that it's just the current political climate.

It's just this mysterious force, and it's not really me.

And it's like, okay, yes, but no, you know, or it's in the face of like abject poverty somewhere, uh, someone will say, Well, that's just there's economic forces, and that's what's going on there.

And it's like, yes, but no.

You know, it's like uh how could we just look at that and unanchor it?

It feels way too fuzzy.

It's unanchored on both ends.

Uh, like here's my illustration.

I bring my own props.

It's unanchored on on both ends.

On one end, it's unanchored from the reality of God being in charge.

And God's in charge of all this, it all reports to him, and he's got a plan for it.

And that's how everything in life should be anchored.

And it's unanchored on the other end because it's conveniently divorced from me and my responsibility to change anything.

It's just this force, you know, that's just untethered and hanging around in the world, and we don't mind speaking in those kind of terms.

You know, you watch the news for for 10 minutes, and it's just, you know, you've got economic forces and political climates, prevailing sentiments, the state of prejudice, the entertainment establishment, and after a while it's just like, okay, where are these mysterious forces that are out there?

And how do we put them back into the zoo from which they escaped, you know?

And it's it's just all feels it's like there's so much truth that's there, but it's just not anchored right.

And that's what Colossians is about.

So if if you're listening by online, by the way, in the Hiss Hands app, I have a visual aid that you'll never understand because you can't see this.

Just imagine I have this actual anchor, it's a ship anchor and it's hundreds of pounds, and I'm holding it, it's very impressive.

No.

It's a piece of rope.

So it's it's important for us to remind ourselves that we still deal with the same kind of thing.

Uh we just have different names for it.

We don't have as colorful names for it.

And I don't mean that, trying to give it practical terms like that.

I don't mean that as if it's not spiritual.

I think it's very spiritual what's going on there.

I just want to first state it in practical terms so we can remind ourselves that this is still a little more prevalent than we kind of own up to.

So this is where Paul starts us.

He wants to anchor us back with Jesus.

And so Paul starts Colossians precisely with this anchor analogy here in chapter one.

He says, Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings.

We can't quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you.

We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians.

The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tied tightly as they are to your future in heaven, kept taught by hope.

So already Paul's given us this analogy and he's given us one side, one of one of these anchors.

So our hope, we're anchored to Jesus as he's in new creation.

So what he's doing in heaven, in new creation, since he's been resurrected, what everything in life is anchored to that.

And it's kept taught by the hope that we have.

So that gives us some direction.

So, just a few verses later there, uh Paul continues in chapter one, as you learn more and more about how God works, you'll learn how to do your own work.

And we pray that you'll have the strength to sick it out over the long haul.

Not the grim strength of gritting your teeth, but the glorious strength that God gives.

It's strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy.

Thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.

So the more we learn about God's work and this first anchor here, then we're gonna understand our own work, and that's gonna help us do it.

But that's the mystery in this.

So it's maybe easiest to understand this first side of how we're anchored into Jesus in new creation, all this unseen stuff, and I can lock in there, but how does all of this connect back to me?

How does it get anchored to me?

And that's the mystery that Paul takes us into a little bit later there in Colossians.

This is still chapter one.

It says, Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation.

Through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.

He made the things we can see and the things we can't see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.

Everything was created through him and for him.

And then just a few verses later, for God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ.

And through him, God reconciled everything to himself.

And this includes you who were once far away from God.

So Jesus was never created.

Jesus created everything.

That's the perspective we have to have on him.

Jesus created everything, but not just people, animals, plants.

Jesus created also these forces and thrones and authorities and principalities, these things that we referenced quickly before.

Jesus made it all.

And because he made it all, then he's able to come into creation.

So that's the mystery is that from day one, God intended to make a world that he would be able to inhabit himself.

And that was always the plan, that he would do that.

We're made in God's image, and so God can come to us.

So that's the other side of the anchor.

We're anchored first to new creation, where Jesus is because of his resurrection.

And we're also anchored here, and this is the really good news.

This is the thing I think people miss.

Jesus is this side of the anchor, but this other side of the anchor in our creation right now, all the physical stuff and the forces that we have in our world, Jesus is the anchor here too.

Because he's been born into this world just like us, because he created the world and created us in his own image, and he's the one that has come here as the perfect human being.

And he's the one that set his flag also right here in this creation, and so he's both sides of the rope.

And that's why salvation is such an encouraging thing, and it makes sense.

It's not Jesus on one side, I'm on the other, and we're gonna hope for the best.

I hope I don't do a flyby here.

It's Jesus in here, anchored a new creation, and then Jesus here on earth with a real body, being the real human being, and then he goes through his death and resurrection so he can set up the other anchor.

So that's what Paul's getting at here.

To state that in another way, still in Colossians 1, the mystery in a nutshell is this Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory.

It's that simple.

That's the substance of our message.

We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the message.

We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity.

To be mature is to be basic.

Christ, no less.

No more, no less.

The mystery in a nutshell is this Christ is in you.

A little bit later down Colossians 2, he says, I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God's mysterious plan, which is Christ Himself.

In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

So God's plan is Jesus.

It's all Jesus.

It always has been.

Don't ever overcomplicate that.

Try to add something to it.

It's Jesus plus we do some other stuff, it's Jesus minus something else.

The whole plan is Jesus.

He's both sides of the rope here.

He's anchored to us in his creation because he made us and was born into this world, and then he's anchored into new creation because he was resurrected.

And that's only he can do that because he's defeated death.

And then the rope stays taught because of our hope.

That's what the Spirit does.

And it's because it stays taught, that's what gives us the lines of purpose in our lives.

So once this is established now, Paul's done this in in chapter one and the first part of chapter two in Colossians, and we've really seen Jesus and just how central and important he is, uh, then Paul gets this is my favorite part of Colossians.

And I know maybe this is deep waters, but this is this is really important for us to see.

Now, from that perspective, we can start to understand what is really going on with Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.

Uh, this is uh Colossians 2, starting in uh verse 13.

When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God, and God brought you alive, right along with Christ.

Think of it.

All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, and that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross.

He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the cross and marched them naked through the streets.

I think that's my favorite verse.

It's from the message.

It's not really just the message didn't invent that analogy either.

It's that's what Paul said.

It's this whole disarming and marching through the streets.

He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the cross and marched them naked through the streets.

Because so many people, you know, you come to church or you've you if you haven't been in church for decades, and you kind of intuitively have this thing about, and you so overgeneralize that, man, spiritual stuff, it just seems like a power grab, and it's just, I can't do that, and it's wrong.

And the good news today is that if you have that intuition, Jesus is your guy.

Jesus is the one that feels that more deeply than anyone else.

And he's the one that exposes it and offers us something that's real instead.

It that that whole, those two verses there, it kind of turns the whole under our understanding of the crucifixion on its head.

The the first time I encountered those verses or really kind of took them to heart was uh nine or ten years ago.

You remember when the uh The Passion of the Christ movie came out?

And if you remember at the time, I mean it was just it was in every news story, uh, they had a clip of something going on in the movie, every magazine cover, and it was just overkill for weeks.

We're just all these images right in front of you, and it was it was too much for me.

You know, I don't really enjoy that kind of gore anyway.

And uh and even when I saw it, you know, it's like, hey, I love Jesus.

I guess I gotta go see that in IMAX.

And you know, the powers told me I had to do that, and so I did, and it was just it was just huge.

And and I struggled through that.

Like what I needed a different perspective on it.

I needed something bigger so I could wrap my hand around that.

And so I came came upon these verses.

When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God, and brought God brought you alive right along with Christ.

Think of it, all sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross.

He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the cross, and he marched them naked through the streets.

So, really, on the most on the most real level, Jesus is the one doing the crucifying.

Jesus is the one, and the thing he's crucifying, it's not a violent thing against a person.

He is crucifying that old arrest warrant against me.

And instead of that thing above his head, you know, that the powers tried to put up and mock him as being a king, he was taking that arrest warrant against me because of what I had done and nailing it to the cross forever.

And that's that's an amazing perspective.

And the good news with that, by the way, is that what Jesus crucifies does not rise again.

My arrest warrant.

And then that other part, the next verse, um, you know, it thousands of years ago in that day, they didn't have news programs or, you know, cell phones with news alerts, obviously.

So if they had a big victory, a military victory, and they wanted to announce that, uh, they would have a parade through the middle of town.

And they would have some chariots, and behind the chariots, they would have, you know, soldiers and shackles or uh the people that they had defeated.

They would parade them through the middle of town to announce their victory.

And that's what the powers somewhat attempt to do, you know, when you've got Jesus coming through uh carrying his cross, about to be crucified.

But this verse tells us that in reality, in the most real thing, is Jesus is the one taking something on parade and disarming it and showing it for what it really is, and he's parading every spiritual tyrant in the universe and exposing it as the sham that it is and marching it naked through the streets.

And so that is Jesus' response to the injustice that we have with the powers.

And I think it's so encouraging to realize that, because we can understand this side of it, that Jesus is anchored in new creation, and that's so essential, and that's so correct to have that.

But then we kind of get fuzzy with it, and we think, but God's not really, Jesus isn't really about any of this stuff here.

And it's just, he just wants to just get rid of that, and let's not talk about it, and then we'll get this side.

As long as we got one side of the rope anchored, it's fine.

But Jesus is Lord of the whole thing, he's absolutely Lord of this, but he's also Lord of this stuff here, and he's gonna redeem it.

And so when he is uh is a human being and they're being crucified, that's his response to the powers.

He disarms them.

So they uh the powers try to make this charge against him, and Jesus, in absolute courage, he allows the powers to all come together against him and make their phony claim that we're in charge.

And then by being resurrected, he proves you're not really in charge.

I'm the one that's in charge.

This is my world, these are my people, and I'm gonna redeem it.

And so that when we have that kind of picture, I know that's really kind of lofty and it kind of sounds like a hymn, it's hard to wrap your head around that, but that's the kind of firmness you need to have to have Jesus being anchored here and in both places.

Because until you have him anchored here, it's hard to really have the confidence to know that Jesus is gonna pull it all together.

Does that make sense?

So that's the Jesus that we serve.

Uh, not some nice guy that lived, you know, not just some nice guy that lived thousands of years ago, taught some beautiful things, uh, died a horrible death.

It's that that victorious God.

He came to earth to set up his anchor here in creation, his spirit connected with our spirit, and he died and was resurrected so he could set up his anchor in eternity.

And he's the one that pulls it all together.

And in the process, he deals with all these powers and authorities to which we had surrendered voluntarily ourselves, and he disarms them.

And here's the even more glorious part.

Jesus originally created all this stuff, he created the powers and principalities and these things that we're we're all struggling to wrap our heads around.

I know it's strange, but he's redeeming it all.

He's even redeeming that.

So you've got to imagine all those things that are unanchored, and even those things, he's anchoring back.

And I don't even know what that looks like for him to take all of that and make it line back up.

But that's what we're headed towards in eternity.

So I know this is a pretty romantic way of describing salvation, you know, especially when you think that this was written by a guy 2,000 years ago in prison while he's chained to a Roman guard.

And this is his response of immense freedom.

But we have to remind ourselves that Paul, just a few years before this, had seen the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus.

He sees him in all his glory.

And what kind of an effect does that have on you as a person?

The effect that we it might have is reading the book of Colossians.

You might speak and kind of him speak after having been through that too.

And so maybe we can forgive Paul for having this huge perspective on who Jesus really is, because he's met the guy, met him in person.

And, you know, with these letters, too, that Paul wrote, we think they were probably dictated to somebody else.

Uh, because he's, you know, chained to a Roman guard, he maybe had failing eyesight, and so he would probably dictate it, somebody would write it down, and that's why usually at the end of the letters he says, I'm signing this in my own hand, because he's actually taking the pen and signing it.

Uh Philemon actually might have been just entirely written by him, but usually probably dictated to somebody.

So, for all we know, it might have been Onesimus that was there with Paul writing this letter down.

And so, how do you get the courage to take that personal one-page letter that frees you from slavery and how and walk that home to your former slave master?

And the way that you're inspired to do it is to maybe transcribe this letter and to hear it spoken out loud.

These words, these letters were intended to be read to the church out loud.

So it's when you, I would encourage you if you go back and read Colossians, just say it out loud.

Read the whole thing.

It takes about 18 minutes because that's the way it's meant to be experienced.

And so that's the encouragement Onesimus had before he went home.

So, how should we respond to all this?

Well, the first thing Paul tells us is how we should not respond to this huge grand picture of who Jesus is that's kind of hard for us to even focus on.

The way we shouldn't respond is chapter two here, don't let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or sabbaths.

For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come, and Christ Himself is the reality.

Jesus is the reality.

That's such a great illustration.

The law, like given in the Old Testament, is the shadow that precedes Jesus as he's walking onto the stage.

The law is the shadow that precedes Jesus as he's walking onto the stage.

So Jesus is the reality.

He's the one that casts the shadow.

So when you see that shadow first, it's great.

And it tells you about something real that's coming, and so it absolutely requires your attention.

But then when the real guy walks into the room, you need to stop looking at the shadow and look at the real thing.

And that's who Jesus is.

So that's what we shouldn't do when we respond to this.

What we should do, uh, Colossians 3.

Paul says, so if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, then act like it.

Pursue the things over which Christ presides.

Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorb with the things right in front of you.

Look up and be alert to what's going on around Christ.

That's where the action is.

See things from his perspective.

Worship team, if you want to go ahead and start coming back up.

So pursue the things over which Christ presides.

That's an amazing instruction because Jesus presides over everything.

He's redeemed.

He's going to redeem this world.

Heaven and earth are going to be joined together.

That's not just wishful thinking.

That's something we can actually have hope for because Jesus is the one anchored on both sides.

He's the one bringing it together.

So pursue everything over which Christ presides.

The pretty bold statement.

But Jesus makes that same kind of statement about himself, if you remember.

Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

That's amazing.

He's the way, the truth, and the life.

So stop thinking of those things as just concepts.

Those things are not created in our world like God wanted to just delegate these things away so he wouldn't have to be bugged with being in a relationship with you.

He wants a relationship with you in all these things.

So the practical application for that would be: you know, maybe you come this morning and you just say, I just need some purpose.

I need a direction to go in.

I need a way.

No, you don't.

That might be accurate to a certain point, but it's too fuzzy.

You gotta aim higher, tighten that up.

You need Jesus.

And with Jesus will come purpose.

Because he is, that's his name.

He's the way, he's the real thing.

Or you might say, you know, your attitude this morning is, I just need to learn more.

I need more truth.

No, you don't.

That might be accurate to a point, but it's too fuzzy.

You gotta aim higher, tighten that up.

What you need is Jesus.

You need the real thing.

And with Jesus, truth will come because that's who he is.

And you could probably see where I'm going with this.

You might come here this morning and say, you know, I just need more life.

I just need to go out there, experience more.

I need life.

No, you don't.

And that's accurate, maybe to a certain point, but what you need is Jesus.

You need the real thing.

Tighten that up.

Aim higher.

Because Jesus is life.

He's the source of all life.

It's like being obsessed with the cut and clarity and color of a diamond and just writing volumes about all the different aspects there, and not being actually enamored with the real diamond.

Jesus is the real thing.

He's the real diamond.

And so that's the one where we want to take our focus.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

So this is the way Paul is going to end the Colossians.

He says, Let the word of Christ, the message, have the run of the house.

Give it plenty of room in your lives.

Instruct and direct one another using good common sense and sing.

Sing your hearts out to God.

So that's what we're going to do this morning.

Y'all stand up.

We're going to sing our hearts out to God.

Let me pray for us as we as we sing.

Jesus, we're counting on you.

We're counting on you because it's all about you.

It always has been, always will be.

You're the real thing, and that's what we want.

Jesus, we love you.

Amen.