Personal Matters

Good morning, Church.

Today's reading is from Colossians 4, 7 through 18.

Tychicus will tell you all about my activities.

He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord.

I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts.

And with him, Onissibus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you.

They will tell you of everything that has taken place here.

Aristicus, my fellow prisoner, greets you, and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions, if he comes to you, welcome him.

And Jesus, who is called justice.

These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me.

Epaphoras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully insured in all the will of God.

For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Herpel Herapolis.

Luke, the beloved physician, greets you, as also Demas.

Give my greetings to the brothers of Laodicea and to Nympha and the church in her house.

And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of Laodiceans, and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.

And say to Archbus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord.

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.

Remember my chains.

Grace be with you.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman, the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

I love church in the fall, and this feels like a little little bit of little slice of early church in the fall because of the weather and the date.

Let's pray, and then we'll look through our text this morning.

Holy Father, we thank you for the ability to gather together as your body and worship you.

Lord, thank you for the centering that offers this weekly rhythm where we focus our hearts on you together.

Lord, we come in with all sorts of different issues in our souls and concerns in our lives, and you meet each one of us with your same word and your same gospel, the same God and the same spirit that you have worked in through your church through the ages.

Lord, this week we participate in that.

Pray that your spirit would attend us, that we might get a vision for what your church looks like from your word.

That we might participate in that.

Continue proclaiming your kingdom, Lord, and your reign.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So this is our last week in Colossians.

We've been here all summer.

This book has been an absolute joy for me to preach.

Uh, I hope it's been as beneficial for uh you all as it has been for my heart.

It's just been really transformative to see the centrality of Christ as the means of our maturity.

And this last week is one of those um passages that I haven't I haven't preached a passage like this before.

It's a typical way for Paul to end his letters, and it's really a list of instruction and personal concerns.

I named this sermon creatively after months of brainstorming personal matters, uh, because these are matters that uh Paul is dealing with that have to do with um persons.

So we're going to look at that, and this is it's one of those parts of scripture, and we remember that Paul writes elsewhere in 2 Timothy that all scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

You know that one, Carolyn?

Yep.

It's uh the navigator's topical memory system verse.

That's how I know that verse.

And uh so here's one of those sections of scripture, and it's like, okay, what is it, uh what am I supposed to do with uh Archipus?

Fulfill your ministry.

Or what does it mean for the church to hear something like, uh, Mark, you guys have received instructions about Mark.

Uh, if he comes, welcome him.

Okay.

All scripture, it's God breathed.

How is that profitable?

This just seems like the random sign-off of a bunch of things and people that we don't know and haven't met.

But I think one of the reasons that the Spirit saw fit to include this in Scripture, that we say this is the Word of God, is because it prevents us from ever slipping into this thought that the way the Spirit works or the way that our faith works is something that can just be written down and codified and put in a book up on a shelf.

Our theology is always living, it always takes place in the context of the church.

And the church is made up of real people, not just a competition of ideas or competing philosophies.

Our faith is not just a matter of getting our thoughts straight, it's a matter of living it out in real relationships, in time and space with people like you.

And so when Paul finishes his letters, so often we see just this list of people because Paul knows, he doesn't just end and say, that's good enough.

If you get these ideas straight, that's good enough.

No, he has real concerns for the actual people who he knows and loves and cares about.

And so as we listen into these real concerns of Paul, then we start to understand what does it mean to participate in the church?

And what is the ordinary way that the church is supposed to look and manifest in the world?

And we can see that in this list of names.

So what we're going to get a picture of here is really it's like a survey of different personalities and issues and uh all of the messiness and reality of church life.

And we see that through this list of names.

And that should set our expectations so that we might consider what does it really mean to be a part of a church?

And we can see that here as Paul works this out in real time.

We get a flavor throughout the survey.

So I'm just going to work through this list of names.

We're going to go one by one and see what is it that Paul instructs and what does that mean for how we are to expect the church to be, and how are we to participate in the church.

So let's begin.

Colossians 4, 7 through 8.

He writes, Tychicus will tell you all about my activities.

He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord.

I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts.

So the opening is with the letter carriers.

The two people who will carry the letters are Tychicus and Onesimus, but he begins with Tychicus.

Tychicus is a close friend of Paul's, and it seems to be a faithful letter carrier, which is important when you're sending letters.

And Paul in Paul sends Tychicus with this sort of credibility.

He's not somebody that the Colossians would know.

They don't have a first-hand experience with Tychochus, and yet here he is showing up, delivering this letter from the Apostle Paul, this famed apostle, and a letter which they are to receive as the very word of God.

So how does he, you know, when you're meeting that person, you want to understand that they're a trustworthy person.

And Paul describes him in just that way.

He says he's a beloved brother, he's a faithful minister, and he's a fellow servant in the Lord.

This is the picture of the heart of Tychicus.

And that's an important context for us to understand.

Because the way that the letter is delivered is through faithfulness, love, trustedness, and companionship.

That is the context in which this word of God is delivered to the church.

So if we read it as though this was some, you know, somebody was wandering around the desert and picked something up and they're like, oh, this seems like scripture, and then they go and deliver it sort of coldly to a group of people, then we misunderstand.

We're reading it wrong.

We have to understand that the very letter itself is delivered by hand in love by a mutually trusted person.

Now, Tychochus has given two instructions beyond just delivering the letter the letter.

He's sent by Paul for this purpose, two things, that he may, that they may know how Paul is, so that the Colossian Church might hear from Tychochus, here's how Paul is doing.

And the second thing is that he might encourage their hearts.

Now, I think those two things are really one thing, because Paul even says he doesn't say for these very purposes, he says for this very purpose.

And so that shows us that how are the Colossians' hearts to be encouraged.

It's by hearing the story of Paul and his companions, by hearing about elsewhere in the world how the Spirit is working.

And that becomes the very encouragement that the Colossians need.

Now, Paul's ministry story is it doesn't follow this clean arc where it's like it doesn't follow an arc where he gathers some people and then they tell two people and they tell two people, and soon, you know, Paul releases his first book and it does pretty well.

His second book hits the New York Times bestseller, and then he becomes a thought leader, and you know, what what we think of as a successful ministry trajectory.

If you were to map his life into this moment, it's one where it seems like it's going well, we've got some good missionary journeys, then there's conflict with a close friend, and then while he goes to minister and witness to the people of his own culture, he experiences deep and almost constant rejection.

And now he is writing this letter from prison.

And so that can be a discouraging story to hear.

Hey, how's the advancement of the gospel doing in Paul's life?

asked the Colossians.

And Tychochus shares, well, uh, we've hit a bit of a hiccup.

He's in prison now.

Uh, he's not able to speak to as many people as he would like.

But what Tychochus shares is the gospel goes forward.

Paul is in prison, and yet this gospel seems to be unable to be stopped.

In fact, here's this letter from it signed with his own hand.

Who knows what the fruitfulness of this letter will be?

And here we are, 2,000 years later, discussing maybe minus 30, like 19, 1,970 years later.

And we're we're experiencing the the wonder of this very letter, the fruitfulness of this very letter.

And so they share that story, and the Colossians' hearts are encouraged.

Praise the Lord, that the story of Paul's life is one in which through his deep suffering and often times of deep confusion and difficulty and relational difficulty that here he experiences within the church.

That in the the sharing of that story, the background is God is faithful.

The gospel goes forward.

When I first started my ministry, it was it had a season of deep relational and difficult turmoil.

And I found such comfort in the writings, especially of Paul and Peter, because I would think in my mind, is this just going wrong?

Is this just what is this what it feels like to be a part of a church that's just falling apart or to be at some deep level failing in ministry?

And through the story of Paul and uh of Peter and the their writings in the church, and especially as you get to know just folks that have been in ministry for a long time, you realize, no, this is exactly where God works.

God has not taken his foot off the gas in the midst of our mess.

This is what it's like to be a part of the church.

Now, that doesn't make for a very good podcast.

You know, to say like there, the tagline of like, hey, yeah, hard stuff, right?

Sometimes it's like this.

You know, that's that does that's not a podcast.

It's not enough, you know, whatever it is we do now.

Look, you hear so many people and meet so many people that have experienced such brutality in the church.

And because of that, they say this is not an organization worth being a part of.

This is this is proof that the church is just founded on uh pain and the manipulation of others as narcissistic leaders spur up a following.

But what we see as we see the story of the church in Paul's own life is that God is able to work in these things.

He really is.

So the hearts of the Colossians might be encouraged.

Wow, it seems like things are hard for Paul.

Things are hard for us too.

God is with us.

God's with us.

So Tychochus was to encourage their hearts by sharing the story of Paul.

With Tychochus, and also to carry and deliver this letter to the Colossians is Onesimus.

Onesimus is one of the Colossians.

Here's what he writes.

Paul writes, and with him, Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you.

They will tell you of everything that has taken place here.

So Onesimus is a Colossian.

And he is the runaway slave of Philemon, who is one of the leaders in the Colossian church.

They left on bad terms.

And by providence, Onesimus encounters Paul, becomes a Christian, and is now returning to his master, no longer as just a runaway slave, someone who to Philemon had proven to be useless, but now is returning to his former master as a beloved brother.

Paul calls him a beloved brother.

And in his letter, which they're also carrying with them, Tychicus and Onesimus are also carrying with them a letter from Paul directed addressed to Philemon, a personal letter, one that wouldn't be read in the whole church.

And this letter to Philemon is Paul advocating, saying, Receive back Onesimus, but no longer receive him as a slave, receive him as a beloved brother in Christ.

This is a wild return that's taking place.

Can you imagine each step that Onesimus is taking back to his old home, back to his old master, with the relational and economic and you know structural turmoil that took place between them?

And he's carrying this letter, and he's carrying this hope of Christ that I will return as a brother.

Okay, so why do we have parts of letters like this?

Why do we have these last instructions that are just instructions to particular people that we'll never meet?

It's so that we never think that the gospel just takes place in books or that it's just a system of doctrine.

What does the gospel look like?

It looks like Onesimus returning to Philemon and becoming a brother when he was once a slave.

It looks like chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother.

And if we don't see it taking place in those tangible realities in the real world of our church with names and actual relationships at stake, if the gospel doesn't have flesh on it in that way, what uh w think of all that Paul has said of the glory of Christ taking on flesh, transferring us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son.

All of that becomes meaningless if Onesimus can't come back and join this community as a brother.

That's where we see the gospel.

It becomes as it becomes dead as a book sitting on a shelf that's not read.

Because what brings a book to life?

It's our reading it, it's our giving it our attention.

And what brings the gospel to life in our community, it's by moving into it, living it out in the patterns of our relationships and seeing how it reinforms those.

And so Onesimus goes back as a beloved brother.

It's a small line, and with him, Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you.

It's like everything that they had known about Onesimus is inverted there.

Paul says, Onesimus, our faithful, no, he's not.

He's a runaway.

Beloved, no, he's not.

He's hated.

Brother, no, he isn't.

He's a slave.

One of us.

No, he's not.

He abandoned us.

But what does the gospel do?

Now the whole church will know what the gospel is like.

All that Paul had written takes on flesh in that one line in the story of the life of Onesimus.

Paul then goes on to uh describe some of his own companions who just also send their greetings to the church in Colossae.

How important it is.

Fellow Christians working out what it is to be Christians here in the Roman Empire.

And they just want to send their greetings to one another, learn one another's names.

And 4, 10 through 11 says, Aristarchus, my beloved, my fellow prisoner, greets you.

So that means there's another person with Paul in prison.

And Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions if he comes to you, welcome him.

And Jesus, who is called justice.

Paul goes on in that verse to describe how these three men in particular have been of great comfort to Paul, because they're the only three members of the circumcision party.

That is, these are the only Jews who have remained faithful to Paul after converting to Christianity.

And Paul receives this immense comfort from them, and it makes sense because we hear Paul write elsewhere that if he could give up his own salvation so that he could see his brothers and sisters in his Jewish brothers and sisters come to know Christ, and he would do it.

And so his love for his people and their understanding of the gospel is so deep and so profound.

And here there's these three men who have stayed close to him, and he receives this deep comfort in that.

You see, we see these just little pictures of the gospel in this.

Now, the most interesting of them, I think, is Mark, the cousin of Barnabas.

And we get this little parentheses, concerning whom you have received instructions.

If he comes to you, welcome him.

Now, we don't know what the instructions are.

It's a strange, vague little thing, little scripture that we get, but we know that they are to welcome Mark.

Now, why would he need to give particular instruction to welcome Mark?

Well, Mark and Paul have a bit of a shaky past.

On the first missionary journey that Paul was commissioned to go on with Barnabas, they experienced a lot of fruit and deep camaraderie together.

And it seems as though there was some sort of falling out when Mark joined them on that journey.

And it seems as though, in the story in Acts, that Mark had defected in some way and proven to not be a faithful companion.

And so when it becomes time to set out on the missionary journey, on their second missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas.

Have this huge conflict over whether or not to bring Mark along with them.

Paul says, Mark can't join us on this.

He can't be trusted.

He is not a faithful brother.

And Barnabas, his cousin, and his name means encourager, so you can imagine what side of the aisle he fell on.

Barnabas says, no, no, I think, you know, if we just believe in this guy, he'll probably rally.

Now, here we get a little slice of that story.

They end up splitting.

And Barnabas goes with Mark, and Paul goes off without Barnabas.

And here we get this little picture.

It seems as though there's reconciliation taking place.

Now we don't know what the instruction is, but we know that Mark will be welcomed if he goes to Colossae.

And part of the reason he will be welcomed is because of Paul's advocacy.

Paul, the one who said, this guy isn't faithful, we shouldn't go, we shouldn't include him on this missionary journey.

He says, welcome him.

Now, what that means is that in the early church, there were divisions over who we should work with and who we shouldn't work with.

And there were God-anointed men who disagreed over those things.

And there were people who were difficult to discern and difficult to decide how should we trust them, to what level should we include them.

And they had to work that out in real time.

Now, Mark, who was once considered useless, like Onesimus, will prove to be very useful.

This one who at one time it seemed like it was right to write him off and to no longer include him in the ministry.

Well, he will prove to be extremely useful.

Next week, we will begin a gospel that is written by Mark, as Mark goes and spends time in Rome with Peter and relays Peter's experiences of his time with Christ on earth.

And we now, as a church, gather to hear Mark's words.

Now, if you will, if you were to ask Paul, which of the guys in this list do you think is going to contribute one of the most most fruitful documents to church history?

Who will who will write, who will pen the very word of God in the story of Christ for the church going forward for thousands of years?

I don't think he would have been like, ah, it's this guy we can't figure out, Mark.

Like, what should we include him?

Look, we're trying to be open to him, but some honestly, he's a flake.

And I can't, I just he's too much of a pain to work with.

I can't figure out whether he should be in the church or whether we should just leave him behind and ignore him.

He's too, he's he's a challenge, man.

He's hard to work with.

Yeah, that's the one.

God uses the weak things.

And so what does the church look like in real time, in the moment, difficult to tell?

These are hard decisions that bring real conflict.

You know, real conflict is a part of the church.

Yet we see that God works it for this incredible fruitfulness.

We can trust that God is doing that.

Okay, next is Epaphras, Colossians 4, 12 through 13.

Epaphras, who is one of you, like Onesimus, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hieropolis.

Now, this is the second mention of Epaphras in the letter to the Colossians.

And the first mention is that Epaphrus is the one who told Paul about the church in Colossae, because he is also the one who witnessed initially to the people in Colossae.

And so he shared the gospel with the Colossians.

They received it from Epaphras.

And so when Paul is explaining all that has taken place in their hearts, the origin of this is Epaphras's faithful witness.

Now it seems as though Epaphras is working closely with Paul, and he's traveling around this region, not just remaining in Colossian, in Colossae where he's from.

But Paul wants them to know that Ephras has not stopped ministering to them, that he struggles for them in his prayers.

Now, picture that image.

Now we could we know just from the letter, we know what those struggles might look like.

We can tell because it is obvious that Epaphras inspired Paul to write this letter.

Obviously the Holy Spirit, you know.

But by means of Epaphras, and so Epaphras is saying these, Epaphras is informing what Paul writes.

And what is Paul spoken about in this letter?

What is he struggling with for in his prayers?

We hear that this is a people who are so close to being duped by the philosophy of their day, that they're eager to make additions to the gospel so that they would say, you're saved by Christ, but really the way you know that is by participating in these holy days and by only eating these foods and by submitting yourself to these regulations and these rules.

And a pastor is thinking, no, no, it's Christ alone.

Christ alone is sufficient for our salvation.

Our church would be lost if we hold to anything that isn't Christ alone.

And so he struggles for them to know this in their prayers.

He speaks, he sees the relational difficulties that they're experiencing, like between Onesimus and Philemon.

He sees this is a tough ministry environment because we have slaves that are Christians and we have masters that are Christians.

And we can't have the church torn apart across these ordinary dividing lines of our culture.

We have to see this unity of the gospel transcend that and take place here.

And so he struggles for them on behalf of them in his prayers.

These concerns become Epaphras' struggle out of love.

And what does he pray for?

He says that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

How many times have I said over this summer, the theme of the letter to the Colossians is that this young church might grow in their maturity by holding fast to Christ?

The theme of the letter to the Colossians is the heart of Epaphras' prayer.

Don't you see when we're reading this letter, we're holding the answer to Epaphras' struggling prayers?

What would the fruit of his prayers be?

Well, what has the fruit of this letter been for the church and in your life?

We're experiencing the fruit of that struggle.

Lastly, with Epaphras, I want you to notice that Paul does not think of the ministry as the work of the ministry and then prayer.

He sees that prayer is the work of the ministry.

He is struggling, laboring for them in prayer.

This means that part of the work of your life, part of the labor of your faith is prayer itself.

That's an important category shift for us, where we think the effectiveness of our lives comes from.

Next up, Luke and Demas.

Colossians 4 14.

Luke, the beloved physician, greets you, as does Demas.

All right, this is a short mention.

It is worth noting, though, that Paul is hanging out with two gospel writers.

You know, this is the this community is is pretty tight.

Small world in the early church.

Luke wrote, uh, I think it was John, and then yeah, uh, you get the joke, so he wrote Luke.

And as well as as well as Acts.

And with him is Demas.

Now, what's interesting, this is also one of the ways that we understand Luke to have been a Gentile, because he wasn't included with those list of three names who are of the circumcision.

So this is this is where we get that understanding that Luke was a Gentile.

And with him is Demas.

Now, in 2 Timothy, which is Paul's final letter, he describes that everyone has abandoned him, including Demas, who abandoned Paul because, as Paul writes, he was in love with this world.

Now he's traveling around with Luke, who provides the most in-depth, systematic outline of the historical events of Christ's life and of the early church that we have in the scriptures with Luke and Acts.

And Demas is also with Paul, the greatest, hardest working apostle, who takes the gospel to the nations, who explains the gospel with this depth of understanding and wonder beyond any other writer in scripture.

Demas is surrounded by reasons to be properly discipled and to understand the truths of the gospel, and yet he was in love with the world.

And because he was in love with the world, his faith does not last.

Now, I wonder if Paul were a betting man and he were to bet at that time, hey, who would you put your money on?

Mark or Demas?

Well, Demas has been with us through some hard stuff.

He didn't flake out, he stayed with Luke and I through these difficult seasons.

At this point, I I I don't know, it'd maybe be a toss-up for me.

My point is that the church has always been difficult to discern in real time.

To participate in the church is to participate in something where you don't have certainty.

Instead, you have to work out our love for one another, our discipleship amongst each other in these complicated relationships.

That's what the church looks like.

That's not it going wrong.

That's what it always is.

Next up, the Laodiceans and Nympha's church.

Colossians 4.15, give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea and to Nympha in the church in her house.

Now, this letter was sent to be a circular letter.

It was to the Colossians, but you know, when you write something and you're like, I think that's the Word of God, then you desire to share it.

And so Paul does that.

And so he sends his greetings through this letter to the Laodiceans as well, their neighboring cities.

And he also greets Nympha in the church in her house.

Now we don't have any other anything else in scripture about Nympha or the church that meets in her house.

Perhaps it seems likely that this might have been a church that had grown up in Laodicea, maybe uh after Epaphras had shared with the church in Colossae.

And Paul is just kind of keeping track of these house churches as they're developing and as the gospel does what he says it does in the beginning of this letter, that as it's heard and understood in truth, it bears fruit and multiplies.

And so the gospel is doing that.

So Nympha, we don't know anything about her, but we know that she opened up her home to share the gospel, and that her home became a center for the church in Laodicea.

Colossians 4:16, he says, And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.

Colossians 4:16

So, as I said, this letter would have been a circular letter sent to the churches in this region, and they also were to receive a letter from the Laodiceans.

Now, it's it's one of those things where it's kind of it's kind of tradition, but it also makes sense with the text, that the letter from the Laodiceans is the book of Ephesians in our Bibles, because it's written to this same region.

It seems to be a letter that wasn't addressed to a specific church because Ephesians doesn't have this sign-off portion that the letter to the Colossians has, and that many others of Paul's letters have.

And instead is just a clear, relatively concise system of doctrine that Paul gives for the building up of the church at large.

And so it's likely that this letter from, and the timing also makes sense for Paul's life.

So this letter is likely what in our Bibles is the letter of the Ephesians.

Now, what we see in this pattern is that already in the early church, this community is being built up around the very words that our church is built around today.

That this community that is the early church is formed by the very word of God that it has that has continued to form and shape the church throughout these generations, that we stand in the wake of.

We are downstream of this very same thing.

And so here we are today participating in this same ministry of Paul and these early church leaders.

And we stand here as they have passed it down through the generations to us.

And I hope that that activates our imaginations to be considering how we can be a generational church, one that holds well and holds fast to the word of God and then passes it along through the generations as this vehicle which upholds the church and does the work of God in the church.

The word of God is still doing the work to build up his church just as it was then.

Next, Archipus, Colossians 4, 17, and say to Archipus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord.

That's just good advice.

And we don't know what the particulars of this ministry were.

It's not a sometimes minister is like a partially technical term where it can mean your vocation in the way that we use that word, but this was not a vocation or a particular office in the church.

It seems as though there was some need which Archipis had spotted, some particular gifting which he had, some uh some uh opportunity to participate in the movement of the gospel in some way that was very peculiar and particular to Archipus.

Only he could do it.

And he needed a nudge.

Look, this thing that you have received from the Lord, walk in it.

Walk in that.

Fulfill the ministry that has been given to you.

Now, isn't that what the church is?

Look, there are things, opportunities, people, they they probably come with names attached, words only you can say, People only you can encourage or bring conviction to, issues that only you're well enough acquainted with to be able to be helpful in the midst of.

Now, we often experience those things.

A way that you can tell they're yours is because you experience it in such a way is where you would describe it as one of your problems.

This is my problem.

And you know it's yours because nobody else feels the weight of it and nobody else can take it on in the way that you can.

No one else experiences the pressure of it.

Consider that might be a ministry that you have received, not been cursed with, but that you have received from the Lord.

Fulfill it.

Fulfill it like Paul fulfills his ministry, with that single-mindedness that Paul has, that focus that he has.

Fulfill that ministry.

If you needed that encouragement today, here, receive it as though you're Aristarchus.

Paul signs off.

Colossians 4 18.

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.

Remember my chains.

Grace be with you.

Practical consideration.

Paul uh would have been dictating his letter to a secretary who would have been writing it down.

And then at the end, it was typical for the writer of the letter to take the quill and sign it himself as just a personal mark.

And so Paul does that in this last verse.

He says, Paul, I write this greeting with my own hand.

And then this one personal consideration for him, remember my chains.

Remember my chains.

Why would it be important or encouraging for this church to remember his chains?

They might know that this letter that we have received is not without cost.

It is given freely to us.

But the one who gave it to us, because of his giving it to us, his life committed to giving this gospel to people like us who neither earned it nor asked for it.

It was a costly grace that we're receiving.

He wants them to know look, when you're reading this, don't read this as though this is just some blanket philosophy.

I'm not writing this to you in the way that Seneca writes to you.

I'm writing this to you in the way that someone who loves you and has skin in the game would write to you.

Experience this as the fruit of my love towards you and hold it with that weight.

Let us remember the chains that produced this letter for us as well.

That their hearts might be encouraged.

Paul earlier says in the letter that he wants them to know the depth of the struggle that he has had for them, because in proportion to their knowing the depth of his struggle, they then understand the depth of his love towards them.

And what is that a small little picture of?

But the depth of Christ's love towards us.

That Christ, the one who went to the cross, who bore our suffering, who did not consider equality with God something to be jealously guarded, but instead laid it down so that we might take up his righteousness, that the church might form around that good news, that picture of the gospel, that this glorious gospel which Christ accomplished of grace and our salvation and reconciliation through him, that that pattern of life might manifest in our lives, in the way that it manifests in Paul's life.

It's his chains, but his chains are also his glory because of what Christ has done.

And it's our sacrifice for one another, that those sacrifices and those pains and those difficulties that we persevere through within the church, that those might be a share in Christ's glory, saying his bride is worth it.

His bride is glorious enough to not be abandoned.

But even amidst the difficulty that church is so often, she is worth sticking to because Christ loved her.

And what is the heart of this message?

The heart of Paul's letter to the Colossians is that we might mature in our faith by holding fast to Christ alone.

So here is the word.

The letter to the Colossians is this Christ has accomplished your salvation.

It is in him that you find new life.

Live into that pattern.

Mature as a people by holding fast to Christ.

That's the letter to the Colossians.

Cool.

Let's look at those.

Would Paul's letters have been sealed and stamped, similar to a king, as with a king's Sidney ring, so that the churches would have no doubt they were from him?

I don't think so.

I think they just worked with the signature.

The way that the letters would have spread would have been through these close relational networks.

And that is where the trust of the letters was established.

That's why Paul takes such care to explain that he is sending this by the hand of Tychicus, who is someone who you can trust.

And I think this is an important thing to recognize of what the for that the formation of the New Testament as we receive it took place through these close, trusting relational networks that the Spirit created.

And as they participated in that in trust for one another, they were able to receive the word of God from one another.

Now it's amazing to see is that these letters in the first century, while the authors were living, this is just mind-blowing to me, were being received as the word of God.

So that Peter would write of Paul's letters, although they are hard to understand, just like the other scriptures, unreal.

Both of those things are very true.

Paul can be hard to understand.

Peter knew that.

And he knew that what he was writing was the very word of God.

And so you've got to understand it as this kind of dynamic relationship where the word of God was going into these places, and then it was forming these communities, which were then able to receive the word of God because of their trust for one another.

It's a beautiful picture of the way the gospel still spreads today.

Seems to be the one.

Good question.

Now, Paul writes elsewhere.

In 1 Corinthians, he says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

That the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Now part of the beauty of a meal is that it's the way that we experience fellowship as people, by gathering around the same table together.

And we see Paul, although he is bound in prison, he does not think, finally, I'm away from those people that are always in the way, interrupting me putting together the most beautiful, mind-blowing descriptions of the gospel, the highest philosophy that's ever been done.

Now I'm at least in prison, I can finally be away from those people, have time to write, get back to my thoughts, the important work.

Now, Paul is always thinking the gospel takes place in the hearts of the people who Christ died to save.

And if Christ laid down his life for these sheep, then of what value must they be?

I will seek the care and love of them.

And so he sends out his word and he gives us this pattern of gathering together as a community to receive one another as the very place where the gospel takes on body, becomes lived in, becomes a part of our hearts and our world.

So come to the table this morning.

If you're a Christian, we invite you to participate in the Lord's Supper.

If you're not a Christian, please talk to whoever you came with.

We have such good news.

God's no longer counting men's sins against them.

Don't know if you knew.

We'd love to share more.

But if you're not a Christian, we ask that you would abstain from this meal as it is a proclamation of our faith.

Likewise, after you've taken this meal, uh head on outside and grab your children and bring them back in here so we can sing together as families.

I'll pray.

Holy Father, we thank you for your word, which builds up your church.

But it doesn't just build it up so that we might have better, clearer books, or have sharper, more precise ideas, more accurate doctrines, Lord, but that so your gospel might take place in our lives.

And that in the church we might participate in this living theology of what you have done and how that makes us a new creation.

And as new creatures, that that makes us a new type of people that are united in Christ alone.

Lord, your sacrifice is sufficient.

I pray that we might receive that, participate in it, grow in love for one another as we know more and more what Christ has done for us.

Father, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.