Pastor
Steve Geiger Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
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Colossians 1:1-14
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the
will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 To the holy and faithful brothers in
Christ at Colosse:
Grace and peace to you from God our
Father.
3 We always thank God, the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith
in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— 5 the faith and
love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you
have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel 6 that has come to
you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it
has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace
in all its truth. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who
is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your
love in the Spirit.
9 For this reason, since the day we heard
about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with
the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10
And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may
please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the
knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his
glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully
12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the
inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us
from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he
loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
1. Thank God for what you have
2.
Ask God for what you don’t
You’re
sitting around the family dinner table.
It’s time for desert. Tonight is
strawberry shortcake night. The cake is
on the plates, the bowl of strawberries is making its way around the table . .
. until someone realizes there won’t be enough for everyone. Disaster.
Mom comes in for the rescue. In
an instant she mysteriously calculates the exact number of strawberries,
divides that number by kids at the table, spoons them out evenly, and everyone
is happy? “Mom, I want more
berries. These don’t even cover my cake.” And Mom says, “Young lady, you should be
happy with what you have.”
Be
happy with what you have. The Lord is
even in favor of that. He talks about
being content in every situation. About
being satisfied with the number of strawberries on our cake, the house we live
in, the size of our bank account. But
there’s one exception—the number of our “spiritual strawberries.” When it comes to the spiritual things, to
the strength of our faith, to the number of God-pleasing fruits, or works, of
faith, God never wants us to stop wanting more. He wants us to be “greedy, grabby,” as it were. With the Colossians, hear the Lord encourage
you, “Never Be Satisfied.” Yes, thank
God for what you have. But never stop
asking God for what you don’t.
First,
thank God for what you have. That’s how
Paul begins his letter to the Colossians. He says thank you to God.
Children,
have your parents ever told you, “Now don’t forget to say thank you?” I have a quiz question for you. What are the two days each year when you
have to say “thank you” the most?
Obvious. Christmas and your
birthday. Why are those the biggest
“thank you” days? Because those are the
days you get the most presents.
The
Apostle Paul kept saying “thanks” in Colossians chapter one. Why?
Was it his birthday? Did he just
get a brand new bike and a new tool set?
Paul was saying “thanks” to God because God had given tons of spiritual
presents to his friends in the city of Colosse. God had given them faith in Christ, wrapped with the red ribbon of
Jesus’ blood. God had given them the
desire to care deeply for each other.
God had given them the gift of heaven—they were sure that when they
died, they’d be eternally happy.
And
when the Colossians heard Paul thanking God for all those gifts, no doubt they
said, “Amen.” Why? Why were Paul and the Colossians so thankful
for spiritual gifts, for gifts they couldn’t even see? Well, for one thing, the Colossians were
sort of like those parents or grandparents who grew up in the ‘30s. How often haven’t you heard people who
survived the Depression say, “If people only knew how bad we had it, they’d
appreciate all they’ve got now.”
The
Colossians remembered how bad they had it.
There were years of spiritual depression they’d never forget. They remembered a time when the lived in a
different kind of country, a different spiritual country. A country where the sun didn’t come up in
the morning, the moon didn’t rise at night, and stars never flickered, even
faintly. A country, draped in the
darkness of unbelief. An existence
without a light at the end of the tunnel.
A life without any hope of happiness of the death. A life without faith in Christ. The Colossians remembered how bad, how dark
they had it, and they appreciated what they had now.
Do
you? For many of us, it’s hard to
remember what life was like without Christ.
Those of you who became Christians later in life perhaps have a better
feel for what it was like to live in spiritual darkness, although you might
tell the rest of us that at the time, you didn’t even realize you were in
darkness. The fact is, God’s Word makes
it clear that by nature, every one of us started out this life in spiritual
darkness. Without hope. Without God. Without the light of life.
Why? Because every one of us was born. What a terrible thing to say, that just
because someone is born, he lives in spiritual darkness. That just because someone is born, he
doesn’t have a chance to pave his own path to heaven. That just because someone is born, without Christ he’s headed for
an eternity of regret. What a terrible
thing to say, just because someone is born . . . and yet God says exactly
that. In Psalm 51 God says that each of
us was sinful from birth, in fact, sinful from the time our mothers conceived
us. Which puts us in a bind, because
God only lets perfect people into heaven.
Our inborn sinfulness automatically made us not perfect, leaving us with
a very dark future. Spiritually dead
before we were hardly alive.
That
was our spiritual 1930s, our spiritual Depression. We all have lived through that.
We all were living in darkness.
But something happened.
Something changed. The Apostle
Paul reports, “God the Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of
the saints in the kingdom of light.”
What? We were dead, people in
darkness, and suddenly we are qualified to live in the kingdom of light? People deserving the horror of hell suddenly
having the hope of heaven? How? Paul goes on, “For God has rescued us from
the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he
loves. Like the US Navy sending in
helicopters to rescue a Navy fighter pilot downed in enemy territory, so God
Almighty has sent in the choppers to grab us from the dark kingdom of Satan and
bring us home to a blessed country, the kingdom of light, the kingdom of Jesus
Christ.
Yes,
Jesus was the helicopter pilot, putting his life on the line. He came to earth and pulled off the rescue,
living the perfect life we failed to live.
He endured the torture we ourselves deserved, suffering on the
cross. He felt true darkness as he went
with our sins—complains, worries, hurtful words, lust, anger—into the presence
of a perfect God. He felt the guilt; he
felt the dread; he felt the blackness of spiritual night for us. He paid God’s price for sin, so that we
wouldn’t have to. Jesus did it
all. Jesus did what we couldn’t do, so
that we might have what only he could give.
Paul puts it black on white. “In
Jesus we have the forgiveness of sins.”
Believe it! Conceived and born
in sin? Yes. But born again through faith in Jesus Christ. That means eternal hope. Eternal happiness. Eternal life. Believe
it. That’s what God has done for you.
Now
you can see why Paul was so thankful!
He knew how different life was for the Colossians before they trusted in
Jesus, and he knew how wonderful life was now.
With the Colossians, thank God for what you have, but never be
satisfied. Never stop asking God for
what you don’t have.
Children,
you sometimes get in trouble for that, don’t you. Asking for what you don’t have.
You’re in a K-mart or Walmart, asking for this game, and this action
figure, and this bike, and what does Mom finally say? “Children, stop begging.”
With toys, it’s good to be happy with what we have. But when it comes to spiritual blessings,
God wants us to beg, and ask and ask and ask, and want more and more and more.
So
what did Paul ask God for? Well, he was
very happy his Colossian friends trusted in Jesus and were sure of heaven. But Paul asked God to give them more. Paul wrote, “Since the day we heard about
you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the
knowledge of his will.” Well, why did
he want that? “We pray this in order
that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way.”
Come
on, Paul. How is that possible? How many of us are going to stand up and say
that in this last week we’ve pleased God in every way?
For
the Apostle Paul, it was a goal. And
it’s a goal for us too, a goal that means that the Christians in this church
will never run out of room to improve.
You see, Christianity isn’t an “I’ve got eternity squared away; it’s
time to coast down the hill to heaven.”
Christianity is an “I’ve got heaven squared away, and I can’t help but
want to serve the Lord more and more, climb higher and higher, and do better
and better until the day I die. I want
to be more patient; I want to love my neighbor, my husband, my wife; I want to
obey my parents.” Paul talks about
bearing fruit in every kind of good work, about pleasing God in every way.
Now
I know that’s sort of hard, because there’s a part of us that doesn’t want to
do that. There’s a sinful nature still
in us that wants to do exactly the opposite of what God wants. But God has an answer for that. God tells us how we can grow in love for God
and others in spite of that evil nature inside. We grow when God feeds us.
We grow when we grow in the knowledge of God’s word. We grow when we read and hear and study
God’s Word.
God
talks about that a lot, doesn’t he.
About reading and studying his word.
Why? Is there some mysterious
power in here? Is there like one secret
word that you say twenty times really fast with your eyes closed, and suddenly
you’re motivated to love God and everyone else too? There IS something in here.
There is something in here that talks to the spiritual in me. There is something in here that gives us
hope, that gives us peace, that gives us a reason to live and a reason to
die. And that something is all over the
place in this book. That something is
the certainty of salvation. That
something gives us power. The power to
put down the desires of the sinful nature.
The power to lift up the desires of the Lord. The power to smile, the power to share the good news in a kind
way with others, the power to trust when life gets rough, the power gladly to
obey the Lord’s commands. The Apostle
Paul shares, “We pray that you may please him in every way, [as you grow] in
the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his
glorious might.”
God’s
glorious might. If anyone has got power
to give you the power to live a God-pleasing life, it’s God. He created the universe. He drove a wedge between the waters of the
Red Sea. He brought the dead back to
life. He’s got the power to live a
God-pleasing life, and he shares it in his word.
Never be satisfied with your plate of spiritual strawberries. Never be satisfied with your fruits of faith. Yes, thank the Lord for the spiritual gifts you have. For faith in Jesus, for forgiveness, for your certain hope of heaven. But ask the Lord to dump on those berries, to cover your cake completely. Ask the Lord for strength to please him in every way, for strength to bear fruit in every good work. Find that strength in God’s word. Amen.