Colossians 1

1- 2

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ (by God's will), and our brother Timothy. To the set-apart ones who are faithful in Christ at Colossae. Grace and peace be yours from God our Father!

God calls us all to do different jobs for Him. Just make sure you are doing what God wants you to do and not being pushed by men.

Sometimes we would like God to tell us exactly what He is going to do, step-by-step, so that we could make our plans, but then He would not be God.

Here is an example of God showing His will to one of His servants:

A. The crowds with one accord were giving attention to what was said by Philip, as they heard and saw the signs which he was performing. Acts 8:6

Philip was in the middle of a very powerful ministry in Samaria.

B. An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza. Acts 8:26

Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” Acts 8:29

Philip could have thought that it was better to keep doing what he was doing. God does not have to explain Himself to us and we show our respect for Him by not questioning what he tells us to do.

B. And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Acts 8:37

The result was that the Ethiopian gave his life to Christ because Philip did not question the Lord.

All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they? 1 Corinthians 12:29

3. We are always praying for you and we thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, for you.

Paul likes to start his letters by thinking of something to be thankful for.

4. Because we have heard about your faith in Jesus and the love you have for the set apart-ones.

Faith creates love. Paul now begins a list of things that have changed in the lives of the Colossians (verses 4-7).

Paul puts faith, hope, and love together many times: 1 Corinthians 13:13, Galatians 5:5-6, 1 Thessalonians 5:8.

5. We know that you are living this way because you have got ahold of the confidence that is waiting for you in heaven. You heard that men can have this confidence in the true message of the Gospel.

When the Bible talks about hope it does not mean maybe, it means confidence. If only we could live with confidence about what is waiting for us in heaven.

His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope. 1 Peter 1:

6. This is the Gospel that came to you and is having fruit, and is spreading all over the world just as it has been doing ever since the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in the truth.

When we see the healing of people whose lives have been destroyed we know that this is fruit that only Jesus can bring. If you want to see rotten fruit in the lives of men, you only have to look at countries who do not have the Gospel.

7. You first learned these things from our dear fellow-servant Epaphras, who is a faithful servant of Christ for you.

Most Bible teachers think that because Colossae is so close to Ephesus, then maybe Epaphras heard the Gospel when Paul was in Ephesus and brought it to Colossae. Bringing the Gospel to the place where you came from is a good place to start.

8. He is the one the told us about how you have grown up in Christian love in the Spirit.

Epaphras went to Rome and visited Paul in prison. He told Paul about the problems in the church and also about their great love for each other.

9. Ever since we heard this news we have never missed praying for you. We are asking God that you may be filled with such wisdom that you may spiritually understand His will.

It is a good idea to ask God to fill you with wisdom to make sure that you understand His will. Wisdom is seeing things the way that God sees them. Notice that wisdom has to come before knowledge.
10. We also pray that your lives will make Jesus look good, and that you will bring joy to His heart, and that you will show fruit in every good thing you do and grow deeper in the knowledge of God.

A changed life does not come from following the teachings of men. False teachers promise deeper knowledge which they say will give you a better life, but it is a proven fact that their false stories cannot permanently change the lives of those who are trapped in evil.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Ephesians 4:1

11. We pray that you will receive strength from God's glorious power so that you may be able to go through anything and live through it with joy.

We are amazed when we see God use His glorious power to change men from darkness to light. False teachers tell us that we can have a better life if we mix their ideas with the teachings of Jesus. This is the main reason why Paul wrote this letter. If we think that we can live a better life with something besides Jesus, then God will let us go and find out how wrong we were.

Do you see here that patience makes us strong and gives us joy? Many people say they are being patient, but they do it while they are complaining and they have no joy.

12. And that you will be able to thank the Father for the privilege of receiving your inheritance with all the other saints who are living in the light.

Just like the child mentioned in Galatians 3, God is getting us ready to receive our inheritance.

Saints have territory just as demons do. The world does not have peace or forgiveness. They do not have the Lord's presence. Things like this are our inheritance now and forever. We should not let ourselves lose this territory by allowing demons to have a place to stand in our minds or our emotions. Take back any territory you have given to the enemy in the name of Jesus! Ephesians 4:27

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. Ephesians 1:18

We captyre imaginations raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5

13 – 14

For He rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and moved us into the kingdom of the son, whom He loves. It is by Him that we have been ransomed and had our sins forgiven.

What philosophy of men ever gave someone the power to forgive when they found it impossible?

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of His grace. Ephesians 1:7

15. Christ is the exact image of the invisible God.

He existed before anything was created and He is the highest power over all creation.

Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. John 14:9

He is the image of the invisible God. John, chapter one, "No man has seen God at any time, but the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. He has declared Him, or manifested Him, made Him kn own" ( John 1:18 ).

He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. Hebrews 1:3

16. Through Him everything was made whether on heaven or earth, seen or not seen. Through Him also were created power and authority, thrones, or territory. In fact, all things were created through Him and for Him.

God is the one who decides what He wants to do. He created us for His purpose. The Westminster confession says that men were created to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.

Be careful not to rebel against God by thinking that you do not want to be someone who was created just for His pleasure. If you relax and enjoy the fact that you were created for Him and not for yourself, you will overcome the problems you face in this world.

17. He is before all things and holds all things together.

This is a very powerful verse to use in spiritual warfare. There is a story of a man surrounded by Satan worshipers wearing black hoods. They told him that they were going to put a curse on him. He told them that he could not understand how they could do anything to him because Jesus Christ lives inside of him, and he holds the entire universe together. They were very angry and they left.

18. He is the head of the body, which is the church. He is the beginning of those to be born from the dead which makes Him first over all things .

When Jesus rose from the dead with a new body this was just the beginning of what God was doing to make us into new creatures who someday will have the same kind of body.

Men should be very careful when they try to control things in God's church. Nobody but Jesus is the head of a church. If there is anything that is more important in our lives than Jesus, then we are not one of his followers.

There must be a reason that Paul uses the words "all things" four times in verses 16, 17, 18, 20. See also 1 Corinthians 15:20.

19. It pleased God for the full nature of God to live in Jesus.

Living In a way that overcomes the problems of the world is in Jesus not in learning some kind of secret knowledge. Jesus is all we need, we do not need to add something else.

20. Just waiting for you, through Jesus, God planned to set right everything that was disrupted in heaven and on earth to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

Notice that it says that this was God's plan. There is a false religion called “universal salvation” which teaches that Paul was saying that everyone will be saved in the end. In that case Jesus would not have had to die on the cross.

21 – 22

You were strangers to God in fact, because of the evil things you have done, you were His enemies. He is now brought you together with God through the body of His flesh through His death to bring you holy and without blame into His presence.

Notice how many cults have come from the same lies which started in the days of the early church. One of these lies was called Doceticism, which was the idea that Jesus was just a man and God's Spirit came on Him and then left Him at the cross. This then develops into the idea that we can become as God by doing something to get God's Spirit to come on us in the same way.

Anything that you do to try to improve yourself, without the Lord, is about you. The fact is that no matter how hard you try, you will not have the power to overcome evil without complete surrender to Christ.

23. if you continue in a strong position in the faith and not allow yourselves to be turned away from the confidence of the Gospel. This Gospel has been preached to the whole world that was created under heaven. I, Paul, have been made, a messenger of the same Gospel.

Paul is saying that it is possible to not continue living in a strong position in faith.

Do you know how to resist false teachers? There is no other way than to become a special student of the Bible and to walk closely with the Lord in prayer.

24. It is true that I am in prison right now, and suffering because of sharing the gospel with you, but I am glad because it gives me a chance to take on the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His body, which is the church.

If the church is the body of Christ then all the things that the world is doing to the church are actually being done to Jesus.

For those who say that the Bible is just a bunch of stories made up by men, why would why would the apostles be willing to die terrible deaths that are described in history to defend a story full of lies?

The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify about it that its works are evil. John 7:7

25. I am a servant of the church on an assignment from God so that I might completely explain God's Word to you.

Why would Paul bother to completely explain God's Word. If such knowledge is only for the church leaders? We all need to completely understand God's Word.

We need to do as Martin Luther did when he explained how he studied the Bible: “First I shake the whole apple tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf.”

26 – 27

That there is a secret which has been hidden from every generation, but now is being shown to His set-apart ones. These are the ones to whom God planned to give a vision of the wonder and glory of His secret plan to for all the nations.

God's plan was for the Jews to prepare the way for Jesus as John the Baptist did. Paul talks about two secrets, one of them was the idea that Jews and Gentiles would become one in Christ. The other secret was that Jesus would live in us by His Spirit.

The secrets were so well hidden that Peter and Paul needed special revelation from the Lord to see these things. The Pharisees made a joke about this idea. See John 7:35.

28. And so we proclaim Him, coming alongside every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we can bring every man to be completely grown up in Christ.

Some churches focus on asking people to come to the altar. Some churches focus on detailed teaching, which many times shows the technical knowledge of the teacher but the people do not know how to use the information. It has been said that we need to put the food where the sheep can reach it.

29. This is what I am working at and deeply concerned about with all the power that God gives me.

God will allow us to try to do a job with our own power. He patiently whispers about a
better way for us.

And He said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.

And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. 1 Kings 19:11 – 12