Sermon

Probably everyone remembers the story of the Pied Piper. It is a story - a German legend - about a musician who lived in a town called Hamelin. As the story goes, the Pied Piper played his flute and got the rats of the city to follow him to the river where they all drowned. Since he was not rewarded for this deed, he sought revenge by leading the children of the village into the mountains where they disappeared.

In Colossae, the community to whom the apostle Paul wrote the letter we know today as Colossians, Paul was addressing the concerns of those who were being led astray by false teachers. Paul addressed both the false teachers and their false teachings. 

These teachers were like a kind of Pied Piper of their day with their religious teachings because they were leading people astray from the truth. They were dipping into the Gospel and mixing it with other teachings and denying the humanity of Christ. 

Instead of worshipping God, and God only, the false teachers were spreading their false teachings. They were watering down the truth about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with other religious and non-Christian views.

Paul sought to put the record straight about Jesus’ identity and supremacy. Paul explains that Jesus came to rescue the alienated, and reconcile those who are lost.

To be alienated, in the context of the letter to the Colossians, is to be separated - to be lost from God. It is one thing to be lost and not even know it. We call that ignorance. It is another thing to be lost and not care at all. We call that apathy, or indifference. 

There is nothing sadder than someone who is estranged from God, who could not care less. I have read countless stories of this type that have one common theme. The common theme is someone who makes light of eternity until he or she is confronted with his or her own mortality. These stories sometimes have the same tragic ending. It is tragic when those who had contempt toward God will soon meet Him face to face without having been reconciled to Him.

There is, however, hope for the lost. As someone has observed, we sometimes know the facts about others’ whereabouts even though they are still lost. Sometimes we see on television that a mine has caved in and people are trapped in the tunnel. We feel something of the despair of their families as they grimly mutter, “They are lost!” “But,” we think, “they are not lost. We know exactly where they are in the tunnel.” “Yet,” the reply comes back, “they are as lost as if they were a hundred miles underground. We cannot reach them. We know where they are, but they are lost.

This expresses the condition of those who are spiritually lost, without Christ and without salvation. We know where they are, all right. But they are still lost without Christ”. The situation is not hopeless because God sent Jesus Christ, His only Son to bring those who are lost back to God.

Only through Jesus Christ are we rescued from the realms of darkness. Someone has noted a custom that was in practice for the people of that time. “It was a common practice in the ancient world that when one nation was defeated by another, people living in exile in that now-conquered nation would often be liberated to return to their homeland. This would have been familiar to the people in a Roman province such as Colossae”.

It seems as though the false teachers were indirectly claiming that their religious teachings had the power to liberate people. But, it was quite the opposite that was true. The teachings of these false teachers would do nothing more than keep people in the dark.

Only Jesus can bring us into God’s kingdom - the kingdom of light. Only Jesus Christ has the power to liberate us so that we have been able to leave the darkness behind and be brought into God’s kingdom. Jesus came to bring us back to God and set us free from the darkness that was dominating us. Only Jesus can reconcile us to God. 

The false teachers of Colossae were teaching the contrary. The false teachers of Colossae taught that Jesus was not the only way salvation was possible. Jesus explains that He is the way, the truth and the life and that no one gets to the Father in heaven except through Him. Paul shot holes in their teachings by explaining this truth in his own words.

Paul addressed the false teachings of these false teachers head on. Paul refuted the ideas of Gnosticism which the false teachers endorsed. They combined ideas of Greek philosophy and Oriental mysticism with some of the ideas of Christianity and taught that salvation comes through knowledge. 

Paul heavily refuted these false teachings and their slant that leaned heavily on Greek philosophy. That is why Paul explains that all things were created by Jesus, and for Jesus, which is why He is the Head of the Church and also why He has supremacy over everything. Paul explained that is why Jesus Christ is Lord of all -  the way, the truth and the life!

We have quite a few ex teachers in the congregation.  One of the things that happens in education is that we grow intellectually. When Paul talked about “growing in the knowledge of God, he is talking about growing spiritually. When we are growing spiritually it will become unmistakable because of how we are producing fruit in every good work. 

It seems as though Paul was saying that we need to strive to be all that we can be in our spiritual lives so that we never stop growing in our knowledge of God. 

One of the things that we will struggle with in our spiritual lives is patience and endurance and how they are related. Someone has related how physical exercise relates to our spiritual lives. “After college and marriage, I found it easy to put on weight and get out of shape. A year ago, I became committed to working hard to take the "bulge" out of my sagging waistline. Day after day, I worked hard on cardiovascular exercise and weight training, seeming to get nowhere. Straining. Sweating. Breathing hard. Questioning my sanity.

“But then after several months, it was as though a quantum leap occurred. Weight began to drop off. Muscles began to get toned. And endurance increased significantly. Medical friends tell me that during the constancy of working out, regardless of how I felt, a whole new road system of small blood vessels and capillaries was forming within my body. Then came the day when they decided it was time for a "grand opening." Suddenly, more blood came flooding into the muscle tissue, and the resultant benefits were immense”. 

There are times when we might feel impatiently spiritually and wonder if we are making progress.

Likewise, when we're walking through the depths of trials, God is building up a secondary support system of endurance, that we might be even more prepared for the next time adversity comes our way.  When we are growing the knowledge of God, we learn both the reason and the need for patience and endurance.

There is no philosophy and no amount of human knowledge that can save us and strengthen us in our spiritual lives. We grow in the knowledge of God because of our relationship with the Saviour who knows us and loves us beyond our ability to comprehend! Only Jesus Christ can save us because He has secured our freedom on the cross! 

He has redeemed all who believe in Him and made them heirs who are “qualified to share in the inheritance of God’s kingdom”. Jesus helps us to “endure” because “His strength is made perfect in our weakness and He gives us grace that is sufficient”  for every time of trial!

We should be glad and give praise for the love shown to us.  AMEN