Q&A Colossians 1:9-14

Hey again, everybody. Thanks for listening to a Q&A with the pastor as I'm sitting down with Keith the day after he preached on Colossians 1 verses 9 through 14 on January 22nd. Keith, just to carry on with the message that you preached on last week, how was the main theme of Colossians carried out through this passage when Paul is writing in verses 9 through 14? Paul is praying for them to the end that they would see Christ as all they need and that they would need, they would want to need, I'm sorry, they would want nothing else. So that way they would be filled with Christ, they would be strengthened with his power, and they would be thankful for what he has done. The language there is really interesting because he says, you would be filled with the knowledge of God's will. I think one of the Colossians' problems is that they were saying that God was willing something else. He's praying very specifically that they would be understanding, that we feel the spiritual wisdom and understanding, not the philosophical ideas that they were buying from the world. And so, they were adding things to the wisdom that is Christ, and he is praying specifically for them that they would have spiritual understandings that only comes from Christ. And then, he says, you would be strengthened with all might. You know, it is very important there that Christ is all. You know, they were trying to add to him. And then obviously the Thanksgiving where it talks about how everything is coming from the Son in whom you have forgiveness and redemption. There, there's no one else that you can have that in. So a lot of this was praying that they would have that experience. They would receive from God what they need to recognize they should want nothing else. What's really interesting is that next week's passage is all about how Christ is all you need. He is the glorious Creator and Savior, so it really starts with this objective, praying that they would experience that, and then he goes in and begins teaching it, that Christ is all you need. Now, why is it important to see Paul's prayer in this part of Colossians a prayer that we should be acting on in our own lives? Why should we be praying the same prayer for ourselves and for others? Yeah, so we have Christ who taught us how to pray. He gave us a model of what prayer should look like. And so that should be the key model of prayer. The Psalms are also models of prayer because they are God's people responding to God's promises in the midst of trouble, or in the midst of praise, or in the midst of blessing. And so, they are models for us, recorded and inspired by the Spirit, for how we should respond. So, God gives us recorded responses so that we know how to respond appropriately. Here, I think Paul, just as he does twice in Ephesians and other places, he actually give us kind of a view inside of how he's praying for churches. And so, since it's Spirit-inspired, it's Paul telling the church how he's praying for them. I think it's also telling us how we can also be praying according to the will of God. Now, as you're preaching, as you prepare to preach through the rest of Colossians, how does your sermon basically format change? Are you preaching differently than the way you preached in Genesis and even back through 1 John, just because it's a letter rather than a recount of something? So how is your preaching changing in a different book? Yeah, it definitely is different from most of Genesis. Most of Genesis, I would start out by explaining the major plot line. Where is the tension? Where is the tension resolved? Then you have to do a lot of bridge building so that you make connections with the sin. How is their sin like our sin? How do we identify with a particular sin in the story? Then where is Christ? Where is God redeeming? Here, I would say the easiest thing is the fact that the bridge is shorter in the sense of bridging from culture to culture. Bridging from the stated truth of Paul is easier to make that transition to the truth we need to hear. Whereas when you go from a story, there's more steps in building that bridge from culture and situation to us as hearers today. The style of preaching is, I hope, different because preaching narrative, you have to do the plot line and then you have to talk about how you identify other sins. You have to talk about the gospel. You have to talk about application. With this, it's much more just trying to find a good outline from the way the passages lined up and then using that outline and just walking through the different propositions. It's propositional preaching rather than narrative preaching. So I hope it feels different because it really should. Yeah. How has that affected your study in just preparation for that? I mean, it's certainly different, but have you had to adjust things as you prepare week in, week out? Yeah. With Genesis, I would read the story over and over again, meditate upon it, meditate upon the different figures and their complications. I really got into the character development and the character and the problems and so forth. rethinking about the story and how I would play it over and over again in my head. Here, I'm not thinking and meditating about a story in the plot line. I actually get my Bible out and I start diagramming the sentences. I'm much more concerned about the grammar of these sentences than the grammar of the story. Now, the story, I want to make sure I'm tracing a plot. Here, I want to make sure I'm getting the major verbs and how they relate to one another, how the participles and the infinitives are all related to the other words, whatever the references are, and so forth. Yeah, I'm doing a lot more diagramming and tracing and more stuff with the language. My wife says I've really gotten into grammar here lately with Colossians. Has she appreciated that? Do you correct her grammar? No, I meant in the sense that I talk about... Or do you speak better now? I don't think I talk no better. What she meant was in the sermons I'm talking more about the grammar. So I'll say here's the main verb and these are the participles. So, it's more that the grammar matters more in the epistle. Now, one thing, along with talking about grammar more... I just said I don't talk no better live on air, right? Well, you know, you don't have good English, but in the midst of what you were talking about, you certainly talked about joy and suffering again. It's another theme that comes up. within the Bible, but you said we should not only long for joy, but we should at many times expect to be joyful even in the midst of suffering. How can you expect to be joyful if on the inside you're in a lot of pain? both spiritually and emotionally. Yeah, from the biblical level, I walked through some teaching that I retrieved from other parts of scripture. One way to be joyful in the midst of suffering is to meditate on the suffering of Christ and how that is ultimately joyful. The ultimate end there is joy. You get to participate in the suffering of Christ which brings joy. You know that as a Christian, especially those who have walked by faith for a good season, that every task is a refining moment, and that you will be carried through it by God, and that you will be better for it because of God. So you can find joy that way. And really, you should be praying for joy. You should long for joy because Scripture calls you to be joyful in the midst of suffering. You should want other believers to come around you and remind you of that. As a more difficult thing, parts of the sermon was trying to say, as I was calling out sufferings that I know people are having in the midst of our body right now, and to tell them to be joyful in them. It's a heavy calling. It's not to be taken lightly. It's not to be taken flippantly. It's like, oh no, you should be joyful. Get over it. No, it's recognizing that there's real suffering and real pain but trying to show how God is good in the midst of it. We always have something to be joyful for because we always have the gospel that gives us hope beyond our current circumstances. Even though, yes, of course, when we're in suffering, we're going to ask, where is God? What's he doing? Why is he doing it? But ultimately, from Scripture, we know that it is good. Yeah, that's certainly one of the ways to encourage one another in their joy. Now, you spoke about encouraging one another in our fruitfulness and in our fruits and their fruitfulness. What are some practical ways that you can encourage another brother and sister in their godliness and in evidence fruit? Yeah, well, this point is what you're talking about is something I actually took from C.J. Mahaney. In one of his books, I forget where it came from, maybe it was a sermon I heard him preach, that we as Christians should be pointing out evidences of grace in other people's lives. We too often want to correct. We too often want to point out what's wrong. Whereas really what we should be looking for is to encourage one another. We should be telling one another, I see this gift in you. I see this spiritual fruit in you. I think every time we get together with somebody, you know, after you get to know somebody longer and longer, the more you should be able to point out God's goodness. You know, we talked about last Q&A, which was only five minutes ago for us. We were discussing, you know, how can you make the gospel central to a relationship? One of the key ways is to encourage one another. You know, I see how the gospel is evident in you through your patience. I see how the gospel is evident in you by the way you are so patient and you are so faithful to caring for your children or your spouse or whatever it is, or how you're enduring a trial. Oftentimes we need somebody just to come alongside and recognize and encourage us in saying, you know, I see that God is doing a good work through this, because we can become distraught and depressed and drawn. So, yeah, every time we get together with somebody, the closer we get with somebody, the more we should be talking how We like what we see in them because of the gospel. And I'd assume that almost becomes harder to do, because as you become more comfortable with someone, you know that they know that you love them. So you stop complimenting your wife. You stop complimenting your friend. Whereas if you first meet someone, you're eager to say, hey, you're awesome. But as the relationship continues, that's a good word for that. Hearing the good that I do is easy to hear and harder to say. But what about when it comes to confessing sin to one another? First, should we be in a position where we confess sin to one another, both in the church and within relationships? And should members in this congregation be fearful in confessing their sins to one another, specifically in a discipleship group or a home group or one-on-one counseling? Should there be fear in that? And why is there fear in that? Should I be more cautious in confessing sin than to telling people encouraging words about how I see evidence of grace? I should be looking to tell everybody in this church how I see evidence of grace in them. That's something I should be telling everybody. I should try to do that as much as possible. Confessing sin is much more cautious and much more limited as to who you talk to about it. But there's a trajectory there in terms of confessing sin. If I lied at a church conference, publicly, I need to publicly confess. If someone stands up and gives a blatant lie in a public setting, or someone lies in such a way that is publicly damaging, they should confess publicly. And so, there's a certain rule there that if you If you sin publicly, you should confess publicly. You know, if it's sin that I'm wrestling with in my own heart, such as bitterness, or a self-control issue, or thoughts, or lust, whatever is going on inside, I limit who I confess those kinds of sins to. Mainly because, well, you can be betrayed. You don't talk about all your sin to all people, I don't think. I think you need to find faithful, reliable, healthy brothers or sisters that you are entrusting yourself to. There's a commitment that's very deep and very committed there that it should be happening within the body, but I don't think it happens with everyone all together within the body. So, home groups and discipleship groups. Discipleship groups, yes. Home groups. Yeah, it can. Again, there's a trajectory of what kinds of sins one would want to confess. Okay. Now, that's all the questions I've got for you. Now, what are you most excited about with preaching about the supremacy of Christ this coming weekend? It's about the supremacy of Christ. Are you scared at the same time? Yeah. I mean, you've only got like 50 minutes. Are you afraid that you can't wrap it in in like two hours? Who said I only had 50 minutes? Did you just tell me what God's will is for the length of a sermon? Yeah, I saw the writing on the wall. That's one of the fruits I have. Yeah, it's one of those. I mean, every passage is wedding. Every passage I walk away. I have to take a deep breath as I close in prayer because I always think, man, I did not do that passage justice. But I am so thankful that the Holy Spirit can use whatever little I said that reflects from the passage to glorify himself. Yeah, me too. But this passage is a high, high text of Christ's great exalted nature and status and position. Well, it's kind of like a passage on heaven. It's just you couldn't ever describe it well enough. It's when, you know, in heaven there is no sun. Trying to explain that and describe it, you can never capture the true beauty and significance of it because it's beyond our comprehension. But yeah, here's Christ. He's declared the great creator, the only creator. He's declared the only savior, the head of the church. I pray that, well, I'm comforted in this. that whenever we exalt Christ, He will draw others to Him. And so I pray that we as a church are just committed to drawing closer to Him and that those who don't know Him will be drawn to Him. as he's exalted from the text itself. I think if I just read the text, it's exalting enough that he's willing to do that. And I pray the Spirit will give me some words that will challenge and confront us from that text. Great. Very good. We're looking forward to it. It's a challenge. Great. Well, thanks for taking time to answer our questions, both from this past sermon and the sermon a week ago.