Late one night, a man had gone to a party and had too much
to drink. He decided to walk home. He took a shortcut through a dark cemetery
and in the darkness, stumbled into an open grave. He tried to climb out but the
walls were too slippery. He kept falling back into the grave. Finally, in
exhaustion, he settled in a corner to wait for morning. A few minutes later,
another man in the same condition, also cutting through the cemetery, fell into
the same open grave. He tried desperately to claw his way out. As he was about
to give up, he heard a voice from inside the grave: "Give up. You’ll never
get out of here." But he did! All he needed was the right motivation.
When Hudson Taylor was director of the China Inland Mission,
he often interviewed candidates for the mission field. On one occasion, he met
with a group of applicants to discover their motivation for service. "And
why do you wish to go as a foreign missionary?" he asked one. "I want
to go because Christ has commanded us to go into all the world and preach the
gospel to every creature." Another said, "I want to go because
millions are perishing without Christ." Others gave similar answers. Then
Hudson Taylor said, "All of these reasons, however good, will fail you in
times of testings, trials, tribulations, and threat of possible death. There is
but one motive that will sustain you always – the love of God compels me.”
Taylor knew these missionary candidates had reasons
to go, but wrong motives. Difference between a reason and a motive. Reasons
change, motives remain. Reasons can be manipulated, motives are pure. Reasons
stand as long as they can be justified, motives hold us until we’re done.
An elderly couple was celebrating 70 years together. The
wife asked her husband why he called her Sugar Pie and Honey and Baby Cakes but
never used her real name any more. The man said. “I forgot your name about
twelve years ago and I’ve been afraid to ask.”
The reason people marry will change in time. Her
looks, his hair, their weight. When external things become the more important
aspect of a relationship, the less chance that relationship has to succeed. There’s
nothing wrong with what attracts us to each other. But most of that will diminish
in time. What creates the power to sustain a relationship? Love. Because I love
you, the changes in our life don’t affect me. Relationships are to be built on
the foundation of love.
That’s why God established Christianity as a relationship
and not a religion. In a religion people try to gain access, win favor, make their
God accept them by following some set of obligations to manipulate Him toward
them. Christianity is God reaching out to us, to draw us into the relationship
with Him. He’s done the work. He’s paid the price. He’s obligated Himself to
what it takes to preserve the relationship. He loved us first. Reasons fail us
but love never does.
1Cor 13:1-8 If I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong
or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all
mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my
possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do
not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is
not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act
unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into
account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but
rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things. Love never fails.
Typical response: I will be patient with you as long as you
are patient with me. I will be kind to you as long as you are kind to me. I
will not act inappropriately as long as you do not act inappropriately with me.
That’s conditional love. It’s love based on the behavior of
the other person. I’ll treat you well if you treat me well. That’s how you
train a dog. No, love requires no response. It’s what flows out of my life to
you without conditions or requirements.
I will remain consistent as long as my reason for
consistency remains important to me. But I will be faithful to the end if
driven by love.
That’s why: Pro 16:2 All
the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, but the LORD weighs the
motives. God measures us by motives not actions.
Until loving God is our highest motivation for living the
Christian life, we will always come up short. We will always see ourselves as
failures before God. We will always be disappointed in our behavior and ashamed
of our life before God. We will neglect the things important for a successful
Christian life and that neglect will overshadow whatever progress we’ve made. But
that is so unnecessary, because when we understand that love covers the
multitude of our sins will we find ultimate fulfillment resting in the
Father’s hands and obeying Him.
So, with that back in mind:
Col
1:1-2 Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren
in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our
Father.
Col
1:3-8 We
give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always
for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the
love which you have for all the saints; 5 because of the hope
laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of
truth, the gospel 6 which has come to you, just as in all the
world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has
been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood
the grace of God in truth;
Grace is a hallmark of Paul’s teaching. Understanding Grace is
vital to understanding the Gospel message – God doing for us what it is impossible
to do for ourselves.
We are saved by grace through faith. My effort is in
receiving not producing. As in feeding myself. It is my job to take in my food each
day. I don’t make what I eat nourish me. That’s what the food does. It’s my
responsibility to receive the work of God and allow it to do it’s work in my
life.
7
just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a
faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, 8 and he also informed us of
your love in the Spirit.
Paul is saying, “This is what I know about you. And this is
what I know about the word of God. Love and the Word – a great combination. Let’s
start there and build.”
Paul knows he doesn’t have to produce the godly life within
the Colossians. That’s God’s job. All he has to do is remind them what God has
provided and appeal to them, on that basis, to let what God intends happen in
them.
It is much easier to steer a car once it’s rolling than to try
and get it rolling in order to turn it. The Colossians were already in love
with the Lord and motivated to obey His word. They were already rolling.
Paul then can go on to explain the resources God will
provide. He shows them what God has made available for them and trusts they
will draw from them.
Col
1:9-10 For
this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for
you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in
all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
The reason we go to school is to get filled with knowledge. I
didn’t do as well in subjects at school that I didn’t care about. In my major
and minor subjects, I did pretty well but not so much in the other stuff. Why?
I wasn’t interested. I saw little to no value in them. I wasn’t hungry for what
they offered. But in the subjects I did hunger for, I did great.
Paul knew, because of their love for God, they would be
hungry for the things of God. He is catching them on the upswing of their
excitement. So, he prays for God’s infilling, making them aware of what has
provided for them to live successful Christian lives. And more importantly.
They will experience reaching their goal.
10
so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in
all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in
the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all power,
according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness
and patience; joyously 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us
to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.
Remember, pleasing God is the ultimate goal. The
righteous ones will live by faith. Without faith it is impossible to please
God. But that pleasing is not left to only some isolated compartment in their
lives reserved for Spiritual thoughts and actions. But in all respects.
God expects total surrender, not partial obedience. It requires full
participation of the heart, mind, body and will.
Benefits they will discover include: bearing fruit,
expanding our knowledge, being strengthened so we may be steadfast and patient,
the ability to stay the course. All of which develops a thankful heart toward
God, who did the work to qualify and certify us as His Children which
establishes who we are and what are the benefits He provides.
What does He fills us with? That that we cannot produce on
our own. Grace.
Light – key word to Paul’s mission: Acts 26:18 to open their eyes so
that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan
to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among
those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.'
Paul could say of them, as he did to the Ephesians: Eph 5:8-10 for you were formerly
darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of
Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and
righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the
Lord.
Paul consistently makes contrasts: light/dark, dead/alive,
new/old, flesh/spirit, lost/saved. It helps people know on which side of
the equation they live.
So, the ultimate question: having crossed from death into
life, out of darkness into light, having love motivating their obedience, how does
someone walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him? By drawing
out of the bucket. Living from what He provides. The knowledge of His will in all
spiritual wisdom and understanding.
Filling isn’t what we put into the bucket, but what
God places into the bucket. Our job isn’t to fill but be filled.
Eph
5:18 Be filled with the Spirit, is actually be
being continually filled with the Spirit.
How? By not interfering with the process of our filling. Which
carries the image of us controlling the spicket. Keeping the valve open to
receive God’s filling which will provide us with spiritual wisdom and
understanding. This isn’t a one-time experience but a constant practice.
That will become the challenge to the Colossians. Letting
their possession of the relationship be the practice of their life. Not just carrying
around some collection of beliefs, but living those beliefs to please God. Paul
saw the danger of them getting comfortable with what they know and settling for
just enough to get by. Paul must help them understand that the things they know
must override their desire to accept less than God’s best. So He reminds them:
13 For
He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of
His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of
sins.
Paul’s constant reminder: You are no longer who you were.
This is who you are.
Miracle on Ice
– movie based on the hockey game between Russia and the USA in the 1980
Olympics. The coach, Herb Brooks, would ask the boys who they played for.
They’d answer their college team. Only after they realized they no longer
played for that team but now played for the US, did they lose that old identity
and become who they now were. The Coach had to take away that old identity for
them to function as a new team. That’s who you were. This is who you are.
Don’t ever forget what God has done. He loved you enough to
make you a new creation. Because the Colossians understood that, Paul’s job
became much easier. Why? They had the right motivation to obey.
At a circus once, the clowns were particularly good and the
last one of them was a little fellow wearing a broad and wildly decorated hat. In
a dramatic bow to a woman in the front row, his hat went sailing across the
ring and right under an elephant who quickly sat on it. The clown waved his
arms to get the elephant to move, but he sat still. He shouted and pulled on
the elephant’s ears but he didn’t budge. The clown went behind the elephant and
kicked with all his strength, and hopped away as though he had broken his foot.
Frantic with anger, the little clown turned back to the elephant and tried to
lift him off the hat. Defeated and in complete despair, the clown sat down and
started to eat peanuts. The elephant got up and ambled over, begging for a
peanut.
Nobody can be forced to live a successful Christian life. No
church can be made to become a spiritually vibrant fellowship. No Christian can
be tricked into surrendering unwillingly to God. But with the right motivation,
they will.
TAKEAWAYS:
- The greatest way to rebuild or strengthen a relationship is to return to what established it in the first place.
- God knows that unless we understand how much He loves us and how important it is for us to love Him, we will live an inferior Christian life.
- We will remain consistent in our Christian lives as long as our reason for being consistent remains important to us. But we will be faithful to the end if driven by love.
- Everything we need to be able to live a successful Christian life is being constantly provided.
- Our job is to not interfere with the process of God’s filling, but to draw out that which He provides.
