Bible Study This Week Is Colossians Chapter One

Be Joyful When Giving God Thanks

[Colossians chapter 1, verses 1-14]

Thanks so much for being here and for choosing to study this first installment of the Book of Colossians for your own Spiritual enrichment. Let's start our exploration of this joint communique' of the apostle Paul and his journeyman evangelist Timothy to the early church that was located in the city of Colossi in what is modern Greece today. As we delve into this relatively short New Testament book, what follows is some of the most truly rich and Spiritual prose from the Apostle Paul in all of his writings. There is no question in my mind that Timothy was a solid contributor to this letter also. They start with a deep and heart-felt greeting, beginning at verse one.

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossi: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints – 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 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. You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on my behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.” (Col. 1, verses 1-8, NIV)

The first thing that jumps out at me as I begin reading this is the phrase, “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God”. Working for the Lord is not like enrolling at a university, a local college or a technical school. It's more like joining the armed services, except you make a lifetime commitment. Plus, being a soldier in God's army has an eternal reward that is incomparable to anything here on earth. We devote our lifetimes to it, and we will be rewarded eternally for it. But we don't just enlist in God's army, it's more like He is calling us instead, just as it was written by the apostle John, “We love God because he first loved us” (1st John 4:19). So if Paul became the 12^th apostle, replacing Judas, because God chose him from before he was ever born, then wouldn't we be short-changing ourselves to think that God has not picked us to be his sons and daughters as well? We all love God, yes, absolutely! But let's follow the apostle's teaching and keep things within their perspective and their correct priorities. It was God, after all, who loved us first. It was that very same love that drew us to Him and caused us to love him in return. Love between us and God always happens in that sequence.

In the following verses we get immediate confirmation that this is the case as Paul saw it when he wrote, “...the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven”. This hope in heaven is twofold: That of having entered into eternal life, at which point time as we know it will end as our eternity begins; and that of meeting Jesus face to face for the first time. What an incredible meeting that will be! “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.” This means the growth of the greater Church and of the Family of God has no limits. And, if there are no limits to His grace, then there are no limits to His love, either. Buoyed and enthralled by this news, as well we should be, let's finish up our study of the rest of this portion of Scripture, beginning with verse nine.

“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. 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, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the Kingdom of Light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col. 1, verses 9-14, NIV)

Although the 5 previous verses of Scripture were actually 3 rather long sentences in their context, if we take them one bite at a time like a good steak, with the first bite being, “to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all Spiritual wisdom and understanding”, we taste and see that knowing God's will and having Spiritual wisdom and understanding are interdependent on each other. Savoring the best and most complete knowledge of God's will depends on how much Spiritual wisdom, understanding and discernment one wishes to attain. Wisdom, knowledge and understanding complement each other, and they can lose their effectiveness if separated from each other. The best part is that there is no limit to what God can do no matter what the circumstances. His capabilities are truly infinite. “With God all things are possible”, Jesus once said.

Then the apostle Paul cites four more examples of what it means to have “the knowledge of his will”, and they are similarly interdependent on each other. They are, in the order Paul listed them, bearing fruit, growing in knowledge, growing in strength – not of the body but of the Spirit – and the giving of joyful thanks. What do these terms mean, and how do they apply to what is being discussed? The central location from where all these things can be explained from God's point of view is the Bible, of that there can be no doubt. I will skip the lengthy detour for now into that discussion, since in my view that's a whole topic in and of itself. Bearing fruit means, first and foremost, being a fruitful human being yourself. People who devote their lives to “random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty” are closer to walking with Christ than some of them realize. Conversely, Christians who don't make a habit of practicing such thoughtful things aren't as close in their walk with Jesus as they may think they are.

Growth in knowledge and strength are the next two. When we grow in the knowledge and strengthening of Christ, our starting point, as before, is the Word of God. It's not so much reading the whole Bible as it is to take it in small pieces like that slice of prime rib I mentioned on the previous page. “If you have faith”, Jesus said, “as small as a mustard seed, you can say to that mountain way over there, 'Be cast into the sea', and into the sea it shall go...” Of course I was paraphrasing there, but it is only when we exercise our faith that we strengthen it, and we must strengthen it before we can get rewarded. As we exercise our faith, just like at the gym, we get stronger and into improved overall condition whether spiritually or physically. Knowing that God is always watching us should be motivation enough to desire doing well in these areas.

The final and most superb evidence of having the knowledge of God's will is the joyful giving of thanks. If you have ever been really low on food and God sent someone to assist you, or gave you a referral to a food pantry or food bank, then you know what being joyfully thankful is like. And, it was Jesus who said, “God loves a cheerful giver”. I'm not suggesting that anyone go hungry for Christ unless they are fasting. I'm just saying that joy and happiness are confirmations that our needs have been met supernaturally. When we give thanks to God, we shouldn't do so out of feelings of obligation. If we tithe 10% of our incomes out of compulsion as some still do at church every Sunday, then those persons are giving for all the wrong reasons. But if we volunteer at a homeless shelter or a food pantry and give our direct assistance to those in need, we derive a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that is beyond compare. The person who has no money to give but donates their time and their labor voluntarily will be more blessed than some rich dude that tithes 10%. 

 

In the Bible there is the parable of the rich young man as it was told by Jesus himself, it's in all four gospels. He obeyed the Law of Moses and tithed a tenth of all he had. “What else must I do to inherit the Kingdom of God?”, he asked Christ. Jesus responded, “'Go, sell all your possessions and give all the money to the poor. Then come, take up your cross and follow me'. And the young man went away sad, for he had great wealth”. Even if the rich young man had done everything Jesus told him to do, he would have done so with much sadness, lacking any semblance of joy, and in so doing could have lost his reward anyway. But, as Paul wrote a decade or two later, “be joyful when you give thanks to God, because you know for sure that your joy is confirmation of God's grace to each of you.” May His eternal grace be with you all.