Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
Last week we took a little break from Colossians to look at and celebrate the Lord’s Supper together.
This week we are going to dive back in to Colossians.
Our passage this morning is pretty closely related to our passage a couple of weeks ago.
If you remember with me back to verses 24-29 of Chapter 1, we looked at Paul’s ministry in Jesus.
We saw how Paul rejoiced in his sufferings for the sake of the believers.
We saw that what was central to Paul’s ministry was in fact Jesus himself.
the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.
Paul was charged to
to present the word of God in its fullness and make known its glorious riches
• to proclaim Christ and admonish and teach in all wisdom so that believers are firm in their faith
• to create believers encouraged in heart, united in love, and full of understanding
• to reach out with good news to those whom some may deem unworthy or excluded.
• to present the word of God in its fullness and make known its glorious riches
• to proclaim Christ and admonish and teach in all wisdom so that believers are firm in their faith
• to create believers encouraged in heart, united in love, and full of understanding
• to reach out with good news to those whom some may deem unworthy or excluded.
Paul’s goal was one of service.
Our passage today takes these ideas and hones them in a bit more.
It helps us to see the significance of Paul’s ministry for a group of people that he had never met.
It helps us to see the significance of the letter for us and our lives today.
Through our passage today, we will see a firmness of faith in Christ that comes in spite of distractions.
Read
Prayer
Paul’s struggle.
V. 1-2
What was Paul’s struggle?
V.1
Who here has played some sort of sport?
I will use a football analogy, that is what I know personally and many of us know from watching.
What is the feeling you have as you have 3rd down and forever to go to get the first down.
It’s a feeling of struggle.
There is an intense feeling there of fighting against the opposition.
This is feeling Paul is trying to give his readers when he used this word in verse 29 of struggling with the energy Christ gives him.
It is the feeling that Paul is portraying now as well in verse 1 of chapter 2.
Paul wants his readers to know that he is contending for them.
His ministry has involve much hard work and difficult circumstances.
It has not been all feasts, rainbows, and fun.
Recipients of Paul’s struggle.
V.1
Paul lists for us some recipients of his struggle.
The first he lists is the Colossians, second is the Laodiceans, and third is those who have not seen him face to face.
The last in the Greek is literally those who have not seen my face in the flesh.
To look at someone in the face, in those times meant being in presence.
Spending time with them.
Paul’s struggle, as we have seen, was meant for more than just the churches that he had planted.
Paul’s struggle was was meant for all those who had not seen him face to face.
I believe we can safely say that this struggle was just as much for us as it was for those that lived when Paul lived.
Paul’s struggle was for the spread of the gospel.
The sharing of the good news that Jesus forgives our hurts and our wrongs.
Jesus forgives sin.
Who do you know that needs this message?
Today the message of struggling for others can be shared in a much different way.
We can see someone’s face hundreds of miles away.
Can you imagine if Paul would have had Facetime or Skype.
His message may have spread faster I don’t think though it would have changed what Paul did.
I think there is something to be said though for face to face communication.
To feel the warmth of someones embrace.
This is why it is still important for people to go and take the gospel with them for the purpose that Paul described in verse 2.
Purpose
Hearts encouraged.
That their hearts may be encouraged is a bit of a loaded statement for us that we have to decipher.
When we think of heart what things come to mind?
Follow your heart - dreams
What is your heart telling you - emotions
Scripture though has a different meaning behind the word heart.
In scripture, the heart most often refers to the center of our personality.
The source of our thinking, and of our well, not solely our emotions.
Jeremiah has some difficult things to say about our hearts.
Before God sent the flood records for us that.
This gives us a rather bleak view of our own hearts.
Of our inner beings.
We have hope though in what we are told in Ez. 36:26
This change of heart, change of our inner being, can only occur by God’s doing.
It can only come through Jesus.
Paul hopes that his struggling will be something that touches the deepest part of our being, that affects every aspect of our person.
Paul is an example of being firm in faith even through some of the most difficult circumstances.
Knit together in love and the riches of full assurance and understanding.
The next thing that Paul states that he hopes for is that the believers will be knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance and understanding.
As we read this, depending upon translation, the punctuation and wording changes how we interpret things.
Of course punctuation, verse, and chapter breaks are not inspired so occasionally they can get in the way.
Some are added for us to read and comprehend sections better.
For instance some of Paul’s long run on sentences that get broken down into multiple sentences for us.
So what is Paul describing for us here?
I think the NASB gets closer to the point here of
2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery
that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding
What is Paul describing for us here?
He described that their inner most being is changed and encouraged, moving in a direction of growth.
He further describes this as being knit together in love.
That is having been knit together in love.
I haven’t done any knitting but I have crocheted a hat.
You that have done some knitting, what would you say about the process?
You are bringing things together, uniting them.
In a sense you are giving the pieces instructions on where to go.
While the action appears to be one that is happening currently, that is not the only case.
The tense Paul uses describes the overall action of the knitting, not necessarily the time in which it happened.
There is also the idea of how the NASB translates it as having been knit together in love.
This is echoed in other places in scripture such as
and
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