1/4/25 The Divine Trait
The Divine has appointed this day. Make no mistake regarding its outcome. In every day we are faced with oppression beyond the circumstances in the physical. Every day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:34). Do we really need trouble from a church with bad theology? Paul while in prison addresses the church of Colossae bc bas theology has crept in. This will not be addressed in todays message, but at the end of the month. Today we start at the beginning of this letter and wander our way through a master theologian the apostle Paul in how he addresses us and what we should embody when theology has been muddled up due to intercultural bias.
Let’s be honest with the trouble of the day bad theology emanating from the pulpit the world has become a mess & we need help from the source of truth to set the record straight and to give us marching orders for the days ahead. Paul starts by introducing himself in V1: Colossians 1: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. PRAY
Paul is writing a letter to clear up a problem. This is the same church Philemon attends! Some of you are asking, there are churches with problems? You mean every preacher does not have proper theology down? OR preaches a message that is not derived from the word of God? YES. Paul does not dive into that immediately. He sets the order first Just who is Paul to be writing a correction? He sets it straight by telling you who he is, he is an apostle. Apostle is a church term Christians use but do not fully understand. The terms mean one who is sent out. They had 3 core traits (1) to have been a witness of the resurrected Christ (1 Corinthians 9:1), (2) to have been explicitly chosen by the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:15), and (3) to have the ability to perform signs and wonders (Acts 2:43; 2 Corinthians 12:12). Incidentally Luke & Paul wrote the qualifications.
Notice he denotes who he is an apostle of. Because all blessings all authority runs through Jesus, no other. This is brought to be by Jesus alone. You cannot claim to be an apostle unless it was by the will of God himself. Anyone who claims they are an apostle in this day and age have a faulty idea as to what an apostle is. Many can claim qualifications 2 & 3 but have not been the witness of resurrected Christ. We have also seen that signs & wonders can be faked. AntiChrist will use them along with False Prophet in Tribulation post rapture. Some TV evangelists use them today. This brings shame to us & our effort because we are to operate in the authority of Christ to do greater works than He and doing so means you are rooted in TRUTH.
Apostles operated for one purpose and that is to lay the foundation of the church. No where in scripture was there church membership no where is there an obsessive attention to how many attended weekly as the gauge of success. 2000 yrs have passed and the foundation is laid, this is another reason why the age of the apostles has passed. Further he notes that Timothy is a brother. Timothy is a son in the faith as discipled by Paul. This means that as the family of God some family is in the DNA of your natural born family & some is in the family of God of which there are sons and daughters and anyone who denies this is denying the word of God. We have personal experience in this.
The real essence of where we are going today is in V2 despite the fact that V1 tells us the source is credible & we should have faith in it being the truth of God. Paul gets specific. He does not address them as a wayward church he does not address them as church with a preacher teaching heresy. He addresses them as God’s Holy people. As in set apart for the Divine use. Set apart for God to work in & through to affect this world and that they do indeed belong to God not the government. Not the devil not the world but to God himself bought by his Son! Further these are not those in the church across town the church of a different denomination the church with the big parking lot these are brothers & sisters in Christ! They have accepted the blood of Christ his substitutionary death upon the cross. His innocence paying for our guilt redeeming us from the law redeeming us from death It is Christ and Christ alone that we can look to those who are holy and call them brother & sister! Because they are in Christ. He knows them he remembers them he knows their voices and they know his! Without being in Christ, there is no family there is no church there is no purpose for this letter. It is a brother in the faith who is writing out of love and he grants them something despite the bad theology despite how much they are being led by the world by their respective cultural influences. Grace and Peace. Stop right there. Grace is what none of us deserve. We are all wretched we have all turned away we have all questioned the purpose of faith of the divine hand working all things to good. We are fallen to the lust of the eyes lust of life the pride of life! Yet the divine trait he seeks to give them is PEACE.
Peace when your family abandon you Peace when you get betrayed Peace when you have no finances left Peace when your government works against you peace when the job market will not turn in your favor peace when your health is failing peace when you do not where to go who to trust or what to do! Peace when your church lets you down Peace when your church has no miracles happening but still wants to claim it is anointed.
How can you have peace in all this—it says from God our Father. You can have peace by no other source. He sent his Son who is the called to hold your hand through life when you are His.
