Embracing Each Moment: Everyday Grace in the Fullness of God

Colossians 4:2-18

Fullness in Creation, Mystery, and Community 
Paul is concluding this relatively short, packed letter to the believers in Colossae, written from prison in Ephesus. It’s full of practical guidance for everyday life. Practical in the sense that Paul knows is necessary. Their roots are all alien to Paul’s message. If they’re to give their lives to this, they need to see how it makes sense of the world, their story, their relationships. Not in abstract arguments or instructions but in one person, Jesus.

Embracing Each Other: Lives Caught up by Gratitude and Love

Colossians 3:1-17

From Event and Story to Personal Reality – The New Person
Jesus’ reality means that what God did in him shapes the life of every person who trust in him.
The change is deep, becoming a new person, new creation. Deep habits and cultural customs are now seen as deadly and enslaving. We take on a new identity shaped by Jesus.

Love that Embraces – The Heart of Transformation and Maturity
Jesus’ self-giving love in the Cross shows God’s deep love. It defines the New Person in God’s image. God’s image shows in compassion, humility, gentleness, giving Grace to each other.
Love embraces all these changes. Because it’s God’s life, it is the deepest maturity, perfection.

Thanksgiving – God’s Peace shaping our Actions and Experiences
The experience of this New Person brings peace, even in hard experiences. The message/ mystery of Christ feeds our hearts and heads on the deepest level with rich abundance.
We become people of gratitude, shaped into one body, embracing each other in thanksgiving.

Embracing the Mystery of Christ: Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge

Colossians 1:24-2:7

What is all of this about “Mystery”? 
Paul writes to Believers he’s never met, encouraging them to the fullness of life in Jesus. In a hymn Paul expressed its vast scope: First, all of physical/spiritual creation is embraced in Jesus as creator and incarnation. Then all of human experience, as he dies and, in God’s Fullness, brings new creation out of death to reconcile the universe to God in Jesus. 
This is a surprising, challenging event/narrative. Something pointed to but never fully seen before it became reality in Jesus, his life, teaching, crucifixion, resurrection, and meaning. It is “hidden” for ages as God’s Mystery (M, mysterion), his unique, unexpected way of embracing his creation. God’s kingdom should be glorious, overwhelming, not lowly, hidden, dying. But ironically that obscure, crucified Jesus brings God’s powerful, reconciling love to his whole world, both Jews and all nations, creating a new reality. 

Embraced in the Heart of the World: "In Him the Universe Holds Together"

Colossians 1:12-20

Letter to a New Church: Who are We, You and I? 
Paul is pacing up and down in prison (with Aristarchus, probably in Ephesus). He’s writing to believers he’s never met, a church taught by his co-worker Epaphras in the city of Colossae east of Ephesus, close to other cities of Hierapolis and Laodicea. Paul has been dealing with crises in Ephesus (2Cor 2:8-10) and in Corinth and Galatia. He is sending this letter to a Gentile community, by Tychicus (“Lucky”) and Onesimus (“Useful”), an escaped slave, now a believer, returning to Philemon, who is part of the community. A lot at stake. 
Paul could write some simple encouragements and instructions as an apostle. He does encourage and instruct, but there’s nothing superficial about Colossians.

A Living Faith in a Secular Age

Colossians 1:9-23

From Christendom to a Secular Age
We’re part of a society and world that is “Secular” – “God” may be important personally, but God in himself is not part of public discourse in government, culture, science, economics, technology, academics, education, social sciences, psychology, etc. It’s a radical change from 500 yrs ago – the demise of “Christendom” in Europe. [Charles Taylor, A Secular Age.]
Many Christians feel a loss– defeat, a desire to regain cultural and political power. But few want to undo the development of today’s world– Modernity. Renaissance, Enlightenment, end of feudal/clerical dominance, science, medicine(!), technological rationalism, political rights for individuals, human rights, diverse nation-states, innovative economies, freedom, democracy. But each word is complex, with a dark side. Materialism, loss of meaning.
 

Out of the Chaos into Christ

Colossians 3:1-25

The New Life in Christ
"So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth,  for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things--anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!"