Dove Creek Bible Church's Podcast

In this text, we examine our attitude toward work and the workplace whether we are employers or employees. Just as our relationship with Christ transforms our families so too should our workplace be impacted.

In this text, Paul turns his attention to husbands and cautions them not to be harsh with their wives. The ancient world emphasized a husband's rights but the Bible emphasizes a husband's responsibility. For all the criticism leveled against Christianity's view of husband/wife relationships today in the first century, it was on the cutting edge.

Paul tells the wives to submit to their husbands in Colossians 3:18. What does he have in mind exactly? Is the husband supposed to make all the family decisions? What if a husband tells his wife to do something she considers unwise or unhealthy? What if a husband demeans his wife. Is a wife required to submit to a husband like that? In today's sermon, we discuss what Paul does and does not mean.

The church in Colossae had people around them suggesting that their place in God’s family was not secure. Paul counters this teaching by assuring this church that their identity and connection to God through Christ is rock solid…not only are they really children of God, but they are also planned for children. Furthermore, because of who they are they can act in certain ways...all they have to do is believe it.

Are people like Frosted Mini-Wheats? You know the cereal where one side of the mini-wheat is frosted with sugar and the other side is plain. Are you composed of two natures? Do you have a sweet side that wants to honor God and an unsweet side that wants to rebel against God? When I became a Christian did God add a new nature alongside my old nature thereby giving me two natures or did He get rid of the old nature when He gave me the new nature?

In what sense is our life now hidden in Christ? What does it mean that I died and Jesus is my life? These are the questions Paul answers in this text.

As Americans, we will fight for liberty over tyranny in almost every area of life save one - our Christian Liberty. In some misguided notion of “going along to get along,” we often allow legalists to infiltrate our churches and take them over. Whenever that happens the freedom we have in Christ is soon crushed. Someone has said, "Misery loves company" and that is the legalists' official motto. All legalists share two traits in common: They like to be in control. They like to make comparisons. And the way the legalist gets to be in control is by getting others involved in their game of making comparisons. Now typically when I preach on this topic of legalism I recite all of the absurdities by legalistic types that have been suggested as signs of true spirituality over the ages but there’s really no need for me to go into all that for we all know the sorts of things that have been long debated amongst Christians, particularly in more modern times…things like should Christians be teetotalers o

The heretics in Colosse spoke of hidden spiritual treasures which could only be revealed by deciphering cryptic codes, learning secret phrases, and undergoing elaborate rituals. This intrigued and appealed to some just like the serpent’s suggestion that God was hiding something from them intrigued and appealed to Adam and Eve. We have a certain curiosity about secrets and our pride is often seduced by the thought of becoming members of a secret society. We tend to like the feeling of knowing more than others and so the suggestion that there was more to know…that there were secrets hidden from the average person not only intrigued but tempted many to go off course. This is what Paul addresses today.

Some Christians have a dyslexic interpretation of one of Jesus’ final statements on the cross because they behave as if He didn’t say, “It is finished!”, but rather as though He had asked, “Is it finished?” Now the distinction could not be greater. You will live your life one way if you still wonder if it’s finished and you will live your life quite differently if you know beyond any doubt it is finished. Some in Colossae were being taken captive by philosophies that claimed nothing was finished in Christ and He was only part of a greater process. Jesus in their view was not the main thing that mattered in your spiritual development and life He was only one thing in a series of things that mattered. In this epistle, Paul will demonstrate that theological errors such as misunderstanding the sufficiency of Christ inevitably result in practical errors such as your trying to do more because Christ was somehow insufficient.

Any kind of deception has real consequences but spiritual consequences that can last for all of eternity. Paul’s concern today is that the church at Colossae avoids being taken captive by false human tradition-based philosophies.

The word "reconcile" is one of five keywords used in the New Testament to describe what happens at the time of salvation. The others are "justification, redemption, forgiveness, and adoption." Reconciliation is a relationship term. It brings to mind enemies who set aside their differences and become friends instead. The passage we study today, from verse 21 on through the end of the chapter, is a tremendous description of the process of the transformation that reconciles us to God and then motivates us to become reconcilers ourselves.

Imagine being the only disciple who did not get to see the risen Lord Jesus on Easter. While the other disciples are overjoyed and waxing eloquent about having spent time with Jesus you have no such point of reference. To him, Jesus is still crucified and buried. That disciple who missed out refuses to believe it unless he sees Jesus for himself. It's easy to believe what we see; however, Jesus pronounced a blessing on those who would believe without seeing.

So we see these pre-Gnostic sects believed in a supreme being, the need for salvation, and spirit beings, but they also believed that the brand of Christianity preached by Paul was a crude and primitive interpretation of spiritual reality. To counteract and neutralize such teaching Paul mentions seven unique characteristics of Christ, which fittingly qualify Him to have the preeminence. Paul says Jesus is: (1) the image of God (the most supreme being), (2) the Firstborn over Creation (he was preeminent over all created things rather than a part of the created order), (3) Creator of the universe, (4) Head of the church, (5) Firstborn from the dead, (6) the fullness of God, and (7) the Reconciler of all things…making this one of the most theologically rich passages concerning the deity of Christ found in the Bible.

We live at a time when much pressure is brought to bear upon churches to modify and modernize their traditional Christian beliefs and practices. Some churches bend to the pressure by way of cultural accommodation and appeasement so that their beliefs and practices blend rather than offend the dominant culture. They do this to stay relevant. This is known as syncretism (i.e. syncretism is the union or attempted blending of different systems of thought or belief). The major issue in the letter is the false teaching in the church, owing to a tangled mixture of religious errors coming from both Jewish and Greek religious influences.

The Rest of the Story was a Monday-through-Friday radio program originally hosted by Paul Harvey. Beginning as a part of his newscasts during the Second World War. The Rest of the Story consisted of stories presented as little-known or forgotten facts with some key elements of the story held back until the very end. The broadcasts always concluded with the tag line, "And now you know...the rest of the story." Today we get the rest of the story on Jacob’s family. This is sort of like what you often see at the end of some movies when they have these postscripts telling you what became of the characters. Well, that’s sort of what we’re going to do today as we take a jet tour through chapters 48-50.

Audio Issue***

Jacob and Esau are on a collision course as we have already observed. The question is…who is having a more difficult journey at this point as they approach one another? Esau, who must forgive the scheming conniving brother of his, or Jacob, the scheming conniver, who must be forgiven? Which is more difficult…to forgive or to be forgiven?

In today’s text, Jacob is suddenly met by a man he only later realizes is God who both cripples and blesses him. This event would be an important turning point in Jacob's life. The emphasis of the narrative is certainly on the wrestling, but its purpose was the changing of Jacob into Israel.