Streams of Living Water

It has always, and always will be, tempting to look back and to live wishing that the good days would return. So you say, even to yourself if not out loud, “I wish it was like it was in the good old days”. The problem is that the good old days were not as good as we thought they were – time has erased the problems. Never is that more true of the way we view the early New Testament Church – a church which was exponentially growing but had all different kinds of problems. Were these the good old days, or were the days old, but no better than today? I want tonight to conclude our studies in the book of Colossians by looking at the church of the truly good old days – the early church and to compare it with the way we see Church today and perhaps to learn some lessons, both things to avoid and things to imitate. I want to see three things: first, it’s location, second, its leaders, and third, it’s everything.

[A] It’s Location (vs. 15-16)
One of the biggest mistakes we make in our Christian vocabulary is to call a building ‘the Church’. Buildings are never churches. The word ‘church’ is never used in the New Testament to talk of a designated building where worship takes place. And yet, by far the majority of times we use the word ‘church’, we are referring to a building. In vs. 15-16 Paul corrects our false views of what ‘church’ is and where ‘church’ meets. He makes three points:
1. Church is a Family – twice in the letter of Colossians, Paul calls those who are Christians ‘brothers’ – in 1:2 and 4:15. Although I don’t really go in for gender sensitive translations of the Bible, ‘brothers’ in the New Testament would seem not just to be talking about men, but women also. The point is that if we are Christians, then we are brothers in Christ. Look around you – those you sit beside are your family in the Lord. Every Lord’s Day you come together to meet your family. It doesn’t matter whether you meet in a cathedral or in a barn, as long as you are with your family, you are the Church. Before I went into the ministry, I worked in the South of England for a research company. My two brothers also lived in the South of England – one in London itself and the other in Swindon. When my parents would come to visit, sometimes the whole family would get together at my house, sometimes at one of my brothers. But it was still a family gathering regardless of where we were – as long as we were together. To have dug the heels in and said, “I’m not going to meet my family unless it’s in a particular place” would be to say that you love the place more than you love your family – wouldn’t it be ridiculous for someone to love bricks and mortar more than their brothers and sisters?
Likewise here, there is a modern danger where people say they want Christ but they don’t want the Church and they can be a Christian without ever coming to church. Again, isn’t that a ridiculous thing, for what person in their right mind says that they want to be a member of a family but they never want to meet any of their brothers and sisters? Church is about being a family – loving together and crying together and growing together. The more you give to your family, the more pain you’ll experience but the more joy you’ll experience also.
2. Church is a Common Calling – the word ‘church’ is taken from the Greek word ‘ecclesia’ which literally means ‘those called out of’. Before it was used by Christians, it was a word used to describe public assemblies where important decisions were made. The citizens of a particular Greek city would be called together to attend and to vote. The word was taken over by Christians to refer to their meetings. They were called out of. And so we, as the Church are those who have been called out of.
First, we see who has done the calling – it is God. God has called us together. We aren’t here first and foremost because we chose to be, but because God called us. We can choose to go to Sainsbury’s or Asda, but it’s God who ultimately chose to bring us together. In His infinite wisdom and love, He judges it best that His people do not live as little islands, but live in community with each other. The maker’s instructions for the Christian reads, ‘for optimum effectiveness, use in conjunction with other Christians’.
Second, we see that we are called ‘out of’. God has called us to be Christians and to live together as His family. He has called us not to find our family security and worth in the world, but to find it in the company of other believers. Fundamentally, the Church is the embassy of heaven on earth – those who live in the embassy are citizens of another country, we are citizens of heaven, not of earth. We have a common citizenship and a common destiny.
God has called us together – who then are we to deny Him His call and to think that we know better than He? God has called us out of the world to be citizens of a better country – why then would we want to hold dual citizenship?
3. Church Locations are indifferent – when we think of Church, we too often think of ornate buildings – modern day temples replete with pews, pulpits and precentor’s boxes. But look very carefully at how Paul words the last clause of vs. 15 – ‘to Nympha and the church in her house’. The church isn’t her house, it only meets in her house – not ‘the church which is her house’, but ‘the church in her house’. Paul isn’t greeting bricks and stone here, he’s greeting real people. The church is the people, not the building – on this occasion, it just happens to meet in her house. We must realise that the early church met in homes and houses – it didn’t need great edifices in order to grow. It can be so tempting to think that we exist to maintain great buildings, or without buildings we cannot possibly grow the church – but that wasn’t a problem for the early church. All their resources went on mission, not on buildings. Perhaps that’s why they grew so quickly. Have we made idols of our buildings?
But notice also, how, in the book of Colossians, the word ‘church’ is used. In 4:15 Paul talks of a particular congregation which meet in the house of Nympha. This is the local church – the local congregation. We are an example of such a congregation. Then, in 4:16 Paul uses the phrase ‘the church of the Laodiceans’. Loadicea was the next city along from Colossae. It would seem highly likely that Nympha’s house church was in Laodicea – but presumably there was more than one house church there. So the word ‘church’ is being used to talk of a group of congregations in a city or region – what we would call a presbytery. This presbytery is to be governed by the same apostolic teaching – Paul’s letter to the Colossians was to be read in Loadicea, and his letter to the Laodiceans, which God has chosen not to preserve, is to be read in Colossae. Apostolic teaching is to be observed everywhere. Then, in 1:18 it is used to describe the body of Christ – every believer is a member of Christ’s body. The Church is universal. Nowhere does the Church mean a building. It either means a local congregation, a group of congregations within a district, or the universal body of Christ. Where an individual congregation meets is largely indifferent.
The largest reformed Presbyterian Church in New York was founded only some 20 years ago by an extra-ordinary church planter called Tim Keller. The only buildings it owns are an administrative block in a high rise. It rents its auditorium for Sunday worship. During the week, people meet for discipleship and prayer in each other’s homes. I wonder whether one reason the Church in Scotland has so declined is that we have ploughed so much money into buildings rather than the mission of the church. Hundreds of ‘church’ buildings over our city are now carpet warehouses, nightclubs and apartments. The people who built these ‘churches’ ploughed their money into bricks and mortar – and very little was left for mission. Their money is gone and, in my view, largely wasted. Even today, the Church in China is growing exponentially with no buildings except each other’s houses.
Let’s not us make idols of our buildings, but let’s make an idol of Christ and His Gospel and let everything else be subservient to Him!
[C] It’s Leaders (vs. 17-18a)
There are three people mentioned in these closing verses: Nympha, Archippus and Paul. I don’t really want to say too much about Nympha, since we really don’t know that much about her. But what we do know is that she opened out her home so that the church could meet there. Perhaps she couldn’t preach or be one of the great apostles, but she did what she could with what she had – she opened out her home and put up with the lack of privacy. Her home wasn’t her castle – rather, she used it for the good of the Kingdom. Perhaps the lesson from Nympha is this: what use are we making of our home? Is it a mission station or a castle? Are we using it to further the Kingdom of God? Given that she was an owner of what was probably quite a substantial property, this also tells us that she was probably wealthy – and yet, she took her wealth and her home and laid them at the feet of the master. Not every Christian in the early Church was poor, but those with wealth and property weren’t tight-fisted, but open and generous.
But the two people I want to focus on as leaders of the church are Archippus and Paul.
a. Archippus – It is commonly understood that Archippus was the son of Philemon and his wife Apphia. It is also understood that Archippus was the pastor of the church at Laodicea. Having spent time with Paul as his fellow soldier, according to Philemon 1:2, he is now settled as the pastor of the church in the next city along the river from Colossae. And Paul commands him in this setting to ‘see that you fulfil the ministry that you have received in the Lord’. I want to see three things about this command Paul gives:
(i) Archippus has received a ministry – Paul tells Archippus that he has received a ministry in and from the Lord. It is not something Archippus has merely trained for, nor something Archippus was naturally good at, but something Archippus was given by the Lord. I’m not saying that he didn’t want to do it and had no desire for it, but the important thing is that he received it from God. Each of us have received a ministry from God, a particular sphere where God wants us to serve. Likewise, God has given each one of us a unique set of gifts suitable for the area in which He calls us to serve. It’s not only the ‘minister’ who has a ‘ministry’. Archippus has been called to be a pastor; given that ministry by God. How we need to remember that in difficult days, when the going is rough – when internal and external pressures are weighing down on us and we feel like giving up – we have received this ministry from the Lord. The other aspect of this ministry is that Archippus has received it in the Lord. It is not up to Archippus to decide whether to end that ministry or not – it is up to God. Archippus is accountable to God for his ministry. Have we reckoned with that – that God will hold us accountable for what we have done with the ministry He has given us?
(ii) Archippus is to fulfil that ministry – having received this ministry from the Lord, Archippus is to fulfil it. The word ‘to fulfil’ unsurprisingly comes from the word ‘to fill’. The message is clear, Archippus is to fill himself with the ministry God has given him. It can’t just be a job like any other which he can do 9 to 5 and then forget about the rest of the time. Rather, he must pour himself into what he is doing. Occupational stress is a major hazard in the ministry because the minister must pour 100% of himself into what he does. And furthermore, he is to fulfil the ministry God has given him, not the one he wants for himself. He must work in certain directions, doing certain things – preaching the beautiful Gospel of Jesus Christ, countering error and loving his people. And, at the end of the day, wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to look back, as Paul did later on in life, and say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race” – to realise that all the stress and strain was worth it just so that you may fulfil the ministry God has given you – however uncomfortable or inconvenient it may be to you?
(iii) The Church is to remind Archippus of his ministry – we don’t know whether Archippus had grown lazy in the work God had given him to do, or whether he was discouraged or had been brow beaten by the false teachers, but Paul is here in vs. 17 tells the Church to remind Archippus to fulfil the ministry God had given him. The church had a role in the ministry – it was their responsibility to encourage and to spur their minister on – to remind him that he had received this ministry in the Lord, and to remember to pour his whole heart into what God had given him to do. We, therefore, have a responsibility to remind our ministers that God has given them this ministry and that they are not to lose heart, but rather to pour themselves into their work in the Lord. Likewise, for all of us, because all of us have ministries of one type or another, we are to encourage one another to keep going. So please, from time to time, tell your ministers that they have received their ministries from the Lord and that they need to keep going and not to lose heart.
We don’t really know whether Archippus obeyed Paul or not, but we have the command of the apostle himself and whether he obeyed or not is neither here nor there to whether we obey or not. We have the command of God to fulfil the ministry of the Gospel and with God’s help and the Spirit’s enabling, we must set ourselves to fight as a soldier of the Kingdom of God.
b. Paul – Paul, the outstanding intellect of the Western world, ends the epistle to the Colossians with his own greetings. “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains.” We learn two things about Paul from these words: first, Paul clearly felt very deeply for the Colossians, so much so that he takes pen to paper to write these specific greetings. Someone else, probably one of the missionary band listed in 4:7-14 has written the body of the letter, but now Paul writes the words of vs. 18. Just like any loving pastor, he wants them to know that he cares about them and is enthusiastic about them. Every year we always get loads of typed letters with Christmas cards. That’s great, but nothing beats a handwritten letter to show just how much you care. And Paul here wants them to know he loves them so goes out of his way to write them this greeting in his own hand. For Paul, the ministry was not just a duty, but a delight – loving his people and suffering on behalf of his people, for he says to them, ‘remember my chains’. Paul is in prison for preaching the Gospel. That’s the second thing we learn about Paul from these words – he is in prison while he writes this letter to them – in prison for preaching. Will the Colossians step up to be counted – will they also be prepared to suffer for Christ? Not just the inconvenience of opening up their houses with the resultant lack of privacy, but will they be prepared to follow his example in being prepared to lose everything? Are we? A few years after this letter was written, the Roman Emperor Nero began a worldwide pogrom of persecution against Christians. Thousands were murdered. This pattern was to continue for hundreds of years where to become a Christian was to sign your own death sentence. Are we prepared to suffer for being a Christian, or have we become too comfortable? But, I suppose, by commanding them to remember his chains, Paul is asking for prayer – he wants them to pray for him that he will be strengthened to cope with the providence God has put in his way and that even he may be released. Do we pray also for our leaders and pastors?
So you have the two leaders – one who has perhaps grown lazy and needs to be reminded of his calling, and the other who because of his love for the Gospel and his love for God’s people is suffering. Which of these two leaders are we like? By God’s grace, let it be Paul!
[D] It’s Everything (vs. 18b)
Paul began the letter to the Colossians with the phrase, “grace and peace to you”; he now ends it by saying, “grace be with you”. It is perhaps most appropriate, given the particular difficulties of the Church in Colossae, that Paul begins and ends with the grace of God. The false teachers had polluted the churches atmosphere with their works-based religion composed of supernatural knowledge and obedience to the Jewish law. By contrast, Paul has pointed out that from beginning to end, our salvation is all about the grace of God in Christ. It is this point I want to close our studies in Colossians by emphasising – the Church of God is to be the epitome, the demonstration to a watching world, of the grace of God. We owe everything to His grace upon undeserving sinners such as we are. The grace of God is, therefore, the central pivot of what our church should be about. That grace works in three ways in the church:
1. It’s Reason for Existence – the Church is the bride of Christ, purified and sanctified by the finished work of Christ on the cross. We aren’t the Church because we’ve reached a certain standard in and of ourselves, we are the Church because Christ loved us and gave Himself for us. The supreme Christ of Colossians 1 has won the supreme salvation of Colossians 2 for us, that by grace we are saved. We exist not as a bastion of the self-made man, but as a bastion of the grace of God.
2. It’s Strength for Life – all too often, we portray ourselves as somehow super-human – those who need nothing and never suffer. We pretend that we are self-made and self-sustaining. The reality is very different – the reality is that we depend upon the grace of God in Christ for everything. We, in and of ourselves, do not have what it takes to run the race, let alone finish it. We need Christ. Paul often talks of himself as ‘agonizing’ – not the language of shiny, happy people. In this church, we sing the psalms, songs replete with the cries of a struggling believer in God pleading for strength and understanding. The grace of God, therefore, forms the beginning, middle and end of the Christian life – depending upon the strength of the Holy Spirit day by day, minute by minute for everything.
3. It’s Message to the World – What is the Gospel we preach – not surely the bad news that we must try harder and if we do enough good things in life, God will save us? No – we must preach the grace of God in Christ, that God saves the sinner through the death of Christ – that by the shed blood of Christ the foulest of sinners can be cleansed and purified –that there is hope in God for everyone who will believe and trust in Him. Are we getting that message out? Are we getting it out in our homes, our workplaces, our neighbourhoods and our communities – that the Christ who saved us can save others too? This world tires us out with its standards and rules of acceptance – can we point our family and friends to the Christ who releases us from the tyranny of this world?
The book of Colossians is a roller-coaster ride, taking us from the depths of despair and immorality to the heights of heaven and purity, from false teachers to the absolute supremacy of Christ Jesus. I hope we have all learned many things from studying its teaching, but more than anything else, I hope that we have been drawn into worship by studying the Christ of whom Colossians speaks. Let’s worship Him with our voices and let’s worship Him with our lives! But if you have not trusted in Christ Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, there isn’t much more that can be said than has already been said. You have all the information you need – the supremacy of Christ and His way of salvation. Even now, before the harvest season of the Gospel is reached, bend your heart beneath the loving scythe of Jesus – bow the knee to Him and ask Him to be your Christ, and then you too will exult in eternity with all those who will see their exalted Saviour, the one in whom God dwells in bodily form, face to face. AMEN