Good things are happening – Part 1

‘Good things are happening’… That’s the tagline for this new series we’re starting today, a series looking into Paul’s letter to the Colossians. 

We’re at the start of this letter today, a letter that would have been encouraging and relevant to the context of the Colossian people, and is just as encouraging and relevant to us today. 

This letter has reminders of what Jesus has done for us, about growth in the gospel and Jesus’ dwelling with and in us, and warnings to avoid false teachers as well > those things would have hit home for the Colossian people in their place and time, and they hit home for us too.

But before we get into these ‘good things that are happening’ supposedly, first of all let’s start off by thinking of one bad thing that’s happening for us at the moment. Just one! Think of one thing, hold that thought, and we’ll pray about it a bit later…

The idea behind this tagline is NOT to ignore, avoid or discredit the bad things that are happening, there are bad things happening in the world around us, in our own personal lives as we’ve spoken about and prayed about a bit in the last few weeks.

But what God has to speak into bad things, what God has to say through Paul’s letter to the Colossians, what God has to say to you and me today and everyday > these are good things, good words from our God, who is with us in good times and bad.

So if we do a bit of a flyover of this passage, what good things can we see that might be happening?

Paul thanks God for the Colossians, the people he’s writing to.

He highlights their FAITH in Jesus and their LOVE for all God’s people, two things that ‘spring’ from HOPE. 

Then he writes about the ‘gospel bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world.’

Paul says he continually prays for the Colossians, that they would have KNOWLEDGE of God’s will, through the WISDOM and UNDERSTANDING that the Spirit gives, so they might have ENDURANCE and PATIENCE.

And he finishes this little section with a reminder that as God’s people the Colossians are RESCUED from the ‘dominion of darkness’ and brought into the ‘kingdom of the Son he loves,’ where they find two things: REDEMPTION and FORGIVENESS. 

So that’s a flyover of this passage, did you notice maybe a few key words in there??

Some key words that are signs of good things happening, good things that have happened and continue to happen?

Let me list them for you: FAITH. LOVE. HOPE. KNOWLEDGE. WISDOM. UNDERSTANDING. ENDURANCE. PATIENCE. RESCUED. REDEMPTION. FORGIVENESS. 

Quite a list there, 11 different words packed into this little section that point to good things happening. All things that we need, all things that we already have in Christ. If you were going ask God for a list of things, this is pretty much it! This is the good stuff, these are the things we desperately need, and the things we already have in Christ. 

If we remember that bad thing we just thought of, we might find some of these things pretty useful in dealing with that bad thing.

And if we consider the historical context of this letter – when it was written and who it was written to – we can learn a bit more about why Paul packs in so many important things into a short letter like this one…

Historically the relatively small town of Collosae and the surrounding local area was known to be a ‘haven for exotic spiritual pursuits,’ things like pagan cuts and mysterious religions were going on here. So that helps us understand why Paul is going hard on all these key words, and why he emphasizes his thankfulness for the faith and love of this group of Christians. He wants to help them stay protected against false teaching – as we’ll hear more about further on in this letter – equipping them with the truth of the gospel, how God works, who Jesus is. There’s a bit of urgency about it, maybe he’s quite concerned for their spiritual wellbeing and feels a strong need to help them out as best he can. 

There’s a direct parallel to our modern-day context today in this > 

I listen to a podcast made by a Canadian pastor called Carey Nieuwhof where he interviews other pastors and ministry workers and other professionals, and talks about all sorts of church and ministry-related things. In the episode I listened to last week they were talking about two key words that are important in our post-Covid, modern-day ministry context: They were CONTENT & COMMUNITY. 

They talked about how when they were growing up there was plenty of community around them, and content – as in information, learning, education – was harder to come by. Local community was really important, the people around you, and how much information and knowledge you had was dependent on what was going on in your local community. 

But today, it’s flipped around the other way >

Content is easy to come by, but community is the harder one to find. We are absolutely saturated with information through advertising, the media, all the things we come across on the internet, anyone can get anything in terms of information these days, and that didn’t used to be the case. 

The harder part today is not finding information, but finding community > people to do life with, to be connected to (if you want a bit more on that we spoke about that at the night service last month)

So the parallel here between the Colossian context and our modern-day context is that there are false teachers, there is misinformation, there is baseless, wild information out there. Sure there is good stuff out there too, but if we don’t how to discern between truth and fiction, between what’s worth our time and what’s not, we can get into all sorts of trouble because there is just so much information flying around, and it’s so easy to access.

And if we don’t have trusted community around us, we are unprotected against all that > if we just take in whatever comes our way, with no thought or conversation or healthy debate around it, we can become slaves to content who don’t have community. We don’t want to be slaves to community without content either, we need community around us to help us discern and understand what content we should be taking in, what’s useful and what’s not.

Most of all, we need God’s word! We need to get equipped with God’s word, the ultimate tool against false teaching, misinformation, baseless and wild stuff out there. 

Because in God’s word what do we find? Those 11 words I listed before: FAITH. LOVE. HOPE. KNOWLEDGE. WISDOM. UNDERSTANDING. ENDURANCE. PATIENCE. RESCUED. REDEMPTION. FORGIVENESS. And that’s just in this little passage today!

ALL OF THAT is ready and waiting for us to access in God’s word. None of that is our own work either, it’s all God’s work done for us and in us. 

So in a world, even our local area and our own lives where bad things might be happening, God still has good news for us. He has good things for us, he makes good things happen, good things are happening.

Here’s just a few of those good things:

Things like the committed and resilient faithfulness of this community, out of God’s relentless commitment and faithfulness to us, to his people.

Things like love being shown to people in need, acts of kindness and service, doing life together, praying for each other, all coming out of the overflowing love God has for us.

Things like the hope that we are not on our own, even at our worst times, we are never left alone by our God who is always with us, who hears our prayers and goes with us on the journey whatever comes.

Things like the knowledge, wisdom and understanding God seeks to give us through his word > that’s what it’s for! So we might have more knowledge, wisdom and understanding day by day.

Of course things like endurance and patience > don’t we know about those things in our walks of faith!

And we have three things that define our status in God’s eyes: we have been rescued from a life of slavery and given a life of freedom, we have been redeemed from our sin and made new creations in Christ, and we have been forgiven when we got it wrong, when we get it wrong and when we’re going to get it wrong in future.

I don’t know about you but I think there are some good things happening right there!

Lord we know you know what’s going on for us. We remember that one bad thing and we hand it over to you Lord. We ask for your will to be done, for your comfort and peace to be with us, and we ask for what we need as we face challenges and difficult times. 

We also thank you Lord that you make good things happen, that your presence with us alone is a very good thing we always have to lean on and be encouraged by, that we can talk openly to you – our own heavenly Father who hears us and cares for us, in our lives on earth and in eternity. All this we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.