In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of being a faithful minister of Christ. He discusses Paul's concern for the Colossian brethren and offers a prayer for them to be filled with God's wisdom and understanding. The speaker highlights the significance of genuine faith and the transformative power of the gospel. He also mentions the special messengers and advocates that God has chosen to serve within the believers. The sermon emphasizes the need for character development, increasing in knowledge of God, and being strengthened with God's power to be fruitful in every good work. The speaker concludes by emphasizing the transformative power of faith in Jesus Christ and the importance of believing in Him for eternal salvation.

Will you turn, please, to Colossians? I'm very glad you asked me, because it forced me to do something I'd planned to do for a long time and hadn't gotten to it, to prepare a series of messages on Colossians. Let's bow in prayer. Father, we thank Thee and we praise Thee for this time together, these days. As we come to this Thy Word, we ask that the Spirit of God, who indicted the message in the letter, who inspired Thy servant Paul, and is in us, bringing the life of the Lord Jesus, forgiveness and pardon to us, will also instruct us. It was said that when He is come, He will bring to you our remembrance of all things that were said by our Lord. And therefore we open our hearts to Thee. Thou hast given to us the Word written. We ask that it may become living in our experience. We may appropriate it, give us sensitivity to its message, and help us to relate that message to our day and time. In Jesus' name and for His sake, amen. Colossians was one of the prison epistles of the Apostle Paul. It was written while he was in Rome, in the Mamertine prison. It was delivered by Epaphras and two of those that were with Epaphras. Epaphras had been the founder of the church in Colossae. He also had probably been the one who founded the church at Laodicea, which was about six or seven miles further down the Lysos River. The Lysos River joined, some 15 miles away from Colossae, the Meander. The reason we use the word that something meanders is after the river. And the Lysos also meandered, though it wasn't the meander there. It went from east to west and it wound its way up to Heriopolis. And the other side of Heriopolis was Laodicea, about six miles across the river valley. One could see Heriopolis. And there were small tributaries that came, especially in the Heriopolis area, that were full of carbonate of lime. So much so that on almost the white cliffs of Dover in the Lysos Valley, because it was and still is to a degree that the water carried so much carbonate of lime that when it would hit twigs or grass, it would frost over. And then this would build up and the river would, after the little streams or springs, would have to find new outlets. And so it colored the area with this white carbonate of lime. The Lysos River was very frequently, or that little valley, a scene of tremendous earthquakes and occasionally volcanoes. But earthquakes at one time, so we're told by some of the ancient historians, Colossi deserved its name. Our word colossal is the same. But at the time of Paul, it had become a third-rate little town, Laodicea larger, probably Heriopolis still larger. The only thing that characterized Colossi was the fact that the verdure, the pasture around, was very good for sheep or goats. And there was a particularly fine breed of goats in the area, very fine wool. And they had a dark purple or blue dye. And so Colossi woolen goods was shipped very widely, and it was known somewhat for that. Apparently at one time there had been an earthen bridge across the Lysos River because the descriptions that we have in some of the ancient manuscripts tell about walking across from one side to the other on this bridge. But one of those earthquakes apparently did it in, and so at the time of Paul it was just a rather small village on the south side of the Lysos. Now, it's important to remember that this is in Asia Minor. The capital of Asia Minor, or this particular area in the time of the Romans, is in Ephesus. It's under Roman control, but it's totally under Greek influence. In fact, you don't understand the epistle to the Colossians until you understand that for, oh, approximately 350 years, a little longer maybe, Colossi and all of Asia Minor had been profoundly influenced by the teachings of Plato. And you have to go back to understand something of Plato in order to understand why it was necessary to write this little letter. Plato was born in a very wealthy and influential family. His father and his uncles were friends of Socrates, though Plato himself was somewhat younger and probably was correct when he described himself not as a student of Socrates, but Socrates was a friend of his family. And he spent some time, probably, when Socrates would have been visiting, but not nearly enough time to have gotten down all the dialogue that's recorded in the writings of Plato. Plato was a very ambitious man. At first he wanted to go into politics, and then he found that it was a rather rough game and that he couldn't, so to speak, stand the heat in the kitchen, and so he got out of the kitchen and, of course, became a philosopher. He spent a good bit of time down in Sicily. Now, one of the significant things about Plato is that, well, I think of Albert Hubbard, who in one of his little papers said that he was amazed how consistently that Shakespeare had plagiarized him in so many of the things that Albert Hubbard had said. Well, Albert Hubbard lived in the 19th century and, of course, William Shakespeare three or four hundred years before. Well, I'm afraid that was true of Mr. Plato. He might have been accused, well, I don't think plagiarizing. Plagiarizing would be to take it verbatim. Apparently he just enjoyed being an inventor. Somewhat like some of our friends in the East invent all the automobile and the electric light bulb and so on. We find these have all been duly invented, both in Russia and in America. And apparently Plato had somewhat of that proclivity of making some inventions that others may have invented. For instance, he doesn't tell us a great deal about his visit to Alexandria and to Egypt. In fact, he never mentions it. Others mention it and tell about the time he spent there, but he doesn't. However, when he comes back, he comes back with certain philosophical concepts that sound strangely like Moses. Though he never mentions the Pentateuch or Moses, he does incorporate some of the concepts into his writing. And in Egypt, of course, which was the commercial crossroads between Asia and Europe, he also would have met some of the teachers from India. Shintoist teachers would have been there. Buddhist teachers would have been there. And he doesn't acknowledge that either. So what you find is someone coming with ideas which we can trace and which others attribute to the fact that he did visit Alexandria and he visited with the dispersed Jews that were in Europe at the time, in Sicily, and of course in Greece in numbers, and in Asia Minor. So what comes out is a philosophy that smacks somewhat of mysticism and theosophy out of India, something of Mosaic law from dispersed Jews and so on. But what he comes up with is a philosophy which tells us something about him. For instance, in his writing, Phaedo, the argument that he presents is as follows. The philosopher's whole life has been spent in trying to liberate the soul. Now you listen carefully to the words. Liberate the soul from dependence on the body. In life, the body is always interfering with the soul's activity. Its appetites and passions interrupt our pursuit of wisdom and goodness. Its infirmities perpetually hinder our thinking. The philosophy that ultimately we have to attribute to Plato is, or the germ of it, is dualism. In its essence, dualism says that spirit is good, matter is bad. Now, here you hear it in this little excerpt from Phaedo, and we could multiply it ad ad nauseum, but there's no need to do it. It's just, this is enough. This tells you that Plato has, at this time, nearly 400 years before Christ, considered that the body is essentially bad, matter is essentially bad, and that spirit is good. And that the whole of the philosopher's life is to free himself from the confines, the prison of the body in the pursuit of wisdom. Now you say, well, how is that going to affect us? Well, in Colossians, the second chapter in the 21st verse, and you needn't turn to it, the philosophers that are assaulting the church of Colossae are saying, touch not, taste not, handle not. I remember being at a youth weekend, and I was one of the speakers, and another speaker took this 21st verse as his text, and to that group of two or three hundred young people, his text were touch not, taste not, handle not. He never finished it, which says that they are to perish with the using of this text in that fashion. He didn't understand it, he thought he was just giving good warnings to the young people. But basically, this grows out of the philosophy of Plato, which said all matter is bad, and spirit is good. Well, over a course of the time, down to the time of Paul, all of the elements of Gnosticism are already in place. The essential part of most of the concepts of what we call Gnosticism, that didn't really get into acknowledged conflict with the church until the second century after Christ, but by the time of Christ, even before the time of Christ, all the elements of Gnosticism were in existence and fully developed. And it all sprung out of the succession of students listening to Plato, and enlarging upon what Plato said, and then their students enlarging further, until you come to a very interesting system that is fully explained in the Gnostic writings, that God made man and the universe all spiritual. Then when man sinned, God imprisoned him in a body. And then he had to make a physical universe to accommodate a physical body. That's how a scripture says it, at all. But that's the teaching that was prevalent, rampant, in the time that is following the New Testament church in the second and in the third century. That's the teaching that's there. Namely that Demiurge, God made man spirit, and then urge caused man to sin, and then Demiurge imprisoned man in a body, and then, and so on. And so that gives rise to the asceticism. That gives rise to the stylites. You remember reading about them in church history? These fellows that said the body is bad, so they'd sit on the top of a broken pillar for the rest of their life? Just live up there? They were the first flagpole sitters. They were the devout and the spiritual. They would go up there and sit, put a rope down, get their food, through all kinds of weather. Then the flagellantes followed them. Flagellantes were these fatirs, these religious men that went around through Asia Minor, and carried with them the scourges similar to the one that had assaulted the back of our Lord. And they'd get a throng around them, and they'd whip themselves until they tore the flesh, bringing the body under, so to speak. These were the men, this was the philosophy that brought the monastery. This created the Essenes among the Jews and the monasteries and convents. It was this basic philosophy that matter is bad and spirit is good. Now, in Colossae, there were a group of dispersed Jews. First, they were strict Pharisees, on the one hand, and they had all of the festivals and all of the religious observances, including circumcision of the Jews, but they also had imbibed deeply of this Grecian dualism. So, when Christianity is planted in Colossae particularly, being the weakest community and probably having the less conspicuously fluent and intelligent and responsible people in the community, though, of course, we have to recognize that Philemon, who was a very wealthy and influential man, was a member of the church at Colossae. And so, but in apparently these, if they were Jewish and if they were of that background, had amalgamated Grecian philosophy with Jewish teaching, and now they're coming to the church at Colossae, and they're saying the sacrifice of Christ is not enough. The work of Christ atoned for your sin, but it has nothing to do with the world in which you live, because the world in which you live is controlled by God's ancient enemy. God's spirit is controlled by Satan. And the only way that you can be saved from these influences that the victory of Christ did not conquer is by following all of the ascetic rules, by observing all of the ritual, all the festivals, all the holy days, and by using intermediary angels to protect you. Now you can see the kind of, now you understand why when Epaphras, who's so concerned about this heresy, attacking this little group of believers, that he makes a special trip to Rome to talk about it. And Paul is so concerned that he writes this letter and sends Epaphras and two others who live out of the mouth of three witnesses. They can reinforce what Paul has said. There's no little thing. Why would he be so concerned? Well, why? Because God in His infinite knowledge had understood that in the second century and in the third century and thereafter, Gnosticism would curse the church. And the little epistle was written to deal with that in its seed form. But has it stopped? No, it's gone to the present. We still have, we still have around us, many, shall we say, great-great-grandchildren of Gnosticism that occur in a variety of forms and shapes. Have you had any young people in your community that have said, the establishment is bad, wealth is bad, money is bad, I'm going off and let my hair grow and live in a commune. What is it? Well, it's about what Socrates did and what Plato did. It's the same concept, matter is bad. And they've also said, well, now you've got to reserve this day and you've got to placate these angels and you've got to use these intermediaries between you and God. It's going back to the same root. So it behooves us to understand some things. The problem that was confronting the church at Colossae and also the answer given by the Holy Spirit, and that answer is applicable today. We rightly understand the epistle. It's going to arm us, it's going to provide us with the arguments we need. But you have to understand the context of the epistle in order to understand the effect of the epistle or the application of the epistle. If you pick it up, as I've done for so many years, I've been blessed by verses out of the Colossae, tremendously blessed. But there came a time a few years ago when I had to say, well look, I'm grateful for what the Lord is giving me out of the epistle, but I certainly am not approaching it on the basis of trying to understand why it was written and the problems to which it was addressed. And only if I do that am I going to get the full effect of the epistle. So these are the ideas. These heretics were saying Paul is the back number. Christianity, utterly inadequate. What you've got to have now is a whole lot more. Well, we haven't stopped hearing that. You're going to continue to hear it as long as you live. Somebody's going to come up with a new idea before next Sunday. I may not know about it, but the human mind is fertile and if the God of this world, who's blinded the minds of them which believe not, has sown the seed once, he's still got a packet of it left and he'll sow it somewhere else. And somebody's going to wake up in the morning and say, I had the greatest insight. And he'll start writing about it, and if he's clever enough, has enough personal charisma, he'll build a group. There will always be somebody that wants to be in when everybody else is going to be out. That's the easiest way to build a reputation in the religious world. Just put the cost high enough so that somebody can pay it, and then when they come in, they're in and everybody else is out. In the instant somebody looks and says, look at all you out, we're in. And there will be enough people down along the way that want to get into something that they'll join in. This has been the message by which heresies have been extended for centuries. But if we look to the epistle, the spirit of God is going to arm us so that when we meet such people, we can bring them back to the word of God, which will be the source of the spirit. And help clarify this, and perhaps even save some from those heretical dictures. Now look at the road. You know, the future says there's a highway there, and a way, and a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. On one side, you have total rejection of the world and the material and the wealth and all that's been as accoutrements of this funny thing we call civilization. We have that happening today among a lot of our young people. Then over on the other side, you have, there's not enough to believe. You've got to add to it. You've got to add circumstances and festivals and rituals and abstain from this and so on and on and on. That's the other ditch. Well, what they had in Palazzi was big ditches and small roads, narrow roads. And they almost joined in those ditches. So that they were almost viewed as being one and the same. But they weren't. There's always a road there. Now let's look at this for just briefly. I hope we can get down to verse 14 today. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ, which are at Colossae, grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice that there are in that first and second verses four words. Four words. This first portion that we have is introduction, that is 1 to 14, really, essentially it is. The first is salutation. And in this salutation there are four words that we can lift from it to give us yet to tell us. The first word is authority. Authority. On what authority does Paul write? Well, notice. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. He's not writing on his own. This isn't just a family letter. This isn't a tourist report. This isn't having a wonderful time which you will hear. This man is writing by the authority of God the Holy Ghost. An apostle by the will of God. But then notice his humility. Authority, yes, but humility. And Timothy, our brother. Timothy, of whom it was said by Paul, stir up the gypsum in you. Timothy, who needed to be told to take heed of the ministry. Timothy, this young man, is one of Paul's schoolteachers, you believe, in this, the Anthro-Seminary it is. For this is what disciples were taught. They acted and then they analyzed. They did and then they taught. And Timothy's with him until he was bought, an apostle by the will of God. And then he has a near fight with this young man and Timothy, our brother. Paul, how he will seem to delight to honor those that have made a commitment to Christ and share of our good. We are with this young associate. The next in his words that he chose is community in verse 2. To the saints and faithful brethren of Christ which are at Colossae. Now some of you have been here in time past when I've used in some Ephesians a similar verse as an opportunity to explain what the process is when God turns a cannibal into a Christian or a savage into a saint. And I refer you to some of those things which are probably here. I'd like to do it, but let it be suffice to say that a salvation is revelation. Salvation is revelation. It's not just a literal thing. When he says saints at Ephesus, saints for Colossae, faithful brethren, he's talking about the miracle. The miracle that was expressed when that Scottish man changed his name and took the one that's become famous for his great-grandson, Livingstone. And when it's been born of God and in his testimony he said, being born of God is like having a stone come to life. Takes no greater miracle to make a stone become throbbing warm flesh than to take someone's dead and trespass against him and make them a saint or a faithful brethren at Colossae. It's a miracle. And it's there in this that all the power of God that raised up Christ into death used and required for this work of turning us out of death into life in Christ. But then they were a community, saints and faithful brethren, and everyone that's in Christ has had the same work of Christ. Now then, in verse two, another word. We have authority and humility and community. The word simplicitates. All of this can be expressed in two words, grace and peace. Grace beyond human peace. But isn't it interesting? He never reverses the order. He never says peace and grace. You know why? Because there isn't any peace until there is death. That's why. It's grace and peace. If you've not experienced the grace of God, you know nothing about the peace of God. Grace and peace. Now, in verses three to eight, we have the true character of the Colossian believers as recognized by Christ. And through Christ by the Apostle. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in the Christ Jesus and of the love which you have for all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. There you have three more words, don't you? Which you can underline or write. Faith, love, and hope. Let me briefly say from previous visits with you that we have to distinguish between faith, faith, faith, and faith. Four kinds. I've talked to you about them, some of which you will remember. The first is tread faith, a mere intellectual assent to what is written. The second is death faith, an appropriation of rituals and taboos. And the third is devil's faith, an emotional response to the possibility of hell and the probable pleasures of heaven. And the fourth is heart faith, with a heart that can believe it unto righteousness. That's the faith that streams through the little keyhole of the door of grace back two thousand years and finds a rough Roman gibbet on a rude little hill outside of a sturdy Jewish city. And there is a man whose body is bruised and beaten till he's hardly recognizable as a man. And somehow, faith is what permits a modern, sophisticated, often intellectual, intelligent, least responsible citizen in the twentieth century to peer through that little keyhole two thousand years through time and sit on a Jewish man who's dying under Roman sentence on a Roman instrument of death who's hardly mentioned in secular history and somehow to believe that the death of that little-known person in history, as far as secular corroboration is concerned, is doing something that's going to change one's character for one's eternal destiny. Now to ask someone to exercise that fear by just an intellectual act is absurd. Luke sung it so often, I know not how this saving faith to me be given power or how believing in his word brought peace within my heart. But that's what faith is. Faith is that exercise of the total being that commits oneself to this person dying that death, believing that he died for the one who's peering through that little keyhole and that somehow by committing one's life to him, not only is their eternal destiny going to be changed, but their character and their life are going to be changed. So when we talk about faith in the Lord Jesus, you'll be certain that the apostle is not commending an intellectual offense or an appropriation of dead ritual and dogma or an emotional response. The only time for which he could give thanks would be a harsh faith that crazily united him to the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's involved in this word faith. And then love. You know basically the human heart. You've seen your own and you've read the scripture and you know that love for all things doesn't turn bright people naturally. Love that speaks for the greatest interest, best interest of oneself and others and the glory of God. That's not what I was or you were by nature. So when he says love for all things, he's talking about that can't-be-counterfeited hallmark of genuineness. Something God has done. He means the pagan worshippers in the temples of Diana or others of the age of minor brought it with regard. And he's saying something marvelous has taken place. Love which you have for all the saints, including the Jewish saints, including me, and then hope which is laid up for you in heaven whereof you've heard before the word of the truth of the gospel. So the essentials of the Christian life are here. Faith, love, and hope. And then we see next the progress of the gospel in which, which is stated, which is come unto you as it is in all the world and bringeth forth fruit of the stuff also in you since the day you heard of it and knew the grace of God in truth. The inherent fruitfulness of the gospel, where it is proclaimed, is going to bring forth fruit. Not in everybody, but in somebody. Where the gospel is lived and demonstrated and where the message is proclaimed, somebody is going to receive it. And then the next are the special messengers and advocates that God has selected to serve within. As you've also learned in the papalists, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ. How marvelous it is to realize that God has, today as before, faithful ministry of Christ. And wherever you are and whatever you're doing, as you will see in the third chapter, you are to see yourself in the role of a papalist as a faithful minister of Christ. Now, because the word minister is sort of a display, we're to view ourselves as born slaves of Christ. So this is the true character of the Colossian believers. Now, in verses 9 to 14, we have Paul's concern, or true concern, for the Colossian brethren. Because we have seen this evidence of God's supernatural grace and power, we then take a prayer. This is the fourth of the apostolic prayers and, in some respects, one of the most complete. For this cause, we also, since today we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all reason and spiritual understanding. Now, what is their problem? What's happening? These heretics are assaulting them and saying the work of Christ was not enough. And you have to add to it ritual, festival, abstinence of catechism, praying to angels, because Christ's work was not enough. So what's your prayer? That they might be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all reason and spiritual understanding. So what is he saying? That when we are assaulted by heresy, and all of us are to some degree at some time, we have access to wisdom and understanding and full knowledge of his will. You see, this prayer of Paul has got an echo of one who is described as our great high priest, who has an unchangeable priesthood that's continuous ever. And what? Paul is no longer praying for Galatians. Are you left without someone to pray for you? Ah, not so. Not so. Because at the right hand of the Father is the Lord Jesus Christ, who's our great high priest, and what is he praying for you? That you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. So when you're assaulted by heresy, you have that as the basis for your confidence in asking God for wisdom. It's all right to ask others. If I first went to Paul, but Paul says, you go to God as well, because he's going to give you wisdom that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will. Verse 9 then has Christian knowledge. Verse 10, Christian conduct. What's the result of being filled with the knowledge of his will? That we walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. We walk worthy of the Lord. Do you think they would have walked worthy of the Lord if they had gone as Gentile believers and submitted to circumcision? If they'd gone into all the peripheral ritual? If they'd have gone into all of the strange rituals that have been prescribed by the heresies? Not so. Not so. Not at all. So to walk worthy of the Lord, they're to be filled with the knowledge of his will. And how interesting it is that in our day, when we have so many challenges that come to us, we have the purpose of going to our great high priest and say, give me wisdom. Let me, I want to know for the knowledge of your will that I might walk worthy. In this situation. In this problem. In this difficulty. That we might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being truthful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. What have we here? We have Christian character. We are to be truthful in every good work. We are to increase in the knowledge of God. And we are to be strengthened with all might. That's pretty good, isn't it? That's the sort of thing I want. I need to. If you don't believe me, just ask my family. They know I need to. Be truthful in every good work. That I need to increase in the knowledge of God. And need to be strengthened with all might. According to his glorious power. Well, that's character. Characterize what you are when nobody's watching. Character is what you are when nobody could find out. Character is what you are when you're just alone with God. And so what he's talking about is that we could be truthful in every good work. Not just those that are being seen. But those which nobody sees. They're part of the every. Every good work. And then that we are to increase in the knowledge of God. Because the degree to which we walk in the light is that degree to which greater light is provided us. And then to be strengthened with all might. Oh, there was a day in my youth, young years, when that thrilled me. To be strengthened with all might. And I must say that I was inclined to put a period there. Because I had some very clear aspirations of what I would do if I was strengthened with all might. And I must say that I wasn't terribly excited about the rest of the verse. I could have made it much more appealing. I could have said lots of things, you know. Strengthened with all might under international fame and recognition. Oh, I could have really done some things with that. But if you take the verse, it sort of nips a lot of those things in the bud a little bit. And you're glad that you came in. You came in the right door. Which was, God be merciful to me, a sinner. And save me for Jesus' sake. Because now the possibility of being strengthened with all might is accompanied by the expression of that might. Listen to it. Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. Isn't that exciting? Patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. Isn't that really thrilling? Oh boy. Great stuff there. Well, isn't it? What's he saying? Look, Colossians, Colossian Christians, you are being assaulted. You are being attacked. The God of this world is trying to plant the seeds of a heresy that's going to corrupt the Church for centuries to come in you. And I'm praying that God is going to strengthen you with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. You're being tested. You're being tempted. I don't know where or how or what, but I know it's happening. Because you're still breathing. And as long as you're breathing, it's going to happen. At least you seem to be breathing. You will give almost a lot of evidence of it. And as long as you do, as long as you occasionally take nourishment, and you can catch yourself breathing now and then, you're in it. And you need to be strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. And you've been very longsuffering. We're going to quit in just a moment. In verses 12 to 14, we have Christian gratitude. Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us need to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life. We have a faith in God's family, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. We have protection from our foes, and in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins He hath provided redemption. So what is He saying to the Church of Colossians? Listen, I know you. I know what God's done in you. I know what He wants to do. I'm grateful for everything that's happened. But God isn't through with you yet. He's got a lot more to teach you, a lot more to do in you, but don't ever forget what's already done. You're in His family. You're a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in life. He's delivered you from your foes, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness. We don't need to go to angels to intercede for us. And we have redemption through His blood, and we don't need other sacrifices to add to it. Well, thank you, Father, for your words. May it find its way into some hearts and bring encouragement and prepare us for these following few Lord's days. And having read this little letter, it's a love letter from yourself. We have it to feed upon, to rest upon. Grant to us, Father, then, we ask thee, in Jesus' name, that we might, as the Colossian believers, be sensitive to everything that the Spirit of God would say to us through thy words. In the name and for the sake of our lovely Lord, we ask it and give thee thanks. Amen.