Love. Back in the sixties Burt Bacharach sang: What the world need now is love sweet love … The Beatles were singing All You Need is Love. The problem was then and still remains today that it’s one thing to sing about love, but quite another to live it.
In his prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21, Paul prays that God’s people be rooted and grounded in Christ’s love and so have the power to grasp the love of Christ, how high and deep is the love of Christ and to know the love of Christ… (Ephesians 3:18f).
In speaking of our experience of Christ’s love Paul mixes two metaphors: one from agriculture— rooted, and the other from construction— grounded. On the one hand, our experience of Christ’s love makes us like well-rooted trees, able to withstand droughts. On the other, like well-built houses, we are enabled by Christ’s love to withstand the hurricanes of life.
We can have an intellectual understanding of God’s love, but Paul prays not only that we know but also that we experience Christ’s love deep in our hearts.
In 1 John 4:10 we read: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. When John says ‘God is love’, he is not referring to some quasi-erotic ecstasy, but to Jesus dying on the cross.
In speaking of ‘love’ John chooses a rarely used word in the original language, a word that speaks of a love that is committed to making sacrifices, no matter the cost, for the good of others.
Paul uses the same word here as he prays that God’s people may feel in their hearts the deep love of the Son of God for us. God’s Son was willing, not just ‘to share in our human suffering on the cross’, as Greg Sheridan says (God is Good for You, Allen&Unwin: 2018, p.84), but rather to die in our place the death that we deserve. Drawing from the depth of his love for us, the most godly man who has ever lived chose to die for us in our god-forsakeness.
Sometimes it takes a sickness, a crisis, or a tragedy to awaken us to the reality of Christ’s love. Sometimes it’s not until we see houses, cars and the luxuries of the world for what they are – trinkets whose splendor is uncertain and fading – that we experience the heart of God’s love.
The power of God’s love. Paul knows that it is only when God’s power is at work in our lives that we really see what it meant for him to get into our skin and enter our world; what it cost for him to suffer and die in our place. And it is for this that he prays.
Early in the 19th century, Napoleon’s army opened prisons used in the Spanish Inquisition. They came across the remains of a prisoner in a dungeon deep underground. Bones hung limply from chains around the wrists and ankles. The prisoner had suffered a grim death, but he had left a witness. On the wall he had sketched a cross and written words at each corner. Written in Spanish they read at the top of the cross, ‘height’, at the bottom ‘depth’, on one side ‘length’, on the other side ‘breadth’. Even in his suffering this man had felt the impact of God’s love.
I want you to experience, Paul says, the power of the love of God, to feel in your hearts the reality of that love.
Significantly, he adds a caveat: That with all the saints you may have the power to grasp… God’s love.
Change. A personal experience of Christ’s love doesn’t tend come to lone ranger Christians. Rather, when we consider the kinds of people God saves by his grace, whose lives are transformed by Christ – the egocentric materialists and party-loving hedonists, the powerless and the impoverished, you and me – do we fall to our knees in humility, thankfulness and joy.
Sometimes we wonder how God can love some of these people because we ourselves find it hard to love them. And then it hits us that wonder of all wonders, God loves me.
Can this power change us? Can this power change our relationships with people around us? Can this power help us cope with the disappointments and frustrations of life?
Paul’s answer is very much ‘Yes’. God’s power can change us, direct us, enable us to say sorry, to say, ‘I forgive.’ This power of God, like the dynamite it is, can and does change this fallen, fragile life of ours.
It’s never fun to stand against current opinion. People laughed when Galileo insisted that gravity attracts all bodies with the same acceleration, regardless of weight. People derided Isaac Newton when he presented science that explained the laws of motion. People laughed at Moses when he said that God would bring the Hebrew people out from under the rule of Egypt.
Some three millennia ago, God’s people were on the edge of ancient Canaan. Twelve of their number reported on the prosperity of the land, but they were divided with respect to taking the land. Ten advised, ‘No!’ But two, Caleb and Joshua said, ‘yes’. ‘God is with us’.
The minority report was dismissed. Numbers 14:1-4 tells the sorry tale of Israel’s failure to trust God. We read: Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night.And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt!…
God had promised through Moses several times that they would inherit the land of Canaan. They had already experienced his miraculous interventions – in their release from Egyptian slavery and in his provision of food as they traveled. But now their hearts failed.
Absorbed with self-interest and self-pity, they spurned God’s love and compassion. Despite all he had done for them, they refused to listen and to trust him. They even wanted to stone their leaders – Moses and Aaron. We could understand if Moses had walked out. Instead, he prayed.
The Bible and Christian history is filled with scenes where a lack of true faith amongst professing believers can lead to vindictive acts. Acts 7 tells us that Stephen was stoned to death when he denounced the Jewish leadership for rejecting their Messiah.
Through the ages, faithful believers have encountered a similar vindictiveness from people who call themselves Christians but who lack a true faith in God. Lack of faith is more interested in what it thinks than in the truth. Human reason becomes the arbiter and determiner of truth.
God’s response in Moses’ day is chilling. He told Moses he would disinherit the people and start afresh – with Moses (Numbers 14:11-12). Moses might have found the offer attractive. Instead, he prayed a prayer that remains instructive for us today.
He reminded God that it was through his (God’s) initiative and power that the people had been freed from slavery (14:13). He spoke to God about his commitment to his promises (14:14). Furthermore, he pointed out that the Egyptians and the other nations would think that he (God) was incapable of fulfilling his promise. ‘ Lord, aren’t you a God of your word?’ he asked (Numb. 14:13-16).
At the heart of the prayer is Moses’ appeal to God’s unswerving love for his people. In 14:17 we read: “And now, therefore, let the power of the Lord be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying, ‘The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty,..
And in 14:19 we read: “Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now.”
Humbly but boldly Moses speaks directly to God. He reminds him of what he has promised, of his nature to forgive,and of his steadfast love. Moses understood that he could beg for God’s mercy because he knew God keeps his promises. Above all, he understood the mercy of God.
When we consider this prayer and God’s compassionate response, we can understand why Blaise Pascal, the 17th C French philosopher wrote: “God instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.”
We live under another, very different covenant from the one at the time of Moses. God doesn’t promise to give us land or material wealth, but he does hold out forgiveness and a future to the nations. We live in the age of God’s mercy. So, how should we pray?
Jesus now calls you and me to join him in his plan to reach people everywhere. At the heart of this is our prayer. If we don’t pray there is no reason for God to act in mercy – in our own lives or in the lives of people around us. If we don’t pray we can assume that God will simply leave people to their own devices and desires!
The prayers of each one of us can make a difference. Moses’ prayer made all the difference for his people. Jesus prayed, ‘Father forgive them,’ even as he gave his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. And, because Jesus is who he is, he continues to intercede for us.
So, do you trust that God will listen to your prayers? Do you believe your prayers can make a difference? How will you act on this?
Over recent Wednesdays, we have been considering Paul’s exhortations concerning the new lifestyle that God wants his people to adopt. We’ve touched on the themes of new life, forgiveness, peace, wives and husbands, parenting, children, work, and prayer.
Throughout these reflections, we have noted the importance of letting God’s Word and his Spirit teach us and shape our lives for his glory. We are no longer to live for ourselves but in the service of our Lord – looking to encourage and help the isolated and lonely and those who are hurting. Furthermore, we are to look for ways to introduce family and friends to the Lord Jesus.
It is important that we note Jesus’ words in his Sermon on the Mount: “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven“(Matthew 5:16).
And in 1 Peter 2:11-12 we read: Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Though Peter speaks of his readers, both slaves and free, as ‘resident aliens’ in this world, their lifestyle can draw others to God’s truth. Abstain from the sinful desires which wage war against your soul, he says.He has in mind our heart’s desires that are out of step with the Ten Commandments and Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount – lies, false-witness, anger, greed, theft, the lustful look, the adulterous relationship – anything that stands against the mind of God.
The way we live – the integrity of our lives, and the quality of our relationships – can open up gospel opportunities.
Paul writes in the same vein in Colossians 4:5: Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Jesus expects us to act wisely and graciously towards people we live and work with in our households and in the wider community.
Furthermore, Paul says: Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt… (Colossians 4:6a). He expects us to cultivate conversations that are kind and gracious but seasoned with salt – a metaphor for sparkling and interesting conversations that are not full of syrup but trigger questions about life. It’s worth working on ways to use news items, opinion columns, and books and films to spark such conversations.
Paul is exhorting us to cultivate the skill of having conversations that are kind and gracious, but that are also seasoned with salt; that is, conversations that are not just insipid and wimpish, but conversations that have a cutting edge. His reference to salt implies a sparkling, interesting, challenging brand of conversation that can lead to conversations about life and, in turn, to the gospel of Christ. Paul suggests that all of us will have opportunities to talk to others about God – his reality and relevance, his amazing love and incredible goodness. Our problem is that we don’t look for them, and if we do, we are afraid to venture into the territory of matters of faith and belief. We fear that we won’t know what to say, that others will ridicule us, that our words won’t work and that all we’ll do is kill associations and friendships.
It’s so important we think about ways we can introduce the subject of faith without being aggressive or offensive – for example, through a brief, casual, passing reference to your faith in everyday conversation. And when someone has raised a personal concern, ask them, ‘Would you like me to pray for you?’
Paul adds a sting in the tail when he writes: Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone (Colossians 4:6). Praying for and looking for opportunities to respond to genuine questions people ask about the nature of faith is something we overlook. It’s important we identify and learn how we might begin to respond to the five or so questions people ask about faith – suffering, science, New Testament authenticity, the resurrection, only one way, and good enough for God. Talk with your minister about this. It’s so important churches develop supportive and effective ways to reach people who do not know what to believe.
Over the (northern) summer you may want to pray and talk with friends at church about ways to introduce ‘God-talk’ naturally and easily into your conversations. Having a genuine interest in others and asking questions is a good way forward. Well-framed questions asked in the context of a normal, natural conversation can prevent the adversarial tone that often develops when spiritual matters are raised.
Can prayer change people – even though they are cynical or outright hostile towards matters of faith?
In Colossians 4:2-4 Paul the Apostle writes: Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving. At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word,…
Paul was in prison when he penned this letter. Significantly he doesn’t ask that God open the doors of his prison. Rather he asks that the doors of gospel opportunity might be opened.
Four themes stand out: Consistent prayer; Thanksgiving; ‘Open doors’; and Clarity.
Consistent prayer. Devote yourselves to prayer,… It is easy for us to be so busy with other things that we overlook the importance of prayer. The Acts of the Apostles reveals that the first followers of Jesus Christ were committed to prayer. Indeed, Luke 11:1 tells us that the disciples, observing Jesus’ own practice of prayer, asked him to teach them to pray. He taught them the prayer we know as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’.
It’s important to remember this, especially when our prayer life is dry. Significantly, the first word Jesus tells us to use is, “Father”. True prayer expresses a privileged relationship with the one God who is Lord of heaven and earth. Furthermore, Father implies that God delights to hear from us. He has done everything necessary for us to enjoy a special relationship with him, for he loves us far more than we ever dreamed. And this tells us something else: when we pray, our confidence is not in the act of praying. Rather our confidence is in the One to whom we pray.
That said, the need for Paul’s injunction may have arisen because the Colossians had become apathetic about prayer. They didn’t see its urgency or, like Jesus’ disciples on the eve of his crucifixion, they had gone to sleep instead of praying. Paul urges us not to give up praying. We may not feel that our prayers are being answered, but we mustn’t give up.’ The Bible consistently tells us that God promises to hear and to answer our prayers.
Thanksgiving. Furthermore, Paul twinsprayer and thanksgiving. His words, keep alert in it (prayer) with thanksgiving suggest that to reflect on the way God answers our prayers will evoke within us praise and thanksgiving. Paul exemplifies this in chapter 1 of his Letter where he thanks God for the Colossian Christians. As someone has commented, true prayer can’t exist without praise any more than praise can exist without prayer. The one feeds and fuels the other.
Open Doors. Furthermore, Paul requests prayer for God to open to us a door for the word. People don’t become believers by simply mixing with Christians. It is not something we catch – like the flu! Rather, because it involves a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we need to be introduced to him and this, Paul says, involves the prayer and testimony of others.
So we need to plead for God’s mercy, that he will send his Spirit to open deaf ears and blind eyes, and soften hard hearts. In his conversation with Nicodemus Jesus taught that no-one can enter God’s kingdom unless they are born from above through the work of God’s Spirit (John 3:3).
It’s a prayer we can expect God to answer. Yet, do we ask for God’s mercy towards our family and friends, our city and our nation? We need to remember James’ warning: You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (James 4:2-3).
Clarity. Paul also asks for prayer that wemay declare Christ’s mystery… and reveal itclearly, as I should. Western Christianity has been challenged by postmodernism and its outcomes – the movements dominated by self-interest, political correctness and anti-intellectualism. We should pray that the Lord will open doors of opportunity for us and enable us to speak his truth into our world with clarity.
Will God work our prayers into his plans? In an article, The Efficacy of Prayer, CS Lewis quotes the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal: ‘God instituted prayer in order to allow his creatures the dignity of causality’ The movement of thought in Colossians 4:3-4 assures us that God expects us to talk with him about others. He does include our prayers in his plans. It’s a part of the privileged partnership we enjoy with him. He seems often to wait for our prayers. We then see him act when we pray.
Prayer is a powerful tool, a potent force. Paul urged the Colossians to be steadfast in prayer. He understood that effective outreach begins with persevering prayer. Both Paul and Epaphras, the man who took God’s gospel to Colossae, prayed. Shouldn’t also we?
On recent Wednesdays, I have been asking what practical steps we can take to influence society positively and create opportunities to talk to others about God’s good news. Benjamin Kwashi, the archbishop of Jos in Northern Nigeria writes in the recent book, Reformation Anglicanism, ‘In much of the world today there are churches seemingly everywhere and very many Christians, yet with little positive impact on society’.
As I have said before, there’s something we can do now: we can play our part in our circles of influence – family, friends, and work. Over the last two Wednesdays, I have touched on Paul the Apostle’s words in Colossians 3 about marriage and family. Today we consider what he says about relations at work.
In Colossians 3:22-4:1 we read: Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality.Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
How are we to understand this? The reality is there has been a massive sea-change in the West since the first-century Roman world.
FF Bruce in his commentary on Colossians (Eerdmans: 1984, p.171) is helpful: ‘The household codes (of Colossians and Ephesians) do not give detailed advice for the complexities of modern industrialism… They embody basic and abiding Christian principles, which can be applied in changing social structures from time to time and from place to place’.
Furthermore, he comments: ‘The household codes did not set out to abolish or reshape existing social structures, but to christianize them. As far as slavery was concerned, it took a long time for the essential incompatibility of the institution with the ethic of the gospel, or indeed with the biblical doctrine of creation, to be properly assimilated by the general Christian consciousness’.
What then are the principles we can identify? Wholehearted service. Paul calls for a commitment from the ‘employed’ to do the work they are required to do. Using a word that he may have coined himself (literally, eye-service), he says that God’s people are not just to be people who work when they are observed. Work is to be done whole-heartedly, honestly and with no ulterior motives of self-promotion. God’s people are to work as serving, not so much their humanmasters, but their Master in heaven, the Lord Christ.
Furthermore, Paul notes (v.24), when we work as serving the Lord we will be rewarded with the inheritance of a good relationship with God. Inheritance here is not about earning salvation, but rather the reward of living as a friend of God and knowing that while we may not be rewarded as we deserve in this world, we will receive our due reward in heaven.
William Hendriksen in his Colossians (Banner of Truth: 1962, p.174), observes: ‘This was, accordingly, the most helpful advice anyone could ever have given a slave. Moreover, by means of his wholehearted cooperation with his master, rendering obedience to him in every way, and doing this while his master was fully aware of the fact that the service was being rendered by a Christian, the slave was promoting the cause and honor of his Lord. The master would begin to think, “If the Christian religion does this for slaves, it must be wonderful”’.
Integrity. We also need to keep in mind Paul’s words in v.25 which form a bridge between his words to ‘slaves’ and to ‘masters’ – thus applying to both: For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality. In God’s justice, wrongdoers – be they slaves or masters – will ultimately reap the outcome of any dishonesty. With God, there is no partiality.
We see a second set of principles in 4:1: Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly (literally, that which is just and that which is fair, to the slaves grant), for you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
Accountability. God’s people who are masters need to understand that in the same way that those under them are accountable to them, so they too are accountable to the Master in heaven. How true and timeless these words are. Whoever said the Bible is irrelevant?
So, to apply these principles in today’s world, we see that commitment to and responsibility in relationships between employees and employers are an essential part of our Christian living. For God’s people, the balance of selfless and responsible attitudes and actions should be evident in the workplace. Employees are to act responsibly and respectfully toward their employers. Employers are to be totally fair to their employees. When an employer forgets that there is a Lord in heaven, there is the recipe for ill-treated employees.
Wherever we are and whatever we are called to do, we should understand better than anyone else the responsibility, under God, that we have towards others. For we know we have a Lord in heaven.
Most of us long for a better world – a safer, happier and fairer world. But the question us, ‘How do we get there?’ Most people see a solution in politics or economics: change the leaders; fix the political and economic systems, the courts and the schools, and the world will be a far better place.
But will it? History is replete with the theories and experiences of various political and economic ideas. Capitalists and communists, monarchists and republicans, insist that their way will create a better world. But history shows that whatever the system, there’s still fraud, injustice, poverty, pillaging, sexual harassment, violence, greed, and war. The systems may change, the faces may come and go, but the scene remains much the same.
The problem is us. What makes the world a valley of tears is not the system, but people behaving in foolish and selfish, insensitive and brutal ways.
So what practical steps can we take to make the world better? Should we get active in politics, in the schools, in industry or in the courts? By all means, yes. But there’s something we can all do immediately: we can play our part in a circle of influence that is open to us all –family. This is one of the implications of Paul’s subject in Colossians 3:20-21.
There we read: Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord. Parents, (literally fathers), do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart.
In speaking of obedience in everything Paul has in mind a professing Christian family. He is not saying that children must obey their parents when there is conflict with the law of Christ. Paul expects Christian parents to know and practice God’s commandments and Jesus’ teaching. The relationship between parents and children is not simply a matter of kinship but is a relationship framed by God’s law of love and grounded in God’s truth.
As children grow up they are to come to understand the God-given authority of their parents. It is something they learn as they see the way their parents treat one another and live their own lives, teaching about and exemplifying their own relationship with God. Where parents forget that there is a Lord in heaven to whom they are accountable, there is the recipe for spoilt, neglected or ungovernable children.
Indeed, as Dick Lucas observes in his exposition of Colossians (IVP: 1980, p.162), ‘disobedient children are one of the more disagreeable and alarming signs of decay in a Christian culture. It means that biblical sanity is on the way out, and it is particularly distressing when it is propagated in the name of kindness and progress’.
At the same time, we must notice Paul’s injunction that parents are neither to tease and exasperate their children nor give way to their every whim. Rather, they need to treat their children with love and care, commitment and sensitivity, respecting their individuality but curbing their attempts to reject authority.
That said, Paul’s injunction that children are to obey their parents is not a life-long rule. The Fifth Commandment instructs God’s people to honor their parents. Obedience is enjoined during the growing years.
The first four of the Old Testament commandments address the question of our relationship with him. The second six address the relationships of neighbour love. It may surprise us to see that the first of the second set is about the relationship with parents. We might have expected the fifth to address our duty to the State – either to the Head of State or Prime Minister. But this is not the case. The first command concerning neighbor love involves our relationship to parents – to honor them.
From God’s perspective, the family needs to be at the heart of our human relationships. Loyalty to family comes second only to our relationship with God. Many who have had bad family experiences will feel uncomfortable at this, perhaps wanting to deny any responsibility to family. But whatever we may feel, we see throughout the Scriptures that God treats family seriously. Marriage and family are not a stage in the evolutionary development of society.
There are those who consider that human society is evolving from a primitive beginning to some future ideal. The Bible has a different view: it sees humanity as having fallen from an original ideal and being in danger of progressing to a future disaster. Jesus implies that family order is important for the wellbeing of society.
Dick Lucas observes that ‘home, not church’, is where children learn to serve God. He further comments that ‘in the Bible spoilt children rarely learn to serve the Lord’ (ibid, p.163). It is in the home that the foundations of future Christian service are laid.
None us can perfectly live out these words. However, God through the very grace that rescued us from our slavery to self, continues to work within us, changing us from one degree of glory to another, and giving us the inner resolve and power we so much need. And I suggest as this happens we will see others being drawn afresh to Christ, for people everywhere are searching for the truth which is found in Jesus Christ alone.
