Final Greetings - Colossians 4:7-18

0:58I know for me, I really enjoyed the beginning of chapter 4. Continue steadfastly in prayer. This is in verse 2. Being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt. So that you may know how you ought to answer each person. That particularly stuck out to me because of how, in the beginning of the book, he's lifting up Christ, if you guys remember.

1:42He's exalting him and talking about how Christ is first over everything. That's in chapter one. And then in chapter two, he says how great of a struggle he has for the Colossians and for the neighboring cities, Laodicea and some others, that in those regions where they haven't seen Paul face to face, that Paul wants them to know Christ. He's just lifted up Christ. But now he's telling them he's struggling so that they can know Christ and be mature in that. He talks about how Christ has changed their identity, how they have died with Christ if they are believers, and been buried with Christ and been risen again with Christ, and how that changes everything about their identity. And then, if you remember, maybe I'm stealing all of your most impactful parts. But as you get to chapter three, if you remember, he takes a turn. He's been talking all of this doctrine. He's been lifting up the person of Christ and telling us all about Christ. But when he gets to chapter three, he takes a turn and gives us instructions with what we're supposed to do with that teaching. And first, he addresses our mind. He tells us, so if all these things are true, we need to fix our minds on Christ who's in heaven. Lift our minds to the things that are above. He tells us that we need to be. Done away with the stuff that belonged to the old man, and we need to put on the things that belong to the new man. He's told us as wives and husbands and children and fathers and slaves and masters, all of these different roles. He's told us how we can make Christ, who is first overall, how we can actually make him Lord of our life. What does that look like as a spouse? What does that look like as a parent or as a child? What does it look like for Christ to be Lord? If he is first over everything, what is it like for him to be Lord over our life? And then the part that I just read, he tells us how to join in his work. And I love that part because Paul is an astounding figure in church history, isn't he? And he's unique. None of us are going to have a ministry like Paul's, not even close, right? He had a global ministry. He was an apostle selected by the Lord to reach to the Gentiles. None of us are going to be directly part of that astounding work. But yet, in those ordinary instructions that he gives at the beginning of chapter 4, he still tells us how we can join in the work. He tells us to be praying. He tells the Colossians to be praying for him specifically. He tells them to walk in wisdom toward outsiders, to make the best use of time, to let your speech always be gracious. Seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. But those ordinary things, our speech, our wise walking, our prayers, those things that people like us can join in the work and get involved in this work. Today we'll see a lot more people. Paul is closing his letter. If you remember, the occasion for this letter was there's a man whose name starts with E. Anybody remember who this man was?

5:01Yeah, Epaphras. And he comes to Paul. And what's Epaphras's relationship to the Colossians? Does anybody remember? He brought them the gospel, right? Paul labored in Ephesus for a number of years. And Colosse was nearby that. So Paul could have gone up, but he didn't. He didn't go up to Colossae. He says he's never seen them face to face. So he's ministering in Ephesus, and presumably he met Epaphras there. And Epaphras is sent to where he's from in Colosse. And Epaphras is the one who shares the gospel with them. And now Epaphras has reported to Paul. Where is Paul right now as he's writing this letter?

5:52He's in jail, right? He's in jail. And Epaphras has come to them, come to him, reported about. The church in Colossi, and Paul is encouraged. You remember that the letter starts off rapid fire, that Paul is so excited about the faith that the Colossians have, and he's praying for them that they would grow in maturity. And he talks about how Epaphras has been struggling on their behalf as well. So, Paul is writing from prison. He's writing to a church that was founded by Epaphras, but he's also writing to a church that he loves. Even though he hasn't seen them face to face, he cares about their growth. He wants them to grow into maturity in Christ and learn Christ, in whom are hidden all the secrets of wisdom and knowledge. He wants them to grow.

6:50So, before we jump into studying these individual verses, I wanted to give us a little bit of a structure. It's probably not the most exciting outline you'll see, but I've got it on the board. I mean, the screen overhead. There we go. So, this is a structural outline, if you can read that font. So, it's broken down not by the doctrine that he's teaching in each part. It's not broken down by the practical instruction that he's teaching, like most of his letters are. This one is kind of broken down by who he's talking to or who he's talking about. So we'll see in verses 7 through 9 that he's talking about the messengers of the letter. Follow along with me.

7:38Chapter 4, verse 7. Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother and a faithful minister and a fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. And with him, Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you, they will tell you of everything that has taken place here. So Tychicus and Onesimus are going to Colossae from Rome, from prison where Paul lives. So these are the people carrying the letter, and they're also going to tell them all about the news. So that's the first part of our outline. The second part is a group of greetings of all the people that are with Paul that want to say hello to the Colossians. So that's in verses 10 through 14. And follow along as I read those, just so you can wrap your mind around this text. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you. And Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instruction. If he comes to you, welcome him. And Jesus, who is called Justice, these are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God. And they have been a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear you. Bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, greets you as does Demas. Okay, so that's the section where people with Paul are saying hello, greetings. We love you to the church in Colossae. Okay, the last section is our personal instructions and personal greetings from Paul to people in Colossi. See the difference there? So first is people with Paul to the church, and then it's Paul himself to random individuals. Not random, but different individuals in Colossae. Look at verse 15. Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea and to Nympha in the church and her house. And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of Laodicians, and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea. And say to Arcipus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you. So he has some instructions for the church. He has some instructions to specific individuals. He tells them to tell hello to specific individuals.

10:18Now, you'll notice that he's not stepping through these points of doctrine, right? This isn't like the first half of his letter, where he's teaching them all about Christ and all about these doctrines. And it's Not like the second half of the letter, where he's teaching them all these practical steps that are based off of those doctrines. And so, this outline, we wouldn't directly go and say, Okay, now how am I going to apply these things? Because when you look at this, maybe the application would only apply to a couple of us, like the first one, messengers of the letter. Make sure you always deliver your letters or something like that. We wouldn't do that, right? Some of us work in the postal service, but not all of us.

11:00But you wouldn't take something like this and just directly apply it. But what can we do tonight as we look at this text? What can we understand from this text? What can we learn from the Lord from this text? Why would we study this text? I think, first of all, we'd have to say, well, this is part of Scripture, right? That's the obvious answer, right? God has inspired this as well, and all scripture is profitable for us, and so we want to study it. We want to see what the apostle says to people. But another reason, and I hope that even tonight you can get excited about this reason. I hope that you can be eager to look into this, is that when we read a text like this, we are getting to look into the inner workings of Paul and his team. We get to see what is Is it that makes it that they're on Paul's team? What are they doing? What is he commending them for?

12:09Why is he giving them his blessing? We get to see models of faithfulness in all of these men and women, models of faithfulness that we get to copy. And honestly, as you go through, if you have Colossians ringing in your ears and some of the things that we've studied in Colossians, you'll see that a lot of these people are people who are just putting into action what Paul has already taught them. And we'll get to see some of those examples tonight. So I hope you're eager for that. You know, we, so often, the world, in America, at least, I don't know about other countries, but we are fixated sometimes on celebrities. And these, of course, aren't celebrities, but I think that America can want to know everything that's going on about a certain actor. You know, they want to know who he's marrying and how many kids he has and how many divorces has he had and everything that he does in the news. They want to know all about him. Or even athletes.

13:15The best athletes in the world are going to be copied by all the other athletes in the world, right? A football player is going to look into Tom Brady's diet or all these other athletes. What are they doing? How are they training? How can we copy them? And there's this eagerness to always know what's going on in their life. And I think that in somewhat of a similar way, we should have that same kind of eagerness. These are people who are standing side by side with Paul. These are people who Paul has approved of their character and approved of their work. They are obeying his commands. And not in a celebrity way, but in at least a way of saying, These are the people who are being faithful. I think we could say, How can we copy them as they copy the Lord?

14:04How can we copy their faithfulness? So we get the exciting privilege tonight of seeing some successful saints, seeing people that, by the grace of God, have joined in Paul's ministry and become faithful men and women. So pray with me before we start. Father, I pray that you would make us excited to read these verses. Sometimes in our personal reading, we just skim past these as having nothing to do with us, as having no importance. I pray, Lord, that we would have the opposite attitude.

14:45I pray, Lord, that even our passage tonight, that we would learn from it, that we would grow from it, that we would get to see some of these well-rounded characters of God. And that that would cause us to put these things into practice. I pray, God, that all of us would have attentive minds to your word, that we would grow and learn. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, to correspond with our structural outline, I've kind of summarized each part of what are some of the main summary qualities of these men and women that we could copy.

15:30And they are these. The first part, we're going to look at being dependable and being encouraging to the saints. If we want to copy them in the second part, we're going to be loving and hardworking, not just in our jobs. He's already talked about that to the slaves and the masters, but specifically hardworking for the saints and the believers, hardworking in spiritual things. And lastly, in the last part, we're going to see that if we want to be like them, then we're going to read scripture and we're going to be active in the church, be active in the faith. So let's start at verse 7. Tychicus will tell you all about my activities.

16:15He is a beloved brother and a faithful minister or servant and a fellow servant or slave in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose that you may know how we are. And that he may encourage your hearts. And with him, Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They will tell you of everything that has taken place here. So both of these names are names that we read elsewhere in Scripture associated with Paul. Does anybody remember either one of those names, Tychicus or Onesimus? Can you tell me where we know about it from?

16:57Where's it from? Right. Onesimus was a slave, and he ran away, and it seems like he became a believer and began to help Paul. And now Paul, probably in the same package, is sending a letter to the Colossians, but also to who? To whom? Philemon, right? His former master saying, Onesimus is going to come back, and if you want him to be your slave, he will be, but he is also a brother, and he's become useful to me. And so Onesimus is probably traveling back with Tychicus. Probably they're carrying the letter to Philemon and the letter to the Colossians, and maybe other letters as well. A letter to Laodicea. Anybody remember where we hear about Tychicus? One's a little more obscure. Right? He's in a couple other letters. We hear about him in.

18:00Titus, we hear about him also in Timothy. We also hear about him in the book of Acts. He's in Paul's band of men that are traveling around on the third missionary journey. And so we hear about Tychicus that he's involved in Paul's ministry fairly early on, before this letter would have been written. But then later, this is at the end of Titus. Tychicus seems to be someone that Paul relied on so much that he could give Titus a break where he was.

18:32It says this at the end of Titus, When I send Artemis or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, because I have decided to spend the winter there. And so we don't really know why he's saying that, but it seems like he's saying something like, I'm either going to send Artemis or Tychicus, and when they get there, you can leave. Maybe they're going to man your post or something, but you can leave to come visit me because I want you to come visit me, Titus. Even at the very end of Paul's writings that we have, we hear about others who have deserted Paul. You guys remember in 2 Timothy, Paul is listing some of the people who have deserted him, like Demas, who we'll read about in Colossians.

19:14But even though most have deserted him, Paul can still count on Tychicus. He's a faithful brother. In 2 Timothy 4:12, we hear that Paul has sent him to Ephesus. He's going to go work in Ephesus. And so he's listing these people who have deserted him. But then he says, Tychicus, I have sent to Ephesus. So Tychicus is still working for Paul. He's still helping his ministry. He's still dependable. Whether he's traveling with Paul or traveling to Titus or traveling to Ephesus or here traveling to deliver this letter to the Colossians, he's a dependable brother. He is faithful.

19:51And that's what we see in the text, right? Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother. So he says, I love him. I love him. He's a brother. He is faithful in his service. He's a faithful minister, a faithful servant. And he's a fellow slave in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. So if we were to copy Tychicus and Onesimus with him, and with him, Onesimus are faithful, he says that same word again, and beloved brother, who is one of you, they will tell you of everything that has taken place here. So Paul is counting on them to deliver the letter. He's counting on them to tell everything that Paul wants them to tell. Why do you think the Colossians would be curious to hear from about everything that's going on in Paul's life? Is it because he's a celebrity? What do you think?

21:00Yeah. Your well-being or your spirit, not the body. Right. I think. Right. It's exactly. I think they love him. I think they love him. And Paul has just heard this report from Epaphras who was sent to Paul from the Colossian church. And now Paul is sending someone back with this letter not only to encourage them with the letter, but to tell them everything so that they don't need to worry about Paul, who they love. So, if we were going to be like Tychicus, then we are going to be faithful. We're going to be dependable for the things of the Lord. What would that look like in some of our life? We're not delivering letters from the Apostle Paul, right?

21:49But if we're going to be dependable in the church, if we're going to be dependable in ministry, what would that look like if we were to apply that idea? Okay, I'll give you an answer. We all have different ministries in the church, right? God has put bodies together, local bodies together, so that we can edify one another and we can use our different gifts to build one another up. And I think that when we sign up for ministries, we can be dependable in those ministries. I think we can be faithful servants of the Lord, always working on his behalf, always recognizing him as our Lord.

22:31In being faithful slaves, faithful servants. The other thing I wanted us to notice in these verses is how Paul is going so much out of his way to encourage the Colossians. He says, verse 8, I sent him to you for this very purpose. So the reason why I'm sending this one of my right-hand men to you to travel such a long distance and come to you is that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. And so he's thoughtful about the Colossians. He loves them. He wants their heart to be encouraged. And I think that's another thing that we can copy, another application in these verses that we can see that he is working hard to make sure that their hearts are encouraged. And we'll see that again later in the passage. Any other commendable qualities that we could copy from these first two men or from Paul himself?

23:26Open letter? Yeah, an open letter? Yeah, and we're going to talk about that later. At the end, he's going to talk about the letter specifically. Yeah, just as I read about what he says about tickaches, it's almost like he's saying, you know, I can't come to you, but I'm sending tickachets in my place. He's bringing my letter, he brings my words. He's going to tell you, well, what I would be telling you, if I can come to you, he's going to tell you everything that's been going on with me. And I can't come to you and find out. About your circumstances, and encouraging the technicists to be able to do that. Yeah. It's almost like it's toxic. Right. So, what can you know?

24:12Minister means in Paul's bloodstream. Yeah. I think so. He is somebody who Paul loves, and he's sending them there to represent Paul, to be a minister when Paul can't leave, and to bless the people in Colossia. Let's move on to the next section. Be loving and be hardworking. We already saw the loving part a little bit, right? He keeps calling people. Whenever he introduces them, he keeps saying, I love him. This is my beloved brother. This is a brother that I love, that I'm sending to you. And so we already catch a little bit of that atmosphere, a little bit of that affection that he has for these other men. But look at verse 10: Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you. And Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instruction. If he comes to you, welcome him. And Jesus, who is called Justice, these are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God. And they have been a comfort to me.

25:26Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you. Always struggling on your behalf in his prayers that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, greets you as does Demas. Okay, so first couple of names: Aristarchus and Mark. Either one of those sound familiar mark, right? We do hear about Aristarchus. He also was involved with Paul on the third missionary journey, and he probably was with Paul in Ephesus. So he calls him his fellow prisoner. And he might mean that they were in prison together in Ephesus or on their travels or something like that. Or he could mean right now. He's saying, Aristarchus is in prison with me right now as I write this letter, and he tells you, hi. He greets you.

26:31So we don't know a lot about Aristarchus, but we know he's there and he's greeting the Colossians. Mark, we probably do know a lot about. Mark, can anybody tell me about Mark? Where we hear about Mark? You guys remember in the book of Acts? He does, yeah. And this might not be the same Mark. He's not described in the same way, but he is associated with Barnabas again. And it seems like the same Mark. And if you remember in Acts, Mark was traveling with Paul and Barnabas, but then he seems to, out of a timid spirit, have abandoned Paul and his ministry. And then Paul and Barnabas are about to set out again. And do you guys remember what happens?

27:21Mark's going to try and join them. And what happens? There's that disagreement, right? That sharp disagreement that Paul says, no, he can't come. He abandoned us. And Paul and Barnabas actually split up. I'm going to read to you from Acts 15, 35, if you wanted to turn there or just listen. Acts 15, 35. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also. And after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. So they're going to, on this next missionary journey, they're going to go back to all the places they went before and try and build up the churches, see how they are, preach the word to them. Verse 37. Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark.

28:16But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphilia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark. With him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. Okay, so Paul and Barnabas split up. They both sail off. Presumably, they're both going to go strengthen the churches and minister in different places. But they split up. And so there is this tension there between Paul and Mark, right? But what do we read in our text today? In our text today, he says, Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions, if he comes to you, welcome him. So he's not saying, okay, now we need to treat Mark like an apostate brother or something like that. We don't need to be mean to him. There wasn't a sharp disagreement because I just don't like the guy or something like that, right?

29:22He's just saying, if he abandoned the work before, why would we take him on the work again? And now he's saying, look, if Mark comes to you, believers in Colossi, welcome him. We hear about Mark later in 2 Timothy. Remember that last letter that I mentioned earlier. 2 Timothy 4, 11 through 12, he says, Luke alone is with me. He just talked about the people who have abandoned him. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. Tychicus, I have sent to Ephesus. So, Tychicus. That's the guy we just read about. But he says, Mark, and if this is the same Mark, now he's not just someone to be welcomed, he's someone that has become very useful for Paul's ministry. And he's telling Timothy to get Mark over here because I need his help. He's very useful to me.

30:20All of those ideas are what I tried to summarize by saying, be loving. If we're going to copy Paul in the way that he's got affection for all of these men, if he keeps saying, this is my brother and I love him, listen to what he says. He's going to tell you everything that's going on here. These brothers, they greet you because they love you. And not only that, you see this forgiveness of Mark and this love towards Mark and saying, when he comes, make sure you welcome him. Make sure you show him fellowship.

30:52He also says in verse 11, Jesus who is called justice. And so you remember that Iesus, Jesus, was a pretty common name, which probably would have been strange in that first century, right? If you become a Jesus worshipper, if you've started to follow Jesus and your name is Jesus, something like that. So maybe that's what happened with this guy. He started going by justice or something like that. But he is Jesus who is called justice. These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God. They have been a comfort to me. What do you think he's saying there?

31:34These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God. Yeah, converted Jews, right? He's saying these men, Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus, who is called Justice, they were Jews, and now they're on my team. They're ministering with me. They are part of this faithful ministry team. And so the people after are going to be who? If he just said, these are the only ones who are the Jews, who are the rest? The rest are going to be the Gentiles that are still helping Paul. And so he's just listed all the Jews that say hi, the Christian Jewish people that say hi. Now he's going to say the Gentile Christians who say hi. But it would also be perhaps finding, wouldn't he, that there are some Jews who are with him, even though he tried to kill them all? Yeah.

32:32Yeah, well, I think that we can certainly see that the good hand of the Lord was involved in Paul's ministry. That if he had such a special ministry to the Gentiles, that it wasn't only Gentiles who were involved, but he also had Jews with him. I think that that had to be a blessing to Paul. And these men... Seem to be a special comfort to him, right? He says, these are the only ones left that grew up a Jew like me, and they have been a comfort to me. They have been a comfort to me. You see that love, you see that affection, you see that friendship that they have again.

33:17I pray that for some of you, if you don't have that love for other brothers and sisters in the faith, I pray that you would grow in that. Maybe you're a new believer, or maybe you have often attended church but never gotten close to people or something like that. I pray that you could have those godly friendships and that affection. You see that it's spilling out of Paul. He says it left and right, that he loves so-and-so, that these men have been a comfort to him and how they all care about each other. They're trying to encourage the Colossians. And I pray that you have those kind of relationships in the church. I pray that you hunger for relationships like that and to be like that, to be loving and encouraging. We also see the second part of this section I summarized as being hardworking, mainly Epaphras.

34:10We'll see that he's hardworking in his prayers. He is struggling in his prayers for the Colossians. But he's also hardworking in the ministry. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured. In all the will of God. Isn't that amazing? That Epaphras has planted this church and has really become a conduit for Paul's ministry there in Colosse. Now he's reported to Paul, but even while he's gone, he is struggling in his prayers for them. When was the last time you struggled in your prayers for someone else, someone younger in the faith? that you worked hard for it. Let's see what he prayed for. Always struggling on your behalf in his prayers that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. So Epaphras is working hard. This toil that he's doing to pray for them is for two reasons listed here, that they would grow in maturity and that they would be assured, that they would know the truth and be sure of it. I think that is a special prayer that we can work hard for those that we, maybe in our family, or maybe some people that you mentor in the faith, some people that aren't quite as far along as you, you can be praying and struggling hard for them, that they would grow in maturity and grow in assurance.

35:43Verse 13, for I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. So it's not only Colosse, it's also these other cities that Epaphras is praying hard for and working hard for. He is spending all of his life. his toil doing these things. And I think that's a challenge to many of us, isn't it? To me, this was the most convicting part of this passage as I studied it this week. I think that many of us love the idea of hard work, and we work hard in our home, we work hard at our jobs, but then sometimes we can be very lazy towards things of the church. When instead we can work hard to make sure we're rested enough to come to a Sunday morning sermon and listen well. We can work hard during a sermon to be attentive. We can work hard to, when we come to the believers, instead of being lazy about who we're going to talk to or something, we can work hard to find ways to encourage our brothers and sisters. We can work hard at home to pray for our brothers and sisters. You get this picture that Epaphras didn't think that he should be lazy about the things of the Lord, but he's working hard. I think that can be convicting to all of us. Luke, the beloved physician, greets you, as does Demas. Where do we know those names from?

37:14Right. And Luke, right? So Luke, the beloved physician, remember, we see him in the book of Acts. He starts to travel with Paul. And in the portions where he's with Paul, you'll notice in the book of Acts that all the words are... Are we? We did this, we went here, we did this. And that's because Luke is with Paul and he's the one writing Acts. And then when he's not there, he's saying, Paul did this, and they did this. But Luke is the doctor, he's traveling with Paul and writing the gospel of Luke in the book of Acts. What do we know about Demas?

37:53It's not as exciting. 2 Timothy 2, chapter 4, verse 10, that we're safe. Right. Paul tells Timothy, 2 Timothy 4, verse 9, do your best to come to me soon. You remember, we spoke earlier, he's going to send Tychicus so that, oh no, that was Titus. Never mind. He says, do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. So we don't know about the other men. Maybe they were sent by Paul. He does say he sent one of them somewhere, but these men are gone, and Demas isn't just gone. He hasn't been sent by Paul. He has deserted Paul. Demas, who is in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. So later we hear that Demas has deserted, but here in this letter to the Colossians, Demas says hello. So Demas is still with Paul while he's in prison. He hasn't deserted him yet. He sends his greeting. All right. So I think the summary lesson of those verses could be to be loving and to be hardworking. We've already talked about some of the specific applications of those, but did you see any other commendable qualities in that section up through verse 14?

39:21Hardworking in prayer, hardworking for the church. He even says in verse 11 that these Jews were fellow workers for the kingdom of God. You get this picture of this co-workers. After he's just told us to join in this work by praying and living wisely before outsiders, he's talking about these co-workers who are working hard. And I think that is an example that we can follow. Look down at verse 15. This is our last section. Give my greetings. So now he's saying, here are some personal things that I want you to do. First, he wants them to give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea. That was a nearby city. Throughout the letter of Colossians, they keep getting mentioned together, Colossae and Laodicea, because they're close to each other and their ministries are tied together. Their churches are probably friends. Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea and to Nympha and the church in her house. So Nympha is a woman, and she was letting a church meet in her house. He's probably. Certainly not saying that she was the pastor of this church, but that she is being hospitable and letting this church meet in her house, either in Laodicea or Colosse. But he says, Tell hello, give my greetings to Nympha and the church in her house. And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodicians, and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea. So he's saying, yes, Colossians, this letter is written to you, but it's also meant to be read by other Christians.

41:07Not only that, but I have also written a letter to Laodicea. A lot of different Christians think that that's maybe Philemon or Ephesians or something like that. I think that we just don't have it anymore, that it wasn't part of Scripture for some reason. It was a different kind of letter. But he's telling them, I want you to trade letters. I want you to read each letter, each other's letters. Verse 17, and say to Arcipus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you. So in these verses, what do we learn about the church in that day? If you were just going to make observations in verses 15 through 17, what do you learn about the church? Local church is pretty correct.

42:01Right, there's local churches, maybe in these individual cities. They're interacting with each other. What else? They're in houses. At least one of them is in a house, right? So they're meeting in people's houses. They don't have church buildings. What else do we learn? They're supposed to pass the letters around. They're supposed to read the scriptures that Paul is writing, the letters that Paul is writing. Paul knew that he was writing with the authority of an apostle, and so he gives the command to make sure that they're reading this letter. What else?

42:37Can you tell anything about maybe what their services look like or their gatherings look like? I think at least part of it is they're reading the scriptures out loud, right? He's sending a letter to the church, and picture if we got a letter from Paul. And it came to the church mailbox, and Thomas picked it up. And so he had this letter here, and he was sitting here, and he is going to make sure that the church hears it. He's not going to, they don't have scanners, right? They can't send it out in an email or make quick copies or something like that. And so he's going to stand up in the church gathering and read this letter. Just read the letter to the Colossians and read the letter to the Laodiceans. So we get to learn a little bit about what church was like. Back then, they're meeting in houses. They're reading. The apostles' letters. Archippus, we don't know a lot about him, but he must have known what Paul meant, right? See that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. So he has had some task from the Lord, he's had some service that he's supposed to do in the church, and Paul is just reminding him: make sure you do this. We don't get to peek behind the curtain there, but it goes back to that idea of being faithful, like Tychicus, being faithful to accomplish their duties. Verse 18: Why would he write a greeting with his own hand? He says, I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Why would he say that?

44:11Some suspect that whatever born in the flesh was. Yeah, maybe. That maybe he had a problem with his eyes or something, and he couldn't write very well or he couldn't see very well to write. The letter was presumably, the rest of the letter was written by the hand of someone else. So Paul told them what to write, but at the end, he's going to sign his name. Maybe they have better handwriting. Maybe they can spell better. We have no idea. But the letter was probably dictated by Paul, written down by someone else, presumably checked over by Paul with the authority of an apostle. But at the end, he wants to write them his personal greeting. So he signs his name. Name. It says, I write this greeting with my own hand. He tells them to remember my chains. Why is he telling them to remember his chains?

45:13Yeah, who wants to be in prison, right? He's probably asking for prayer, asking them to remember and consider his persecution, things like that. Grace be with you. So it was difficult to summarize this last part, but I think clearly we can see that we have this responsibility to read the writings of the apostles, to read scriptures, to be committed to that, to circulating those things and reading it with each other, talking about it. The other one, I think, is just be active. And what I mean is, like Nympha, or like Arcipus, who has this ministry, or Nympha, who they're meeting in their house, you just get this picture that they're all involved in this ministry. I think that sometimes Christians, after you become a believer, your first reaction, and it's a good reaction, is to learn, learn, learn, learn, learn what you can from the scripture.

46:20But sometimes what that lends itself to is you come to church and you take kind of a back row seat and you never get active, but you see. That these godly men and women, they are active. They're involved in the ministry. They're helping Paul. They're being hospitable. They're completing the ministry that they're supposed to do. So I think that a tangential application that we could have is to get in the game and to be active, to not just be partakers in the church, but to be active servants, to be ministering to others. So we've seen a lot. We've seen so much that we can copy.

47:03So many things in these verses that if we were looking at these people and saying, okay, these are the people that Paul has surrounded himself with. These are the people that Paul, in his estimation, are putting into practice the things of this letter. We get to peek behind the curtain and say, okay, well, then what does their life look like? Some of them are being hospitable with their homes. Some of them are being faithful in their different ministries. We get to peek behind the curtain and see what they're like.

47:33I think that if you're like me, we apply a lot of these things in other areas of our life. If we were to look at these, yes, we like to be dependable at work. Or we like to be hardworking at our career. We like to be loving to our family. I think we can look at these qualities and kind of say, you know, Rah, rah, rah. You know, I'm going to be hardworking. I'm going to love my family, things like that.

48:08But I think that the convicting thing for many of us today is that what he's talking about is work in the church. Work among the body of believers. I'm not saying pastors. I'm not saying people who are Sunday school teachers, although those are certainly included. But I'm just saying, in your day-to-day encouragement of other believers, in the way you hang out with each other, are you seeking to comfort each other? Are you seeking to encourage one another? Are you seeking to show love to one another and have this affection that Paul has for his brothers in the faith? Are you seeking to be hardworking in your prayers for other believers? Are you seeking to be hardworking in your various ministries, no matter how large or how small in the church?

48:56I think that all of us can be convicted for those things. And that doesn't mean that we have to, you know, you guys remember in 1 Corinthians, he talks about how the different members of the body are fulfilling different functions, and some might not be as grand and as bold as others, right? But that doesn't make you any less of a body part. And so I think that all of us have areas in the church, areas among the believers that we can be hardworking, areas that we can be loving, people in the church that we can reach out to and form friendships with. Discuss scripture with and things like that. And so the question is: how do we change that mindset?

49:39Many of us like these things at home or at our career, but how do we change that mindset to get to the point where we are like these men and women? I think that if we go over this passage and we ask, okay, what's underlying these people's attitudes? What's underlying their motivation? I think that at least part of it, as I was thinking on this passage this week, is that there are two things that we should be persuaded of. If we want to get in the game, if we want to bless other people in the church, if we want to be doing things, even ordinary things, praying for other believers, walking wisely towards outsiders, and letting our speech be gracious, if we want to do those, how can we do those with the attitude that these men and women have? And I think the first one is to be persuaded that I am a part of a family.

50:36That these men and women that you're gathered with, even right now, even on Sunday morning, they are your church family. They are your brothers and sisters. You see how easily Paul is using this language of, they are my beloved brother. I love them. Accept them. They comfort me. I'm sending them to you so they can encourage your heart. You see the affection. There, you see the love that they have for one another. And I think that if we are truly persuaded that we are part of this tight-knit family as a local body of believers, that we are going to copy a lot of those things that we saw today. The second one is one that he repeated several times that we kind of skipped over, is he kept calling different men slaves of Christ Jesus. That's how Paul refers about himself at the beginning of some of his letters, that he is a slave of Christ Jesus. And you get this persuasion, this picture that these men and women knew that the Lord was their master, and specifically of the men that he mentions this, that the Lord is their master, and they are working hard. They're going to be faithful. They're going to be dependable. They're going to be hardworking because they have a master. And that master is the Lord Jesus. And they're viewing themselves as a servant. What can I do?

52:01How much can I do to serve the Lord, to be his slave? I think if we let those persuasions control our thoughts and impact the way we look at each other and impact the way that we are serving the Lord, I think that we will be like these godly men and women that we read about tonight. Pray with me. Father, I pray that you would help us have this attitude. I pray that if there are any here who are. Unbelievers, I pray that you would awaken their hearts to the glories of Christ Jesus. I pray that they would, through your word and through the ministry even of this church, through the sermon this morning as they keep thinking through it, I pray that they would abandon their unbelief and turn to Christ.

52:54And I pray that those of us who have, I pray that we would have that love and affection for one another that Paul has for other brothers and sisters in the faith. I pray that we would be eager to greet one another, that we would be eager to encourage one another, that we would be eager to serve one another. And I pray, Lord, that we would be eager to serve you. I pray, Lord, that you would get us out of this mindset where we only work hard in certain contexts in our life, where we only work hard at work. I pray that we would do that, and that would glorify you. But I also pray, Lord, that we would give time and effort to loving the people of God, that we wouldn't slip in and slip out, but that we would be people who are desperate to serve one another and bless one another, comfort each other, and encourage one another. I pray that we would be people who are desperate to serve you, to be people who are living in front of your eyes and living with the mindset that we are your servants. We are your slave, and we want to work hard for you. We want to see your purposes and your glory spread throughout the earth. We thank you, Lord, for this passage. We thank you for the letter to the Colossians. I pray that you'd help us remember the truth in it. In Jesus' name, amen.

54:21You're dismissed.