PRAYING FOR WISDOM
For a final time, at least in this series(!), let us pray as Paul prayed. This time, pay attention to what you are praying. Pray the prayer 3xs, slowly, allowing the Spirit draw you into particular words or phrases. Don’t be afraid to pause when he does. Let yourself begin to envision the prayer answered in your own life and the lives of those in your Gospel Community.
Father, will you fill me/my family/our Gospel Community with the knowledge of your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that each one of us might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Jesus, bearing fruit in every one of our good works and increasing in the knowledge of you, Father. May myself/my family/our Gospel Community be strengthened with all power, according to your glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, always giving thanks to you Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. Thank you, Father, for delivering each one of us from the domain of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of your beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. Amen.
GETTING INTO COLOSSIANS
Choose one of the following to do before working through the section below. If you have time, do both!
1. Watch The Bible Project’s video overview of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, which you can find here.
2. Using The Message translation, read Colossians 1-4.
REFLECTING ON TRUTH
The Colossian Christians are not too different than you and I. They were ones who had heard the gospel of Jesus and responded by following him. Like you and I, they recognized in Jesus someone and something necessary for life. Because they had responded to the good news of Jesus’ message with joyful obedience, Paul has written this letter. Paul knows by the testimony of their friend that “They are no longer spectators before God. They are no longer able to stand off to the side and talk about God.” They had, through their faith, in love, and with hope, found themselves in the middle of “the arena of God’s working love, his redeeming grace, and his delivering power.”
Paul also knows, as one who has given everything, including his freedom, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, for them and us to take full advantage of the inheritance we have received will require depth and diligence.
The depth that Paul encourages the Colossian saints to pursue is not secret knowledge accessed through mystical encounters or attained by an ascetic lifestyle; but rather, a permeating knowledge that (re)shapes the particulars of what it means to be and how we live as humans. There is no aspect of our human existence—difficulties, personalities, abundance, position, gender, relationships, economics, labor, emotions, desires, neighbors, society, etc.—that does not come under the loving and liberating lordship of Jesus Christ. The “mystery hidden for ages and generations” is now revealed to the saints as the mind-altering and vastly expansive reality “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
As Christians, we are called to explore the depths of this great mystery! That is why we have prayed the prayer above so often throughout this expedition. The spiritual wisdom and understanding we seek is for the truth of “Christ in us” to make its way down into every cell of our being and out into every way we relate to the people around us. As the Bible Project creators have said, “we are invited to live in the present as if the new creation arrived when Jesus rose from the dead,” and we rose with him. Our death and burial with Jesus symbolized in our baptism is a visual reminder of the God-drenched world and existence that we wake up to each morning.
Reflecting on Paul’s description of a Jesus flooded existence in Colossians, Pastor Eugene Peterson reminds you and me that,
Our thoughts, our acts, our feelings, our beginning and our end, our ambitions and our frustrations, our loves and our hates, our hopes and our fears—everything that a biographer or a medical doctor or a psychoanalyst could ever find out about us—all of this has been invaded by the fullness of God in the person of Christ…[Therefore] There’s no possibility of keeping him far off in the heavens or using his presence at our own convenience like we use the water from a faucet. He has flooded our existence, inundating us.
The question for you and I is, “having been raised with Christ” are we being diligent to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God”? Are we taking advantage of every opportunity, “making the best use of the time”?
USE THESE QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU PRAYERFULLY REFLECT INDIVIDUALLY AND/OR DISCUSS AS A DNA GROUP.
Think back over our time together in Colossians, in what specific way(s) have you been invited to live in the present new creation in Christ:
At home
At work
At School
In your Gospel Community
In your neighborhood
In our faith family…
What are some of the challenges you are facing in living out your relationships in the way of Jesus?
How can you help those in your Gospel Community (and other areas of your life) “reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”?
BE ZEALOUS & REPENT
Repenting is one of the most ordinary and extraordinary practices of our faith heritage. The stories and letters that ground our faith are replete with the exhortation to and examples of repentance. In a nutshell, repentance is the turning away from one thing and grabbing hold of something different. It is not merely the ceasing of action or attitude, but the replacement of what is let go with something completely other than what is released.
As you reflect on your answers to the questions above, offer this prayer adapted for Eugene Peterson. Be sure to be explicit of what you need to let go!