Walking Through The Epistles - Colossians 1 (part 1) by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Background: Who Wrote to Whom, and Why

Colossians was written between 60–62 AD — approximately 27 years after the death of Jesus — during Paul's first Roman imprisonment, documented in Acts 28:16-31. It belongs to the prison epistles alongside Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon, all written around the same period.

Colossae was a multicultural city home to Greek, Persian, and Jewish populations, which made it fertile ground for religious syncretism and false teaching. It had two neighboring cities: Laodicea (11 miles west) and Hierapolis (13 miles northwest). The letter was addressed to all three churches. Colossians 4:16 — When this epistle is read among you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans.

Paul did not plant this church personally. Colossians 2:1 makes clear he had never met them face to face. The church was planted by Epaphras, a native of Colossae (Colossians 4:12) and very likely a convert from Paul's two-to-three-year ministry in Ephesus (Acts 19:10), where the word spread to all of Asia. Epaphras carried the gospel back to his home region. Paul affirms this in Colossians 1:7, calling him our dear fellow servant and faithful minister of Christ on your behalf.

Epaphras had traveled to Rome to report to Paul on the church's condition. The report was mixed. The church was doing well in faith and love, but a dangerous false teaching had entered — a heresy that combined four elements:

• Jewish legalism — Colossians 2:16: pressure around circumcision, food laws, festivals, Sabbaths
• Greek philosophy — Colossians 2:8: deceptive philosophy and empty deceit according to the traditions of men
• Angel worship — Colossians 2:18: mystical visionary experiences, portals, angelic encounters as spiritual authority
• Heavy self-denial — Colossians 2:20-23: do not touch, do not taste, do not handle — things which have the appearance of wisdom but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. They can actually inflame pride rather than killing it.

Just 27 years after Jesus died, every one of these errors had already entered the church. The yoke of legalism in particular is deeply rooted. It is ironic that the law is hard — but that is precisely what people gravitate toward. Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation — because the gospel makes you powerless in yourself and dependent on Christ.

Paul's Two-Part Answer: Preeminence and All-Sufficiency

Paul's response in Colossians 1 operates on two tracks:

1. The preeminence of Christ — Christ is above all things, before all things, and in him all things consist
2. The all-sufficiency of Christ — in Christ we are complete. Nothing needs to be added. Not Christ plus fasting. Not Christ plus philosophy. Christ — and everything stems from Christ.

See Colossians 2:10 — you are complete in him.

Verse 1–2: Saints — A Positional Reality

Paul opens: To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colossae.

Saints means set-apart ones. This is positional, not moral. Were there problems in the church? Were they drifting into error? Yes. But Paul still called them saints. Why? Because sainthood is not determined by performance — it is determined by location. To the saints... in Christ. They are saints because they are in Christ.

Even while correcting them, Paul did not doubt their salvation. This matters: you can see a saved person with an addiction. You can see a saved person behaving badly. It does not mean that person is not saved. Do not let the enemy play games with your assurance of salvation.

The Holy Spirit in you is the witness — and one of the clearest signs of that witness is a dissatisfaction with imperfection. When you sin and feel bad, that is not evidence you are unsaved. That is evidence you are saved. A sinner living in their nature does not feel that tension. The discomfort is the Holy Spirit in you — it is inconsistent with the nature you now carry in Christ.

Grace does not cut off the hand — grace teaches. Titus 2:11-12 — the grace of God that has appeared teaches us. Grace is preventive, not merely punitive. It gives you a vision of more, making sin look like the inferior option it actually is.

The path through habitual struggle is not fighting the sin directly. It is yielding to the Spirit and feeding on the word. One minister battled a serious addiction to cigarettes while actively in campus ministry. He would smoke, then speak to himself: I am dead to this. This is not me. Day after day. He was not fighting — he was reckoning. One day he simply noticed he had not stopped at the usual place. A second day. A third. Thirty years in ministry, free. That is what they call freedom.

I am now set apart. I am in Christ. I am not looking for God's attention — I have his full attention.

Verse 2: Faithful Brethren — What Faithfulness Actually Means

Paul also calls them faithful brethren. The faith here is not charismatic faith — it is faithfulness, the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5. A faithful person has two dispositions:

• They hear the word of God and receive teaching
• They commit what they have heard to others — they share

In 2 Timothy 2:2: The things you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. The witnesses Paul references are not other preachers — they are the scriptures. He is saying: everything I taught you, I taught with scripture. Now pass it on.

A faithful minister does not change the message. Epaphras committed to the Colossians exactly what he received from Paul. A faithful minister should not so innovate the presentation that the core truth is distorted.

Calling them faithful also means Paul was trusting their commitment to act on what he was about to say. He did not hedge. He wrote as one assured of their response.

Verses 3–5: The Three Anchors of Paul's Thanksgiving

Paul says he gives thanks always, praying for them. Why? Three reasons — and they are not incidental. They mirror the pattern in 1 Corinthians 13:13 and 1 Thessalonians 1:3:

• Faith in Christ Jesus — their vertical orientation toward God
• Love for all the saints — their horizontal expression toward one another. Faith in Christ is demonstrated through love for people.
• Hope laid up in heaven — the anchor that gives present endurance its foundation

Faith, love, and hope appear together at the opening of several Pauline letters. They are the marks of a genuinely transformed community.

Verse 6: The Gospel Is Fruitful by Nature

Paul shows that the nature of the gospel is that it is fruitful and it bears fruit. This is not random. At creation, God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Jesus in the great commission told the disciples: from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. It is the same creation mandate repeated in the new creation. The church as Eve, Christ as Adam — in partnership. He cannot do it alone because Adam needed Eve.

Verses 7–8: What a Faithful Minister Looks Like

Epaphras is called a faithful minister because what he heard from Paul is what he committed to the church. He did not change it. A faithful minister quotes their sources. A minister who never cites anyone, who presents everything as their own original insight — that alone is reason for caution. All of us are learning. The moment a minister is comfortable with attacking another man of God in order to elevate their own teaching is the moment they have planted a dangerous seed. You reap exactly what you sow.

For Epaphras to report to Paul and for Paul's letter to be received with joy — Epaphras must have spoken of Paul constantly. The church was excited to hear from someone they had only known through their pastor's references.

Verse 9: The Nature of New Testament Prayer

Paul says: For this reason we also... do not cease to pray for you. The reason is your faith, love, and hope. He intercedes on the basis of what he has already heard about their spiritual condition.

Note: Paul prayed Colossians 1:9 as intercession — for others. New Testament prayers are intercessory in nature. Revelation 1:6 and 5:10 — he has made us kings and priests. A priest is an intercessor. Priesthood is not about a microphone. It begins with intercession — and it is not just personal. Abraham's priesthood extended to his household, his servants, and to his nephew Lot. When God was about to destroy Sodom, Abraham negotiated — and that negotiation was intercession. Lot also entertained strangers; he learned hospitality from Abraham. But Lot's priesthood was only personal — it did not extend. He could not even convert his own sons-in-law.

Priesthood that stops at me and mine is not complete priesthood. It must expand outward.

Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you for your word. Grant us a strong desire for scripture. Let us not grow tired of it. Receive strength to labor as workmen rightly dividing your word of truth. Thank you that your word is correcting us, instructing us, and furnishing our lives with the revelation of Jesus, in Jesus' mighty name.