Colossians 4:7-18

hey hey good morning good morning good morning welcome to coffee and devotions this is where every day you and I we get together we get into God's word we have a little bit of coffee and we grow in our love for the Lord together in this year 2022 Lord willing we'll make it from the book of Acts to the book of second Thessalonians I'm so glad to be with you this morning why don't we have some coffee we'll pray and we'll get into Lord's word let's pray father what a blessing it is what a joy it is to come to your word what do we thank you for the work of your Holy Spirit in our hearts and our lives in changing the world and God we pray that as we read your word that you would watch over us and that you would teach us in Jesus name amen all right we are at Colossians chapter 4 Colossians chapter 4 and we're at verses 7 through 18 Colossians chapter 4 verses 7 through 18. let's read God's word together now a beloved brother faithful Minister and fellow servant in the Lord will tell you all the news about me I am sending him to you for this very purpose that he may know your circumstances and comfort your hearts with onesimus a faithful and beloved brother who is one of you they will make known to you all things which are happening here aristarchus my fellow prisoner greet you with Mark the cousin of Barnabas about whom you received instructions if he comes to you welcome him and just Jesus who is called Justice these are my only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are of the circumcision they have proved to be a comfort to me epaphras who is one of you a bond servant of Christ greets you always laboring fervently for you in prayers that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God for I bear him witness that he has a great Zeal for you and those who are in laodicea and those in harryopolis Luke the Beloved Physician and Demus creature greet the Brethren who are in laodicea and nymphas and the church that is in his house now when this epistle is Right among you see that there is see that it is read also in the Church of the laodiceans and that you likewise read the epistle from laodicea and say to archipus take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it this salutation by my own hand Paul remember my chains Grace be with you amen well we need to ask ourselves a what's this about B what's the best verse to some raises and see what are we called to do in response to these words right so a what's Paul getting out of here what is this about why did the Holy Spirit put this in the scriptures or this is a letter from Apostle Paul to the church in colossian there's a series of different people who they know about who they've met and who he's sending to them and so he goes through this and he talks about a beloved brother faithful Minister and fellow servant in the Lord will tell you all the news about me right he's he says I'm sending them to you but I'm sending to and he's going to give you all the info he's going to give you all the 4-1-1 he's going to let you know all about what's going on with meme I am sending him to you for this very purpose purpose that he may make known that he may know your circumstances and comfort your heart so he's not just bringing news about Paul but he also wants to learn about what's going on at colossae so he's able to take word back but he's also going there as a minister as a servant and he's going there to comfort them and so this man is going as a pastor to go care for them to be a visiting minister but then you have in verse 9 an interesting person he also says that along with he's also sinning with him onesimus a faithful and beloved brother now onesimus is interesting Ness is actually from colossae but onesimus is the major part of a book of the Bible the book of Philemon he's the slave of Philemon and he's apparently with Paul as he's most likely in Rome in Chains and so he's writing to him and telling him about onesimus and he's saying he's one of your own and I'm sending him back to he's a faithful and beloved brother they will make known to you all things which are happening here and so here's a a couple of the different people who are he's sending to them and he knows that is going to come back to him but onesimus is most likely going to be staying there because he needs to be reconciled with Philemon well verse 10 says aristarchus my fellow prisoner greet you right so the he's got a fellow prisoner with him and so he greets him right uh aristarchus is a man who's um a missionary companion of Paul and so he's he wants to greet the church in calassi also and then we have someone interesting as well in verse 10 with Mark the cousin of Barnabas about whom you received instructions if he comes to you welcome him well now this is the first time we've run into Mark in a long time we saw him back in the book of Acts at the very beginning of the year when Mark was is barnabas's cousin and he goes along on the first missionary journey but halfway through it he doesn't go and then when the second missionaries of Journey is about to come forward you know Barnabas wants to take a long Mark and Paul says no and it's such a sharp dispute between them they actually end up having to go their own ways Go a different direction from each other well now it seems like Mark and Paul are reconciled and he sees that he is actually of ministerial Valley he's hasn't turned his back on the kingdom and so he says if he comes to you welcome him and then we get verse 11 Jesus who is called Justice that's the only mention we have of this guy but he's he's greeting them and he says these are my only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are of the circumcision right these are the only guys who are Jews who are going about the work of of sharing the gospel going around the Roman Empire and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and so he says these these this is it but this is all he's got left and they all they all say that they're greeting him they have proved to be a comfort to me these guys who have gathered around Paul are Comfort to him they're his support group they're his prayer buddies they're his small group and accountability and Ministry Partners right these are the guys that are getting him through the stuff and then he says in verse 12 epaphras who is one of you right we had come into contact with the papers before in chapter one and so now we've come back to epaphras and he says epaphras who is one of you a bond servant of Christ greet you always laboring fervently for you in prayers that you may stand perfect and complete at the will of God notice how epaphras is laboring how is he working he's praying for the Saints he's caring for the people in prayer remember it was in Acts chapter 6 there was a dangerous point in the church in which the apostles could have been distracted from the preaching of the word and the ministry of Prayer and here epaphras is praying for them fervently Desiring that they would be cared for and so he wants them to be perfect and complete able to stand in all the will of God and then he says in verse 13 about epaphras for I bear him witness that he has great Zeal for you and for those in laodicea and those in harryopolis these are three cities that are kind of uh triplet cities right they're they're not too far apart from each other colossae was first it was most important and then laodicea picked up prominence and then there were Roman Centurion or Roman soldiers who ended up in harryopolis oh I hear little feet oh can you come here I'm I'm recording coffee and devotions you want to say hi you want to say hi no uh so uh Deborah Nathan are singing okay can you tell them I said that they need to stop singing [Music] sometimes they name with oh okay all right I love you thank you okay you can shut my door thank you uh so he he wraps us that part up with epaphras and then he gets into someone else we know also Luke the Beloved Physician he says that he's also with him and he's praying for them he's caring for them but then we come to someone else someone else that would later be a disappointment to Paul and Demas greets you demons would later leave Paul oh they won't stop singing how about you sit here with us until the end of coffee and devotion does that sound good okay and so demons would eventually leave Demas would eventually forsake and be as Paul would later say essentially pulled away by this world and wouldn't go and and go to the thessalonica he says greet the Brethren who are in laodicea and nymphis and the church that is in his house now when this epistle is read among you right epistle is a old a new testament Greek word for letter when this letter is read among you see that is it is read also in the Church of the laodiceans and that you likewise we're talking okay that you likewise read the epistle from laodicea so what is he saying here he's saying I wrote a letter to the to your sister city in laodicea and so when they get that letter they're going to read it and you need to take their letter and read it in your church and the this letter here that we have Colossians you need to take it over to Leia to see and you need to read it to them and say to archipus take heed take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it it seems like archipus is the pastor in laodicea and so he wants the people in colossae when they get this letter to tell him to take heed to the ministry that they received from the Lord right this was a the service that God had given two archipus to carry out for his service and so this salutation by my own hand Paul remembered my chains Grace be with you amen I think this is getting at This Heart of Fellowship I remember talking to a man just not too long ago who talked about how you know he really didn't need other Christians it was just him and his Bible that seems totally foreign to the end of the letters to CL of Colossians to Romans to Ephesians all it seems like all over the place these letters have so many names and people listed in them because people need other Christians and so both good and like Dimas sometimes not ending so well or are you getting tired yeah foreign how do we fervently pray for other Christians what Minister do you need to encourage in the work that he's doing let's go ahead and pray father we thank you so much for this day and we thank you for Jesus Christ we thank you for our brothers and sisters in the faith we thank you that we aren't the only church that there are other congregations and that we can encourage one another that we can encourage the ministers in other churches father we thank you that you are the one who knows about those Faithful Servants even those who meet in the house churches and that your spirit is with them God we pray that your grace would be with us in Jesus name amen oh May the grace of Jesus Christ be with you and I'll see you tomorrow bye you wanna say bye [Music] thanks for listening to this week's message from God's word for you a Ministry of Sharon RP Church in rural Southeast Iowa we pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week if you'd like to get more information about us feel free to go to the website Sharon rpc.org we'd love to invite you to worship with us our worship time is 10 a.m every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue Morning Sun Iowa 52640 may God richly bless you this week foreign [Music]