Before we move into the text itself, I want us to slow down and picture where this letter is going.
Colossae was not Rome.
It was not Jerusalem.
It was not Corinth or Ephesus.
Colossae was ordinary.
It was a small town in the Lycus Valley. It used to matter more than it did by the time Paul writes. Trade routes had shifted. Bigger cities nearby—Laodicea and Hierapolis—had grown more important.
Colossae had become… average.
Think Smithtown, USA.
White picket fences.
A collie in the yard.
Small businesses.
Families who know each other’s names.
Not a center of influence.
Not a place that would make headlines.
And in that ordinary town was a small, ordinary church.
We don’t even know that Paul ever visited them personally. The letter suggests he hadn’t.
The church was likely started by Epaphras—not by an apostle with public visibility.
Imagine that.
A small congregation.
In an ordinary town.
Gathering in someone’s home.
Trying to follow Jesus faithfully.
No stage lights.
No podcast.
No publishing arm.
No conference headquarters.
Just believers.
When Paul writes to this church, what does he talk about?
He does not begin with:
“Here are your problems.”
He does not begin with:
“You need to fix your structure.”
He does not begin with:
“You are drifting morally.”
He begins with Christ. Not a soft introduction to Christ. He begins with cosmic Christ.
The image of the invisible God.
Firstborn over all creation.
Creator of all things. Before all things. Holding all things together.
That is not how you usually open a letter to a nobody church.
Unless something subtle is happening.
Unless the danger is not rebellion—but displacement.
Unless people who believe in Christ are slowly beginning to live as though He is not enough.
Not denying Him.
Just supplementing Him.
Adding weight.
Carrying things He already settled.
Colossae was not under persecution the way Philippi was.
They were not in moral collapse like Corinth.
They were not divided over apostles like Galatia.
They were pressured.
Pressured by ideas.
Pressured by voices.
Pressured by the suggestion that fullness required something more.
A little tradition.
A little spiritual technique.
A little hierarchy of spiritual access.
A little insurance policy.
Not denial.
Addition.
And addition, over time, shifts confidence.
Here is where this gets quietly uncomfortable.
Most of us would not say we are at war.
That sounds dramatic.
But, many of us would say we are tired.
Tired of carrying.
Tired of stabilizing.
Tired of making sure everything doesn’t fall apart.
Tired of making sure our faith doesn’t weaken,
our family doesn’t drift,
our church doesn’t fracture,
our responsibilities don’t collapse.
What Paul is doing in Colossians is not scolding.
He is re-centering.
He is saying, in effect:
“Before you fix anything—look again at Christ.”
Before you tune in to the noise.
Before you calculate what is missing.
Before you reinforce the structure.
Look again.
Because if Christ is who he says He is—
then reconciliation is not partial.
Peace is not fragile.
Stability does not depend on your constant vigilance.
That is where we begin.
Not with behavior.
Not with application.
With orientation.
Because if orientation is wrong, everything downstream shifts.
So here is the question we carry into the text:
If reconciliation is already settled…
why do so many of us live like everything still depends on us?
Let’s open Colossians 1.
Peace Already Made
(Colossians 1:20–22)
Listen to Paul’s words:
“And through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross…
And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled
in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight.”
There is something almost startling about how Paul writes this.
He does not say:
“You can be reconciled.”
He does not say:
“If you perform, God will reconcile you.”
He says: “He has reconciled.”
Past tense.
Completed.
Settled.
Peace has already been made.
Notice the order.
He does not begin with us.
He begins with Christ.
“Through Him… having made peace…”
Peace is not negotiated.
Peace is not maintained by our emotional stability.
Peace is not recalculated every morning.
It was made.
Through the blood of His cross.
This is not abstract theology.
Blood is concrete.
Cross is concrete.
Death is concrete.
Paul is not describing an idea—he is describing an event.
Something happened in history that altered your standing before God.
Paul assumes it is finished.
Then he turns to them:
“And you, who once were alienated…”
Alienated does not mean mildly distracted.
It means separated. Estranged. Cut off.
“And enemies in your mind…”
The hostility Paul describes is not God’s emotional volatility.
It is the human mind that lives suspicious of Him.
And then he says:
“Yet now He has reconciled.”
No ladder to climb.
No angels to pass through.
No spiritual hierarchy to ascend.
Reconciled.
Through death.
“To present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight.”
Not “becoming holy.”
Not “working toward blameless.”
Not “conditionally above reproach.”
To present you.
That is God’s action.
Now here is the tension.
If that is true—if reconciliation is complete—why does peace still feel fragile?
Why do so many believers live as though one mistake might undo everything?
Why do we still speak of our standing with God as if it fluctuates daily?
Did I pray enough?
Did I handle that right?
Did I drift too far?
Did I disappoint Him?
If reconciliation is settled… why does it still feel like it depends on us?
Paul is trying to stabilize tired people.
Reconciliation means:
You are not negotiating your place with God anymore.
You are not balancing scales.
You are not reapplying for approval.
Peace has been made.
Not by you.
Not maintained by you.
Not recalculated by you.
So let me ask gently:
What part of your life still feels like it is hanging by a thread?
Because Paul is saying:
If you are in Christ, your relationship with God is not the thread.
The Real Danger: Shifting
(Colossians 1:23)
Paul continues:
“If indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard…”
That opening phrase can sound threatening:
“If indeed…”
But notice what he does not say.
He does not say: Don’t sin.
Don’t fail.
Don’t doubt.
Don’t struggle.
He says: Do not be moved.
Do not shift.
The danger in Colossae was not rebellion.
It was relocation.
They still believed in Christ.
They had not denied Him.
They were just being nudged.
Add something.
Supplement something.
Stabilize yourself with something else.
Paul has just said: You are reconciled. Peace has been made. You are presented holy and blameless.
Then he says:
Continue.
Grounded.
Steadfast.
Not moved away.
The word “grounded” carries the image of a foundation.
Not dramatic emotion. Foundation.
And “steadfast” means settled. Firmly seated.
Now here is the practical question:
What causes faith to shift slowly rather than collapse suddenly?
Because most believers do not wake up one morning and say,
“I’m abandoning Christ.”
It happens quieter than that.
Pressure accumulates.
Fatigue accumulates.
Disappointment accumulates.
Unanswered prayers accumulate.
And slowly, confidence relocates.
We start trusting: – performance
– structure
– religious habit
– self-discipline
– comparison
– control
Not instead of Christ.
But alongside Him.
That is enough to shift the center of gravity.
Paul’s warning is not dramatic.
It is psychological.
Stay where peace already placed you.
Do not relocate your hope.
Hope here is not optimism.
It is expectation rooted in something completed.
The gospel you heard.
Peace made.
Reconciliation finished.
Stay there.
So here is the quiet question:
Where has your confidence relocated without you noticing?
Meaning in Unresolved Life
(Colossians 1:24–27)
Paul now says something surprising:
“I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church…”
This can sound unsettling.
What is lacking in the afflictions of Christ?
Paul is not saying the cross was insufficient.
He has just said reconciliation is complete.
What is lacking is not redemption.
What is lacking is participation.
Christ suffered once to reconcile.
But the message of that reconciliation is still moving through history—and that movement involves real people, real bodies, real fatigue.
The cross is finished.
But the mission is not.
And mission costs.
Yet Paul says:
“I rejoice in my sufferings.”
Not because pain is pleasant.
Not because hardship proves maturity.
He rejoices because suffering no longer means separation.
If reconciliation is settled, then suffering cannot mean abandonment.
That is the shift.
Before reconciliation, hardship feels like evidence of distance.
After reconciliation, hardship becomes part of participation.
Then Paul reveals the mystery:
“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Not Christ near you.
Not Christ observing you.
Christ in you.
If Christ lives in you, what does suffering no longer mean?
It does not mean: – you have been forgotten
– you are being rejected
– your standing is in question
Suffering still hurts.
Fatigue still weighs.
Unresolved prayers still ache.
But they are not evidence that Christ has stepped back.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Future secured.
Presence now.
Outcome anchored.
Effort Without Anxiety
(Colossians 1:28–29)
Paul concludes:
“Him we preach… that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.”
Notice this carefully.
Paul is not passive.
He says:
“I labor.”
“I strive.”
He works to the point of fatigue.
Reconciliation does not remove effort.
It removes anxiety.
Paul does not say: “I strive so that Christ will accept me.”
He says: “I strive according to His working.”
The energy source is not self-generated.
This is where many believers confuse categories.
There is a difference between: Spiritual effort
and
Spiritual strain.
Effort flows from settled reconciliation.
Strain tries to secure what reconciliation already settled.
Effort says: “I am secure, therefore I can work.”
Strain says: “If I don’t perform, everything collapses.”
Effort can be tiring.
Strain is suffocating.
Effort rests at night.
Strain cannot.
Effort trusts that Christ is building.
Strain believes it must hold everything together.
Paul labors.
But he is not compensating for a fragile peace.
He is participating in something Christ is already powering.
“Him we preach.”
Not strategy.
Not structure.
Not complexity.
Him.
The center never moved.
And because the center never moved, effort can remain clean.
Closing Reflection
Look back at the movement of this passage:
Reconciled.
Don’t shift.
Suffering reframed.
Labor energized by Christ.
This is not abstract theology.
This is stabilization for tired faith.
So we end where we began.
If your relationship with God is already settled…
What part of your life still feels like it is hanging by a thread?
If reconciliation is secure, what are you still trying to secure?
And if Christ is working powerfully within you, where might strain have quietly replaced trust?
Paul does not rush into commands.
He ends with orientation.
Because when peace is settled,
life can finally be lived from a different center.
And from that center,
we don’t carry Christ.
Christ carries us.
