The King And His Kingdom Of Light (2004)

THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM OF LIGHT

Text: Colossians 1:11-20

Probably everyone remembers the story of the Pied Piper. It is a story---- a German legend about a musician who lived in a town called Hamelin. As the story goes, the Pied Piper, played his flute and got the rats of the city to follow him to the river where they drowned. Since he was not compensated for this deed, he sought revenge by lead children of the village in to the mountains where they disappeared.

In Colosse, the community to whom the apostle Paul wrote the New Testament Epistle we know today as Colossians, Paul was addressing the concerns of those who were being led astray by false teachers. Paul addressed both the false teachers and their false teachings. These teachers were like a kind of Pied Piper with their religious teachings because they were leading people astray from the truth. They were infiltrating the Gospel and mixing it with other teachings and denying the humanity of Christ. As someone (Warren Wiersbe) has pointed out, “The gnostic false teachers believed in an organization of evil spirits that controlled the world (see Colossians 1:16, 2:10, 15): angels, archangels, principalities, powers, virtues, dominions and thrones”. (Warren W. Wiersbe. The Bible Exposition Commentary. Volume 2. Wheaton: Victor Books, 1989, p. 115). Instead of worshipping God and God only, the false teachers were spreading their false teachings. They were watering down the truth about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with other religious and non-Christian views.

Paul sought to put the record straight about Jesus’ identity and supremacy. Paul explains that Jesus came to rescue the alienated, and reconcile those who are lost.

ALIENATION

To be alienated in the context of Colossians 1:21 is to be lost from God. It is one thing to be lost and not even know it. We call that ignorance. It is another thing to be lost and not care at all. We call that apathy---indifference. There is nothing sadder than someone who is estranged from God who could care less. I have read countless stories of this type that have one common theme. The common theme is a scoffer who makes light of eternity until he or she is confronted with his or her own mortality. These stories sometimes have the same tragic ending. It is tragic when those who had contempt toward God will soon meet Him face to face without having been reconciled to Him.

There is hope for the lost. As someone has observed, we sometimes know the facts about others’ whereabouts even though they are still lost. “Sometimes we read in the newspaper or see on television that a mine has caved in and people are trapped in the tunnel. We feel something of the despair of their families as they grimly mutter, “They are lost! Lost!” “But,” we think, “they are not lost. We know exactly where they are in the tunnel.” “Yet,” the reply comes back, “they are as lost as if they were a hundred miles underground. We cannot reach them. We know where they are, but they are lost.

“This expresses the condition of those who are spiritually lost, without Christ and without salvation. We know where they are all right. But they are still lost without Christ”. (T. T. Crabtree ed. The Zondervan 2001 Pastor’s Annual. Harold T. Bryson. “What It Means To Be Lost.” Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000, p. 317). The situation is not hopeless because God sent Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son to bring those who are lost back to God.

RESCUE

Only through Jesus Christ are we rescued from the dominion of darkness. Someone (Maxie Dunham) has noted a custom that was in practice for the people of that time. “It was a common practice in the ancient world that when one nation was defeated by another, people living in exile in that now-conquered nation would often be liberated to return to their homeland. This would have been familiar to the people in a Roman province such as Colossae”. (Lloyd J. Ogilivie. Ed. Mastering The New Testament: Galatioans, Ephesians, Phillipians, Colossians, & Philemon. Vloume 8. Maxie Dunham. “Colossians”. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1982, p. 342). It seems as though the false teachers were indirectly claiming that their religious teachings had the power to liberate people. But, it was quite the opposite that was true. The teachings of these false teachers would do nothing more than keep people in the dark.

Only Jesus Christ can bring us into God’s kingdom---the kingdom of light. Only Jesus Christ has the power to liberate us so that we have been able to leave the dominion of darkness behind and be brought into God’s kingdom. Jesus came to bring us back to God and set us free from the darkness that was dominating us. Only Jesus can reconcile us to God. The false teachers of Colosse were teaching the contrary. The major heresy of the false teachers of Colossae was that they taught that Jesus was not the only way salvation was possible. Jesus explains that He is the way, the truth and the life and that no one gets to the Father in heaven except through Him ( John 14:6). Paul shot holes in their teachings by explaining this truth---the truth of John 14:6 in his own words.