Start … to Finish

think by now that your Bibles
would fall open automatically to the book of Colossians, but
you might begin turning there if your Bible doesn’t open. Colossians chapter 4. We have an uncanny and uncomfortable
tendency as humans. I don’t think it’s just me. We
start things often that we never finish. They’re incomplete. Or at very best, they’re perpetually
in process. We typically have to characterize
things that we’ve begun, whether it’s a project, or a degree,
or an adventure, or a goal, or a friendship, or a repair. We
characterize them as not yet finished. And there are many
things in our lives that are unfinished. The irony is that
we often start well. Perhaps we’ve done research about
this opportunity in front of us. Maybe we’ve even purchased
the necessary supplies or equipment. It’s one of the great reasons
that men use for buying a new tool. Maybe we’ve sought the
counsel needed to embark on this project and we seem to have even
had the ability to get started. It’s the completion of our goals
or projects that seems to prove elusive. I remember many years
ago, living in Dallas, Texas, that my travel route took me
past a large mansion under construction. It was a massive home on a beautiful
piece of land And I passed by the project frequently
and began to notice a few things over the course of several years.
It became very clear over time that construction on this home
had ceased. There were no workers. There
was no progress. The home was unfinished and it
was completely exposed to the elements. It had no windows and so the
air and water and probably animals and insects flowed freely through
this property. I began to be curious about the
whole thing and it just nagged at me what might have happened. Did the owner die? Did he run
out of money? Did it get tied up in some legal
dispute? As time elapsed, it went from
bad to worse. Every time I drove past the home,
it seemed to look worse. The weather took its toll. Overgrowth of vegetation, theft,
vandalism, graffiti, decay. The building project was over.
And by all appearances, it would never be completed. That home
always reminded me of that man that Jesus mentions in Luke 14,
which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first
sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete
it. Otherwise, when he has laid the
foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it will
begin to ridicule him, saying, This man began to build and was
not able to finish. I never did find out why that
mansion in Dallas was never completed. None of that mattered. The bottom
line was that this home, this project was never finished. Not
as long as I lived there. There are always a myriad of
reasons, aren’t there? explanations, excuses as to why
things do not get done. Sometimes we miscalculate the
endeavor, that it either gets too expensive or too time-consuming
to finish. Sometimes we just lose interest.
Something that at least at some point in our life seemed to consume
us, now is unimportant. Sometimes the challenges that
we encounter along the way just overwhelm us and we give up.
Sometimes the pursuit of a goal exposes our capriciousness that
we chase too many things in life out of whimsy, like a bee flitting
from flower to flower. Really, honestly, some projects
need to die, don’t they? They need to remain incomplete. Some dreams should be allowed
to fade, unrealized. Some endeavors must be abandoned,
unfinished. What I’ve realized more and more
in life is that if God deems a project, an endeavor, an adventure,
a goal worth completing, He will grant the necessary grace to
see it through to completion. Paul knew of our human tendency
not to see things through, not to complete them. And he knew
that if things, very important things, if things were to be
accomplished, there must be a great supply and an application of
God’s enabling grace. Paul knew this, and he desired
that this little mountain town, this little church in Colossae,
they needed to know it as well. And Paul closes this amazing
letter with this very admonition in verses 16 through 18. Would
you glance down at those verses just briefly? When this letter is read to you,
have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and you, for
your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea. Say
to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which you have received
in the Lord, that you may fulfill it. I, Paul, write this greeting
with my own hand. Remember my imprisonment. Grace
be with you. As we’ve seen over and over again
in this incredible letter, this faithful apostle is writing to
a church that he’d never visited. and a church that he might likely
never visit. In God’s mercy and providence,
we do believe that he may well have been enabled to do that,
a brief release from prison, from this house arrest, an extended
period of ministry that included travel. That may have happened.
But at this writing, he could not be assured of that. And so
his final written words to this church only increase in value. Paul ultimately points to the
church, the Colossian church, as well as the greater Christian
church. He points them to the grace of
God for the accomplishing of some truly astounding things. Things that would end up completely
unfinished. Were it not for God and His amazing
grace, Paul wants to tell us about three such things, three
spiritual endeavors, things that are begun and by God’s grace must be completed. The first, if you look at verse
16, Paul speaks of filling up the
divine word. Filling up the divine word, look
at verse 16. When this letter is read among
you, have it read in the church of the Laodiceans, and you for
your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea. The
first project that Paul identifies here for completion is the New
Testament. That’s right. Paul is setting
in motion here in this verse, the very beginnings of the New
Testament. Their gathering, their identification,
the genuine from the false, the compilation of those writings
into the 27 books of the New Testament complete, which complete
the Bible as we know it. That’s what Paul is initiating
right here. How, you ask? Let me explain. To begin with,
let’s make some very basic observations of this verse. Paul presumes
upon his readers a very key thing, that his letter to them is going
to take a very high place. And it’s not that it’s going
to be made available to them, He says, when this letter is
read among you, he assumes that this will be the case. He doesn’t
ask if, or he just says when. It’s a matter of time that his
letter should be read before the whole church. The form of
the verb here is interesting. It’s called the subjunctive mood.
Mood in grammar refers to the relationship of the reality about
what is spoken. Let me try and explain that.
The subjunctive mood is full of future potential. It speaks about something that
will or might exist in the future. It might happen. It’s not a command, but it is
a powerful encouragement. I’ve told you before, it has
the sense, as a former coach, it has the sense of a coach’s
urgency. Kind of like a spiritual, let’s
go. And Paul uses this subjunctive
form, very rarely used form for him. He uses it in this one sentence
three times. When this letter is read, have
it also read and read my letter. All three times that reading
is mentioned, it’s in the subjunctive mood. You should read my letter. And so to capture the special
form of the verb, we could translate it like this. You should read
my letter. The Laodiceans should read my
letter. And you should read the letter
coming from them. Before I make my main point here,
we need to talk about this second letter that Paul mentions. The
one that he says is coming from Laodicea. Don’t misunderstand
Paul’s phraseology here. It isn’t a letter that the Laodicean
church had written. It’s actually a letter that Paul
had written to them. Paul wants these two churches
to share their respective letters with each other. And I know what
you’re thinking already. The epistle to the Laodiceans,
that’s not in my Bible. You’re right. We don’t have it. And I believe we don’t have it
because it doesn’t exist. It never existed. It’s possible that Paul wrote
a letter to the Laodiceans that is now lost. But why would Paul
mention a letter as being so important, a piece of scripture,
if it now is lost and worthless? I think there’s another explanation
here. Paul doesn’t say that it is his
letter to the Laodiceans. He only says that it would be
coming from them. You see, we know for certain
now that Paul wrote another major letter that was being delivered
on this same trip. The so-called letter of Ephesians. And I say so-called because it’s
a well-established fact that Paul’s letter to that church
never did bear the name Ephesians. There are no manuscripts that
contain the words to the Ephesians. The destination was blank. And
that’s a strong indication that Ephesians, as we know it, was
intended to be a circular letter passed around from church to
church. We know that Paul’s nearly four-year
ministry in the region of Ephesus included many churches, Smyrna,
Sardis, Philadelphia, and a little church called Laodicea. So this
letter that Paul wants the Colossians to read would be coming from
Laodicea, it’s almost certainly his circular letter that we know
of as Ephesians. And as similar as we’ve seen
Ephesians and Colossians are to one another, the letters are
different enough that indeed it would be beneficial for both
of these churches to read these respective letters. The first century churches, they
weren’t stingy with these letters, but neither did they fully realize
that these were spirit-inspired scripture. In a sense, they may
have been unaware of just how important these writings were.
They were certainly not aware of the extent of the writings
that were being proliferated by many different authors, And
it took more than 50 years for the entirety of the New Testament
works to be written and disseminated. The greater church had to learn
of these writings over time. The thing to notice here is that
Paul strongly encourages that his letter be read among you.
That almost certainly means that this would take place in the
gathered worship of God’s people. Because in the next breath, he
says that it should be read in the church of the Laodiceans
in their gathered time of worship. And he urges likewise that they
should treat the other letter the same way. From the earliest
days of the church, Acts 2.42, a focus on the apostles’ teaching
was a central part of their worship. Paul himself urged young pastor
Timothy, likewise, to give attention to the public reading of scripture,
to exhortation, and to teaching. 1 Timothy 4.13. And so already,
these are no ordinary letters. Paul is placing them in an extraordinary
place. He’s placing them as spirit-inspired,
apostolic writings. Paul gives very similar directions
to the Thessalonian church in 1st Thessalonians 5, 27. He says, I adjure you by the
Lord to have this letter read to the brethren. In other words,
this letter wasn’t just for the leadership of the church, it
was for the saints, all of them. So whether or not Paul knows
definitively that his letters are divine scripture, he’s certainly
treating them as such. What Paul is doing here, what
he’s setting in motion, is the gathering, the collecting, and
the use of these for the greater church. We’ve talked about this
process before, the development of the New Testament. These writings
were bold and authoritative. They spoke about the spiritual
questions that were plaguing these New Testament churches. They clarified doctrinal positions.
They resolved controversies. They established order. They
bore all the marks of being divinely inspired. So much so that they
read them in their corporate worship services. And they had an Old Testament. It only makes sense that they
should have a New Testament. But it was a process. The books
were not all written at once. The various letters of the New
Testament were broadly dispersed. And if you think about it, there
were no fax machines. There was no email, no bookstores. Whatever writings there were
would have to be copied and dispersed over a long period of time and
then gathered. That’s exactly what Paul is triggering
here. He’s triggering the recognition
and the collection of these writings. already. These few churches that are mentioned
knew about at least three of the 27 New Testament books. The
Colossians would have known about their own letter. They knew about
this letter to Philemon, and they also know now about this
letter that’s coming from Laodicea, what we know as Ephesians. That’s
how the church began to accumulate the writings that would become
our New Testament. Even if they didn’t personally
receive these letters, they would learn of them over time. You
realize that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians from Ephesus. So the Ephesians
would have known about that letter. He wrote Romans from Corinth.
And so the Corinthians would have known about that letter,
the epistle to the Romans. He almost certainly wrote 2 Corinthians
from Macedonia, and so the churches there, Philippi, Thessalonica,
Berea, they would have known about that letter. And he wrote
the prison epistles from Rome. Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians,
Philemon. And so the Roman church would,
known well of those letters, what would become a firestorm
of activity in the world, gathering these writings into a collection,
it started here. It started with Paul’s simple
encouragement, you should read my letter. And the Laodiceans
should read my letter to you. The gathering, And the eventual
collection and production of the New Testament was already
underway. Within 100 years, the writings
of the New Testament would not only all be written, but they
would be identified, and they would be in process of being
gathered. Paul mentions yet another spiritual
undertaking. It has started well, but it’s
far from complete. And considering what is at stake,
Paul will afford no chances here. He must do what he can, he must
say what he can in order to spur on the faithful to the completion
of this task. In this case, it’s a man mentioned
named Archippus and we learn of him in verse 17. We’re looking at things that
must having been begun, they must be completed by God’s grace. Not only the filling up of the
divine word, but secondly, the filling up of divine service. Would you look at verse 17? Say
to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which you have received
in the Lord, that you may fulfill it. Paul has yet another concern.
a matter that has begun but needs to be completed, another unfinished
project. And he mentions this one, verse
17, take heed to the ministry which you have received. We know
nothing practically about this archipis. He’s only mentioned
in one other place in scripture, Philemon 2, where Paul calls
him there a fellow soldier. Not a literal soldier, but a
fellow worker in the gospel. He obviously is known to both the Colossian church
and to Philemon himself. And so he must have been in some
way associated with the Colossian church. It isn’t exactly clear
why Paul asks the Colossian church to pass along this message. Why
didn’t he say it directly to Archippus? Except that doing
so would have required yet another letter. And so he appends this
brief note to this letter for his own convenience. We can infer from this that the
Colossian church had some relationship and some responsibility for this
gospel worker. Perhaps not authority over him,
but responsibility, oversight. And at least as this communication
shows, they served as a messaging service between Archippus and
Paul. Paul’s exhortation here It need
not be construed to suggest sinful behavior on this man’s part. His note to Archippus isn’t necessarily
a rebuke. Paul doesn’t couch it in such
terms. He doesn’t instruct the church
to scold him or to admonish him. He only tells them, say this,
In the end, it doesn’t come off, it does come off rather as a,
it’s a strong directive to this man. And that shouldn’t bother
anyone, especially Archippus. In your average ordinary ordination
service, men in ministry are spoken to very solemnly and directly
in front of the entire church. And so it is here. As I indicated,
we don’t have any hint about why Paul thought he had to say
these things at all. We have no reason to think that
Archippus had shown signs of weakness or laziness or unfaithfulness. There’s nothing to suggest that
Archippus could be charged with any of those. My sense. My sense is that the reason that
Paul urges these things is because Paul knew human nature all too
well. And he knew the difficulties
and challenges of ministry as well. He didn’t even need to
interview Archippus to know that he could likely be discouraged.
And so Paul asked the church to pass along this message, take
heed to your ministry. These words, take heed, it’s
a word used hundreds of times in the New Testament, and it’s
usually used simply to speak of the act of seeing, looking
with your eyes, seeing, observing. But it’s also used to speak of
a cautious watchfulness, especially when it occurs as it does here
in the imperative. And in that sense, it’s translated
many times as take heed, See to it, look, beware, consider,
be careful. That’s how it’s used here. That’s
how Paul is using it. Keep a careful watch over your
particular ministry, Archippus. We don’t know what his ministry
even was, but Archippus knew. And he would know what Paul meant
by taking watch. Paul knew human nature. He knew
the heartaches of ministry. Maybe Archippus was discouraged. Maybe he was advanced in age
or in poor health and he needed this jolt. Maybe he had too many hobbies
and distractions, an occupational hazard of ministry. Whatever
the case, Paul knew that Archippus would benefit from a strong exhortation
to complete his ministry, finish it. Paul only refers to his work
in a very familiar term, diakonia. You know the word, but it’s very
doubtful here that he’s referring to a literal deacon. He was serving
Christ’s church as a fellow soldier. And it’s been suggested that
perhaps Archippus was even a pastor serving in Epaphras’ absence. Remember, Epaphras took upon
himself to go and to travel to Rome, and he was still there. They needed a pastor. But that
seems doubtful because it would have put the church in a very
awkward place, having to challenge this man in this way. It seems
more likely that Archippus was a missionary, an itinerant evangelist
sent out by the church. We don’t know the details of
the situation. All we know is that Paul asked the Colossian
church to strongly encourage this man. Because his ministry,
whatever it was, was a calling that he had received in the Lord. As a Christian and by and from
God himself, Archippus had been given a mission directly from
God. Paul may not have ever even met
this man. He knows his name and he knows
his calling in the Lord. That’s all. That’s enough. Paul gives the same exact exhortation
to young Timothy. Pay close attention to yourself
and to your teaching. He told Timothy. He cautioned
the Ephesian elders in the same regard. Acts chapter 20, be on
guard for yourselves and for all the flock. Take heed to the
ministry which you have received. His ministry was God given. This
wasn’t just a job for Archippus. It was a calling and that by
God himself, Archippus had been summoned and he had accepted
this solemn duty before the Lord. Paul no doubt uses this language
to remind this servant of these things like any of us. Archippus
is to serve as unto the Lord. Paul rounds out his exhortation
to Archippus with a purpose statement. Why watch? Why take heed? So that you may fulfill your
ministry. So that you may finish. So that
you may complete it. Paul wants him to finish well.
It’s not enough to begin in ministry. The need is to complete it, to
finish it, to fulfill it. This wasn’t anything that Paul
wouldn’t say to anyone serving the Lord. He said it to Timothy. 2 Timothy 4-5, be sober in all
things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, Fulfill
your ministry. Fill it up. Max it out. Complete it. Finish well. So that just as the New Testament
scriptures were initiated through these various letters addressed
to churches, only to be fulfilled in their gathering into a whole
called the New Testament, so also Archippus was entrusted
with the beginnings of a ministry that was to be filled up in time. There’s a third spiritual element
here, things that begun that must be completed by God’s grace,
not only a filling up of the divine word and a filling up
of the divine service, but thirdly and finally, filling up of the
divine afflictions. Filling up the divine afflictions. If you look at verse 18, I, Paul,
write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my imprisonment. Grace be with you. Verse 18,
the final verse of this epistle gives Paul’s third and final
spiritual element, well started, that must be completed. Paul
begins his final sentence by calling attention to the fact
that he was now penning these words. It was Paul’s practice
for whatever reason, maybe penmanship, maybe sore and achy hands from
the years of sewing tents. But for whatever reason, he used
an amanuensis. He would dictate, and someone
would write the majority of the letter. And then at the end of
the letter, he would add the closing words in his own hand,
or at least his signature. Paul does the same thing in the
letter to the Corinthians in 1621 of that epistle. He says, the greeting is in my
own hand, Paul. He does the same thing in the
companion letter of Philemon. He tells this wealthy landowner
wronged by his runaway slave Onesimus, if he has wronged you
in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.” What
a beautiful thought. And then he adds this, I, Paul,
am writing this with my own hand. I will repay it. He does the
same thing at the end of 2 Thessalonians 3. In 3.17, he says, I, Paul,
write this greeting with my own hand. And this is the distinguishing
mark of every letter. This is the way I write. And he must have had some very
distinctive penmanship because he calls attention to it at the
end of his letter to the Galatians. See with what large letters I
am writing you with my own hand. So here in Colossians, the greeting
and the signature that he writes himself, a very personal touch,
would have had two effects on his readers. First, it would
give them authenticity of the letter, that it really did come
from Paul, that Paul really affirms everything that was written in
that letter. But more, it would deeply personalize it It’s one
thing, isn’t it, to receive a typed letter. You know, it has that mechanical
signature at the end. It’s quite another thing to receive
a letter written by the person’s own hand. And so here, even just
a signature for the Colossians would serve very much like for
us to secure a famous person’s autograph. This, this signature
was written by the hand of the very Apostle Paul. It would show that he was alive,
that he cared, that he loved them. And so he says, In his
own handwriting, remember my imprisonment. It’s the third
and final element that is to be completed. Suffering had begun. Paul had suffered almost from
the first moment of ministry, but just as the divine word and
the divine service must be fulfilled, divine afflictions too must be
completed. Earlier in this letter, in chapter
1, verse 24, Paul spoke of the same exact thing. There he says,
now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh
I do my share on behalf of his body, which is the church, in
filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. We saw
there that ultimately, whatever afflictions, troubles, persecutions
that we may endure here on earth, if we do them in the name of
Christ, they’re actually Christ’s afflictions. In 2 Corinthians
1, Paul refers to these afflictions as the sufferings of Christ. They’re ours as believers in
abundance, Paul says. You see, the world hates the
Lord Jesus. Whatever sufferings or persecutions
we endure because of Him, they’re not aimed at us. They’re aimed
at Jesus. We just happen to be in the way.
And in that same sense, we are filling up Christ’s afflictions.
Paul uses the same root form of that verb here. Fill it up. Paul says it simply here, remember
my imprisonment. What does he mean by that? In
measure, he could be appealing for their prayers on his behalf,
that his guards would be kind, that he would have opportunities
to share the gospel with them and others, that his ministry
would not be hindered by this house imprisonment. that his
trial before Caesar would go well, that if possible, he would
even be released to conduct, pursue further ministry. So when he says, remember my
imprisonment, he at least means, remember to pray for me in my
imprisonment, but it likely goes well beyond just praying on his
behalf. He wouldn’t be appealing for
their simple sympathy. Remembering his imprisonment
would be for them as well, his readers, the Colossians and us. Because it provides a wonderful
example of perseverance and grace under pressure. Remembering his
imprisonment would no doubt stir their love and compassion for
their dear friend. Remembering his imprisonment
would stir their hearts to receive his lessons and exhortations
with a greater humility and openness. And remembering his imprisonment
would serve to strengthen them and to prepare them for their
own trials and suffering. How appropriate then that Paul
should close with these words. Grace be with you. Essentially, may God’s undeserved
favor and divine enablement be with you. It’s the same way he
began this letter. The second verse of the opening
chapter, Paul blesses his readers with that familiar greeting,
grace to you and peace from God our Father. If God’s grace is
the necessary element of our salvation, it stands to reason
that such grace is needed for any endeavor. God’s magnificent grace, his
divine enablement, is the only way that his children will ever
complete or accomplish anything. Same with these three spiritual
projects. all of which had started well.
The one, gathering the production of the New Testament, now barely
underway, completed only by God’s grace. The other, a relatively
unknown man’s ministry in midstream, the end of which was to be determined. and this godly and faithful apostles
ministry now drawing to its conclusion at its twilight, all of them only by the grace
of God. Would God’s people humble themselves
before him. Our merciful God, we pause and
humble ourselves before you. We thank you for the privilege
that we’ve had to open your word and to study this letter. Lord,
we have found it to be, in truth, divine revelation. And at almost
every turn, we felt as if you were speaking directly to us You were. Lord, we thank you
for the book of Colossians. We thank you for our privilege
to study it in our language. We thank you for the challenges. We thank you for the exhortations,
for the encouragements, for the doctrines that we learned. Lord
God, we do pray as a church that you would direct us into another
corner of your word. We pray that you would show us,
make it clear abundantly so, what you would have us to do
and take up by means of a study. Father, we thank you for these
reminders, that your grace is sufficient, but only if it is
applied. Lord, for us, we have many ministries
and tasks, projects, and endeavors for which we desperately need
your divine enablement, your grace. Father, we thank you for
your completion of the New Testament. We take it in faith that our
kippahs did finish well, and we know that in We know that in the case of this
faithful apostle, he did finish his course and
complete in faithfulness his calling. We pray for that same
grace, Lord. We pray these things in Jesus’
name. Amen.