Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; (13) bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.  (14) But  above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.  (15) And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. (16) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the  Lord. (17) And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. 

The letter to the Colossians was written by the apostle Paul – the epistle was written while Paul was a prisoner in Rome for preaching the gospel and after he appealed to Caesar for a trial as was his right as a Roman citizen. While in chains He had been visited by the  founder of the church in Colosse who traveled to Rome to inform Paul of heresy in that church involving a relapse into paganism arising from Greek philosophy and the spread of false doctrine by the Jewish legalizers.  The Greeks believed that God was good and God was spirit – and matter was evil and goodness could not creat evil/matter. This philosophy promoted worship of emanations of guides to God (angels) and that Jesus Christ was not God but another emanation.  Paul had to establish exactly what and who Christ was and that He was sufficient for salvation.  The  Judaizers also came to Colosse to corrupt the gospel and demanded that Christians needed to follow the Law of Moses and adhere  to Jewish ceremony, including circumcision. Their teaching was essentially Jesus AND works.  Our verses today are all about how God’s people grow and change. Christians are to put off their old life in darkness and to put on Christ like habits; with the transformation in faith in Christ they/we begin the process of progressive sanctification.

God is in charge of salvation in Christ and those who reject this have too high an opinion of man’s abilities. The truth is we are saved in Christ only through God’s sovereign electing grace. Christians are holy and set apart – they/we are new people in faith in Christ. Christians need to adopt a lifestyle consistent with their new life which will act as an antidote to self love, pride and a rejection of God’s love and purpose. We have been given a new eternal life in the resurrected Christ. Christians are to behave as they believe.

Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God (2) which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, (3) concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, (4) and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.  (5) Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name, (6) among whom you are also the called of Jesus Christ.  (7) To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints:  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ 

The great book of  Romans was written by the apostle Paul.  From the beginning verses Paul intends to persuade Christians in Rome that the gospel he preaches is true; to unify the church and to resolve any conflicts between Christian Jews and gentiles and  to defend the gospel of grace he preached everywhere. The theme of Romans is the gospel; the imputed righteousness of man in faith in Christ Jesus – the path of sanctification worked out through the Spirit.

Paul was a rabbi and also a Roman citizen.  He begins by asserting his authority as an apostle who through divine will was called to preach the gospel of God who is not only its object but also the source of salvation history. Paul teaches in our verses today that the Messiah was expected and promised from the beginning of the world and brings in the prophets as witnesses – their testimony is recorded in Holy Scripture.  Paul writes in Romans that salvation comes to us by the favor of God in Christ. The grace of God In Christ alone is the source of all blessing in this life.

Again to quote my favorite c.s.Lewis:  (To have Faith in Christ) means, course, trying to do all he says.  There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow you are trying to obey Him.  But trying in a new way, a less worried way, not doing these things in order to be saved but because He began to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleaming of heaven is already inside you.

Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.  See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain.  (8) You also be patient.  Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.  (9) Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned.  Behold, the Judge is standing at the door!  (10) My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. 

This letter of James to the early Jewish Christians was written by James, the half brother of Jesus and the head of the church in Jerusalem. The theme of our verses today is how we are to respond when wronged.  James is basically saying Christians are to be patient as we are promised the Lord will return and will judge us ALL.  The theme of patience in adversity is obvious with the command of be patient; the illustration of the patient farmer and the example of the endurance of the prophets. It’s easy to be patient when things go our way but it so quickly flies out the window when we feel we are unjustly treated. Patience was not even a word in classical  Greek – it was an unknown word and/or concept – vengeance was admired, expected and applauded. God’s wisdom in Christ was revolutionary and Jewish Christians were told to stifle cultural and instinctive reactions to injustice and unfair treatment.

Patience requires trust in the promises of God;  the Day of the Lord will come – the Judge IS standing at the door.  Christians are told to be especially generous with fellow Christians;  to live life in the light of eternal salvation – to live and behave as we believe and to prepare ourselves with a disciplined life.  We are to release bitterness; to stop complaining or nurturing resentment; to practice restraint. That person we grumble against is someone God put in our path. I think the toughest lessons often are learned from someone we don’t like. God has a plan and God is sovereign.

The very good news is that we won’t need patience in heaven!

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.  (5) Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus,  (6) that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (7) Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.  (8) Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers,  (9) and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written:  “For this reason I will confess to You among the Gentiles, And sing to Your name.” 

The letter to the Romans was written by the apostle Paul and the verses we study today concern God’s redemptive plan.  They express the desire of God that His covenant people, Israel, and the New Testament people – Jew or Gentile, past present and future  – be many people with one voice who worship one God.  The unity of the redeemed, filled with the Spirit, is the purpose of God in Christ Jesus. We are not Christians in isolation but in relationship with each other. We are to accept others because Christ accepted us when we didn’t deserve it.

There are important distinctions between Israel and the New Testament Church.  Membership in Israel was one of physical birth but membership in the church is due to one’s spiritual birth.  Israel as a nation was a physical, ethnic entity containing both believers and non believers.  The church is a spiritual entity containing only believers.  We become members of the church by believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Paul is showing how a life of service plays out in ministry to others; the faithful are not to conform to this evil age but to be transformed in mind and heart in Christ.  We are all equal in the eyes of God.  We function in the area of our own gifts to act faithfully and without pride.  We are all interdependent.  God faithfully keeps His promises on the basis of grace, not performance

And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.  (12) The night is far spent, the day is at hand.  Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light.  (13) Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.  (14) But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. 

The great letter to the Romans was written by the apostle Paul to the Christians in Rome. Our verses today are an imperative from Paul to be awake and walk in God’s light.  This present world of our senses is not lasting; it’s beauty is but a shadow of the real thing. But we, as believers are promised the glory of the real thing if we persevere. And this future glory is by Gods free grace in Christ. The world of the unbeliever is in darkness concerning  God and man; in darkness concerning our purpose for living – and in spiritual death for all eternity.

Salvation here concerns our completed salvation, not just our justification in faith when we are transformed in Christ. The time Paul refers to is this present age between the first and second coming of Christ. The first coming of Christ was for the salvation of all who believe  and the second is for judgment.

C.S. Lewis writes so eloquently in his paper ‘The Weight of Glory’:  “St. Paul promises to those who love God not, as we should expect, that they will know Him, but that they will be known by Him. It is a strange promise.  Does not God know all things at all times?  But it is dreadfully reechoed in another passage of the New Testament.  There we are warned that it may happen to anyone of us to appear at last before the face of God and hear only the appalling words “I never knew you.  Depart from me”. In some sense, as dark to the intellect as it is unendurable to the feelings, we can be both banished from the presence of Him who is present everywhere and erased from the knowledge of Him who knows all. We can be left utterly and absolutely outside – repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored. On the other hand, we can be called in, welcomed, received, acknowledged. We walk every day on the razor edge between these two possibilities.”