Words of Hope

thankFULL

A Weekend of Sermons on Colossians from the All Youth Retreat 2017.

Adapted from a sermon at First United Methodist Church of Orlando.

Friday Night: Full of Creation

Have you ever heard the phrase, a picture is worth a thousand words? It’s usually the case. We see pictures and they can be full of stories and memories. But sometimes, we need a little explanation.

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We could have come up with a lot of different interpretations of those pictures, but without the artists’ description, we wouldn’t get the full story. We wouldn’t know the truth that was trying to be conveyed.

Over the course of this weekend, we’re going to look at the book of Colossians. This is a book in the New Testament of the Bible. It was written as a letter to a community in Colossae, which was near what is now Turkey. Colossians was most likely written by Paul, an early follower of Christ, around 50 c.e. The letter is meant to encourage the community and explain to them why they should follow Christ.

The community in Colossae believed in a philosophy known as Gnosticism. This meant they didn’t believe that Jesus was unique, but that he was simply one of many ways to God. They also believed that anything having to do with humanity was evil, that that since Jesus was a connection to God he wasn’t fully human. In their view, Jesus didn’t die and wasn’t resurrected because he wasn’t a person. The community at Colossae also believed that humans had to find their own way to God and that Jesus was just one option.

This is why Paul sent his letter to Colassae. He wanted to give the community the whole story. He wanted them to have the description for the picture they had in their mind. He wanted to clear up the confusing information they had and provide them truth.

This weekend we’re going to use this letter as the source for why we should follow Christ. Like we had to have the artists tell us what their picture is, we’re going to let Paul tell us why Christ is important.

Tonight, we’re looking at Colossians 1:15–23. This is Paul explaining what Christ has done:

The Son is the image of the invisible God,
the…