By the Strength of the Lord

Colossians 1: 1-14

Pentecost 5 (Proper 10)

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen.  The sermon text for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost is the epistle reading Colossians 1. Visualize in your mind a young couple bringing their first baby home from the hospital.  There is no instruction manual.  There are no nurses around to change diapers or to monitor vital signs.  As they carry the child through the front door and place the baby in the crib for the first time, the truth slowly sinks in that the care of this child ultimately depends on them and no one else.  Not surprisingly, the new parents begin to feel inadequate.  I remember when Barbara and I brought Matthew home for the first time. We looked at each other and said, “What do we do now?” 

Fathers and mothers of infants through the teen years often feel ill-equipped to deal with the pressures and challenges of parenting today.  It is hard to walk that fine line of properly disciplining your children because it is easy to fall off the path and become too strict or too lenient.  There is the concern of raising our children in the faith in a world that is hostile to the Word of God.  There are also the concerns of premarital sex, peer pressure, and drug use.  It is enough to make most parents feel that they are over their heads.

Parenting is not the only difficult calling.  Other vocations that we might have are filled with trouble as well.  We may feel overwhelmed at our workplace. You may be dealing with difficult people, stressful situations, and problems that are not easy to solve.  It can make you think that you are not up to the task.  Paul was called to be an apostle of Christ and yet we see that he had many obstacles. He was beaten and faced imprisonment during his ministry.  He wrote this letter to the Colossians while he was in prison.  Paul knew the feeling of being overwhelmed with struggle in his own calling.  Yet through it all Paul reminds us that he was called by God to be an apostle.   

We need to remember the same thing in our own callings.  Parents, you need to be reminded that your calling to be parents is by the will of God.  God himself has placed you over your child for the child’s well-being, and you should exercise your God-given authority for the sake of the child in full confidence that such use of authority is pleasing to God.  The Lord has placed us in all of our vocations including the positions we hold in our workplace, in our family, and in our church. 

Yet all too often we feel overwhelmed by our callings, and we think that we are inadequate in doing them.  When this happens, we will have the temptation to look within ourselves for strength. That’s what we instinctively do when we feel deficient – we try to make up the deficiency ourselves.  We look to our own decisions, commitments, and efforts to bring about change.  We tell ourselves that we have to try harder. We tell ourselves that we need to dig deeper.  It is good to try hard to be sure, but trying harder and digging deeper will not fix our problems.  It can actually make things worse because we are relying upon our own strength and seeking answers within ourselves.  To look to self only leads to ruin. 

Looking to self is one of the problems that Paul is addressing in our reading for today.  False teachers were convincing the Colossians that Christ alone was insufficient to guarantee their salvation, and they began to rely on the works of the Law for assurance. Their faith was shifting from Jesus alone for salvation to Jesus and their own works.  We will be tempted to do the same thing.  Paul, however, directs us not to ourselves and to our own works, but to God, who alone is sufficient for all our needs.  He tells us that our strength comes from the Lord. He tells us that faith, hope, love, and truth are given to us by the hand of God.  He tells us that our salvation was won for us through Jesus Christ. 

Remember what Paul said in our reading.  “He (God) has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  We cannot accomplish any of the things mentioned by Paul on our own.  We cannot accomplish them by our own strength.  It is God who forgives us through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.  It is the Lord who has delivered us from the darkness of sin and death. It is God who has brought us into His eternal kingdom.  The sure and certain hope that we have been redeemed and that we have received eternal life can only be given to us by the grace of God.  It is the Lord who has given to us the gift of faith by the power of the Gospel, and it is the Lord who works the fruits of faith in us.  It is the Lord who reveals the truth of the Gospel to all of us.  He is the One who gives to us spiritual wisdom and knowledge by His all-powerful Word.       

We are now redeemed children of God and so we walk by the Spirit.  But as we walk in a manor worthy of the Lord, we don’t do it alone.  Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches.  It is the nature of the branch to produce fruit, as long as it remains in the vine.  And so as we live our life we look to the Lord, and we trust Him.  We turn to the Lord knowing that as we live, we do so by the strength of God.

All of us feel inadequate on occasion.  We all have times when we think that we are over our heads.  We are keenly aware of our own imperfections and failures.  Even if no one else knows our secret sins, we know them.  We are reminded of our failures and the harm that we have done to others.  Our instincts tell us that we need to do something about it.  Our temptation is to look within ourselves and to rely upon our own strength.  But looking to self only leads to ruin.

Paul directs us back to the Lord.  And so by the power of the Holy Spirit we do indeed turn to God.  We turn to God, and we trust in Him.  When your conscience accuses you, hear another voice – the voice of Christ releasing you from your sins.  Freed from the bondage of sin you can now live in the certainty of God’s grace.  You can live in peace because you have peace with God.  You can live in hope because the Lord gives you a sure and certain hope of eternal life.  You can live a life of confidence that is confidence in the Lord.

Now that you salvation is secure in Christ you are freed to look at the need of your neighbor.  You are able to see that you have been placed in your various vocations in order to honor God’s name and to serve those around you.  God Himself as placed you in the various callings in your life.  God himself has called you to your family, to your workplace, church, and community.  God has called you and qualified you to serve your neighbor in whatever capacity you find yourself today.  The Lord will be your strength. 

Not only has the Lord placed you into your various vocations but He has brought you into His Kingdom.  To be in Christ is to be fully and completely qualified to share in the heavenly inheritance. God does not call the qualified. God qualifies the called.    Amen.