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Andy Crouch has a book called Strong and Weak, which I mentioned last Sunday… he talks about flourishing this way:
“Flourishing” is a way of answering “What are we meant to be?” We are meant to flourish—not just to survive, but to thrive; not just to exist, but to explore and expand. The second century theologian, Irenaeus wrote, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” To flourish is to be fully alive. To be fully alive would connect us not just to our own proper human purpose but to the very heights and depths of divine glory. To live fully in such a way that we somehow participate in the glory of God—that would be flourishing. And that is what we are meant to do.
Flourishing happens in an environment that is favourable for health and growth. True flourishing can only happen when we submit ourselves to the authority of Jesus as the only rightful ruler of all creation, and as the only one who can promise eternal life.
This flourishing is experienced through:
- Redemption, which is the rescue of us from the power of darkness. It produces an environment of freedom.
- Rule of Jesus, which is our willful submission to him as our king and master. It produces an environment of abundance.
- Reconciliation, which is our continuous dependence on Jesus to make us holy, and to bring peace to our lives wherever we go. It produces an environment of peace.
1. Flourishing Through Redemption
v. 13-14: For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
What is redemption?
To buy back, release from bondage.
The Exodus story is the ultimate picture of redemption and is a model of the salvation given to us through Jesus.
Exodus 6:6: say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.
What happened when God saved the Israelites from Egypt? They got a new master. A good master.
The promise of redemption was fulfilled when the Israelites crossed to the other side of the Red Sea. But, there was a greater redemption in store, not only for Israel, but for all people, through Israel, fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Like the Israelites, we have all been in need of rescuing from bondage. We have had a master, an evil master, called sin. This is the dominion of darkness. It is within us, in all humans.
Freedom comes through the sacrifice of Jesus and is not accomplished by our effort.
However, experiencing that freedom is not automatic. Evil is still around us, and we still feel the effects of sin.
The experience of freedom comes through trusting in the hope of our salvation rather than on our own ability to overcome evil.
Isaiah. 43:1-4:
But now, this is what the Lord says—
he who created you, Jacob,
he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name;
you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour
Redemption means that the well-being of God’s people are in his hands, and he promises to take care of them.
He is a good master, who not only makes good promises, but is the only one capable of fulfilling those promises.
The book of Ruth is also a story of redemption:
It tells the story of an Israelite widow named Naomi, her daughter-in-law, Ruth who is a Moabite, and a farmer from Bethlehem named Boaz. It tells of how God uses a faithful non-Israelite to bring restoration to his people.
Naomi is left without a husband or sons, which means her family line and the family line of her husband will end. However, her daughter-in-law, Ruth, decides to go with Naomi back to Bethlehem.
While they are there, Ruth encounters a man named Boaz, who happens to be a relative of Naomi’s late husband, Elimelech. This means, if he is willing, he can redeem Elimelech’s land and restore his family line through marrying Ruth.
Boaz does this, marries Ruth, and they had a son who they named Obed. Obed had a son named Jesse, who was king David’s father.
This is what redemption looked like at the time. Boaz had the legal right to buy the land that belonged to Elimelech. And by doing so, he became the rightful owner of it, and restored that family’s heritage, making it whole again.
In the same way, Jesus bought what rightfully belongs to him as the firstborn over all creation (v. 15).
That term, firstborn, communicates to the original hearers, that Jesus is the rightful heir to all of creation. Everything belongs to him, but he had to redeem it because creation is being held captive by sin and death.
So, redemption means that Jesus has the rightful place as owner of all creation. It also means that we who want him as our master must give up control of our own efforts to prove ourselves worthy of God’s favour and blessings.
This brings us to the next question…
How does redemption bring flourishing?
Notice in Colossians 1:13, Paul includes himself in the us that God has rescued from the dominion of darkness. Why?
Because, before Jesus saved him, he thought he could save himself through obedience to the law.
In Phil 3:4-6 Paul explains how, if there can be any hope in human effort, he would have more hope than anyone. But, he says in the following verses, whatever gains he made through human effort he considers worthless compared to the hope offered by Jesus.
We flourish because we no longer strive for freedom. We have freedom through redemption, with no effort of our own.
Redemption produces an environment of freedom.
What is our response?
Our response is simple but not easy. We respond the way Paul did. We say yes to the freedom Jesus is offering. But we also say yes to living in his ways.
You see, flourishing is only made possible through the freedom Jesus is offering.
But, just because it is now possible for those who are saved by Jesus, it doesn’t mean everyone who is saved experiences this flourishing.
What happened with the Israelites after they were saved from slavery in Egypt?
Exodus 16:2: In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.
Like the Israelites, we are prone to compare our current circumstances to some romantic idea of what it was like before we were saved.
The Israelites are forgetting the reality of how terrible things were for them in Egypt, which we read in Exodus chapter 1…
…they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor… But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
Like the Israelites, we tend to forget that the former master was not interested in our flourishing. Our former master has no regard for our well-being.
So, regardless of how we feel about our present or former circumstance, we must remember who our master is and what he has planned for us.
His plan is for us to flourish because he is a good master and he actually has the power to bring our flourishing because he is the rightful ruler of all creation.
Interlude: Two concepts to highlight
v. 15 Jesus as the image of the invisible God, firstborn over all creation
Exodus 20:4: You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.
This commandment is saying, don’t try to imagine God to be whatever you want him to be. Instead, let your imagination of God be determined by truth. Jesus is that truth. So, if we want to imagine what God is like, we look at Jesus. He is the perfect representation of God.
He is also the firstborn in the sense that he is the rightful heir to all of creation. This is written in present tense, not past. He currently rules over all creation as the rightful owner, having received it as an inheritance.
Note that this does not mean he was born. It’s not saying he was the first to be born. It is meant to describe the status of Jesus. The first born son was the rightful heir to the inheritance of the father. Jesus has that status, receiving all of creation as his inheritance.
Let’s look at the second concept in this passage, which is similar…v. 18 Jesus as the beginning; the firstborn from among the dead
Again, firstborn is used in verse 18. But this time it is used to reference a new era of existence for humanity, of which he is the first.
Jesus is the first human to resurrect from the dead. He died, rose from the dead into a renewed body, and is currently living in heaven with this new body. He will return with this new body and give us new bodies that will also live forever.
These two concepts are messages of hope. They are important for understanding why Jesus is worthy of our worship and why we can put our trust in him.
2. Flourishing Through the Rule of Jesus
v. 18: He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
Colossians 1:15-20 is said to be one of the most significant passages about Jesus in the New Testament because of how powerfully it portrays him.
I can’t possibly work through the whole passage in one sermon, so I want to focus on a single feature that I think sums up the point of this passage.
It is about the sovereignty of Jesus. If you look up the word, it means supreme power or authority…
What does Jesus rule over?
In one word, everything.
But I want to be more helpful than that. He rules over the primary way flourishing is manifested on earth: the church.
The church is made up of people who have looked up from our slavery to sin and saw a redeemer. It is made up of people who have looked upon that redeemer and trusted him to save us from our previous master.
Having recognized Jesus as our redeemer, we are meant, as the church, to show people what redemption looks like. What freedom looks like.
Jesus rules over everyone, but not everyone has responded to his rule. Those of us who have responded to it are called to live accordingly.
How does the rule of Jesus bring flourishing?
An important but easily overlooked aspect of the Exodus is the restoration of the Sabbath for the Israelites.
They got to the other side of slavery to Pharaoh, and God began to provide for them by giving them food in the form of manna and Quail.
But, he said, gather enough for each day. Don’t store it up. But on the sixth day of the week, gather enough for two days because on the seventh day of the week I want you to rest.
The Israelites were so used to slavery, working nonstop every day. They went out on the seventh day, and there was no food.
God said to them, the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Rest on the seventh day. You are no longer slaves to Pharaoh. I am now your master, and I want you to rest.
Why?
We are prone to try and justify our existence. We want to prove our worth.
God says, your worth cannot be proven by anything you do. Your worth is proven by my sacrifice, by my love for you.
We will flourish under the rule of Jesus when we decide to stop trying to prove our worth.
The Rule of Jesus produces an environment of abundance.
What is our response?
Taking a sabbath is one way, a legitimate way, to respond to the rule of Jesus in our lives.
In a book by a Jewish man named Abraham Heschel, the sabbath is described as a sampling of eternal life. It is time made holy, set apart unto God. Observing the sabbath is about the recognition that we are citizens of a holy kingdom, a realm that is superior to the physical world. By observing the sabbath, we declare that we are eternally and ultimately dependant on God, not our things or our work.
When we practice the sabbath, we are declaring to the world that our value does not come from our work.
Another way we respond to the rule of Jesus is through generosity. Our king owns everything and he is a generous king.
When we withhold generosity, we are not fully expressing the freedom we have as his people. We are in a sense, not trusting in the abundant blessings of being ruled by Jesus.
But, when we mimic his generosity, we are exercising our freedom. We are conduits of the generosity of God.
This is not only financial generosity. It includes the sharing of God’s abundant love and grace with others.
When we extend the benefits of God’s abundance to others, we bring flourishing among us and in our community.
3. Flourishing Through Reconciliation
v. 22: now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation
2 Cor. 5:17-21 speaks of reconciliation in a very powerful way.
The sacrifice of Jesus is the ultimate demonstration of love and is how God brings reconciliation between humanity and himself.
What is reconciliation?
Essentially, it means the transformation or renewal of a relationship.
The best comparison in Scripture is a parable told by Jesus about a man who had two sons. The younger son wanted his share of the inheritance, so his father gave it to him. This younger son took the inheritance and spent it all on wild living.
Hungry, poor, ashamed, and hopeless, he went back to his father humiliated and repentant, with hopes that at the very least he could be one of his father’s servants. The father not only welcomed him back, but celebrated his return and restored their relationship as father and son.
How does it bring flourishing?
There are two ways we will experience flourishing through reconciliation.
If you look back to verse 21, you see the problem.
We were enemies of God because of sin.
In other words, we were hopelessly distant from God with no way of making things right on our own. Like the wayward younger son, we are unable to make up for what we’ve done. Without reconciliation, we have no chance of flourishing.
Reconciliation means that our destiny is that of eternal life and peace with God rather than death and enmity with God.
God created us for fellowship with him. Fellowship with him is where we will find ultimate peace and contentment.
But we messed it up so badly that we have no chance of making it right. So, he made it right. The path to fellowship with him has been made clear. There is nothing holding you back.
The reconciliation that happens in the parable covers the relationship between the father and the son. But there is another relationship that wasn’t immediately restored. The older son was rightfully upset.
In order for that household to experience peace, the older son would also need to forgive the younger. They needed to be reconciled, not on the basis of the younger son’s merit, but on the basis of the father’s act of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Reconciliation produces an environment of peace.
What is our response?
Our response is tied to our relationships with God, each other, and those who have not yet experienced reconciliation.
Consider our vision statement:
Our vision is to commit our hearts to God, our community, and to each other.
Commitment is a strong word. To be committed to someone means to be dedicated their well-being and the well-being of the relationship.
Our response to reconciliation and how we bring flourishing through reconciliation requires us to behave in a way that promotes peace between us and God, between us and our neighbours, and between one another.