I have been fascinated with the book of Colossians ever since I realized that it was written to a church that Paul had never visited. Every other letter of his to a church that we have in the New Testament, except for this one and Romans, are to churches that he helped start. He writes Galatians, Thessalonians, Philippians, and Ephesians all to churches he had spent time with, but not Colossae. The Colossae church was a second-generation church; a church that demonstrated the Great Commission was truly being fulfilled. It is a model of what we want to see today – Christians that produce Christians; churches that produce more churches.
Paul expresses a great deal of joy in his greeting to this church and provides us with a model prayer that we all should be praying for ourselves and each other. That is what we will be looking at in this first message.