Colossians 3:17-4:1
AI-GENERATED SUMMARY
This sermon establishes the “Crown Rights of King Jesus” over every aspect of life, using Colossians 3:17 as the central “preface” to the specific household commands that follow in the epistle1. Pastor Tuuri asserts God’s absolute sovereignty over life and death, referencing the recent passing of Justice Antonin Scalia to affirm that God sovereignly takes breath away at His appointed time2. The message emphasizes that believers are servants at the King’s table, receiving grace not merely for comfort but for empowerment to obey Christ in “all” things—comprehensive of time, space, and activity3,4. Practically, this sets the stage for viewing family roles (husbands, wives, children) not merely as cultural duties but as specific ways to live out the Lordship of Jesus5.
COMMUNION HOMILY
as Paul is moving toward discussing the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians, he talks about food issues in chapter 10 and he says this: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons.” So I think this is a reference to communion that he talks about a couple of chapters from there. And he refers to it as the Lord’s table.
And we commonly call this the Lord’s table, the Lord’s Supper. And I think it’s significant that we do that. And again, we sort of take these things for granted. It’s the king’s table. We’re here as gracious recipients of the grace of God through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We talked a couple of months ago about the imagery of the king’s table with David and Mephibosheth in the Old Testament. David allowed Mephibosheth to sit at the king’s table to eat from the king’s table all the days of his life. And Mephibosheth—the text of the scriptures tell us—was lame from birth. So we have this picture of us coming to the greater David’s table as those who have been lame, sinful, fallen, with difficult lives because of our own sin. Not in his case, but a picture of that—the lameness of sin—by the recipient of God’s grace. The greater David brings us to the table and graciously gives us his table to sit at. And Mephibosheth is a tremendous example of that and of the example of the grace of God to us sinners through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in his death on the cross.
The one thing that you might not always remember about this image, which is a wonderful one, is found in 2 Samuel 9:6-7. We read that when Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, had come to David, he fell on his face, prostrated himself, and David said, “Mephibosheth.” And he answered, “Here is your servant. Here is your servant.” We come to the Lord’s table acknowledging that we have a master, acknowledging that that master has graciously brought us into relationship with him in spite of our metaphorical lameness, our sin.
And you know, David gave Mephibosheth dominion over lands. And the Lord Jesus gives us dominion over the earth based upon his grace and mercy here at this table. But never forget, brothers and sisters, that in the midst of these great truths that we rejoice in, that our souls are comforted about, that we come to this table as those who say, “Here we are, we are your servants. Not your part-time servants, not your quarter-time servants—we are your servants in the very essence of our being.”
As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to his disciples and said, “Take, eat. This is my body.”
Let’s pray. Father, we do thank you for this bread. We thank you for the image that it portrays to us of the body of our Savior broken on the cross, but also of his body, the church, and our participation in it. We thank you, Lord God, for the king’s table. We come before you as those who are deeply grateful participants in life and in our Savior calling us to eat from his table—the table at which the only true food of life eternal is given. And we acknowledge before you, Lord God, that we are your servants. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Q&A SESSION
Q1:
Questioner (Kathy): Pastor, I’m back by the double doors, the exit sign. This is actually a positive thing and hopefully I can say it and make sense. I’m kind of not on your sermon, but kind of am. I appreciate what you said about Justice Scalia since Sean died and the decision I had to make regarding having his machine shut off. I can’t handle the guilt. So it helped me a lot today to hear you say that God took his breath away because maybe I didn’t kill my son. So I hope it’s okay to say this and thank you.
Pastor Tuuri: You never know what God’s going to use. Well, that’s the truth of the matter. The Lord took Sean’s breath and it was the Lord’s appointed time. Yeah, so Kathy, you did not kill your son. I can give you that assurance and we can talk later and stuff. Let me pray for you right now.
Father, we thank you that your hand is upon us for blessing and good, that we can count on that. Father, we can count on your sovereign decision as to our birth, as to our death. None of us really is in charge of either one of those things. And we thank you for reminding us today that you are indeed the one who sovereignly takes people home when it’s the right time.
Bless Kathy with assurance of that knowledge. Help her to rest in that. You know, Father, we’re people that trouble ourselves so frequently over our decisions. And we thank you that you give us assurance every week of the forgiveness of our sins and of rest and peace at the Lord’s table, so that we can rest, Father, not even knowing everything that we’ve done or the reasons for it, but we know that you love us.
So help Kathy to be filled with the sense of your love, your forgiveness, and your comfort. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Pastor Tuuri: Thanks for sharing, Kathy.
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Q2:
John S.: Dennis, this is John. I’m a little to your right. I really appreciate what you had to say regarding the preface to the commands regarding the family and the centrality of verse 17. I thought that was really important and useful. I also noticed that in that verse there are actually the word “all” is used twice. It’s not “whatsoever” as in italics in the King James and New King James, but that word actually is present in the Greek. So it’s all you do, all. Yeah, I also noticed that same word is used four times in the Great Commission. “I am with you always.” It’s not just “at all times,” it’s all—completely comprehensive time, space, everything. So I thought that was good.
I was also kind of skipping back when you were looking at that. I had a question regarding, and maybe you’ll get to this, but looking at the commands to the family—husbands and fathers in Colossians and then I think fathers in Ephesians—are the only ones in the family that are given negative commands, prescriptive “don’t do these things,” right? Don’t be bitter against your wives, don’t provoke your children. What do you make of that? And are you going to speak to that at all? Because the wives have positive commands to do certain things, but the fathers and husbands have commands to both do and not do certain things.
Pastor Tuuri: Yeah, I will have a lot more to say about that, actually starting next week. But yeah, I tried to emphasize that in my actual reading of the text before the sermon and then I commented on it briefly. Now, when you get to the third group, the servants are commanded not to do something. So that’s kind of interesting.
You know, last week when Gordon preached on, you know, little ones, children, fathers, whatever it was—young men, fathers—you know, there are these sections where there’s a commonality of thread, and yet distinctions made. And so it’s fascinating to think about that.
I think it is significant that both husbands and fathers—well, let me say I can say a couple things. One, the situation to which the epistle is being written in that particular culture, there was this power thing, there was this paterfamilias thing that was not good. So I think those commands are given because fathers who were coming out of the Roman or the Hellenistic culture, and husbands coming out of that, really needed to correct their sin. I think that’s part of it.
Part of it is the nature of the fall and the relationship of men to women in the fall. So I think there’s both a cultural reason for that as well as probably some deeper theological reasons. And at the end of the day, of course, as men, you know, we got to say, “Wow, this is a pastoral statement to us. We are in a position of producing the capability for our wives and children to—whatever. It’s never our fault, but it’s certainly our responsibility when certain sins happen as a result of our sins.”
So I think that, you know, it’s got a cultural component, it’s got a creational component, and it’s got a pastoral charge that should hit us right between the eyes. But more next week. Is that okay?
John S.: Yep. Thank you. Thank you for bringing it out, pointing it out.
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Q3:
Questioner: Just a quick comment right here. So that’s in there because we tend to do that.
Pastor Tuuri: Yes. Yeah, that’s right. That’s good. Yeah, you know, God preaches at us on the points of where we’re tempted or likely to sin. Yeah. So, for instance, some people say, “Well, wives aren’t commanded to love their husbands because husbands are commanded to love their wives.” Well, I think husbands are commanded to love their wives because they need to be commanded to love their wives. I think wives—anything I say at this point is going to get me in trouble. But I do think that husbands need to hear the command and I do think wives are to love their husbands also, but they’re not commanded to.
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Q4:
Questioner (Jeff): Hi, Dennis. Jeff down here. And like Kathy, you know, with my mom passing last week, it was very interesting and appropriate comments. But in any case, as you were talking about our being a representative of Christ and closely identifying with him, the word “agent” came to my mind—you know, somebody who’s an agent for somebody else is trying to represent them, and legally and you know ethically and all those other things. Yes, I thought it was an interesting way to think of it at least. That made sense to me. So that’s good. Thank you.
Pastor Tuuri: Joe, how was your trip?
Questioner (Joe): It was really wonderful. I mean, very rarely do I feel that much that I was doing exactly what God wanted me to do at that point without any doubt, you know?
Pastor Tuuri: Yeah, those were nice times. Yeah, it was kind of a big high from that standpoint. But well, it’s great to have you back. Thank you. Anybody else? If not, let’s go have our food.
Dennis Tuuri 
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