Today let's consider virtues as mandated by Paul. Paul wrote several letters to various congregation. Today's letter is to the Colossian congregation. We'll peek into their mail. Like Linus said to Charlie Brown: "Whenever we read the letters of Paul in our Bible school I feel like I'm reading someone else's mail." Well, Linus, I really don't think Paul will mind!

Virtue and virile come from the same root, meaning strength, power. Our use of power today is not the power of arms or machines, but the power of right behavior, the power of virtues. Near the end of World War II, Stalin and Churchill had a conversation. The prime minister said he hoped the pope would have a good influence in putting Europe back together. Stalin leaned over and said cynically, "Really, how many divisions does he have?"

I heard about a young thug in south central Los Angeles who roughed up a motorist who was stalled with car trouble. A tow truck driver came and tried to bargain with the kid, who asked, "Are you bargaining with me because you respect me, or because I have a gun?"

The truck driver said, "If you no gun, we no talk!"

"That's what I thought. That's why I always carry a gun."

In a world where weapons mean power, is it any wonder that Jesus isn't taken more seriously? Violence in the Middle East, each side blaming the other, and each side retaliating. Violence in the Far East, violence in Ireland, violence on the streets of our cities. And violence in the rhetoric of our government. Yet Paul comes in today's letter to describe Jesus in terms of virtues.

Paul's triad of faith, hope and love, from another letter to another congregation, give us a solid foundation on which to consider the virtues he mandates for the Colossian church.

Paul tells the Colossians that for the sake of the body of Christ, the church, he became a servant. His commission was to present the "word of God in its fullness." Then he proclaims that the word of God in its fullness is "the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints" - that's you! What is the mystery so long hidden, but now made manifest? It is "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Since the children are here this morning, let's play a game. Every time you hear me say "Christ in you" I'd like you to add: "the hope of glory."

Remember last week's story of the lawyer who wanted to know how to inherit eternal life? What need he do? The answer was that he needed to do the works as described in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Works, if you please!

What characteristics prepare us to do such works? That is what we will consider today. Virtues. Reality virtues. Virtue reality - "Christ in you, the hope of glory," his lifestyle and his personality characteristics in our lives, in our behavior, "bearing fruit in every good work."

The good works Paul mandates are the natural fruit of a life devoted to living the Jesus lifestyle.

Last week we quoted Teresa of Avila: "Christ has no body on earth now but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now."

During World War II we bombed a church in Dresden, Germany. After the war, a statue of Jesus was found at that site, intact except that the hands were blown off, and never found. So beneath the statue of the handless Jesus, they put a sign: "You are the hands of Christ."

We have all seen the famous painting of Christ knocking at a door. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." (Revelation 3:20) The door has no latch. It must be opened from the inside. If we open the door, Jesus comes in - "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

That's where virtues come to play. Once Jesus is in my heart, I will just naturally be the kind of person who thinks and acts like a Jesus-possessed person. My life will then reflect the virtues which Jesus lived.

(Children, you're doing well!)

One of the virtues admonished by Paul is "growing in the knowledge of God." To grow in knowledge means to become mature. Maturity is not just getting older. Maturity is growing up, not growing old!

That, dear saints, is the most depressing facet of ministry. Most people, even most Christians, are quite satisfied to stay right where they are in spiritual or mental status. Very few people want to change, to grow in knowledge and experience.

This may sound harsh, but I want to tell you that if you believe the same now that you believed a year ago, if your experience in Christ has not grown, you need to do some serious soul-searching.

How do we do that? How do we grow in our Christian experience? How do we grow in the knowledge of God? By studying about God, by praying to God, by listening to God . . . by imitating God as manifest in Jesus. And how was Jesus known? By his good works! By healings and miracles and by showing compassion for the hurting and by ministering to the disadvantaged. Read the Gospels.

Paul tells us that "growing in the knowledge of God" will result in "being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience." Endurance and patience. Are those virtues, or are those virtues? Endurance means perseverance, fortitude. Fortitude is that virtue which enables us to hang on no matter the circumstances. Chrysostom (Greek for "golden-mouthed") called perseverance the queen of the virtues.

Then comes patience, longsuffering, a word which always refers to people, particularly people who provoke. So when Paul says to have great endurance and patience, he is telling us to have fortitude which no situation can defeat, and longsuffering which no person can defeat.

Then Paul admonishes that we are to live these virtues with joy; not in the somber gloom of shadows, but in the radiant light-of-the-world exuberance. William Barclay suggests that we pray, "Make me, O Lord, victorious over every circumstance; make me patient with every person; and withal give me the joy which no circumstance and no person will ever take from me."

It was customary in the ancient world for a nation which conquered another nation to transfer the conquered people to the land of the conquerors. So Paul says, "He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves." The Revised Standard Version says that God has "transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son."

God has conquered us, by his love, and transferred us to his kingdom of love. God has transferred, or rescued us from a world of darkness and taken us to a kingdom of light. He has rescued us from a world of condemnation and taken us to his kingdom of forgiveness, from a world of slavery to his kingdom of freedom.

No wonder Paul talks so much about freedom! Freedom from domination by evil - liberation theology if you please.

So far we have identified several virtues: growing in knowledge, endurance, patience, joyfulness, thankfulness and freedom.

Now Paul counsels us to "continue in faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the Gospel." Faith and hope. "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you . . ." So when we have Christ in us as our hope of glory, our faith is unshakable, our hope is strong. "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

"This is the gospel that you heard . . . and of which I, Paul, have become a servant." All these virtues are the way "that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work."

Paul had paid a price for his ministry. But he rejoiced "in what was suffered for you," the church. "I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness."

Virtues, more than talents, are the hallmark of success in ministry for Christ. Knowledge, endurance, patience, joyfulness, thankfulness, freedom, faith, hope. Those are virtues which are manifest in servanthood.

A young man desperately wanted to be a minister. He attended Iliff School of Theology in Denver. Whereas most students complete seminary education in 4 years, he was there 6 years, and was still failing. He did have a license to preach, however.

Seminary students usually serve churches in the area, and he served several small churches. He was unsuccessful in each, and each church asked that he be moved. Finally he went to the bishop. "Bishop, isn't there some church out there that no one wants?"

"Yes, and guess who's going there!" So he went up into the mountains, to a little church in a coal mining area. And you know what? He was a smashing success. Not because he was suddenly a good preacher. Not because he was eloquent. But he was the only preacher they had ever had who was willing to crawl down into a mine shaft when there was a cave-in and read scriptures and pray for the trapped miners.

He was the only minister they had had who was out on the picket line on cold mornings, serving coffee and trying to bring peace and reconciliation to the troubled labor relations.

He had all sorts of trouble. His wife got sick. He broke his leg in a fall. Finally he had to give up and move back to the city. On his last Sunday, the miners packed the little church. They even had to open the windows so people could stand outside and listen.

After the last hymn was sung, a big Polish miner came up to the pulpit with a hat full of money, threw his arms around the preacher and said, "Preach, us guys love you, give you this."

I don't know how he managed to finish the seminary, but the last I heard, that preacher was still serving small churches no one else wanted!

That is virtue, virtue reality! That is successful ministry, based on love and patience and joyfulness and faith and hope. Is it a mystery? Maybe it is "the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints" to whom "God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery . . . Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Please do not let my constant emphasis on works lead you to minimize the significance of grace and faith. We are saved by grace, thru faith But we are to be judged by our works. We are not likely to do good works unless we are saved, converted, born again. I think God must look with favor on that small-time preacher, maybe more than on those who are judged by society as successful! You think about that.

Let us pray . . .

Thank you, Lord, for Paul, for his example, for his teachings, for his counsel to the Colossians, and to us. Grant that we may inculcate the virtues into our lives, that we may become servants of your kingdom.

We do want to reflect Jesus and his love in our lives. We do want to make a difference in this world. We do want the power that comes from living the Jesus lifestyle.