Jesus + Nothing = Everything
Colossians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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1 I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. 2 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. 5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. 6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. 9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.
1 I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally.
Contending / struggle
2 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Encouraged in heart
United in Love
Complete understanding
4 I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.
Deceive you by fine sounding arguments.
When you say something with confidence people tend to believe it.
5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
Disciplined / Firm
The army (v. 5). The words disciplined and firm are military terms. They describe an army that is solidly united against the enemy. Order describes the arrangement of the army in ranks, with each soldier in his proper place. Not everybody can be a five-star general, but the general could never fight the battle alone. Firm or Steadfastness pictures the soldiers in battle formation, presenting a solid front to the enemy. Christians ought to make progress in discipline and obedience, just as soldiers on the battlefield.
2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
1636 - 16 yrs after the Pilgrim fathers landed on Plymouth Rock they decided they need a school to educate young Pastors and clergyman for the Gospel’s sake. They decided to name their school after one of their best young well known preachers. John Harvard and Harvard University was born. Over the years Harvard slowly moved away from many of the core and essential beliefs of the Christian faith.
This is what Paul was contending or struggling with. He could see that over time if the Colossea church did not stay disciplined and firm in their faith in Christ other teaching would make its way in and move them away for Jesus.
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him,
continue to live your life in him
Walk is the familiar NT term denoting the believer’s daily conduct
“The Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up. You have to cut every step with an ice axe. Only with incessant labor in cutting and chipping can you make any progress”. - Charles Spurgeon
If you want to know how to backslide, leave off going forward. Cease going upward and you will go downward of necessity. You can never stand still”. - Charles Spurgeon
7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
The tree (v. 7a). Rooted is an agricultural word. The tense of the Greek word means “once and for all having been rooted.” Christians are not to be tumbleweeds that have no roots and are blown about by “every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). Nor are they to be “transplants” that are repeatedly moved from soil to soil. Once we are rooted by faith in Christ, there is no need to change the soil! The roots draw up the nourishment so that the tree can grow. The roots also give strength and stability.
How Did Tumbleweeds Get Here?
Live many invasive species, the plucky tumbleweed hitchhiked with unwitting travelers. In 1873, Russian immigrants arrived in South Dakota carrying flax seed that was apparently contaminated with Russian thistle seeds (Salsola tragus). Once sown, these invaders from another continent quickly sprouted, unhampered by natural predators and diseases to keep them in check. Each winter after Russian thistle plants die, the brittle bushy parts snap off at the roots and blow away, dispersing seeds wherever they tumble (about 250,000 per plant).
Because Russian thistle thrives on little precipitation and easily exploits disturbed land stripped of native species, it was able to quickly take hold in the vast agricultural fields and overgrazed rangelands of the arid West. By the end of the 1800s, this intruder had already rolled its way across most western states and into Canada, carried by wind and even railroad cars.
A government botanist sent to investigate in the early 1890s could barely believe his eyes: "One almost continuous area of about 35,000 square miles has become more or less covered with the Russian thistle in the comparatively brief period of twenty years."
But there’s a downside. Tumbleweeds have never stopped spreading. Nearly every state in the U.S. is now home to Russian thistle, as well as several newer tumbleweed species that arrived as immigrants from around the world.
The ongoing drought out West is a particular boon for these ubiquitous raiders, launching an explosion of prickly spheres rolling across mesas and through canyons and towns, and even creating a new giant hybrid species that’s currently sweeping across California.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.
7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Built up is an architectural term. It is in the present tense: “being built up.” When we trust Christ to save us, we are put on the foundation; from then on, we grow in grace. The word edify that is found often in Paul’s letters simply means “to build up.” To make spiritual progress means to keep adding to the temple to the glory of God.
7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Taught. It is the Word of God that builds and strengthens the Christian. Epaphras had faithfully taught the Colossian believers the truth of the Word (Col. 1:7). But the false teachers were undermining that doctrine. Today, Christians who study the Word become established in the faith. Satan has a difficult time deceiving the Bible-taught believer.
7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
The word overflowing or abounding is often used by Paul. It suggests the picture of a river overflowing its banks. Our first experience in the Lord is that of drinking the water of life by faith, and He puts within us an artesian well of living water (John 4:10–14). But that artesian well should become a “river of living water” (John 7:37–39) that grows deeper and deeper. The image of the river flowing from the sanctuary (Ezek. 47) getting deeper as it flows, probably is what Paul had in mind. Sad to say, many of us are making no progress—our lives are shallow trickles instead of mighty rivers.
Again, Paul mentioned “thankfulness” (see Col. 1:3, 12). A thankful spirit is a mark of Christian maturity.
So Paul wanted them to know, grow, and then overflow with thankfulness in Christ Jesus.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
cheat you. Here is the term for robbery. False teachers who are successful in getting people to believe lies, rob them of truth, salvation, and blessing.
Philosophy / philosophia: Philo to love / Sophia wisdom
Remember last two weeks. The Gnostics were teaching a higher knowledge that Christ.
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,
This is one of the clearest verses of the Jesus being God in the scriptures.
10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.
In Christ you have been brought to fullness
Fullness can be translated to complete.
If Jesus is all you got, then Jesus is all you need.
Some Jews that have accepted Jesus as their Savior have called themselves completed Jews.
You are incomplete until you receive Christ as your Saviour and Lord.
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
― Mark Twain