Conquest of the King
Notes
Transcript
If you have your Bible’s, and I hope you do, go ahead and grab them and turn to Colossians 2.
I had a conversation the other day with a friend of mine and he asked me, “Matt, are you a farmer who pastors or a pastor who farms?” I kinda chuckled at the question not sure how to respond and also wondering why the question at all. So I thought for a second or two and said yes. I’m whatever I need to be whenever I need to be. Almost daily I’m juggling both at the same time.
But as I’ve studied this passage I’ve come under the conviction that I don’t think that is the right answer. Because so often what we (or I) tend to do is I tend to put on my farmer hat and my mind is entirely driven by farming things. I’m concerned about managing people and accomplishing tasks and not killing everything or everyone in the process. I’m wondering where markets are going and if I should try to lock in a price let a lone go ahead and start booking orders for watermelons and ordering cardboard and then a hail storm hits and all the sudden I’m struggling with a whole new set of problems. Then the bank won’t give me a loan or renew my loan and and and in all of that I begin to wrap my entire identity up in what I do, what I accomplish and how much $ I make at the end of the day.
But the same can be said when I put on my pastor hat. I’m concerned about getting a sermon written, and caring for you well, and discipleship, and what are we going to teach for SS in the fall. Where are areas we need to focus on growth? Who needs to be cared for? Am I caring well? What about facilities? All of these things begin to consume my thoughts and focus and if I’m doing well then I’m happy or if I’m not and I’m offending people then I feel terrible and you’re mad.
So then I go put on my husband & dad hat and walk through all the same emotions with my family. Now that’s me, but we all tend to get wrapped up everyday in walking in whatever hat we’re wearing. It consumes us. It gives us identity and purpose. Our joys and sadness are derived from however we do with whatever hat we’re wearing.
The text this morning I think challenges that status quo. I doesn’t call us to leave those things behind, but it reorients how we do the things we do and more importantly, who we are in the midst of the things we do.
We’ve spent I believe 9 weeks going through the first half of this book in which Paul has briefly explained some glorious theological truths, and these verses are the turning point, the pinnacle, the thesis statement of the entire book. We’ve had our hearts and brains entrenched in theology over the past 9 weeks, and now we’re going to turn and see how that theology works itself out in our lives. Everything you do is ultimately driven by what you believe, so Paul is now going to show us what it looks like for us to live out what we believe.
If I believe my ultimate purpose is to be a farmer, or a pastor, or a dad, or a cowboy, or manager, or fill in the blank then the culture I live in and the world around us tells us to walk a certain way; to live and behave a certain way. Paul tells us this morning that our theology, what we believe changes that. We are to not walk as a farmer; pastor; grandma; grandpa; stay at home mom; No, we’re to walk in him. That’s our main point today: Walk in him. Let’s read these 2 verses, pray, and jump into it.
MPT: Walk in Him.
Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
This is God’s Word. Thanks be to God.
If the main thing Paul wants us to understand and the church at Colossae to get is to walk in him then the question is how? How do we walk in Him? Paul gives us two points here: Remember & remain.
Remember
Remember
Paul starts this transition into the second half of the book with the word therefore. Now remember, anytime you see the word therefore in the Bible you pause and ask the question, what is therefore there for? Based off of everything we’ve seen, studied, read and looked at so far, Paul is now switching gears and saying do this. What we’ve looked at so far is an indicative. It is instructive by nature, it’s the why behind the what, it’s the truth that guides us. Now, what we’re going to look at is an imperative. Because of this, do this. In fact, that phrase, walk in him, is the first imperative that Paul has given in this entire book. Everything before this just indicates why we walk in him.
So therefore, as you received Christ Jesus, so walk in him. Now the question before us is how did the church at Colossae and how did we receive Christ Jesus? Remember that Jesus had never been to this place, so how did they receive him? Paul answers this question just in the next phrase bus also back in Col 1:6. “Just as you were taught.” How were you taught it? Look back at 1:6
which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,
Someone taught you who Jesus was. Someone told you—you heard—of the grace of God. This isn’t something you’ve always known. There was a time when you didn’t know Jesus. You weren’t born into it. You had to be told of God’s grace. Paul says in 2:6 that you received this truth. What does that word receive indicate? It means you don’t have. You were lacking. In fact, that’s the truth that you were told. Someone told you the bad news in order for you to hear the good news. Thus far through the book Paul has shown us both the bad and the good news. What’s the bad news? It’s that you had a hopeless hope.
since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel,
This isn’t the only place Paul talks about hope, but the hope he tells us about is a hope that is greater than all other hopes. This one is a heavenly hope. But when I walk with the hope of a farmer/pastor/dad/etch. I’ve got an earthly hope. Not that it’s bad that I hope my kids turn out ok or that I succeed at what I do, but when that hope drives me and consumes me then my hope is temporary and will certainly not be met. But a heavenly hope, that’s eternal, secure, and certain. When I walk in that hope, then all the smaller hopes of this world may win or fail, but I can’t be shaken. But it’s not just our hope that’s hopeless in this world. A little further down Paul describes who we are in Christ, which is indicative of who we are outside of him. What did Jesus do in 1:13-14?
Orphans, in the dark, enslaved to an evil king
giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Outside of Jesus you had no inheritance. You were an orphan. Outside of Jesus you lived under the domain of darkness. In other words your entire life was wrapped up in the darkness of a hopeless hope. Outside of Jesus you were under an evil king. The language Paul uses elsewhere is enslavement. You were enslaved to the king of darkness. All that you did was under the dominion and for the purpose of the king of darkness.
That’s the bad news. That’s who you are outside of Jesus, but church, the good news is that, Col. 2:6
Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,
As you received, you were taught the bad and the good and you received who? Christ Jesus the Lord. The good news is that you now have a new king. This is the only time in the Scriptures Paul uses this exact word order and phrasing about Jesus. These 3 titles then are very significant and intentional. You have received Christ. Why this name and what’s the significance of it?
I love what Spurgeon says, “
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. LV “As” and “So.” (No. 3,173)
You see in him no amateur Saviour, uncommissioned; but one sent by the Father, the authorized Representative of the Most High, the Christos, the Messias, the Sent One, who could rightly apply to himself the ancient promise,
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
You have received in Christ a sufficient savior. One who perfectly atones and one who perfectly fills all that God has promised. He is the Christ, yet he is also Jesus.
While he is a sufficient savior he is also a personal savior. When you received him it wasn’t just doctrine or truths about him. It was him that you received. It was all of him that you received. Jesus is the one who healed the unclean woman. He healed the blind beggar. He cared for Peter’s mother in law. He said
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
It is him that met you and carried you out of that domain of darkness. It is him that qualified you to share in an inheritance. It is Jesus that redeemed and forgave you. It’s not the idea of him, the tradition of him, the truths or doctrines of him; no it is Christ Jesus himself who saved you. I’ll quote Spurgeon again, “And we received [Jesus]—at least I know I did,—for better or worse, in health, or in sickness, to have and to hold so that even death should never part us.”
And when he saved you saved you as Lord. It is now his dominion that we live and serve under. We’re transferred out of the domain of darkness to the domain of light. One in which we can see and live but one in which we are totally and completely underneath the Lordship of a sufficient and personal savior. He is now completely ours and we completely his. He is the one now who has authority over our lives. Where he calls us to go we go and what he calls us to do we do. Not because we feel obliged, not because it’s a burden or a duty, but because it’s Jesus who calls us.
Spurgeon put it this way: We took him for all that we knew of him, and we found that he was much more than we then thought he was; but we did not pick and choose, and say, “We will have his pardon, but we will not have his sanctification.” We took the many-sided Christ, the Christ of many glorious characters, the Christ of ten thousand times ten thousand beauties; we took Christ to teach us, Christ to lead us, Christ to feed us, Christ to cheer us, Christ for us to obey, and Christ for us to delight in; we took a whole Christ. And then we gave him our whole selves. We said, “Lord, take us, body, soul, and spirit;”
One commentary summed up Paul’s intentional use of this title of Jesus this way:
Colossians and Philemon A. The Heart of the Matter: Remaining Centered on Christ (2:6–7)
Paul connects a fundamental expression of what it means to be a Christian with the Christology that he has developed in the earlier part of the letter. “Jesus Christ is Lord” is a succinct way of saying that he is “the image of the invisible God,” “the firstborn over all creation” (1:15), “the head of the body, the church” (1:18), “the mystery of God” (2:2; cf. 1:27), and the repository of “all wisdom and knowledge” (2:3).
In other words, He is a sufficient savior. He is a personal savior. He is a complete savior. Is he that to you? Do you remember the moment when someone taught you the bad news and showed you the good news? Do you remember that moment when you realized you had been enslaved to the king of darkness, yet in mercy the king of light came to you and transferred you into his kingdom?
Seriously, I want you to think back to that moment when you came to the end of yourself and you were without hope. You were without light. I was in my bed as a 5 year old little boy laying on the top bunk and all the sudden it became very clear to me all that I had done and all that I was due. I remember crying out to my dad and he crawled up there and he told me about the king of light and led me to him. I remember asking that sufficient, personal savior to completely save me. As terrified as I was before that prayer, I was equally as certain after that prayer that I was safe. I was confident that since he is a sufficient savior I didn’t have to do anything else. He saved me. He was good enough.
I don’t remember feeling it then, but I do now look back and am incredibly humbled. Humbled that despite me, despite all the things I had done and have done since then, that he still loves me. He still draws near to me. He has never left nor forsaken me.
I remember feeling peace. I remember that I was able to go to sleep that night after all that I was afraid of when he saved me I laid my head back down and was asleep. There was rest for my body and my soul because of the sufficient, personal, complete savior.
I remember feeling gratitude. I remember being thankful for safety and security. I remember being thankful for deliverance and redemption. I didn’t know then, but I do know now, that the faith with which I received Christ was as much the gift of God to me as was the Christ upon whom my faith was fixed. So I am grateful that I was even given faith.
What about you? What do you remember of that moment? Maybe there’s nothing for you to remember because you’ve never come to the end of yourself. You’ve never truly or fully realized that your life has been one of enslavement to false identities that are ultimately ruled by the king of darkness. Maybe you’ve never found hope, because you’ve been looking in all the wrong places. If that’s you this morning then let me tell you about a sufficient, personal, and complete savior. One who is always good and gives you a new identity and a new hope that supersedes all others. If that’s you this morning then the call for you is to cry out. It’s to ask Christ Jesus the Lord to save you and as he comes to save you it’s for you to receive that salvation.
But if you can remember that moment, you can remember the peace, the security, the confidence, the safety, the joy that you had in that moment then the question is how do we remain in that? We might remember, but how do we remain? That’s our second point and the second call that Paul has for us this morning.
Remain
Remain
Let’s put our text back up on the screen so it’s in front of us
Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
How do we remain?
As you received - indicative. You can’t do this next part if you haven’t done that part.
Imperative — Walk in him
3 Participles indicating how to walk:
Rooted
What do roots do?
Source of life
Source of growth
Enables fruit bearing
Can’t be seen
Built up
Indicates growth/progress (externally visible)
Think of a house
What does that look like?
Rest of the book is about
Thanksgiving
Established (summary word of the first 2)
Secure
Immovable
Sustainable
Passive participles!
As you remain God does this in you.
Practical application
This week:
Ps 51 - picture of the psalmists heart of repentance
Ps 136 - retelling of the story of Israel
Right now: Lord’s Supper
