Colossians 2:6-7
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Back again. I'm on a roll , two weeks in a row.
Last week we started chapter two. Paul was saying he had been in conflict for the Colossians, the Laodiceans, and for all that had not met him in the flesh.
Paul had started this ministry to the Gentiles, planted many churches and now disciples of Paul was carrying on the work the Paul had started because he was unable to be there. So Paul was encouraging them by saying I'm not there in the flesh but I’m with you in Spirit.
I’m in conflict for you. This is a spiritual battle I’m fighting for you in heartfelt prayer. Praying for you and your church.
Paul prayed they could be encouraged and knit together in love.
We talked about this being the ties that bind the church together. We talked about this being the first block on the foundation of the church. Belief and faith in Jesus. Love God with all your heart and mind and then love for one another in perfect [ what was the word of the day last week] unity.
Paul was praying that as this community of believers in unity, they would attain all the riches of assurance of understanding. They would have all that Jesus is offering them. They could understand the mystery of Gods will that none should perish but all would come to repentance and your redemption is in Jesus Christ alone .
Take that knowledge and apply it to your life. The knowledge of Jesus Christ . If you have that knowledge you also have the knowledge of God the father. Now apply that knowledge to your life. Its all in Jesus. the word.
He goes on to say I’m telling you these things . I’m giving you this instruction, so false teacher’s. To me this goes deeper tan just false teachers to people that cause division.
Paul says stay in good order this is the same as being knitted together . Unity. Stay steadfast in your faith. Stay the coarse. Faith in Jesus the foundation of the church.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
As therefore you have received Christ Jesus the Lord.
You have received Him. He is in you ,the Holy Spirit is in you. You have not only heard about Jesus you have invited Him into your life. The old things in your life have passed away all things have become new.
Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ
You have received the Spirit of God so walk in it
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
This can be difficult. I don’t know why, but I was caught in that situation for a while. You don’t have to be though.
The New King James Version Chapter 2
rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
Stay rooted and built up in Him
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
He is the author and finisher of your faith. He is the beginning of your faith ,He will see you through to maturity but you have to stay rooted in Him.
as you were taught . This is discipleship.
abounding in it with thanksgiving.
constantly thanking and praising God and growing in your relationship with Him.
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
Paul went through all the Colossians were in Christ. He went through all that Christ is.
He is God. Fully God .
He is the sustainer of life.
He is the resurrection and the life
He is the one to reconcile all creation back to the Father.
He told them to stay grounded in your faith stay unified in love for one another, stay prayerful and thankful to God in worship.
but beware least anyone cheat you.
plunder you or take you captive
a. Plunder: to seize goods or property by force , usually in war as spoils of victory.
b. they [False teachers] will take away the riches and treasure of the assurance that you have in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and take you captive. Put doubt in that hope you have in Jesus. Like Pastor talked about Sunday a little yeast will ruin the whole lump.
The way the false teachers would accomplish this would be through philosophy and empty deceit , according to the traditions of man.
We talked about this a little last week, we can not pin down exactly what the Colossian heresy was. It seems like it was a combination of many things.
a. Gnosticism was one influence or at the very least a precursor to Gnosticism.
b. gnosis in Greek means knowledge. In this case knowledge of a spiritual mystery.
We know from scripture that the spiritual mystery is Jesus and through Him Jew and gentile can be reconciled to God through faith alone, but that is not what the Gnostic's believed. [through all of this and even today the cancer is works based theology]. It’s all pride. There is no way we can be saved by grace through faith because that would somehow take me out of the equation.
So the Gnostics believed the material world was corrupt in the sense that creation is corrupt.
The believed that a lower God had to of created the world because God could not have anything to do with a corrupt world, and without this Gnosis this mystical knowledge of the Devine you cannot reconnect with the higher realm . God.
This does not come through scripture that would be to easy and a select few couldn’t be in charge of the game. If you don’t have the gnosis this hidden knowledge you can’t be saved you have got to be able to see beyond the illusion of this material world to truly understand the divine.
I don’t know about you but I’m beginning to wonder how many of these guys . I say guys because I doubt many women where privy to this knowledge. I wonder how many of them wound up with blue Nike’s and purple robes.
In many forms of Gnosticism Jesus was not the savior He was the revealer of this secret knowledge.
This is how false teaching still works. The only way to deceive people in this false religions is incorporate Jesus into it in a lesser roll. That is why Paul pushed the deity of Christ. It could be no other way. If Jesus was not God there is no Christianity. If Jesus is not God we better start working on keeping every letter of the law. In vain I might add.
Then Paul switches to the tradition of men.
a. Judaizers : Christianity plus the law. To be more strait forward, Jesus isn't enough.
b. This is ancient legalism.
c. We have been getting some great teaching on the law lately.
Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.
The Law is good but we couldn’t keep it so Jesus full field it once and for all.
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
Paul always uses the greeting grace and peace, because without the grace of God there is no peace.
These Jewish traditions that you have to be circumcised. You have to keep this feast and that feast. Don’t eat this or drink that were not bad in them selves but when said they had to be added to your faith in order to be saved abolished Jesus work on the cross. Anything added to the fact that salvation comes by grace through faith in Jesus Christ is dining Jesus’s deity. He alone has the power to save. So to try and add any form of legalism to that is heresy.
The basic principles of the world
These things can be based in Paganism , Jewish tradition , Gnosticism Legalism, anything that takes you away from the knowledge of the deity of Christ.
We see this in worldly teachings today. They teach it in or schools and call it science. This is any teaching that leads you away or makes you question weather Jesus is who He says He is.
basic principles of the world . Could this be evil spirits? Absolutely. To me in its rawist form is the spirit of anti-Christ that has been here since the fall of man. This is the battle of the world to find an other than Christ.
This could be basic law’s of society.
If any thing contradicts Christ it is heresy. It’s not from God.
By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
The New King James Version Chapter 2
9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily
Paul is reiterating here what he said in
For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
and in
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
We talked about this when we first started our study of Colossians. It might seem hard to believe for some especially for some that were raised in church with solid teaching. I think it can also be hard for many to admit. The Holy Spirit puts it on your heart to come to Christ and there are many people that are willing to pray a prayer of salvation with you. You can even do it on the radio repeat after the guy and then you set in church and possibly never truly learn who Christ is and you don’t truly go deeper in your walk because of a lack of discipleship. That is sad.
The New King James Version Chapter 2
and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
You are complete
Pleroo: made full. filled to capacity.
You put your faith in Jesus. The Jesus that the bible says He is the Jesus He says He is. you are fully sufficient , lacking nothing. Your salvation is secure. Now walk in it.
If Jesus is not God, then there is no Christianity, and we who worship Him are nothing more than idolaters. Conversely, if He is God, those who say He was merely a good man, or even the best of men, are blasphemers. More serious still, if He is not God, then He is a blasphemer in the fullest sense of the word. If He is not God, He is not even good.” J. Oswald Sanders
