Firmness in Faith. Part 1
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Introduction
Introduction
Last week we took a little break from Colossians to look at and celebrate the Lord’s Supper together.
This week we are going to dive back in to Colossians.
Our passage this morning is pretty closely related to our passage a couple of weeks ago.
If you remember with me back to verses 24-29 of Chapter 1, we looked at Paul’s ministry in Jesus.
We saw how Paul rejoiced in his sufferings for the sake of the believers.
We saw that what was central to Paul’s ministry was in fact Jesus himself.
English Standard Version Chapter 1
the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.
Paul was charged to
The NIV Application Commentary: Colossians and Philemon Contemporary Significance
to present the word of God in its fullness and make known its glorious riches
• to proclaim Christ and admonish and teach in all wisdom so that believers are firm in their faith
• to create believers encouraged in heart, united in love, and full of understanding
• to reach out with good news to those whom some may deem unworthy or excluded.
The NIV Application Commentary: Colossians and Philemon Contemporary Significance
• to present the word of God in its fullness and make known its glorious riches
• to proclaim Christ and admonish and teach in all wisdom so that believers are firm in their faith
• to create believers encouraged in heart, united in love, and full of understanding
• to reach out with good news to those whom some may deem unworthy or excluded.
Paul’s goal was one of service.
Our passage today takes these ideas and hones them in a bit more.
It helps us to see the significance of Paul’s ministry for a group of people that he had never met.
It helps us to see the significance of the letter for us and our lives today.
Through our passage today, we will see a firmness of faith in Christ that comes in spite of distractions.
Read
Prayer
Paul’s struggle. V. 1-2
Paul’s struggle. V. 1-2
What was Paul’s struggle? V.1
What was Paul’s struggle? V.1
Who here has played some sort of sport?
I will use a football analogy, that is what I know personally and many of us know from watching.
What is the feeling you have as you have 3rd down and forever to go to get the first down.
It’s a feeling of struggle.
There is an intense feeling there of fighting against the opposition.
This is feeling Paul is trying to give his readers when he used this word in verse 29 of struggling with the energy Christ gives him.
It is the feeling that Paul is portraying now as well in verse 1 of chapter 2.
For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face,
Paul wants his readers to know that he is contending for them.
His ministry has involve much hard work and difficult circumstances.
It has not been all feasts, rainbows, and fun.
Recipients of Paul’s struggle. V.1
Recipients of Paul’s struggle. V.1
Paul lists for us some recipients of his struggle.
The first he lists is the Colossians, second is the Laodiceans, and third is those who have not seen him face to face.
The last in the Greek is literally those who have not seen my face in the flesh.
To look at someone in the face, in those times meant being in presence. Spending time with them.
Paul’s struggle, as we have seen, was meant for more than just the churches that he had planted.
Paul’s struggle was was meant for all those who had not seen him face to face.
I believe we can safely say that this struggle was just as much for us as it was for those that lived when Paul lived.
Paul’s struggle was for the spread of the gospel. The sharing of the good news that Jesus forgives our hurts and our wrongs. Jesus forgives sin.
Who do you know that needs this message?
Today the message of struggling for others can be shared in a much different way. We can see someone’s face hundreds of miles away.
Can you imagine if Paul would have had Facetime or Skype.
His message may have spread faster I don’t think though it would have changed what Paul did.
I think there is something to be said though for face to face communication. To feel the warmth of someones embrace.
This is why it is still important for people to go and take the gospel with them for the purpose that Paul described in verse 2.
Purpose
Purpose
that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ,
Hearts encouraged.
Hearts encouraged.
That their hearts may be encouraged is a bit of a loaded statement for us that we have to decipher.
When we think of heart what things come to mind?
Follow your heart - dreams
What is your heart telling you - emotions
Scripture though has a different meaning behind the word heart.
In scripture, the heart most often refers to the center of our personality.
The source of our thinking, and of our well, not solely our emotions.
Jeremiah has some difficult things to say about our hearts.
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”
Before God sent the flood records for us that.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
This gives us a rather bleak view of our own hearts. Of our inner beings.
We have hope though in what we are told in Ez. 36:26
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
This change of heart, change of our inner being, can only occur by God’s doing. It can only come through Jesus.
Paul hopes that his struggling will be something that touches the deepest part of our being, that affects every aspect of our person.
Paul is an example of being firm in faith even through some of the most difficult circumstances.
Knit together in love and the riches of full assurance and understanding.
Knit together in love and the riches of full assurance and understanding.
The next thing that Paul states that he hopes for is that the believers will be knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance and understanding.
As we read this, depending upon translation, the punctuation and wording changes how we interpret things.
Of course punctuation, verse, and chapter breaks are not inspired so occasionally they can get in the way. Some are added for us to read and comprehend sections better.
For instance some of Paul’s long run on sentences that get broken down into multiple sentences for us.
So what is Paul describing for us here?
I think the NASB gets closer to the point here of
English Standard Version Chapter 2
2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update Chapter 2
that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding
What is Paul describing for us here?
He described that their inner most being is changed and encouraged, moving in a direction of growth.
He further describes this as being knit together in love.
That is having been knit together in love.
I haven’t done any knitting but I have crocheted a hat.
You that have done some knitting, what would you say about the process?
You are bringing things together, uniting them. In a sense you are giving the pieces instructions on where to go.
While the action appears to be one that is happening currently, that is not the only case.
The tense Paul uses describes the overall action of the knitting, not necessarily the time in which it happened.
There is also the idea of how the NASB translates it as having been knit together in love.
This is echoed in other places in scripture such as
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
and
Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
As well as Paul early in Colossians even praying for the growth of believers.
This knitting, this growing in love, what does it look like?
To flesh this out a bit more I want to look to another of Paul’s letters that it is thought he wrote around this same time period.
Turn with me to
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
English Standard Version Chapter 4
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
- We no longer lie, but tell the truth. 4:25
• We no longer hold angry grudges. 4:26
• We no longer allow Satan to control us. 4:27
• We no longer steal, but work hard and desire to be givers. 4:28
• We speak in a way that ministers grace to others. 4:29
• Our heart attitudes manifest grace. 4:31-32
As 4:22-24 shows, rather than feeding our old fleshly desires, we renew the spirit of our minds - which again has to do with our inner being, as Paul described of the heart.
That is why
Paul doesn’t stop there though.
Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary ii. Paul’s Ministry to the Colossians (2:1–5)
while the process of knitting together the church into a united body clearly includes the growth of love, it also includes the growth, on the part of the whole community, of that proper understanding of the gospel which leads to the rich blessings of a settled conviction and assurance.
Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary ii. Paul’s Ministry to the Colossians (2:1–5)
Living in a loving and forgiving community will assist growth in understanding, and vice versa, as truth is confirmed in practice and practice enables truth to be seen in action and so to be fully grasped
This is not an easy process by any means.
When it comes to our hearts especially, we can as stubborn as a mule, and as wild as a bronc.
But when we are being knit together in love we can grow into one body, into the likeness of Christ.
I want to play for us a song that I think helps to sum up many of the points made this morning.
I
In listening to it, it is a story of a marriage.
I listening think about as our walk with Christ.
We are his bride.
Play Dancing in the minefields.
o when I loose my way, find me
When I loose love's chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith, till the end of all my days
When I forget my name, remind me
'Cause we bear the light of the Son of Man
So there's nothing left to fear
So I'll walk with you in the shadowlands
Till the shadows disappear
'Cause he promised not to leave us
And his promises are true
So in the face of all this chaos
Baby, I can dance with you
So let's go dancing in the minefields
Let's go sailing in the storms
Oh, let's go dancing in the minefields
And kicking down the doors
Oh, let's go dancing in the minefields
And sailing in the storms
Oh, this is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that's what the promise is for
That's what the promise is for
We have firmness in our faith because we know our hearts both singly and collectively as a church are being knit together in love.
My prayer is that we as Christians in genuine love, a bond that is stronger than just the building we meet in.
Ep
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you!
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
.
Jumping back to Colossians
English Standard Version Chapter 2
that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding
In our section here, how the ESV and NIV translate for us, it seems that the heart change is for the purpose of being knit together or united in love.
I think the NASB gets closer to the point here of
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update Chapter 2
that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding
Living in a
Mystery
the unmanifested or private counsel of God, (God’s) secret, the secret thoughts, plans, and dispensations of God
which are hidden fr. human reason, as well as fr. all other comprehension below the divine level, and await either fulfillment or revelation to those for whom they are intended
Christ, the treasure of wisdom and knowledge. V.3
Christ, the treasure of wisdom and knowledge. V.3
the unmanifested or private counsel of God, (God’s) secret, the secret thoughts, plans, and dispensations of God
which are hidden fr. human reason, as well as fr. all other comprehension below the divine level, and await either fulfillment or revelation to those for whom they are intended