Why Are You Here?

You are here to comfort one another

A. Exposition- This word takes on way more of a meaning than just a pat on the back or there there it will be ok. This word comfort that Paul uses is a word that carries with it a much stronger meaning:

It means to call to one’s side

It is intended to produce a particular effect:

comfort:

To exhort: give advice

to be an ecouragement:n

They were being persecuted outside and now had to deal with people now within the church telling them they were wrong.

B. Application: Paul’s letter to the Colossians was a letter to help them to know that they weren’t alone in this fight.

The one place in this country where a person should feel comfortable is in the house of God with other Christians around them. Just like in Paul’s time, you will face persecution, but it should never be from another Christian.

When we come to the House of God, we come to worship God!

We come because all week long, Satan has thrown those fiery darts at us, He has tried to drag us down, tell us we aren’t doing good enough to be loved by God, that we should just give up.

He tells us that we can’t understand what true love is because our past lifestyle was to bad and that God will never forgive us. Well he is Wrong!

God showed us his true undying never failing love when He sent Jesus to die in our place.

Now His churches and His children should remember that. We are here to worship God and part of that worship takes place when you comfort those around you.

Whether it’s praying with them, helping them read the Bible, witnessing, or just simplly listening, be the person that Paul is writing about here. Be someone’s comforter, be someone’s helping hand, be that encouragement that the person needs that day, but just be there!

It’s amazing what God can do when His children are obedient and come together! You are here to be a comfort to someone.

You are here because you share something in common

A. Exposition: If you are in here today and you have called on the name of the Lord, and asked for forgiveness, you are what we called saved! You have trusted Christ with your life not only here on the Earth but also for eternity. You have the eternal security of finished work of the cross, you have Jesus, and you have the Holy Spirit sealed in you forever! You have something in common. This is what’s great about putting your faith in God, you can be born in Texas, and still have a brother or sister from New York. Why didn’t say some foreign country…I did, I said New York.

The crazy thing about Gnosticism is that you were considered an outsider if you weren’t enlightened enough. If you weren’t smart enough you didn’t fit in, you weren’t part of a group.

So when these heretics came inside the church and started to preach this false doctrine then the ones who believed the truth were considered less than because they believed differently. They didn’t fit in!

Paul’s encouragement reminds them that they were so much more than that. They were knit together in love:

B. Application: It is here that we can find common ground. We are here because of something far greater than ourselves.

When we hear the word knit together, we thing of our grandmothers knitting a sweater or crocheting an afghan. There is a problem with that… they all have holes. This is not the meaning that Paul is refering to. It isn’t just a bunch of people who are sitting aroung who agree on somehting. It is so much more.

When Paul writes being knit together in love, the language represents a driving force that united something that once was different but now is the same! Somehting solid, concrete, welded together, bonded and never broken apart no mater what tries to break it.

But just like everything that is bonded, there has to be a driving force that caused that to happen.

The driving force was love! The instrument used to drive it together was a Hammer and 3 nails! The result was everlasting life to individuals that will one day all worship at the feet of Jesus!

Each and every one of you hear today have something in common. You are all sinners. Most here today are sinners saved by Grace, some here need to take a hold onto that grace, but you are all loved by the father! You are knitted together.

You are here to mature in your faith

A. Exposition: What good is having somehting and not using it. Nothing! The church at Colosse needed to be reminded that they had something special, they had something powerful, and they had somehting that the others didn’t. They had assurance! They just needed to grow to fully understand!

One thing I have always struggled with is being told I’m not smart enough, it’s over my head, you’ll never understand.

With algebra and rocket science, I would agree. But when it comes to God, scripture is ademant that if we seek Him, we will find Him.

We are reminded here in verse 3 that Jesus is where all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid. So without seeking who He is, without studying about His life, His actions, His words, How he modeled to us how to live, we will never come find this hidden wisdom and knowledge.

This nailed the coffin door shut on the gnostics way of thinking.

In verse he says to the acknowledment of the mystery of God…this word is better translated to the knowledge of the myster of God. To acknowledge that we will never fully understand who God is, is very true, but Paul is telling them that because of what Jesus did, we can now grow to know more about who God is. He is the God, the Great I Am, He is the Father, and He is Jesus.

This is powerful knowledge. If there is nothing else in the world that we can understand, it is enough to know that God is God.

B. Application: We are here to grow, we are here to unravel the mystery, we are here to allow God to reveal Himself to us.

He’s not going to walk through the door today with a signed autobiography, and say here ya go, this will explain everything. Although if he wanted to I guess he could.

he’s not going to come to you in a dream and reveal to you who He is

No He has given everything you need to know about Him written in the Bible between Genesis and Revelation.

You must take time to search the Scriptures, to read your Bibles, to pray.

You should make it a priority to attend Sunday School, to have Bible studies with small groups, share the gospel with someone.

We

Proverbs 2:3–4 NKJV

3 Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, 4 If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures;

Proverbs 2:3–5 NKJV

3 Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, 4 If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; 5 Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, And find the knowledge of God.

God has given us everything we need to know about Him. Some of it is hidden deep within the words printed in this Bible and he will reveal it when you are ready. He has given us riches untold, but you have to search for it.

The story is told of Mr. Yates, who owned a farm in Texas. The Great Depression came and he was having trouble keeping up with the payments on his farm. The bank began to press him and gave him thirty days to pay his back payments or face foreclosure. With three weeks left to go, a man came to Mr Yate’s door. He worked for an oil company. He asked Mr. Yates to give the company a lease to drill on his farm for oil. Yates knew he was going to lose the farm anyway, so he decided that it couldn’t hurt. Well, that oil company did drill and hit a gusher- 82,000 barrels of oil a day. Mr. Yates immediately became a multi, multi, many times over millionaire. Now, there’s a question on the floor. Exactly when did he become a millionaire? was it when the oil company struck oil or did he become a millionaire when he bought the farm? Mr Yates was a millionaire the moment he purchased the farm, but he lived in poverty because he didn’t know what was under the ground. When you came to faith in Jesus as your personal sin bearer, the moment you came to faith, you were blessed “in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing” . Like Mr. Yates, many of us are living in the great Depression. We are living spiritually poor, spiritually defeated, spiritually weak, and spiritually anemic lives even while sitting on top of all this wealth, because we don’t know what’s down there.

Conclusion: Why are you here today? Did you come to see friends and family or did you come to see God? Did you come because you needed some encouragement or did you come to encourage someone else? Did you come to worship the King or did you come to be the King? Why are you here? I know you have an opportunity today to do somehting special for God today, you can make a decision. You can decide to follow Him, you can decide to comfort somebody, you can commit to loving someone the way Jesus loves you, and you can commit to grwoing in your knowledge of who God is and what he has done for you. It all begins with you. God has never left. He’s always been right there, he’s just waiting on you to run to Him. Will you come to know the full assurrance that is waiting on you today?