Discipleship Groups Week 3

New Living Translation Chapter 1

9 So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, 12 always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. 13 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

Verse 12 I like the ESV

Colossians 1:12 ESV

giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

Qualified or enabled—we will talk about this more.

Words to Discuss

Complete knowledge—be filled with the knowledge, completely filled, total understanding

His will—what so many people desire, what’s God’s will for my life

Spiritual wisdom and understanding—things pertaining to the Spirit. Most have natural, worldly understanding, it’s the lens we view through, the filter we run things through, but Spiritual wisdom and understanding is different. Seeing things from God’s perspective

for what purpose??

Then the way we live will always honor and please the Lord, or, So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him. I like the ESV here, manner worthy of the Lord, worthy of His life for us, His death for us. If our child donated a vital organ, it cost him his life, but saved another’s, how would we expect that person to live?

These lives will produce every kind of good fruit, or bearing fruit in every good work, which is changing the fruit or the work? Both, the works vary and the outcomes vary, but if done for the Lord, if done for the kingdom, from love and faith, all is considered pleasing fruit to the Lord.

Increasing in the knowledge of God, grow as you learn to know God better and better. I like both translations here, NLT to know God better and better, ESV increasing in THE knowledge of God, not a random hard or many different, but the only knowledge of Him.

Be strengthened with all His glorious power, Being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, the ESV runs this thought on from the last verse, in reality it’s from verse 10, walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him. If we are doing that then we will be strengthened, how? or why?

So we have all endurance and patience, filled with joy, this is supernatural, this is not of ourselves, our endurance has limits, our patience has limits, our joy is sometimes not evident, but Gods, but the Spirit in us, these are limitless.

now verse 12

Always giving thanks to the Father, only with a Godly perspective is this possible, only with His patience, His endurance, His joy is this possible.

Who has qualified you or us, or who has enabled you or us—He has qualified us, again, not by our doing. We haven’t earned our qualifications, they have been given to us.

To share in the inheritance of the saints, that belongs to His people, not all are His people, not all will share, but to those that are, we have a glorious guarantee, heaven awaits us.

For He has rescued us, He has delivered us from the domain and kingdom of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of His dearly beloved Son. Two kingdoms or domains, both exist now on the earth. Adam and Eve introduced the kingdom of darkness the alternate kingdom to God’s. Jesus reinstituted His kingdom and has delivered those that believe in Him into it.

It’s in Him, in Christ, He redeemed us, purchased our freedom, and forgave our sins.

So what is God saying in this passage and what is He saying to you?

Now to the passage in Ephesians

New Living Translation Chapter 2

4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. 7 So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.

8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Words and things

But God—two amazing words, He wouldn’t leave us in our death, our sin and separation, why?

being rich in mercy which comes from His great love for us, what kind of a God is this. Unlike any other so-called God. Our God loves His creation and comes to serve us by living and dying. No other God is like this.

We didn’t get death, instead we got life when He raised Christ from the dead, we also are seated with Him in the heavenly realms, how? Because we are united with Him, joined with Him, In Christ. Thats another of the already but not yet that comes with our salvation. Why?

So God can point to them and point to us, to show the world of what He can do and has done for those who accept His gift as an example of His immeasurable kindness, His incredible goodness

We are saved by His grace, His free gift, therefore we can not take any credit for this, boast or brag, we did not work for it to earn it, then we could possible take credit, no it’s a gift.

One of my favorite verses, verse 10, For we are God’s masterpieces created anew in Christ, why? So that we can do THE good things that He planned long ago for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

So what is God saying in this passage and what’s He saying to you?

Colossians 2:13–14 ESV

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

New Living Translation Chapter 2

13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

Circumcision—we all know what this means. But it was a covenant agreement by God and Abraham and for all future men from Abraham. Not just the cutting away of the foreskin, that’s the literal, but what’s the spiritual.

The Spiritual action of circumcision—the skin is the flesh which represents our sinful disposition against God and for ourselves. Our state of disobedience and rebellion, living with ourselves in Gods seat. So, circumcision is cutting that away, shedding blood to purify us from our former sinfulness and now our pledging allegiance to our new King, to now be His people and He to be their God.

In a N.T context circumcision is also of our hearts. The Bible claims we have hearts of stone, hearts that are deceitfully wicked, hearts that are dead and not alive. Spiritually circumcision of the heart is giving us a new heart and removing our heart of stone. One now united to Christ and beating with His heartbeat.