The Struggle

Introduction

In World War I, runners were often used to get messages to commanding officers of battalions sharing with them vital news for how to engage in battle.

The film 1917 tells the fragmented true story of two British runners being given the order to race across “No Man’s Land” and into enemy territory to deliver a message to another British battalion warning them that they were about to walk into an ambush. There was no other way to communicate with them. It all depended upon the success of these two runners. In fact, they were told, “if you fail, it will be a massacre.” Thousands of soldiers would have lost their lives and greatly affected the momentum of the war had they not gotten this vital message into their hands.

Only one of the runners made it to the finish line struggling with all his might, running through enemy fire to get that message of hope and life to those who needed to hear it.

What we’ve just heard read this morning from Colossians 2 is the apostle Paul struggling with all his might to get the message of the gospel, this message of hope, this message of Christ into the hands of the Colossians who were being surrounded by enemies from all around.

These enemies surrounding them were seeking to lure them away from the hope and sufficiency of Christ and into worldly and humanistic beliefs that put Christ away and man at the center. They were beliefs that would deny the sufficiency of Jesus and insist on religious performance and actions to attain glory.

They were deadly and destructive teachings that looked and sounded plausible but, in the end, would destroy.

Just like the story of 1917. In World War I, during the dates of February 23 to April 5, The German army had withdrawn their troops in France to what was called the Hindenburg line. It gave the appearance of retreat which is why the British armies were mobilizing and getting ready to attack. What they didn’t know was that the German army was repositioning their line and combining forces with other German battalions. Had the British attacked that day, April 6, 1917 they would have been grossly outnumbered and defeated.

Paul saw the deadliness of these false beliefs, and what made these beliefs and philosophies false was that they were completely devoid of Christ. That’s how we identify false beliefs, false teaching. Fundamentally, they have at their core the complete removal of Christ. And even if these teachings affirm Christ, they’ll weaken him by saying he’s not sufficient, he’s not enough.

The apostle Peter in his second letter to the church says just as much.

2 Peter 2:1, But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

How does Peter identify false teaching and false teachers? Their teaching denies the Master, it denies Christ. That’s how we know that it is false.

Every teaching and philosophy the Colossians were facing ultimately denied the Master. It removed Christ from the center and replaced him with religious observance, mysticism or humanity as god.

He knew, if they followed that teaching it would bring upon them “swift destruction.”

And so, it’s why this chapter opens up with,

Paul’s burden for the church.

Colossians 2:1, 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.

At this point in our study through Colossians it should be unmistakable that Paul deeply loved the church. At the end of chapter 1 he says something similar to how chapter 2 opened for us today.

Colossians 1:29, For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

And again, what we just read this morning, “I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you…”

What drove Paul’s love for the church was his devotion to Christ and his love for God himself.

1 John 5:1-2, Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.

The love that we display towards one another finds its source in the love God has for us and the love we first have for the Father. We won’t love one another if we first do not rest in the love that Christ has for us and the love we have with God the Father.

I’m sure most of us have heard or said the expression, “Any friend of so-and-so is a friend of mine.”

What’s that expression saying? It’s saying that upon meeting someone for the first time, you can have an instant connection and warmth toward that person because they are connected and friends with someone that you are personally close with.

It’s why the apostle John can say, “If you love the Father, you’ll love God’s children.” It’s why Paul can love a group of believers that he’s never even met? Why? Because they belong to the Father that he personally knows and loves.

But Paul’s love seems to go deeper than what we typically see in the church today. Paul uses language like “toil” and “struggle” when speaking of his love for the church. It’s giving off the impression of many sleepless nights agonizing over the growth of the church.

And he’s spoken like this before in letters to other churches.

In 2 Corinthians 11 he says,

2 Corinthians 11:28, And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

What was his anxiety over? What was he agonizing about? What caused him these sleepless nights?

Look at verse 2 in our text.

Colossians 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, which is Christ.

There’s three longings here which caused him to agonize over the church.

1. Encouraged hearts in Christ.

When you’re away from someone who is struggling, your heart breaks because you just want to be there for them.

This past year has just been absolutely devastating for those who have had to sit in a hospital room, or a nursing home shut off from their friends and family because visitors were just not allowed. Personally, speaking as a pastor, it’s been awful to not be able to be in the hospital room with a hurting and grieving family. I don’t like pastoring through text. I want to be there and for a season while everything was shut down, all I could do was seek to encourage from a distance.

Paul wasn’t able to physically be with these churches. Many times, he was the one shut off from everyone because he was in prison for the sake of the gospel. It’s what’s the case here. Paul wrote this letter from prison knowing he couldn’t be there with them and so he agonized over them desiring that in the midst of their struggle that their hearts would be encouraged in Christ.

Because Paul also knew that he wasn’t their Savior, Jesus was. So, though he couldn’t be there with them, He knew that Christ was sufficient which again is why this letter is dripping with the richness of Christ.

When you face discouragement, is Christ enough for you? Is he the delight of your soul? The song you sing? Your rock, your fortress, your deliverer? Your first defense?

In your brokenness and sin is he who you turn to for acceptance and grace and freedom? Far too often in our sin we run from him and not to him.

(Gospel)

2. Lovingly united together in Christ.

Paul uses the phrase, “knit together in love.”

This may come as a surprise to you but I know very little about knitting. I know it involves some yarn and some knitting needles but that’s about as far as my expertise goes and you knitters out there probably are already thinking I said something wrong about it.

I do know this though. Knitting involves the interlacing of the yarn or thread to produce the garment one is seeking to create.

It’s that interlacing idea that Paul has in mind here. He agonizes, struggles, toils for the church to be woven together in love for one another. Why is this so crucial, so vital that Paul would agonize over it? It’s because the greatest threat to any team is not the threat from outside coming against them, it’s the internal threat of a team divided against one another.

If you can’t trust the brother or sister standing next to you in the battle, then the outcome is pretty much already decided. And so, Paul, seeing and recognizing the threats surrounding them knew that Christ was enough, he was sufficient, but it the church began to turn on themselves rather than walking in Christ-centered love for one another, he knew the church would not survive. They’d be picked apart.

It’s why Scripture is over and over and over again urging the church to love one another, to strive for unity and peace. We see this in basically every letter written to the church.

Romans 12:10, Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

1 Corinthians 13:13, So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

2 Corinthians 13:11, Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Galatians 5:13, For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Ephesians 4:1-3, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Philippians 2:2-3, Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Paul even calls out two ladies by name in the church at Philippi who were fighting with one another and entreats them to strive for unity. To entreat means to plead earnestly or anxiously. So, Paul’s agonizing, struggling, toiling for the church to walk in Christ-centered love and unity.

Philippians 4:2, I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together.

1 Thessalonians 3:12, May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you.

2 Thessalonians 1:3, We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.

James 3:17-18, Wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

1 Peter 1:22b, Love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

2 Peter 1:5-7, For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

1 John 3:11, For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

2 John 5, I am not writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning – that we love one another.

Listen, do you think it was important to the apostles that the church be knitted together in love? The testimony or message that we display to the world of the riches and glory and beauty and love of Jesus is affirmed in our love for one another.

Jesus said,

John 13:35, By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

A church that is filled with infighting and division is a church that is destined toward destruction and collapse and a church that gives awful representation of who Christ is. An unloving church defames the name of Christ. This is why Paul struggled for the church and wrote to each one that they love one another.

3. Reaching the fullness of understanding in Christ.

Paul is actually saying that to reach full assurance and understanding of the riches of Christ we must be intimately knitted together with one another in Christ-centered love. The two go hand in hand. Meaning, we experience the depth and richness of Jesus as we walk and live in community with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

What Jesus is after in us is not just mere intellectual ascent but knowledge and truth that translates into transformation.

So, let me ask you this. Where do you experience and see the riches of Christ’s love for you more? When it’s talked about and read about or when a fellow brother or sister comes over to your home to weep with you in times of suffering and hurt? It’s in the application of that truth right?

Now, don’t hear me say that knowledge and truth are not worth our time. We absolutely better be students of the Word, but if our study of truth does not translate into transformed lives and a Christ-centered community, then we won’t actually dive deeper and reach the fullness of that truth that we are learning of. You with me on that?

Paul was struggling for the church that they would experience the beauty and depth and richness of Christ and he knew that to reach that fullness of joy and understanding, then truth and knowledge had to be lived out in love with and for one another.

So, I’m standing up here today teaching and proclaiming that God loves you. How do we know he loves us? Because 1) He gave us His Son. How do we grow into the richness of God’s love for us? By abiding in the Son given for us. 2) We know He loves us as His children love and care for one another.

Now Paul says all of this to this specific church because of what they were facing on a daily basis. They were facing false teaching and worldly philosophies all around them that were trying to pull them away from Christ and one another.

This section of Paul’s letter to the Colossians opened up with Paul’s burden for the church and it’s why Jesus once again becomes the center of his message.

Christ is the center of all things.

Look at the end of verse 2 and into verse 3.

God’s mystery,

Colossians 2:2b-3, Which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Remember, the Colossians were facing a teaching called Gnosticism. It taught that all that was needed in life was superior knowledge and enlightenment. You just need to attain to a higher spiritual plain. So, what’s Paul say? It’s Christ where you find all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Knowledge, truth and wisdom only become that in reality if Christ is found to be the source of knowledge, truth and wisdom.

You cannot become filled with knowledge devoid of Christ. You cannot become wise devoid of Christ. Knowledge that is devoid of Christ is called ignorance and wisdom that is devoid of Jesus is actually called foolishness.

Here’s the reason for Paul’s words.

Verse 4,

Colossians 2:4-5, I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

Again, this is an understanding to what they were facing. Differing worldviews that sound plausible, they sound enticing, they sound like they could be true – but in fact, they are demonic and evil because they remove Jesus from the picture.

And so, as we wrap up here today, there’s a few things I want to press on here from this text.

Paul was addressing “plausible arguments” in the time of the Colossian church and showing how Christ is all that is needed. He is sufficient. We’ll see this unpacked even more as we journey through chapter 2 over the next couple of weeks.

But what are the “plausible argument” that we’re facing today that sound good but are empty of Jesus? I posed that question to few guys this past week in the church asking them what plausible arguments are being presented in Bloomington/Normal and what about culturally around our country.

Now, I don’t have time to go through them all, but here are several:

1. All religions lead to the same God.

2. I’ve always believed in God – it’s an argument on spirituality…”I’m very spiritual.”

3. If you serve God you will prosper.

4. The “American Dream” – Affluence = comfort & prosperity.

5. All religion is destructive. What we really need is to follow our heart.

6. If you dream it, you can be it.

7. True freedom and joy is found in individual autonomy. I am who I decide to be, and no one better get in my way and anyone who thinks differently is an opponent. (Disney)

8. Acceptance is found through performance. (this is found in the church – it is devoid of Christ).

9. Truth is what you determine it to be. Truth is what feels right to you in the moment.

Do we see how each one of these removes Jesus from the center. Do we see how each one of these philosophies is deadly and dangerous to the health of the church.

Do we feel with the same passion and agony of Paul the yearning for the church to reach the fullness of Christ? To see neighbors and family and friends released from the enslavement of the world and brought into true freedom that comes with a relationship with Christ?

Are we aware that these “plausible arguments” are all around us. They’re the air we breathe in our culture today. Are teaching and discipling others to hold fast to Christ, to know him and be transformed by him?

Church, we must open our eyes to see the dangers all around us. We work and we toil and we struggle until the end for the good of other, the sake of the gospel and the building up of Christ’s church.