Colossians 2:1-5

Introduction
A) Background - Where are we?
The Colossians were a church that Paul had never met before.
Although a strong church, they were being confronted with heretical teaching about Jesus.
The theme of the book is found in 1:9-12: an increase of knowledge, wisdom and understanding which produces righteousness in the believer enabling him to live a victorious life. (to encourage them to maturity in thought and practice)

B) Chapter 1
Theological treatise about Jesus Christ and salvation (1:13-23).
Defense of Paul’s ministry (1:23-29)

The Big Idea: Maturity in Thought and Practice

Remember that the theme of Colossians is maturity in thought and practice. In Chapter 1, we had the setting up of the book. Chapter 2 is primarily maturity in thought, followed by maturity in practice in chapter 3. The book closes out with some final encouraging thoughts and instructions in chapter 4. The question we’re going to deal with today is ‘how do we as Christians become spiritually mature.’

A) Maturity is found where believer’s are praying for it (2:1)
i) Paul is having a spiritual struggle concerning believer’s he’s never met.
That Paul is concerned that the Colossian believers come to spiritual maturity can be seen quite easily from the context of this passage. The word translated struggle here is from the same root as striving in 1:29. There is a definite connection here which gives us the key to what Paul is struggling over. He says in 1:28-29 that he’s struggling for the purpose of presenting every man complete in Christ. His desire is to see Christians come to maturity. You will find that this desire is echoed in many, if not all of Paul’s writings. Here, however he is using a very strong word to describe his ministry. The word striving, as Pat mentioned last week, has the connotation of agonizing. Paul agonized over the spiritual health of these believer’s.
The example in Paul’s life shows us the actions of a mature believer. A mature believer will pray for the spiritual health of other believers (cf. Epaphras 4:12-13; 1:4, Phil. 1:3-4, Eph. 1:15-17, Rom. 1:8-10, 1 Thess. 1:2, 1 Tim. 2:1, Phm. 4-6)
B) Maturity is forged through unity (2:2)
i) Paul is writing to ‘comfort’ their hearts.
a) The word translated ‘encourage’ is better rendered ‘comfort.’ (cf. 1 Thess. 4:18)
- they were being attacked by heresy, and he wanted to let them know that they were correct in their belief of the gospel
- when we see our fellow Christians struggling with things, we need to offer them solace
b) Their hearts had been knit together in love.
- the bond that we have in Christ is a deep testimony to the truth of the gospel
- Paul repeatedly exhorts churches to live in unity (cf. Phil. 2:1-2, Rom. 14:7-8)
Unity is perhaps the most important thing to the corporate church. It’s also one of the greatest things lacking in the contemporary church.
My story. Been burned, slandered, and treated harshly by people in the church. It was so bad that I stopped going to church and would rather hang out with unbelievers rather than believers. I spent most of my time reading the Bible and talking about the things of God, and I actually had a few friends that I met with regularly for prayer together. I didn’t like people, didn’t want to be around people, and found great joy in being alone. I justified to myself that this was, in fact, what God had meant for us as Christians. I soon came to realize however, that it was not what God meant. I was not practicing church, but rather escape. I withdrew from the assembling together with an active church not because of a desire for something more, but for something less. I wanted to escape contact with certain people, because they had hurt me and I didn’t like them. It’s important for us to be able to meet with and be active in a local church. There will always be people who rub us the wrong way and even people who will hurt us in astonishing ways. The test for us, however, is how to achieve unity with those people as brothers and sisters in Christ. The answer is found in Christ. We love them as Christ loved us, forgiving the terrible wrongs they’ve done, and actively seeking their good.
Soren Kierkegaard:
With (Christ) it is not as with a man who by the injustice of his age was not permitted to be himself or to be accounted for what he was... for Christ Himself willed to be the humble man, this is just what He would be accounted.

Maturity comes through understanding (2:2)
Paul now talks about the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding. What is the object of understanding that Paul is talking about? He’s talking about the truths of the gospel, the truths about Jesus Christ on which the hope of the Colossian believers is fully resting on (cf. 1:27).
i) Understanding brings assurance
The idea of this word full assurance is the idea of certainty. The truths of the gospel bring to us a sense of certainty as to our standing with God. Knowing that I am justified by Christ’s blood, reconciled through His death, and saved by His life (Rom. 5:8-11), brings me hope in a New Testament sense about my future. In New Testament Greek the word translated hope carries with it a connotation of confident expectation with a good foundation for that expectation. It’s not the ‘wishful thinking’ that we often use the word hope to express today. There is a confidence that comes from my understanding the truths of the gospel, and Paul speaks of this as being wealth. And we wouldn’t trade the hope we have in Christ for any riches in the world, for Christ is far more valuable to us than anything (Phil. 3:7-11).
ii) Understanding results in a true knowledge of Christ
No one can come to truly know Christ without first understanding and believing the gospel.
Christ is God’s mystery. The Jews didn’t expect the Messiah to come the way He did, even though it was written in their Scriptures (cf. Isaiah 53). The Gentiles who believed in some sort of God/gods thought that their philosophy could get them there. Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25. He says there that the gospel is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. He says further that Christ is both the power of God, and the wisdom of God. It is a common theme with Paul that the gospel has relevance in both the practical and theoretical. That is to say that the gospel has power to change our lives and wisdom to enlighten us with the truth. This is all found in Christ, God’s mystery, the object of our belief.
Ravi Zacharias gives a profound illustration of the mystery of Christ in this way:
The pursuit of the Hebrews was idealized and symbolized by light:
‘The Lord is my light and my salvation’
‘The people that sat in darkness have seen a great light. This is the light that lighteth every man that comes into the world.’
The pursuit of the Greeks was symbolized by knowledge. That’s why the Biblical writers say:
‘These things are written so that you might know that you have eternal life.’
So the Hebrew ideal was light, the Greek ideal was knowledge. For the Hebrews it was light, for the Greeks it was knowledge, but for the Romans it was glory.
‘The glory of the city of Rome.’
‘The glory of the city that wasn’t built in a day’
And here we have it, the Apostle Paul – a Hebrew by birth, a citizen of Rome, living in a Greek city – had to give to [the Corinthian believers] the ideal of his ethic. And he says this:
‘For God, who said, “The Light shall shine out of darkness,” has caused His light to shine in our hearts to give to us the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus our Lord.’
For the Apostle Paul, the ultimate ethic was not an abstraction, not symbolized merely by light, not merely by knowledge, not merely by glory; but in the very face of our Lord.”
D) Maturity comes through knowing Christ
Perhaps the most important mark of a spiritually mature Christian is that they know Christ. In Christ is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Knowledge meaning truth and wisdom meaning its practical application.
Heb. 12:2

The Signs of a Mature Church (2:5)
A) A Mature Church is Orderly (2:5)
The NIV captures Paul’s thought best: delighting to see how orderly you are.
Order was something that Paul stressed, and while he commended the presence of it in the Colossian church, he urged the Corinthian church to be orderly (cf. 1 Cor. 14:40).

B) A Mature Church is Rooted Firmly in the Gospel (2:5)
Church leadership must have a firm grasp on the truth of the gospel.
Individual believers must have a confident knowledge of the truth of the gospel.

Application
Am I praying for the spiritual maturity of my brothers and sisters in Christ?
Do I feel united with the believers I meet with every week?
Do I understand the spiritual impact the gospel has on me? If not, how can I learn?
Do I know Christ? Do I seek to know Him better every day?