In this Sermon, Thomas walks us through Colossians 2:1–5, highlighting Paul’s deep pastoral struggle for believers he had never met face to face. He explores how Paul’s own transformation drives his passion for unity, encouragement, and anchoring our faith in Christ’s wisdom-while warning us to stay on guard against deceptive teachings. It’s a brief but powerful look at the heart of a pastor longing for the church to flourish.
Transcript
This morning we’re in Colossians chapter two, verses one through five, I’ll read, I’ll pray, and then we’ll dive into our text this morning. Paul writes.
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. 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 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 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
— Colossians 2
(ESV)
. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray.
Paul’s Transformation
Our father and our God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the church. We thank you for Jesus. We pray, O Lord and God, that as we open up your word, that you would give us the help of the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to the truth contained in your word. And that your spirit would help our affections increase for Christ Jesus. Who purchased the church. We pray, O Lord and God, that through your word, you would conform us into the image of Jesus and make the church one. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen. Do you remember Saul? Before he was Paul. Before he wrote this beautiful letter to the Colossians. Well, did you know that years before this letter was penned, Saul was in a prison? I’m not sure you’re aware of prison in the first century, but in this particular culture, prison was a place of extreme isolation by design.
Its aim was to strip you away, not just from society, but more importantly, from your community. Prison was a place where the only sounds you’d hear were the constant cell doors slamming shut or the chains that clinked against cold stone floors. Other than that, only silence, no fellowship, no encouragement, no home cooked meals. Only cold food, perhaps with the smell of it mixed with the scent of iron and mildew. Saul was often in this place designed specifically for isolation, only not as a prisoner, but as someone standing over prisoners. Those prisoners being the very Christians he indiscriminately threw into it to strategically remove them from their Christian community. But then in some strange but sovereign twist of fate, Paul, who used to be Saul, found himself in the deeps of a dungeon, this time not standing over prisoners, but instead as a prisoner himself in isolation from his Christian community and in silence.
The hands that once held legal documents to justify his persecution of Christians now shackled him. The feet that once stormed into homes to capture Christians were now bound in the very chains he had once used to enslaved others with. And so the irony was most certainly not lost on him as Paul penned this letter to the Colossians. And with each sentence he structures, he could no doubt still see the face of Stephen. Bloodied, bruised, but beautiful. You remember Stephen, right? The first Christian martyr, the one we read about in the book of Acts. This young and zealous Christian who stood in the center of the Sanhedrin, full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit, and accused the Jewish religious leaders of resisting the Holy Spirit and rejecting Jesus Christ as the Messiah. You know, Saul, before he was Paul, was there that day. Though he personally hadn’t thrown a single stone at Stephen, he might as well have.
His heart burned with approval as the rocks shattered Stephen’s body into pieces. As he slowly laid there dying, looking up into the heavens with the face of an angel to see the face of God reflecting the glory of God. And in that moment of Stephen’s stoning, Saul believed with every fiber of his being that Stephen was a blasphemer who deserved to die. Because of what he professed about this Jesus Christ. Because the religious law had to be upheld. Because the purity of Judaism had to be protected. And from that day forward, Saul, the rising star of the Pharisees, set his face like flint against the followers of Jesus. Saul, before he was Paul, was in the truest sense a religious terrorist who hated and hunted Christians. He didn’t care who they were. He didn’t even know who they were. Their names didn’t matter to him.
Only their complete destruction, both their bodies and their message. But then one day, on the road to Damascus, in pursuit of more Christians to persecute, everything about Saul, who became Paul, changed. A light brighter than the sun knocked Saul to the ground and a voice authoritative, undeniable called his name, Saul. Saul, why are you persecuting me? Not them, me. And in that moment, what was previously hidden from Saul before he was Paul now became clear. He realized that he had been fighting against God himself. And from that day forward, Saul was a man undone as the mystery of Christ had been revealed to him. Not only did God change his name, but most importantly, God changed his heart. And the zeal that once fueled his destruction of the church now fueled his devotion to the church. A man that once terrorized Christians now agonized over their spiritual well-being.
And though he had never met many of the believers in Colossae face to face, he felt their struggle and he struggled with them. Just as he once pursued Christians, he never knew to destroy them. Now he pursued Christians he never met to build them up in the faith. This is why he writes, I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you. You see, before his heart burned to silence Christians, now it burned to strengthen them. Before he fought to corrupt the faith of Christians, now he fought to protect it and preserve it. Before he imprisoned Christians to isolate them for their confession of Christ, now he sat in prison isolated for his confession of that same Christ. Before he hated Christians and he hated the church, now Paul pens this very pastoral letter to Christians in the church of Colossae because he loved them and he was deeply concerned for them.
You see, Paul knew something about discouragement, isolation, and false teaching. Because before his conversion, he sought to discourage Christians through isolation by way of prison because he was a false teacher. Before Christ, Paul had been enslaved to false teaching, the law, human wisdom, the tradition of his religious predecessors. He had been a master of religious philosophy, fluent in Greek and thought and rhetoric. He knew what it meant to captivate people with the wisdom of men until God rescued him from the blindness of his false religion. That’s why he warned them in Colossians 2.8, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition. You see, Paul wasn’t writing these things as an outsider to these dangers. He had lived them. In fact, Paul was himself the danger. He had built his life on the very things he now was deeply concerned about and warned against.
So Paul was well acquainted with how seductive and misleading human wisdom could be and how it leads to false teaching and how it works best through isolation and discouragement. But now as a Christian, Paul knew something greater than human wisdom. He knew the very thing that freed him, the very thing that transformed him. And that is the treasure of knowing Christ. That’s why he told them in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Paul tells us all wisdom, all knowledge are hidden in Christ, not in man’s philosophy, not in the law, not in traditions, not in culture, but in Christ alone. And Paul knew that God’s intention and design for Christians to flourish begins with this treasure, the treasure he had found in Christ. And this treasure Paul understood experientially is cultivated in the context of Christian community, meaning the church. And this is the backdrop of the very letter that Paul pens to the Colossians.
Paul’s Struggle for the Church
And this is what we’ll be exploring in our text this morning. Colossians 2 verses 1 through 5 is in every way a window into the heart of the apostle Paul. His love, his struggle, his pastoral concern for the church to flourish in the faith with full assurance so that they might fight against false teaching. And so this morning to help us along, I’ve broken up our text into three simple sections. Paul’s struggle for the church, Paul’s goal for the church and Paul’s warning to the church. And as we walk through these various sections of our text this morning, I want to encourage you to do something. I want you to be engaged in some self-examination, asking yourself along the way these kinds of questions. Am I growing spiritually? Am I maturing in Christ? Do I have assurance? Am I deeply connected to my Christian community?
Am I encouraging my brothers and sisters in this church? Am I doing all that I can to be unified with the church? Or am I stagnant, distracted, isolated, disenchanted, doubting, or even regressing in my faith? Asking these questions, family, I think will make the most of our time together in God’s word. So let’s begin with Paul’s struggle for the church in verse 1. Paul says, 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. Our text begins with Paul giving us a kind of window into his heart. But it’s more than just that. It’s also an example of what we should see in the heart of every pastor. And to be clear, when I say the heart of every pastor, I’m not just talking about a pastor’s
character or his emotional state, though we will certainly see some of that in this passage. What I mean most specifically is the unique burden that a pastor should have for his church and for the members in it. Now, even though Paul wasn’t necessarily the pastor of this church in Colossae, his role as an apostle made him deeply instrumental in both establishing the church and helping to preserve its health. So in many ways, Paul did function as a kind of pastor to this church, shepherding and caring for this church that he helped to establish. And though Paul had likely never met many of the Christians in Colossae or in Laodicea, he carried a deep burden for them as if he had known them personally and intimately. In fact, Paul’s burden for them was so heavy or so great that he describes this burden as struggling. Now this word struggling in our culture is often a little soft, but in the original language,
this word is better translated agonizing. And I think that word agonizing helps us to better understand exactly what Paul was feeling. So he’s not just concerned, he’s not just invested. He is in agony over the spiritual well-being of this church. Now I don’t know about you, but I know what it feels like to agonize over something. When something weighs heavy on me, it doesn’t just cross my mind, it consumes my thoughts. The agony keeps me up at night. It crushes my appetite. It makes me feel mentally drained, physically exhausted and emotionally wrecked. And I think that’s what Paul is describing here. He’s essentially telling the Colossians, I want you to know that I’m experiencing this deep agony over you and it’s not just keeping you in my constant thoughts. It’s keeping me up at night. It’s weighing down on me. It’s making me feel heavy.
It’s wrecking me emotionally. Now as Christians, when we hear about this kind of agony, we might be tempted to think, well, isn’t that sinful? I mean, after all, doesn’t the Bible tell us that we shouldn’t be anxious about anything and that through prayer and supplications make our requests known to God? Isn’t that kind of agony just a sign that we’re not trusting in God’s sovereignty? First of all, there’s a difference between anxiety and agony. And most importantly, there’s a difference between worldly agony and godly agony. I mean, Jesus himself experienced agony in the garden of Gethsemane. He was so overwhelmed with sorrow and the weight of God’s judgment that he literally sweat drops of blood. Not because he doubted the father’s plan or God’s sovereignty and not because he was lacking in faith, but because he was fully aware of the suffering that lied ahead.
He felt the full weight of it, something that no human being could ever even experience. And so just to be clear, Jesus and Paul, both of them took their agony to the father in prayer, which is exactly what we should do in those moments. You see, worldly agony is driven by a kind of earthly self-interest, losing sleep over not having enough money to go on the vacation that you want, obsessing over job security or that promotion that you really want, stressing over material things like that. But godly agony is the kind that Paul is describing here. It’s driven by love. I mean, just take for example, any godly parent whose child is suffering from a chronic illness. They would in every way experience agony, not because they don’t trust God, but because they care deeply about the well-being of their child. They feel the weight of their child’s suffering and they’re deeply concerned by it.
And surely God understands this. In fact, I think God has placed this in the heart of parents for us to get a sense of what he feels for us, his children. Well, in the same way, Paul agonizes over this church, not because Paul lacks trust in God, but because he loves them and he’s deeply concerned for them and family. This is what it means to live as Christians in a fallen world. When people we love are suffering, we feel it. We don’t just put on plastic smiles and pretend like everything’s okay. No, we feel it. The Bible says we mourn with those who mourn and we weep with those who weep. In fact, Jesus himself, our most excellent example, he wept in the face of suffering. And listen, when people in our church are suffering or when the church is under attack or the spiritual well-being of Christians in the church are being threatened, we should
feel the full weight of it to the point of agony. Paul felt this deeply, even though he was far from them physically, he was close to them spiritually and emotionally. So he wasn’t distant from their struggles and he wasn’t indifferent to their needs, even though he was so far away in prison. Now just think about the contrast between the apostle Paul and some of our more prominent pastors that we see in our world today. There are some pastors who are physically close in terms of proximity to their congregations, but spiritually and emotionally distant from their needs. I think especially about the kind of celebrity pastors or mega church pastors who preach to literally thousands of people every single Sunday, but whose congregations don’t even know who they are. I imagine it would be impossible for those kinds of pastors to agonize over the needs of every individual in their church, let alone be spiritually in tune to their struggles.
There’s just too many. Yeah, they might preach really good sermons and have a massive following on social media, but they don’t know their people and they most certainly don’t lose sleep over the burdens of their people. But in contrast, you have Paul way popular than any of our celebrity pastors, though he never met these believers. He was struggling for them, indeed agonizing over them. The big question we should be asking this morning is why? Why was Paul in agony over these specific Christians? Well, in part, it’s because he desperately wanted them to grow in Christian maturity and he was not there with them to help them. You see, Paul knew that the Christian life isn’t just about conversion. It’s about growth and maturity. It’s about spiritual strength. It’s about endurance. This is why Paul often used the kind of runner’s motif of finishing the race.
He didn’t just want the Colossians to start well. He wanted them to finish well. And he knew that Christian maturity doesn’t happen by accident. It doesn’t come easily and it doesn’t happen passively. It takes struggle. It takes effort. It takes work. It takes perseverance. And that’s why he writes this letter. He’s concerned to help them grow in Christian maturity and assurance while he’s absent from them. And the reason why he’s so concerned about their spiritual maturity and their assurance is because Paul knew that false teachers were lurking in the area, waiting to prey on the Colossians’ vulnerabilities of their faith. He couldn’t be there to protect them from it. And since he couldn’t be there in person to help them grow in maturity and protect them from this false teaching, he labored for them. He struggled for them through prayer and through his pen. He labors because he wanted them to be rooted, strong, and unshakable.
Paul’s Goal for the Church
And the reason why he wanted them rooted, strong, and unshakable is because they would be less prone to deception. So Paul does the only thing that he can do while he’s locked up. He writes them a letter and he pleads for them to grow in maturity, to grow in assurance, and to be watchful concerning deception. And for that to happen, he knows that they not have to be just diligent, but they have to be dedicated and ready to work. And this brings us to the second point, Paul’s goal for the church. We see this in verses two and three. Paul writes 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 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So here in these two verses, Paul lays the foundation of how they are to grow in maturity
and assurance. Paul lays out three essential elements in these two verses that both bolster the faith of Christians and help these Christians to grow in spiritual maturity. Now, listen, there’s a whole lot in these two verses that we could unpack this morning. It’s so dense. It’s so good. But for the sake of simplicity, I’m just going to focus on these three encouragement, unity and wisdom. So Paul begins first with encouragement, specifically that their hearts may be encouraged. Now, this word encouragement here, this is more than just a kind of feel good sentiment. The word Paul uses here carries this idea of spiritual strengthening or fortifying someone with God’s word so that they might be able to stand firm in the faith. He’s making it clear that Christian maturity doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens when believers are strengthened in heart through the process of encouragement.
And when Paul says that their hearts may be encouraged, he doesn’t simply speak to the affections. He’s speaking to the heart, meaning the whole of a person. What he’s saying is that the whole of a person is encouraged when brothers and sisters declare the truths and promises of God to each other. So what that means practically is that every member in the church has a job description. And part of that job description is to spiritually encourage their brothers and sisters in Christ. Listen, Christians often find themselves weighed down by a thousand things, fear, many of them trapped in sin, overwhelmed by insecurity, uncertain about God’s truth and promises for them, which leads to all kinds of doubt. And all of this family can hinder their growth and maturity. Paul knows that for the Colossians to stand firm in the faith, they need to be strengthened,
not just individually through personal devotion, but corporately through the encouragement of their church family. And this is true for us. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way in chapter three, verse 13,
but exhort one another every day as long as it’s called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin
— Hebrews 3
(ESV)
. You see, sin has a way of hardening us to the truth and promises of God. Family encouragement is the guardrail that helps believers avoid the dangers of sin and spiritual stagnation. It strengthens us to be reminded of God’s truth and his promises when we most need it. It becomes the means of fueling our perseverance in the faith when our faith is feeling weak. Hebrews 10, 24 and 25 reinforces this idea. The writer says, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. So encouragement isn’t just optional. It’s our responsibility as members of the church. It’s one of the reasons why we prioritize gathering together, not neglecting gathering together. Paul says this in Ephesians 4, 11 through 13, and we’ve gone through this a dozen times. And while I’m your pastor, we will go through this a thousand more times. Paul writes and he gave the apostles, he gifted the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherd teachers, which is pastors to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ until we all attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ. This is the foundation of what we call every member ministry. Paul is saying that pastors exist to equip the saints, meaning the members of the church for the work of ministry. Doesn’t say that pastors are supposed to do all the work of ministry themselves. Instead, their role is unique in terms of training, teaching, and equipping the church so that the ministry happens through the entire body of believers. So despite how our culture might perceive how church should be run, ministry isn’t just for pastors. It’s not just for elders or full-time church staff. It’s for every Christian, which means that every member of the church has a job description and one of the bullet points on every believer’s resume should be excellence in encouragement. We should all have that. So when you come to church on Sunday or when you attend your small group or when you show
up at church events, are you coming as a consumer or are you coming to clock in for work? Are you showing up to build up your brothers and sisters in the faith through encouragement? If you’re not doing that, you’re not doing the job that God has called you to do as a member of this specific body. I mentioned this to you before, but if you’re a member of this church, you should start praying long before you get to church, asking God to help you, asking the Holy Spirit to begin to prepare you to encourage brothers and sisters who desperately need to be encouraged. I mean, think about all the hardships that all of us go through every single week. There are members in our church who walk through those doors depressed, anxious, beat up from the world, beat up because of how other people have sinned against them, beat up because
of how they’ve participated in sin. They need encouragement. Moms at the very end of themselves coming in here fully depleted, fathers desperately needing to hear gospel truths because of all the hardships of life, single people wrestling with loneliness and fighting for purity, newlyweds wrestling with the difficulties of loving and learning their spouses, students fighting against doubt from the various conflicting ideas that Portland throws at them. Family, we need each other. We need to be encouraged and we need to encourage one another. This is why God gave Christians the church for spiritual support, for spiritual encouragement. The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation. That’s why we buck against this idea that says, you know, Christianity is just about me and my personal relationship with Jesus. Christianity is about the church, God grafting in all of these individual Christians into the church. And listen, just practically speaking, and I’ve mentioned this before, but if you show
up right when the service starts and you dip out right when the service ends, you won’t have any time to do the work of encouragement that God calls you to. So family, please, pretty please prioritize plan to come early, prayed up, ready to engage in spiritual warfare, ready to encourage the saints because they need it. The saints need it. Your pastors need it. Your deacons need it. Everybody needs it. And here’s what’s amazing. There is a reciprocal benefit to encouragement. When you encourage others, you get built up in the process. You know why? Because you feel useful in God’s kingdom. Part of the problem with brothers and sisters coming into churches, I don’t feel useful. I’ve had such a hard week. My spiritual life isn’t that great. I don’t read my Bible as much as other people read their Bible. What can I contribute? But when you come in encouraging brothers and sisters, you feel useful and that builds
you up. It strengthens your faith. It deepens your resolve. It helps you feel like you belong. And that’s important. That’s the way God has designed us. When we pour out in ministry like this and this, this is counterintuitive. When we pour out in ministry, God supernaturally fills us up spiritually. And I might ask you to challenge that. Put that to the test. Test it and see if that works. Pour out in terms of ministry for your brothers and sisters and watch what God does to you. Watch how it fills you up and invigorates you. Listen, just straight up. If everyone in the church was doing their job, you know, by encouraging one another, being excellent in encouragement, then by default, everyone will be the recipient of encouragement. You see how that works? If everyone’s doing it, everyone gets built up. Family encouragement is vital for the Christian to flourish.
The second thing Paul emphasizes in this text is unity. Paul wants them to be knitted together in love. I love that language, knitted together in love. Now at first glance, it might seem like Paul is calling for relational unity. Like the Colossians just need to make sure that they get along and that they love each other or that they’re kind towards one another. And while that’s certainly a wonderful thing and we should strive for that, Paul’s idea of unity here of being knit together is much deeper than just emotional connection. Paul here is talking about doctrinal unity, a unity that is built on a shared understanding of Christ and his gospel. When Paul says be knit together in love, he connects love to understanding. In other words, unity isn’t just about affection. It’s about alignment in truth. Because when the church is unified in truth, then love is anchored, which helps us to grow
in spiritual maturity. So this isn’t like a superficial unity based on friendship, though friendship is a good thing. It’s not based on shared interest or preference, though common interests and preferences can be helpful. It’s not a unity based on similar background or culture or age, though those things can create bonds naturally. This unity is a unity and doctrine, a shared belief in the gospel and the foundational historical truths of the Christian faith. I mean, Paul ties love and truth or doctrine together all throughout this letter and other letters. Ephesians four, three through six, be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is overall and through
all and in all. Paul’s point here is that unity is grounded in the oneness of faith, meaning doctrine. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Paul prays in Philippians one, nine through 10. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment. That’s doctrine so that you may approve what is excellent and be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Family love grows when it’s accompanied by knowledge and discernment. In John 17, 17 through 21, Jesus prays for the unity of believers, which is based on the truth of God’s word. It’s not a superficial unity. It’s unity bound by doctrine. This is why Jesus said, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Paul’s message is clear. Doctrine shapes unity and unity strengthens love. He emphasizes this because he knows that a divided church is a vulnerable church.
When doctrine drifts, love is the first thing that weakens. When people don’t share a common confession, this is when factions grow in the church. When the gospel is unclear, confusion takes root and false teaching begins to spread like a disease. Here’s the thing. Christians that emphasize love without doctrine create a unity that is shallow and emotionally driven. Churches that emphasize doctrine without love create a unity that is cold and rigid, but both love and doctrine together create a strong, enduring unity, which is the foundation of spiritual maturity. Paul wants them to be unified in doctrine so that they will not fall prey to deception. Paul knows that a church that is united in love and doctrine is a church that is resilient against deception. Family, this is why we have a statement of faith. This is why our membership requires a clear understanding and a commitment to certain
doctrinal truths. It’s our job to protect it because it in every way impacts our unity. And finally, Paul points to wisdom. Paul reminds them that in Christ is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Paul understands that wisdom in Christ helps secure the faith of Christians. And this statement has massive implications, not just for individuals, but for the entire church. Paul is making it clear everything the church needs for spiritual maturity, for discernment and faithfulness is found in Christ alone, which means that the church doesn’t need to look anywhere else for wisdom. I’m not saying all wisdom is bad, but the church has all it needs. It’s so frustrating when I feel like I see these churches that kind of parade themselves as if Christ is not enough. So they start adding like psychology. They start adding philosophy or even pragmatism. Family, Christ is enough.
And we have to believe that. When Paul uses the word hidden, he’s not saying that wisdom is inaccessible or complicated. He means that all true wisdom is stored up and revealed in Christ, meaning until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to this wisdom, we won’t see it as wisdom. This wisdom must be revealed. That’s why Paul says it’s hidden. Remember, Paul at one time didn’t know this to be wisdom. He thought everything else was wisdom. He lived his life banking up and storing up this kind of worldly wisdom until the Lord opened up his eyes to the truth. And the reason Paul emphasizes this is because the Colossians were being tempted by outside philosophies and false teachings that claim to offer a kind of higher knowledge, a more sophisticated spirituality. Perhaps there were some false teachers who were suggesting that faith in Christ might be a good thing, but it’s not enough for real Christian flourishing.
That believers needed to pursue kind of extra wisdom or mystical experiences or secret teachings to be a real Christian. Paul says straight up, no. He rejects that idea. He says Christ is enough, that Christ is the source of all wisdom. And this truth, family, perhaps is one of one of the greatest things that we need to anchor ourselves to in this culture. Probably more than any other time in human history. This has massive implications for us. Many churches today fall into the same trap as the Colossians. Only now it’s a whole lot easier because of technology, marketing, chat, GPT, the spread of information, false teaching is quite literally just a click away or a scroll away or a prompt away. Have you ever done this? Seriously, you should do this today. Google, what is Christianity? And just look at the first 25 threads that come up.
Now maybe Google has a good algorithm for you, but for most people who’ve never searched that, all kinds of heresies come up. It’s horrible. The ease of false teaching and false information just in your social feeds can cause Christians to fall into all kinds of heresies without even knowing it. Things like progressive theology, which takes modern cultural trends and offers them as new wisdom, a more contextualized wisdom or wisdom for our age. Things that scripture doesn’t support. A lot of people fall into a kind of self-help philosophy, prioritizing personal fulfillment over biblical truth. This is kind of like a prosperity gospel in help and self-help or therapeutic clothes. A lot of people fall into a new age spirituality and listen, hear me. This is becoming increasingly more popular, especially in Portland. This is huge where people begin to embrace or borrow Eastern meditation techniques or
mystical practices to somehow enhance their Christian faith. And they do all this. They do all of this under the guise of being in tune with the Holy Spirit. Family, you need to know this is huge in our city right now. People pushing aside the authority of scripture to exclusively hear from the spirit because they believe that is more spiritual. But that is exceedingly dangerous first, because that’s how cults start straight up. You want to start a cult, throw away the Bible and start saying, the Lord told me this. And secondly, because it takes, in a sense, it seeks to take away one of the spirit’s primary jobs. And that is to illuminate the scriptures. The very thing that God has given Christians to grow in godliness and sanctification. You want to grow as a Christian, read your Bible. That is the ordinary means of grace to you.
Paul tells the Colossians and us that the church doesn’t need to look anywhere else for wisdom. Everything we need is in Christ. Paul makes this clear in countless passages in scripture. This is so important for us to understand. True wisdom is not found in human philosophy. It’s not found in prophecy. You hear that? It’s not found in psychology. It’s not found in modern science. Not in Joe Rogan, not in Barry Weiss, not in NPR and not in Fox News. It’s found in Christ. According to God’s word alone. Since wisdom is hidden in Christ, the church must be deeply rooted in him to remain faithful. And the way wisdom is displayed in the church is through preaching Christ-centered sermons. Not self-help messages. This is why we don’t preach topical sermons on five steps to make you a healthy Christian or five steps to make you have a better marriage.
I’m not saying all of that is bad. But we preach Christ-centered sermons. It happens by teaching sound doctrine that aligns with scripture, not cultural trends. It happens by discipling believers in the wisdom of God according to the word of God, not in the wisdom of the world. Churches that neglect the riches of Christ’s wisdom will drift into shallow Christianity, where people lack discernment and eventually fall away from the faith. Paul wants Christians to know that the only way to remain strong in the faith is to be deeply rooted in Christ’s wisdom. This means that Trinity Church, the members of Trinity Church, must reject all alternative types of wisdom that push us away from Christ. Did you know that’s part of your job as a member of the church? This is why you got to know your Bible so that anybody who steps in this pulpit who
preaches anything, you got to hold them accountable. Did you know that? If you’re not holding the preaching and the preachers accountable in this church, you’re not doing your job. Because part of your job is to protect your brothers and sisters from false teaching. The greatest threat to Christian maturity is when the church mixes Christ’s wisdom with worldly wisdom. When experience becomes more authoritative than scripture, the church loses its anchor. When cultural approval becomes more important than faithfulness to God, the church will die in compromise. When man-centered ideas like TED Talks or podcasts take greater prominence in your life than God’s word, the church will be led astray. This is why Paul warns in Colossians 2.8,
see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy, by empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ
— Colossians 2
(ESV)
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Paul’s Warning to the Church
In other words, the church must protect people in the church from being taken captive by this philosophy by keeping them captive to the wisdom of Christ. Paul’s concern is not just intellectual, mind you, it is spiritual. Because false wisdom doesn’t just confuse people, it spiritually destroys people. And that brings us to our final point, Paul’s warning to the church. We see this in verses 4 and 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. Paul is saying, listen, I’m telling you all of this. I’m giving you this toolkit for Christian maturity and for assurance, which is this call for encouragement, unity in love, and the wisdom of Christ, because I don’t want
you to be deceived. It’s not enough for you to know that false teaching exists somewhere out there. You got to know that it’s close. Listen, false teaching is so big in Portland. It’s practically banging on the doors of the church. You got to know that. Paul warns them about false teaching because it’s not always obvious. It’s persuasive. The false things about it is elusive. It sounds non-threatening. It sounds enticing, and it’s often packaged well. It’s filmed well. It’s designed well. It might even come across as kind and winsome and conversational, which makes it feel like it’s good and charitable. What could be wrong? Look at how they’re talking about it. They’re so nice. That’s precisely why it’s so dangerous, because it preys on our emotions and our desire for aesthetics and our presuppositions. Listen, deception grows in doubt and often wins our affections in moments of disenchantment
with the church. So when you start feeling like, man, I’m just getting tired of my church, it’s the same old, same old, right? That kind of disenchantment, that’s when it begins to grow in your heart, and that’s when that doubt begins to seed, and it’s all bad. It grows in our hearts, but its goal is always the same, to stunt your growth as a Christian and steal your confidence in Christ. And listen, this is the death blow for Christians. Listen, I have a very close friend of mine, and when I say a very close friend, I mean like a brother friend. He grew up in the faith. He was a Christian for a very long time. He was a Christian longer than I was. He loved his church. He was zealous for Christ, loved his Bible, could quote scripture like you wouldn’t believe. He was actively involved in teaching, leading Bible studies, and even doing all kinds of
other things to showcase the beauty of the gospel. He was very knowledgeable about the Bible, very passionate about truth. In fact, he was instrumental in helping to be an encouragement to me in my faith. But then something began to change with my friend, not overnight, but slowly, and I could see it happening in kind of a slow motion. It started with a little doubt concerning the inspiration of scripture. At that point, he wasn’t having a full-on crisis of faith, but he had this kind of nagging uncertainty, questions that kind of bothered him, like the goodness of God when it comes to human suffering, the exclusivity of atonement, social justice, inclusivity, intersectionality, feminism, even though this was a dude. And because of these issues, he began to see Christianity less as liberating and more as oppressive. And instead of bringing these questions into the church to kind of talk to his brothers
and sisters about or talk to his pastors, instead, he kept them to himself, distancing himself from scripture, trying to square these things out with his own wisdom and his own reason. And that doubt led to isolation. He started pulling away from the church slowly. At first, he would just stop going to church every now and then, and then he just stopped going altogether. The more he pulled away, the more his view of the church started to shift. The more he immersed himself into different philosophies and cultural ideologies, the more distant he felt from the Christian faith as a whole. Then in isolation, without the encouragement of his brothers and sisters, without being grounded in biblical truth or doctrine, he began to totally embrace the wisdom of the world. And listen, he found a community of others who also stepped away from the church. And there’s a lot of them.
They welcomed his doubts. They validated his questions. They affirmed his drift. They offered him a new kind of wisdom. One that didn’t center on Christ, but on spirituality, self-discovery, progressive philosophy, inclusivity, and social justice. One of the key voices in that community used a whole lot of Christian language, but ultimately taught a view of God and faith that was not grounded in the gospel of Christ. And this teacher’s message played into my friend’s desire to redefine God on his own terms. Before long, he no longer felt connected to Christianity or the church that he once loved. He no longer saw the Bible as authoritative and inspired. He no longer believed the doctrines that he once championed, and he slow walked away from the faith. Family, this is the deconstruction playbook. It always follows the same pattern, if you notice. Doubt leads to isolation. Isolation leads to disconnection.
Disconnection leads to false doctrine. False doctrine leads to deconstruction. And here’s the thing, Paul knew this strategy. You see, long before the deconstruction movement, Saul, before he was Paul, used the same strategy to destroy Christians through a kind of first century deconstruction. So when Paul writes Colossians 2, he writes as someone who knows the enemy’s tactics well. Paul knows that the quickest way to destroy the faith of a Christian is to separate them from the church, remove their encouragement, expose them to false teaching, and rip them from the unity of the body. And Paul’s antidote is simple but so powerful. Be tethered to the church because the church is the place of encouragement, unity, and wisdom. Paul fights this not with isolation, but with Christian community. We should welcome our brothers and sisters who are wrestling with doubt, but give them the truth. Open up God’s word and reveal it to them.
Paul doesn’t use individual reasoning or affirmation. He uses unified truth. He doesn’t give them worldly wisdom like, oh, it’s okay for you to slip away from the faith. We’re here for you. He doesn’t do that. He fights for them. He grabs them. He goes after them. He gives them the wisdom found in Christ. He calls the Colossians and us to stay together, to be unified in love, rooted in Christ, and standing firm against deception. This is why he says, though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit. Could you just think about that for a second? Why does Paul write this? Though I am absent from the body, I am with you in spirit. Because Paul, who was once against them with his tactics, destroying the church, fighting against the church, persecuting Christians, wants them to know, I am now standing with
you. I am for you, and I’m doing everything I can to fight this fight with you, and that’s why I’m struggling for you. I want you to stand firm in the faith, and family, these tools will help our church to stand firm in the faith. Stay tethered to the church. Be in encouragement and encourage others. Be unified in doctrine. Find your wisdom in Christ. Can I ask you this morning, are you staying anchored to your Christian community, meaning the church? I don’t mean the four or five homies that you kick it with and talk about Christianity with. I’m talking about this church. Are you engaged with the encouragement in this church? Are you doing your job as a member to encourage your brothers and sisters? Are you standing firm in doctrine? Or are you allowing the culture to cause you to be confused about the beauty and the treasure
of Christ? Are you drifting away in doubt? Do you find yourself isolating yourself? Are you looking for new wisdom outside of Christ? If you’re doing that, you’re in a very dangerous place. You are literally slow walking away from the faith. Because the truth is, no one just wakes up one morning and decides, oh, I don’t want this faith anymore. It happens slowly, step by step, isolation by isolation, deception by deception. And Paul’s saying, don’t let that happen. Don’t let that happen. Stay rooted in the church. Stay encouraged. Stay unified. Stay rooted in Christ and go after your brothers and sisters that are floating away. Love them. Love them with doctrine. Help them. Listen, if you’re here this morning and you wouldn’t consider yourself to be a Christian, I do want you to know that I’m so thankful that you’re here. Maybe you’re here because you’re exploring what it means to be a Christian.
Maybe you don’t even know why you’re here. Friend, you need to know that you’re not here by accident. I want you to know that all the benefits and all the promises for the Christian, all the things that we’ve been talking about can be yours this morning by simply turning from your sin and trusting in Jesus. This wisdom, this treasure hidden in Christ is the only thing that can save you from your sin and bring you peace with God. You see, that’s why Paul refers to it as a treasure, because it’s more precious and valuable than anything else in this world. This treasure can’t be bought through your good works, through your charitable contributions, through your moral uprightness. This treasure can only be found in Jesus. The Bible says that sin separates us from a holy God and that Jesus, who is God, died for the sins of the world to make a way for you and me to be forgiven for our sins and
to be reconciled to God. Jesus, in his sinless life, died on a cross for the sins of the world, and the reason he had to die is because the Bible says that the penalty for sin is death, meaning the sin against a holy God requires an eternal death sentence. But in God’s kindness, instead of giving us the punishment we deserve, Jesus took the punishment instead. He died in our place to save us because we could never save ourselves. Not in a thousand years could we do enough works to pay off the debt of our sin. No matter how good we think we are, no amount of karma could satisfy God’s legal demands for sin. But the good news to that very bad news is that anyone who turns from their sins and trusts in Jesus will be saved and experience new life in him. Anyone, no matter your background, no matter all the things you’ve done in your past, no
matter how broken you were, anyone can come to Jesus and find freedom for your sin. The same life-changing experience that Paul experienced from a terrorist to an apostle, you can experience that today. Do you want this, Jesus? The wisdom of God can be yours. Ask him to save you this morning and he will do it, and if you have questions about what it means to follow Jesus, ask anyone in this room. Ask them if they’re a Christian, and if they say yes, I promise you they will help you to know what it means to follow Jesus. Family, I do pray that this would be an encouragement for us, that you would exercise your job as a member to encourage every brother and sister in this church, that you would be united not in superficial ways, but united in doctrine to protect the church from false teaching.
And I do pray that we would be the kind of people that actually see the wisdom of Christ as the greatest treasure. There is nothing more satisfying, nothing more helpful, nothing more life-changing than Christ himself and his wisdom. May that be the thing that marks Trinity Church. Amen? Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for the church. We thank you for Christ. We thank you for the treasure that has been revealed to us. We pray, O Lord and God, that we would see it as a treasure, that nothing would compete with our affections for you. God, we pray that you would help us to herald the name of Christ as supreme over everything and everyone. We pray, God, that you would protect this church from false teaching, from the influence of the culture. And I pray, God, you would protect us by way of the members doing their job to protect
one another. Keep us faithful. Keep us tethered to the historic doctrines of the church. The churches in Portland will call us all kinds of things if we stand for the truth. God, would you give us a backbone? And we pray for false churches in this city that are preaching a false gospel, leading people away. God, we pray that you would smash those churches and give those church buildings to other churches who herald the beauty of the gospel so that others might hear of the treasure that is hidden in Christ. God, keep us tethered to you and to the church, we pray. We desperately need you to keep us. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen.