THAT WHICH IS REAL

COLOSSIANS 1:25-2:7

Rick Jackson

I. THAT WHICH WAS PAUL'S [1:25-2:1]

1. Paul's Solid Hope [1:25-27]
-the Christian (Jewish or Gentile) has Christ within and is in Christ [1:2, 4, 13]

2. Paul's Sincere Desire [1:28-29]
-present mature believer's to Christ

3. Paul's Serious Conflict [2:1]
-that they would be beguiled & robbed spiritually [2:4, 8, 16, 18]

II. THAT WHICH COMFORTS THE HEART [2:2-3]

The heart in Scripture denotes the center of the moral and spiritual being, including intellect, feeling, and will. Thus if the heart is right all else will be right, for "out of it are the issues of life" (Pr. 4:23). -W.H. Griffith Thomas

1. Unity in love (agape love in the Bible is desiring the highest good for an individual) [v. 2a]

You can have union without love. Paul wants a unity based on desiring the highest good for others (not our own selfish desires). This is why in other places he talks about not causing others to stumble through our liberty.

2. The full assurance of understanding (example-eternal security comforts the heart) [v. 2b]

You can have union without having unity. Some want to have union and love without truth. That's not what God wants. Truth can unify. Truth cannot have union with error or it is no longer truth.

1 Peter 1:22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

1 John 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

2 John 1:1 The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth;

2 John 1:3 Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

3. The acknowledging of the centricity of Jesus Christ [v. 2c-3]

III. THAT WHICH CONCERNS THE FAITH [V. 4-7]

1. The opposition to the Faith [v. 4]

2. The Object of the Faith [v. 5]

3. The Objective of the Faith [2:6-7, 1:28]