Built up in the Faith
There’s a lot going on in this Sunday’s services. Miss Jeannie and our High Five campers will be helping out with the first couple of songs, and then Jordan and our Harvest Youth Yukon team will be reporting on their recent mission to Whitehorse. I know this is going to be one of those incredibly encouraging times together as we rejoice in what God is doing in and through the Harvest Kids and Harvest Youth. Jordan will also be resuming our series, Invisible God; Visible Faith, in the letter to the Colossians with a message in Colossians 2:6-15 titled, “Built up in the faith.” Be here in person at 9 or 11 a.m. at 7 George Street or join us online at the same two times. The services will also be available in full and on demand on our YouTube channel. We look forward to having you with us.
Jordan writes:
I read this line in a book this week, “The church is always only a few generations away from losing the gospel” (Dane Ortlund, Surprised by Jesus). Don’t believe it? Here’s another quote from D.A. Carson: “I have heard a Mennonite leader assess his own movement in this way. One generation of Mennonites cherished the gospel and believed that the entailment of the gospel lay in certain social and political commitments. The next generation assumed the gospel and emphasized the social and political commitments. The present generation identifies itself with the social and political commitments, while the gospel is variously confessed or disowned; it no longer lies at the heart of the belief system of some who call themselves Mennonites.”
We’ve seen it all throughout history. When the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the exclusivity of it for salvation is not treasured as it ought to be, it is quickly lost. This is why Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians. The church at Colossae faced challenges to the profoundly wonderful, eternal and simple truth of the gospel. False teachers were trying to take believers away from the wholly effective work of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone by adding to it, so Paul warns them and reminds them of the reality of the truth that Jesus Christ is all they need. When he is all that I need my faith will grow, no matter what challenges to the truth I face. That’s what we’ll see as we look to the Word together again on Sunday. I’m excited to walk through this with you and am praying that the Lord will challenge you as much as he has challenged me through this passage.
Series: Invisible God; Visible Faith-Paul’s letter to the Colossians
Message: 4- Built up in the Faith
Text: Colossians 2:6-15
Jordan Coros
Harvest Bible Chapel
July 23, 2023
My faith will grow when I accept that Jesus is all I need.
1. He defines what I do. (v. 6-7)
1 John 1:9
The fundamental means of change is deeper and deeper reflection on the very gospel that rescued us in the first place. It sounds backward, but the path to holiness is through (not beyond) the grace of the gospel, because only undeserved grace can truly melt and transform the heart. Disobedience is not healed with obedience. Morality can reform but never transform, immorality…The route by which the New Testament exhorts radical obedience is not by tempering grace, but by driving it home all the more deeply.
Dane Ortlund
2. He defines what is true. (v. 8-10)
a. Affirm his deity
b. Affirm his authority
3. He defines who I am. (v. 11-15)
1 Peter 2:24-25
By stripping Jesus and stringing him to a wooden implement of death, political and religious powers thought they were subjecting to shame a peasant Jew with a handful of followers and concurrently eradicating his pernicious influence. All the while, Colossians contends, other forces were at work. Those sinister forces that sought to render impotent “a radical Jew” causing disquiet were themselves defeated and disgraced.
Todd Still