Colossians 2:6-7 –
6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Introduction
Church, try to recall a time in which you found it particularly difficult to follow Jesus. Perhaps it was hard because you just didn’t know what to do (what it meant to follow Jesus in your circumstances). Or, perhaps it was hard because although you knew what to do, you just didn’t want to do it. Or, perhaps it was hard because although you knew what to do and even wanted to do it, the consequences for doing so were steep.
When you found yourself in that place of difficulty, what was the most helpful counsel you received? Was there anything that you read or heard or remembered that truly helped you navigate your circumstances with biblical, Spirit-empowered hope and confidence (even if it was still hard)?
What do you do (and how do you know) when following Jesus makes life hard? If that’s not a question you’ve ever had to deal with (or even regularly have to deal with), that’s a problem, but one for another day. But for those of you who do find themselves asking that question consistently (maybe presently), I hope you’ll lean way in this morning for Paul offers a great deal of help. Indeed, answering that question is largely the point of this entire letter, but it is especially the point of this particular passage.
Above all (that is, throughout Colossians), Paul argues: You remember that Jesus is over all and in all (that He is supreme, preeminent). First and most, you settle on the fact that no matter what you are going through, Jesus is with you in it and sovereign over it.
More specifically though, according to Colossians 1:6-7, you remember when you first trusted in Jesus and then, in light of that, you continue to walk in Him. That is, you remember your faith initially as a means of living out your faith continually.
The big idea of this sermon is that faithfully walking the Christian life (always, and especially in times of hardship and confusion) is directly connected to beginning the Christian life with a simple acceptance of the simple gospel. The main takeaway is to consider all aspects of our lives through the simplifying lens of Jesus as King and Savior and then to live it out in truth, faith, and thanksgiving.
As You Received Him (6)
The small church in Colossae, consisting primarily of newer Christians, was in a tough spot. As we’ve seen, and will see again next week in greater detail, their difficulties were largely the result of a constant bombardment of “plausible arguments” and “philosophy” and ‘empty deceit” and “human tradition”.
It’s probably not too hard to imagine, is it Grace? These baby Christians trusted in Jesus and consequently had their whole lives turned upside down. Everything was new and little was clear. They didn’t even have the completed Bible yet. Even without opposition, it was a tall task to even know what to do, let alone do it.
But with bad actors, teaching bad ideas, it was inevitably harder still. It was harder because some of what they were hearing was “plausible”. It was wrong, but it sounded like it might not be. How do you sort through it all?
It was also harder because some of what they were hearing was appealing. It was wrong and they knew it, but it was easier (kind of like the doctrine of annihilationism—no hell sounds a lot easier than hell). How do you keep choosing that which is right, but harder, when life is continually hard and easier options are continually put in front of you?
Gerri and I are seeing that in a group of our son’s friends. Many of them either just came to faith in Jesus or just came to understand it in a life-changing way. And that, right into the deep end of life. They’re trying to discern God’s will for their areas of study, graduation, dating, marriage, career, etc.
They’re getting all kinds of advice from all kinds of people with all kinds of motives and it can be hard to know what to make of and do with it all. They have friends and even parents giving them “plausible” advice for living their best life. It’s often rooted in real life experience and a genuine desire to help them avoid some of the mistakes they made themselves. The advice they’re getting generally flows out of truly (even if misguided) benevolent motives.
At the same time, friends and family often mock or take offense if their counsel is rejected. These young people know that life is 10,000x better in Christ, but also significantly harder than just going with the cultural flow.
So what are the Colossians and our son’s friends supposed to do and how do they know? Again, that’s largely the point of these two verses—which are right at the heart of the letter.
The first part of Paul’s answer, found in v.6, was to consider how they received Jesus.
6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him…
How did they receive Jesus? The same way anyone and everyone receives Jesus: They trusted in Him (1:4) with child-like faith. Not everything was clear, but there was a sweet clarity in simply believing that Jesus alone is Christ and Lord—that He alone could forgive them of their sins and that He alone was worthy of submitting to entirely as the highest authority in their lives.
And there was a sweetness to the confirming grace of God that came with it. God immediately produced in them love for one another (1:4), hope for eternal life (1:5), and significant spiritual fruit 1:6).
In other words, to come to faith in Jesus is to settle on the purist, most basic elements of the faith. It is to accept mere Christianity—Jesus as Lord and risen Savior.
So, what does that have to do with baby Christians discerning the will of God in the midst of lots of clamoring voices making all kinds of claims?
It means, Grace, we never move past the basics of the gospel. If any aspect of our walk with Jesus is honoring to Jesus, it’s because it flows out of the good news that King Jesus was crucified and risen for sinners. In that way, every aspect of the Christian life flows out of the things we believed when we first trusted in Jesus. There is more to learn, but it’s never disconnected from the things we believed when we initially experienced new birth in Jesus.
The longer you are a Christian, the more life you will experience. And the more life you experience, the more complicated things can become. Like the Colossians, you’ll inevitably encounter lots of questions and competing ideas. The simple fact that God loved the world in such a way that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life, won’t answer all of those questions, but it most certainly will orient you for them all. It won’t sort through every plausible idea for you, but it will immediately eliminate many and illuminate all.
For instance, when confronted with the question of who you should marry and the many voices speaking into it, remembering the gospel doesn’t give you her name, but the reality that Jesus is the Christ means that she needs to be a Christian and someone who loves as Jesus loves. The gospel doesn’t give you his name, but the reality that Jesus is King means that he must be someone who loves His rule.
Likewise, when confronted with the question of how to respond to the bully at school, the gospel isn’t a play-by-play instruction manual, but it is a reminder that Jesus loved us when we were still His enemies.
When confronted with the question of how to respond to someone who is wrestling through gender issues, the gospel doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, but it is helpfully orienting to remember that we are who King Jesus says we are, that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that the only hope for any of us is Jesus crucified and raised.
The first part of Paul’s answer for the Colossians, our son’s friend group, and every Christian who is having a hard time discerning God’s will for their life (especially when life is hard for being the kind of person who tries to discern God’s will for your life), is to remember that faithfully walking the Christian life is always directly connected to the beginning the Christian life. It always begins with the conviction that everything flows out of the reality that Jesus is King and Christ.
Oh to be properly amazed, humbled, and oriented by the basic truths of the gospel throughout all our lives.
So walk in Him (7)
Again, the small church in Colossae, consisting primarily of newer Christians, was in a tough spot due to a constant bombardment of the “plausible arguments” and “empty deceit” of “human tradition” and “philosophy”. How were they supposed to know what to do in light of all of that? They were to begin by reorienting themselves to the simple things they received when they first trusted in Jesus—Jesus as Christ and Lord.
From there, they were to walk in every way in a manner consistent with that. But what does that mean? In v.7, we find a helpful start to the answer in the form of four participles/metaphors.
7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
A critical aspect of walking faithfully as a Christian in the midst of difficulty is to be (1) rooted in Jesus, (2) built up in Jesus, (3) established in faith in Jesus, and (4) abounding in thanksgiving.
Rooted in Him
Interestingly, Paul’s answer is a bag of metaphors. The first is an agricultural one. Remember the gospel and let its roots go deep in you.
Mark could explain this much better I’m sure, but the simple principle is this—for trees to continue to grow and not simply die or fall over, their roots need to grow deep and wide.
We have a white pine on our property that is 100’ + tall, but only ~4’ wide. How does that work? Try making your pencil or pen stand up on your lap. You probably can’t do it. But even if you can, would it stay that way if the wind were blowing 50mph? Would it stay that way covered in sleet or snow? Of course not. So how can a tree with similar proportions do it? Only by growing roots that are deep and wide.
That was Paul’s first walking charge.
Grace, we receive Jesus initially, simply by believing that He died to take away our sins. But we walk in Him through every trial by allowing those roots to grow deeper and deeper. We walk in Him by learning more about triune nature of God, the holiness of God, our purpose in life, the nature and consequences of our sin, the fuller order of our salvation (election, gospel call, regeneration, conversion, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, death, and glorification), the essence of faith, the indwelling of the Spirit, our union with Jesus, and the end of our salvation in the new heavens and earth.
We learn about those things in the context of the history of redemption; from the Garden to the Fall to the promises, patriarchs, prophets, priests, kings, sacrifices, covenants, people and land of Israel, Christ’s coming, kingdom, and return, and the new eternal Garden and Jerusalem.
To grow in understanding of each of those things, revealed to us by God, is to allow the roots of our faith in the saving grace of Jesus to work down deep and out wide, that we might walk faithfully through any persecution and plausible argument.
Likewise, we receive Jesus initially, simply by acknowledging Him as Lord of all. But we faithfully walk in Him through false teaching and trial by allowing the Sovereign-King roots to grow deeper.
That means learning with ever-increasing clarity that God alone made the heavens and earth, that He did so by, through, and for Jesus (), that all things are continually held together and governed by Him, that all things are and are for what He says they are and are for, that all things (whether they know or acknowledge it or not) are accountable to Him, that in Him all things live and move and have their being, that He governs all according to the word of His power and for His pleasure.
What’s more, we walk faithfully as the King-roots grow deeper not only in gaining understanding of and increasingly surrendering to the nature of the Lordship of Jesus, but also in the content. We faithfully weather the storms of the fallen world by learning the design and commands of God and conforming to them. We increasingly learn what means to submit to Jesus in every area of our lives—dreams, goals, relationships, sex, money, etc.
Functionally, practically, let me say something about walking in faith by being rooted in Jesus.
Have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger Effect? It’s the idea that for most people, there’s a predictable relationship between our confidence and our knowledge.
When we know, we know nothing about something, we also, appropriately, have very little confidence in our ability to explain or apply it. This is simple enough. If I were to show you a sentence in Arabic, none of you (that I know of) would feel any confidence in translating it for us. In this, our knowledge and confidence are properly proportioned.
But as we gain a little knowledge our confidence tends to skyrocket disproportionately. Parents, if you have a child with a driver’s permit, you understand this well. With 12 minutes of instruction, the backseat insight is continuous and supremely, albeit misguidedly confident. We prove the proverbs, “knowledge” puffs up” and “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:1, 2).
As we continue to gain more knowledge still, in any area of significance, we tend to quickly come to realize that in reality we know next to nothing. And with that comes a measure of despair.
I remember experiencing this most profoundly in first year Greek. I learned the alphabet and about 20 vocabulary words and was genuinely confident that God had just gifted my church with all spiritual wisdom and insight. Graciously, that only lasted about ten minutes before I got into the Greek text and reality set in. At first, reality was exceedingly discouraging. It seemed to me that I was so far from gaining enough understanding to even grasp the issues (let alone contribute to them) that trying was futile.
Dunning and Kruger observed that it is here that real learning is possible and proper proportionality between knowledge and confidence is regained.
Here’s the point: When we first receive the good news that Jesus is Christ and King, there is an appropriate, Spirit-wrought humility. We know that we don’t know much.
V.6 in our passage, as we just saw, is a charge to never lose that. We really do need to learn more about who Jesus is and what He wants, but we must never move past the simple and profound reality that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15).
We need God’s Word, God’s Spirit, God’s people (more on that in the last point), and God’s power to develop the kind of roots we need to walk in Jesus as we received Jesus.
Built up in Him
Next, switching metaphors from agriculture to construction, if we want to remain faithful through persecution, in our walk with Jesus, we must be built up in Jesus.
Growing in our knowledge of the specifics concerning Jesus’ Lordship and salvation is critical for laying a proper foundation (roots). But a foundation is not the goal. A solid foundation with no building is pointless. Roots are for trees as foundations are for buildings—they are essential, but only the beginning.
In other words, all the knowledge of Christ in the world, means nothing if it doesn’t change the way you walk, live.
That’s the heart of James’ command in 1:22 (“Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourself”) and his plea in 2:19 (“You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”). The main distinction between demons and Christians isn’t knowledge of true things, it’s the faithful acceptance and application of them.
That’s also the heart of Paul’s charge in Romans 12:2, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We need our minds to be renewed (deep and wide doctrinal roots; a solid theological foundation). But a renewed mind is the means to an end rather than the end in itself. The true end, is a transformed life. That can’t happen while we continue to believe lies or fail to act on the truths we know, but it must happen.
In other words, Grace, Paul’s answer to the Colossians’ question (how do we know what God wants in the midst of so many competing voices), begins with the charge to remember when you first accepted, with child-like faith, the simple good news that Jesus is Christ and King. Then, grow to understand what those things mean in every way God has revealed to you. And then (this point), build upon them. Now that you understand them, build your life entirely and exclusively upon them. Walk in them.
Believe that Jesus is the only way, truth, and life, and then live according to it.
Forsake all other saviors (your bank/retirement account, your health insurance, your ability to think or work hard, your family, etc).
Love others (especially your enemies), not as they “love” you or want you to “love” them, but as Jesus loves you.
Don’t treat God’s commands as optional or stifling. Don’t treat them as the means of our salvation, but don’t act as if God is indifferent to our obedience either. Likewise, live your life according to the fact that God’s commands are the straightest path to the greatest joy.
Don’t merely affirm the fact that God made us male and female. Learn to live in light of all that means.
Learn that God is a Father to the fatherless () and calls His people to imitate Him in that; and then do so.
I could go on and on, but I imagine the point is clear. Do you want to walk faithfully through confusion and hardship? Remember the gospel, learn its content and implications, and then build your whole life upon them.
Established in the Faith
Paul explained the nature of walking in Christ as we received Christ by way of an agricultural metaphor, a building metaphor, and now, third, a business or legal metaphor.
We walk faithfully in Jesus by planting deep roots (learning all that God has taught us), building on a solid foundation (living our lives based on the truths we have), and establishing our faith (making it firm, lasting, stable).
To establish something in a legal sense is to pass a law concerning it. To establish a family financially is to set up a generational trust. To be established in a relationship is to solidify it in marriage (for instance). To establish peace between two countries is to ratify a treaty.
To be established in the faith is to walk with Christ over a longer period of time. As we follow Jesus through more and more seasons of life, through various trials and joys, through increasing times of loss and gain, death and life, victory and defeat, and see the unwavering faithfulness of Jesus in it all to keep us faithful and fulfill His promises, the more established we become.
To be established in this way often means avoiding unnecessary hardship to begin with because we’ve learned to flee from the folly and sin that once led us astray. For Christ’s sake, we don’t waste money or spend time on the internet or hang out with fools or care about the worldly opinions of others like we used to. For love of neighbor, we’ve learned to avoid some of the relational hardships and confusion of the past by becoming humbler, listening more than we talk, and to forgiving quickly.
To be established in this way also means gaining knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. In that way, we really do grow to know what God would have us do under an ever-expanding number of circumstances. This is one of the many reasons that our DGs are not age-segregated.
To be established in this way means to have, like the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, been caught up in the fads, believed the promises of advertisers, tried many of the things of earth, and found them all to be ultimately empty.
Above all, though, to be established in the faith as Paul means it here, is to have tasted and seen that the Lord alone is truly satisfying. It is to have come to experience that Jesus is the greatest treasure and, consequently, that the loss of every other thing is gain for His sake.
Abounding in Thanksgiving
Finally, the fourth charge Paul gave to the Colossians (and to all of us) seems to return to an agricultural metaphor. We are to abound in (have an abundance of) thanksgiving. Like a cart overflowing with fruit and vegetables after a bumper crop, our hearts are to overflow with gratitude. Whatever else is going on in your life, the antidote to faithlessness or wandering or ignorance, is to have been given eyes to see the countless blessings of God in our lives.
This is one of the biggest themes in Colossians—thanksgiving in and through difficulty. Paul’s attitude is that because of the gospel, at every moment of every day, no matter his circumstances (and, as we’ve seen, he knew far worse circumstances than most of us by a long shot), whatever he was experiencing was infinitely better than he deserved. And so, he was continually abounding in thanksgiving and inviting his readers to do so as well.
As we already saw…
Colossians 1:3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,
Colossians 1:12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
As we will see…
Colossians 3:15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Colossians 3:16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Colossians 3:17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
Our passage says…
Colossians 2:7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
To know the forgiveness of Jesus, to know the preeminence of Jesus, to know the inheritance of Jesus, to know the benevolent, sovereign reign of Jesus, and to know that those things are yours, by grace, through faith, forever, is to be filled with gratitude.
Do you want to walk faithfully in Jesus in the mist of persecution and clamoring voices? Remember the simple tenants of the gospel as you first received it (Jesus is the King and resurrected Christ), grow in your knowledge of what each of those things mean, build your life upon them, pay careful attention to the faithfulness of Jesus as you do those things over time, and allow the Spirit to train you to do all of that while abounding in thanksgiving for the limitless grace of God that is yours in Jesus.
Those things do not, of course, make everything easy or even clear. But they are among God’s given means of granting sufficient growth in both.
Just as you were taught
The final aspect of this passage that I’d like to draw your attention to concerns the way in which the Colossians knew that Jesus was King and Christ and what it meant to be rooted, built up, established and full of thanks in Him.
Did they just figure it out on their own? Did it come from a period of meditation? Did it come from a subjective impression they assumed was from the Holy Spirit? Did they get it from tradition and precedent? Did they hold a council and vote? Was it merely the product of being true to themselves and their truth?
It was, of course, none of those things. None of them are the means by which God has chosen to definitively reveal His will to His people. Rather, they knew those things, Paul explained by being taught by God’s inspired apostles.
Let me try to explain with a building metaphor of my own…
More than once, growing up, I was on a jobsite where the guys I was working for started siding in one corner and worked in opposite directions around the house only to meet on the other side and have their courses be several inches off. I didn’t know enough about siding back then to be much of a help, but I did know enough to realize they should have marked out all the corners first.
That captures much of the heart of what Paul meant when he wrote that the Colossians were to do “just as [they] were taught.” Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the apostles “marked the corners” for the Church for all time. That is, through them, God has given all His people all we need to know to walk in Jesus in a manner pleasing to God.
Our job, then, is to measure everything off of those corners; to teach what we’ve already been taught. You should not come here hoping for some new lesson from us. You should not come here looking for any standard other than that which was given and completed 2000 years ago. Our job is not to create new content, but to explain old contend and help you learn what it means to live in light of it today (through our teaching and example).
That’s why our adult Sunday school is called “Berea” and why we teach what we teach in it. It’s why we use the kids’ Sunday school curriculum we do. It’s why we counsel you in your trials from God’s Word instead of with the methods of the world. It’s why the main approach to preaching here is expositional—verse by verse through whole books of the Bible, focusing on the author’s original intent, it’s relationship to the new covenant in Jesus, and how to live it out today. And it’s why our DGs mostly focus on clarifying and applying the sermon text. All because we believe that walking in Jesus today means what it has always meant: Doing “just as [we] were taught.”
Conclusion
What do we do (and how do we know what to do) when life is hard for following Jesus? We start by remembering the simple tenants of the simple gospel as we first received it—Jesus as Christ and King. Faithfully walking the Christian life is always directly connected to beginning the Christian life in that way. From there, with that lens and with the help of the Spirit and Church, we must seek to grow in our understanding, build our lives upon the Word of God that we are taught, pay careful attention to the faithfulness of Jesus as we do those things over time, and to do all of that while abounding in thanksgiving for the limitless grace of God that is ours in Jesus.