In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij examines and preaches through Colossians 2:1-5.
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Summary
We are reminded that the Christian life involves real spiritual conflict—an ideological warfare fought on the front of doctrine and practice. Rooted in Colossians 2:1–5, we are shown that Paul’s agonizing struggle for believers he never met models what it means to contend for the faith, and that the weapons God provides—prayer, unifying love, and the treasure of truth found in Christ—are sufficient to keep us standing firm.
Key Lessons:
- We are in a genuine spiritual warfare, and the greatest threat is false teaching that gives us a low view of God and draws us away from the authority of Scripture.
- The goal of the struggle is spiritual maturity—hearts that are encouraged and knit together in love, so the church does not unravel under the pressure of error.
- Christ himself is the mystery of God and the source of all true wisdom and knowledge; he is the treasure worth guarding and the antidote to every heresy.
- Love for one another is not optional sentiment but a Spirit-empowered weapon for unity, and it is evidence of genuine conversion—breaking down every ethnic, cultural, and social barrier.
Application: We are called to hold fast to the treasure of truth in Christ, to pray earnestly for one another’s stability in the faith, and to express a transformed, barrier-breaking love that reflects the gospel we profess.
Discussion Questions:
- In what ways are you most vulnerable to the ideological pressures—pragmatism, mysticism, cultural agendas—that the sermon identifies as tools Satan uses against believers?
- Paul wrestled in prayer for people he had never met. Who in your life or church are you actively interceding for, that they would stand firm in the faith?
- How does genuine love for fellow believers serve as a practical weapon against division and false teaching in the local church?
Scripture Focus: Colossians 2:1–5 is the anchor text, revealing Paul’s agonizing struggle for believers’ hearts to be encouraged and knit together in love. Colossians 1:9, 3:14, Ephesians 4:13–14, Romans 5 and 13, and 1 Corinthians 16:22 together teach that spiritual maturity, love, and the full knowledge of Christ are the defenses God provides against error.
Outline
- Introduction
- We Are in a Warfare
- Paul’s Struggle Is for Others
- The Goal: Encouraged and Knit-Together Hearts
- The Sphere of Love
- Love as a Weapon for Victory
- The Treasure of Truth in Christ
- Standing Firm with the Weapons God Provides
Introduction
Thank you. Good morning. Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Colossians. We’re back in Colossians chapter 2, looking at verses 1 through 5 this morning.
Let me read that. Colossians 2:1-5: “I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument, for even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ.”
Let’s pray. Father, this morning as we come to your word, the precious word of God that you have superintended and protected up until this day and will forever, we ask that we would take your word seriously. We would listen and meditate upon it and then put the word of God into practice in our own life.
We also ask, Lord, that we would examine ourselves by it, so that we can know that we’re walking in light of your word, that we can know also that we’re saved by Christ and that we have your spirit to lead and direct us. Bless us, Lord, as we look at your word this morning. In Christ I pray, amen.
I’ve been saying that once you have become a Christian and have purpose in your heart that you are going to hold fast to the hope that has been given to you in Christ Jesus, you are determined to continue in it, and you have been convinced by scripture that you should not be moved away from the truth or the hope of the gospel no matter what happens in your life.
The bottom line is in Colossians that as long as a believer in Christ continues growing in the faith, growing in the knowledge of the word of God, they will become established and firm, not easily moved away from the hope that they have learned in the gospel.
They will experience at that point the reality of being new in Christ. You are not the person you used to be. You are new, and every day is new, and Christ is the sole focus and center of your life.
When he is, then we begin to understand newness. But while we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in making us holy and spiritually mature on our way to eternal glory, we experience conflict as a Christian.
We were not aware of this conflict when we remained captive in Satan’s domain. But once we were moved from his dark domain to the kingdom of God’s dear son because of our faith in Jesus Christ, at that point we entered into spiritual conflict.
The conflict we entered will have many fronts to it. But the main front will be in the area of doctrine and practice. They both go together, doctrine and practice, especially the doctrines concerning God and concerning Jesus Christ.
The authority base which holds up our belief system and our moral standards and our way of living is the holy scriptures. This conflict, by another name as mentioned in Ephesians, is spiritual warfare.
I didn’t know if you knew that you were in spiritual warfare when you became a Christian. We are fighting against demonic ideology. It is a fight for the heart and the mind.
A good example of this fight, this ideological struggle, is observed in the blindness of people. As I mentioned last time, the Ligonier ministry went on college campuses and asked students this question: What do you think about God? Who do you think God is?
One student said, “I think you’re asking the wrong person because I’m not quite sure myself, really anything.” Another said, “I believe that there is some higher being but I don’t believe in quote-unquote God.” Another one said, “I think he’s just a spiritual form.”
Another one said, “Really no one really knows what God is really like. It’s just that in the Bible it tells you how they picture him as being. Nobody really knows.” And then one person said, “I have faith that there’s something out there. I don’t know what it is. I’m going to pursue it more, but right now I’m not sure about whether monotheism is right or whether we become one part of the universe or whatever. But heck man, I’m only 18 years old. I don’t know.”
And then one did say this: “I believe God is like an all supreme, all knowledgeable, omnipotent being.” Now that was the closest one.
But in all those statements we can see that there’s a problem. The problem is that people do not know who God is. The reason why they don’t know who God is is because they’re looking for him and finding information about him in all the wrong places.
The only place that you can find out about God and who he is is in his own self-revelation in the word of God.
We Are in a Warfare
We’re at verse one this morning. If you look at verse one, we’re in a warfare. We’re in a warfare. It says this: this warfare is conflict. It says, “I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf.”
This is Paul writing, and he is saying to the people that he’s writing to that he is struggling for them. The term “struggle” jumps off the page to inform the readers of his agona—that’s the word—or that we get the word “agonize.” He’s agonizing over something, he’s struggling, he’s contending.
Metaphorically he’s in a race, and it’s pictured here as exertion put out in the face of opposition, like a conflict or struggle or a fight. The picture is really of an athletic contest which is strenuous and demanding, and which characterizes most of the Christian life.
Paul, the Apostle Paul, is using the word in a more figurative way to describe an intense non-physical struggle. Paul also included the word in verse two—verse one speaks of great struggle, and it describes the size and intensity of his ongoing inner wrestling.
The struggle was in his own heart for the people he never met. He never met the Colossians. So he’s writing to them, and Paul is letting them know: listen, this real struggle that’s going on in my heart is for you people.
These Jews and Gentile converts were now in Christ, so he struggled for them. How did he do that? Well, if you look at chapter one, verse nine, he says this: “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”
So he’s wrestling before God for these people in prayer, for the very things that will hinder reaching the final goal—to be firmly established in the faith and to remain, once you’re there, steadfast and unmovable by whatever is going to come your way.
“He’s wrestling before God for these people in prayer, for the very things that will hinder reaching the final goal—to be firmly established in the faith.”
The Threat of False Teaching
Whatever ideology is going to press into your life or against you, the greatest conflict that we will have as Christians is the conflict against false teaching. If the enemy can get us to have a low view of God and ignore his word and God’s revelation of himself, and mix it together with other teachings that add and take away from the authority of the word of God and the revelation of God himself, he will do it.
He will use any teaching flying around us at any time that is going to carry us away from the truth. And then once he does that, what he does is he leaves you to bleed and to be bruised and broken and confused. He leaves you, in other words, wavering and wobbling.
I don’t know if I really believe God anymore. I don’t really believe that Jesus is exclusively the way to be saved. There’s got to be many ways. See, people wobble in those things. It happens all the time. People are leaving the faith who once professed the faith. Why is that?
Well, again, in Ephesians 4:13-14 it says: “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. And as a result of that, as a result of maturity, spiritual maturity, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men and by craftiness and deceitful scheming.”
You mean people are trying to trick you? Yes. Why? Because people are the puppets of Satan and they want to trick you.
It’s like people who say, well, I’ve been a Christian for a while but I want more. It was a woman named Sarah Young who writes a book, Jesus is Calling, and she said in her book, I know God gave the Bible but I yearned for more. Well, if you yearn for more apart from and beyond the scriptures, Satan will give it to you. It’s all in the word of God, that’s what God’s given us.
In fact, more and more church leaders are adopting a pragmatic approach to ministry, using what is culturally expedient and completely ignoring what scripture says about the priorities in the church. And now churches don’t look like what the Bible says, it looks like what the culture says.
Another influence that has rapidly gained momentum in our culture is mysticism. This teaches that enlightenment comes from within. You go inside yourself and find enlightenment, and it emphasizes mystical phenomena such as visions and signs and wonders and miraculous personal revelations.
It’s the spiritual formation movement that is prominent in our culture, and their very teaching is, go look within to find something meaningful. No, you can’t. Don’t look within, look outside to God, to his word, and that’s where you’re going to find the stability and fulfillment that we desire in our hearts.
Pragmatism, psychology, and mysticism are nothing more than synthetic man-made substitutes used by Satan to undermine and infect the spiritual lives of believers. They do not produce the results of doctrine that is according to godliness, because real doctrine will produce godliness and holiness in your life. That’s what the word of God will do.
“Real doctrine will produce godliness and holiness in your life. That’s what the word of God will do.”
We have other things pressing upon the church from the culture, such as critical race theory, race hatred, cancel culture, the LGBTQ agenda, the blurring of male and female identities, and a confused definition of marriage, and the list goes on and on and on.
We may not have been aware how much error disintegrates the heart’s confidence and produces trouble and doubt and confusion, or how error also snaps the bonds of love and splinters the church into parties. Error is seductive, it is destructive, it is a dangerous influence which is harmful to believers.
That’s Paul’s struggle, that the people who are listening to the word of God, the people who have been genuinely saved, would not be moved away from the truth. The most effective antidote for any heresy is the proclamation of the doctrine of Christ, a cogent proof of Christ’s absolute supremacy and exclusivity in the church.
False teachers also offer a secret knowledge which really blinds its followers by its failure to rightly exalt Christ and submit to him. In other words, they produce a heretical christology. Truth is worth fighting for. It costs something to stand up and be counted and be unpopular.
The human wisdom of our times is, keep an open mind, don’t be too dogmatic, there’s good in all religions, we’ll all make it to the same place, everybody’s just coming a different way. But God says the opposite: contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.
“Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.”
There’s no such thing as spiritual pacifism. Service that counts costs. Being a Christian will cost you. And maybe that’s some reason why people are dropping off. People who drop off are really giving evidence they weren’t really in in the first place, they weren’t really Christians.
Paul’s Struggle Is for Others
This conflict, if you notice in verse one, is on behalf of others. It says, “I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea and for all those who have not personally seen my face.”
The Colossians and the Laodiceans are Paul’s constituents. These congregations were probably less than 12 miles apart and they had a lot of things in common with each other, especially in the area of culture. They had a knowledge of the Apostle Paul but not a personal face-to-face knowledge.
Paul’s compassion, despite his absence, is expressed in his written concern for these constituents that he never met. The Colossians may have thought, “He doesn’t really care for us as much as he cares for the churches that he actually planted and visited.” They never felt the magnetism of the personal experience of hearing the Apostle Paul preach. They were at a disadvantage.
Paul shows them that they have a very warm place in his heart for them. His love for them traveled beyond the limits of his eyesight. The apostle expresses how much he cared for them by wrestling in prayer for them, so that they may stand firm in their faith.
He even had other faithful workers who would do the same thing. If you look at Colossians 4:12, Epaphras, who probably was the founder of the church at Colossae, it says: “Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured of all the will of God.”
“Epaphras, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured of all the will of God.”
Prayer as a Weapon Against False Teaching
In other words, prayer becomes a weapon against false teaching, so people would stand firm in what they believe and not be moved away from it. This is the goal of the struggle: spiritual maturity.
Paul’s inward struggle also found its way into his outward action, not only in prayer but in his writing ministry. He would write these congregations personal letters from his prison cell and fill them with the knowledge of God’s will, warning them of the dangers all around them—dangers common to all Christians, not just the Colossians. He would supply encouragement to firm up their faith. If anyone knew the Christian struggle, the Apostle Paul knew it.
“Prayer becomes a weapon against false teaching, so people would stand firm in what they believe and not be moved away from it.”
The apostle was deeply concerned about the welfare of his readers. But you may have missed something. Scripture is displaying before our very eyes how the gospel of Jesus Christ transforms a person from a hateful person to a concerned person for the welfare of those he once disliked and persecuted.
I’m talking about the Apostle Paul himself. He’s a great miracle. He persecuted the church and hated the thought of Jews and Gentiles getting together. He believed they had to be always separate because the Gentiles were not part of God’s plan, and so he hated them.
But now he’s praying for them. Not only that, he has welfare for them—he’s looking out for their welfare.
The Goal: Encouraged and Knit-Together Hearts
Look at Colossians 2:2. It says that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and the attaining of all the wealth that comes from all the assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ himself.
He is saying to them there: listen, the conflict has a design objective, and the design objective is the purpose of the struggle is to come alongside other believers like the Colossians, like the Laodiceans, and keep their hearts knit together.
That their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love. The encouragement will not come naturally to them; it doesn’t come from within them, but it must come from outside themselves. They will be encouraged as Paul comes alongside them as their mature brethren in his writing ministry, and he encourages them, along with God himself encouraging them, knowing that the written word is enough to undergird our faith and encourage us to continue to walk forward in our faith in Christ Jesus.
The heart is the core of the individual. The heart distinguishes the center of personality, the source of willing and thinking in addition to feeling.
He’s saying here: listen, every part of one’s person is to be encouraged by the truth, and the truth is comprehensive. It will encourage you in your mind, it will encourage you in your will, it will encourage you in your emotions. The mind, the emotions, and the will must be informed by the word of God for us to have stability in the faith.
When we cooperate with God in the transformation of our minds and opinions, which we once used while we lived in Satan’s domain, only a transformed mind then will be able to be unified. Together as a church, as a body, we will be able to stand against error. Not standing against error alone, no, but together as a body.
Encouragement of heart. Doug Moo, writer of a commentary on Colossians, says the encouragement of heart touches the deepest part of the being and affects every aspect of the transformed heart.
When you get saved, God has a comprehensive building project going on. He’s convincing you in your mind, your mind is affecting your emotions, and your emotions and your mind are affecting your will. Remember what the will is: the will is the result of what one does or decides to do in their life.
The word of God brings us to the place where we say, I decide, because of truth from scripture, to follow Jesus, to live for him with all my heart, my mind, my soul, my strength.
“The word of God brings us to the place where we say, I decide, because of truth from scripture, to follow Jesus with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength.”
Scripture uses a very unique term also in Colossians 2:2. This term, knit together, strictly means to cause to stand together, figuratively of the church as a body of Christ being united or joined together.
The picture for us is that the church body is interlocked like a knitted blanket. What happens if there is a break in a woven or knitted blanket? It starts to unravel. It then loosens its strength, it loses its vitality and its use.
The Sphere of Love
How does a church keep from unraveling? Well, if you look in the text, look what it says. There is a sphere in which a believer or the church is living that actually protects them from falling apart. And look what it says again: that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, in love.
In other words, the sphere in which this knitting is taking place is the sphere of love, that the heart is united in love. The sphere of unity exists in the believer’s strong ties of love.
We were just informed in Colossians that part of God’s mystery is that the work of God in the death of Christ will break down ethnic barriers in the creation of one people. Now just think, brethren, the two most antagonistic groups in all human history are who? It is Gentiles, non-Jews, and Jews, of which Laodicea had a significant Jewish population.
Both groups become one new person when they come to Christ in repentance and faith. God brings together the most divided people groups from the most diverse backgrounds and worldviews and brings them into the church and makes them one united body. The people who used to hate each other and fight each other now love each other.
How does that happen? Love toward each other because of Christ’s love towards you and me, that’s why. This is not a gushy sentimental love. This is love as it says in scripture, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Like Romans 5: and the hope that does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within your hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. It is a love experienced in the kingdom ruled by God’s beloved son, which we are now in because of our salvation. It’s love that unites against error.
If you look over to Colossians 3:14, it says, “Beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”
Loving the Lord Jesus Christ is what the Christian life is all about. It is where unity brings people together and the barriers are broken down. This is the distinguishing mark of the children of God, love for the Lord Jesus Christ, that really is what differentiates biblical Christianity from all the rest of the religious systems.
“Loving the Lord Jesus Christ is what the Christian life is all about—where unity brings people together and the barriers are broken down.”
This is what distinguishes true disciples from all others who are false followers of God. That is what is absent from the teaching of the false teachers. There is not genuine unity in doctrine, and there’s not genuine love amongst believers.
Love as Evidence of Genuine Conversion
When you come to the gospel of John, Jesus was talking to the Jews and the people he was addressing, going back and forth with them. They thought that just because they were Abraham’s descendants, they were right with God and already in the kingdom. But at the same time, they were seeking to kill Jesus.
What does it say in John 8:42? Listen to what it says. Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I proceed forth and have come from God. For I have not even come on my own initiative, but he has sent me.”
How important and serious is the matter of love to Jesus? The Apostle Paul in his final message to the first church, in First Corinthians, declares that souls doomed to judgment are cursed for this reason: because they did not love the Lord.
This is what it says in 1 Corinthians 16:22: “If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed.” Now you say, brethren, that’s pretty tough language. I know a lot of people who don’t love God.
But I tell you what, when we come to Christ, when we start seeing God the way he’s revealed in scripture and we start seeing people differently—no longer through the social, cultural, economic, or racial lenses that we once did, but now more through a biblical lens—as we’re being transformed, as we’re being made new, we see the lost as those who need the gospel. So we have compassion towards them.
Those who evidence the transforming results of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we count them as brothers and sisters in Christ, no matter who they are, no matter what culture they come from, no matter what skin color they have. It doesn’t matter. We’re all one in Christ, we’re unified in Christ Jesus.
The Colossians and the Laodicean congregations, comprised of Jews and Gentiles, had already been demonstrating Christian love, because that is what their pastor Epaphras reported to the Apostle Paul.
Look what it says in Colossians 1:7-8: “Just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and he also informed us of your love in the spirit.”
Now just think about that. When Epaphras is reporting to Paul what’s going on in the congregation, why would he mention that they love each other? Why would he even bring that up? You would think that doesn’t seem so important. But for the Apostle Paul it was greatly important, because it showed this: love is an overwhelming adoration for the Lord that produces genuine concern and well-being for others, and it is evidence of genuine conversion to Christ.
“Love is an overwhelming adoration for the Lord that produces genuine concern for others, and it is evidence of genuine conversion to Christ.”
It’s evidence that your prejudice is gone. And if we love God with a sincere and deepening affection, we must love the image of God wherever we find it.
That’s why when you read the epistle of First John, what do you find? It says, “If someone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar, for those who do not love his brother whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen.”
So when you love your brother the way the Bible says, who do people see? They see God, especially if they knew you before and they knew your language and they knew your attitude towards people, but now you’re different.
Love as a Weapon for Victory
It’s worth fighting for the unity of believers, which is knit together in love, because love is a weapon for victory. Have you ever thought of love as a weapon? Well, it is a mighty one in God’s arsenal.
Even other places in scripture use warfare language with the word love in it. Listen to what it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:8: “But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of salvation.”
And then in Ephesians 6:13-14: “Take up the whole armor of God so that you’ll be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.” And then how does Ephesians end? Like this: “Peace to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace be to all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.”
What that means, brethren, is that gospel and doctrinal preaching softens the heart and produces love towards God and people. It does not harden the heart and make people mean. It does not. If that’s the result, if your doctrinal understanding makes you mean, you’ve got the wrong doctrine.
It makes you soft and hard, so you stop sending those mean emails and those mean tweets and those mean Facebook comments. Facebook can tell a lot about what’s going on in your spiritual life. You better re-read them before you send them.
The biblical way of understanding love is vital to keeping the unity, hedging against schisms within the body, hedging against strife between people, hedging against division in the body of Christ. Scripture is saying this to us because it is crucial for the Christian. It is not a take-or-leave proposition. It is an imperative virtue which grieves God when we do not show this love.
“Gospel and doctrinal preaching softens the heart and produces love towards God and people. It does not harden the heart and make people mean.”
Love of the brethren, one person said, is the greatest concurrent advantage next to sound doctrine. That is true, that is true from these texts, that is true.
Love and the Commandments
In fact, this power is seen in the commandments. The Ten Commandments. Take your Bibles for a moment and turn to Romans 13.
Romans 13 really does give us a sense of what the commandments produce in a believer. Look at Romans 13:8. Notice what it says there: “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.”
So do I owe anybody something? Yes, I owe the love that God’s given me to them. That’s what I owe them. And then it says this: “For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.”
But then notice in verse 9. You have to ask the question: well, how shall we love? First, commandment number seven. Look what it says: “You shall not commit adultery.”
Now this is the second part of the Ten Commandments. The first part is to love the Lord, to worship God. The second part is to love your neighbor. So he’s using the second part of the commandments here.
In commandment number seven, “You shall not commit adultery.” Why is that? Because instead, what am I to do? I’m to preserve the sacredness of the marriage bond for myself and for others in the congregation. I’m to save people’s marriages and not get involved with that. That’s adultery also.
The second one, commandment number six: “You shall not murder or hate.” But instead of that, what should I do? I should help my fellow brother and sister to keep alive and well. I want the best for them. I want their best welfare. At one time I maybe didn’t even consider that. Now I do.
Commandment number eight: “You shall not steal.” Instead, what should I do? I should help protect my brothers and sisters’ possessions. And if God’s given you more than me, thank God for that. God blessed you, and I want to help you keep that and not steal anything from you.
And then commandment number 10, which is a big commandment: “You shall not covet.” Coveting something that should never be mine, even desiring something that I think should be mine, is coveting. That’s sin. You break the commandment.
But instead, what will I do? I will rejoice in the fact that the Lord has blessed your neighbor and has given it to them, and just praise God for how good he is.
And then notice the rest of verse 9 of Romans 13: “And if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is a fulfillment of the law.”
Romans 13:9: “If there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
I could never have done this before, but now this is what I strive for. I strive for the well-being of other people.
The Treasure of Truth in Christ
Now back to Colossians. I want you to notice that there really are two goals of this knitting together. The first goal is keeping what God’s given us, keeping our riches.
Notice in the second part of verse two: “and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding.” Scripture is not referring to material wealth here. It is referring to wealth or riches that we have as believers in Christ, which consists of conviction of an assured understanding and knowledge of God’s mystery.
Here’s another weapon for victory: there’s a full assurance that God gives us. It is God’s will that the saints be filled with the knowledge of his will, and the message of God, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ alone is the source of every conceivable bit of spiritual knowledge worth having. All the barriers are down, so the Jew and the Gentile saints alike are fellow heirs with Christ, because he is in them, he indwells them by his spirit.
This is the mystery of God. The mystery of God’s truth, not revealed before but now made clear, is Christ is the fullness of the godhead. Notice what it says: resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ himself. That’s what’s been veiled, but now it is made public for all to know.
For the Christian, not only to know, they are the wealthiest people in the world. They have the riches that nobody else has, because they have Christ. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge—that is, in Christ all the treasure of divine wisdom and knowledge have been stored up, stored up in hiding formerly, but now displayed to those who have come to know Jesus Christ personally.
Christ alone is the source of scriptural knowledge worth having and worth fighting for. This knowledge in the word of God is the greatest wealth that we can ever obtain or hold on to this side of eternity. Don’t let it go. That’s what Paul is saying to us. Don’t let it go, don’t walk away from it.
“This knowledge in the word of God is the greatest wealth we can ever obtain. Don’t let it go.”
The revelation of God is finished, and that means we have all the word of God. But the apprehension of it may grow. We will never grow out of studying the word of God. The Bible will give us a lifetime of digging out the nuggets of gold and the acres of diamonds, giving us plenty of spiritual food to feed our souls, until Christ becomes all in all.
Christ: The Source of All Wisdom and Knowledge
Here is what this is, here’s the christological high point: that in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, that Christ is the one in whom is to be found all that is knowledgeable and worth having, and all that is wisdom. Wisdom is the practical ability to understand reality from God’s perspective and then to act on that understanding in your everyday life, putting to practice what you learn.
What do we usually do with a treasure? We usually keep it, protect it, guard it, and prevent others from taking it from us. That’s what we do. That’s what we ought to do.
But hear this: this treasure, anyone who comes to know Christ by faith can draw from his store all the wisdom and knowledge that exists. That’s why when you read the word of God, God tells us why the world was created, what happened when we fell into sin, what God’s going to do next through all that he spoke through the prophets, the prophets telling us the Messiah is coming.
“Wisdom is the practical ability to understand reality from God’s perspective and then to act on that understanding in your everyday life.”
Jesus dies on the cross. Jesus raises from the dead, he goes to heaven, he’s ascended, he’s at the right hand of God, he’s preparing a place for us, he’s praying for us, he’s waiting to come back again.
I believe the church is going to get taken out and it’s going to be in heaven, then the great tribulation is going to take place. After the great tribulation we’re going to come back, Christ is going to come back with the saints on this earth, and we’re going to rule and reign with him for a thousand years. All the battles take place and Christ wins the battle.
Then there’ll be a new heaven and new earth, this old heaven and earth will pass away, and there’ll be a place of real righteousness where there’s no more division between man and God. New Jerusalem comes down to earth and there’s no more division between God and man, and God will be our God and we will be his people. That’s all in the word of God.
Who else knows that? Do you realize the treasure you have? When it comes to the point where you have to close your eyes in death, you are confident that because God cannot lie, you’re going to be absent from the body, which is to be present with the Lord. So we have a hope nobody else has.
Standing Firm with the Weapons God Provides
Well, brethren, I am not done yet, but I have to end it right there. It’s worth fighting for the treasure of truth, because the truth about Christ is the sharp weapon for victory. Holding to it will make us mighty in warfare.
So what do we have? We have unifying love as a weapon for victory. Keeping our treasure of the truth about Christ is our sharp weapon for victory. Prayer is our weapon for victory. It’s all here in the text, for what? So we stand firm in the faith and we don’t move, whatever stuff is being done in the world or being communicated to us, because we know the truth.
And if the truth, the truth will make you free.
“We have unifying love, the treasure of truth about Christ, and prayer as weapons for victory—so we stand firm in the faith and we don’t move.”
Let’s pray. Lord, thank you so much. Your word is so incredible. It’s such a relief to know that you shoot from the hip and you tell us directly what’s going on.
Thank you, Lord, for the gospel of Christ, how it transforms us, makes us new, so that we now have love for you and love for people that we didn’t have before. Lord, it gives us the weapons to fight in the conflict and be able to win.
I pray, Lord, that we as your people would always be unified in love. I pray, Lord, that we would always hold the treasure that you have given us in Christ Jesus. I pray, Lord, that we would be praying for each other’s welfare, so we don’t fall away but we stay strong in the faith.
Make us servants in your church to be able to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have not yet heard it, so they may be saved and then see what we have and become wealthy as we are in Christ Jesus. I pray this in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let’s stand together.