Colossians 2:1-5 - God's Treasure and Bryon's Shirt
Welcome to Tabernacle Talk, a Bible Study Podcast hosted by Pastor Bryon Self, Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, Maryland. We hope that this podcast will help you to know Christ, grow in His word, and show His love to others.
This is a legacy episode of Tabernacle Talk.
These are episodes that are taken from the past five years of my life and different times that I've hosted different podcasts, like Bible Babbles with my friend, Carlos Farias, or Strength for the Day, that I hosted with my friend, Pastor Dennis Fountain of Moses Lake Baptist Church in Moses Lake, Washington.
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strength-for-the-day-a-devotional-bible-podcast/id1547987576
Hope that these episodes will be an encouragement to you. Right now, I'm on a Tabernacle Talk specific sabbatical, but we've uploaded some of these audio episodes to hopefully help you as you are seeking to walk with the Lord.
We'll be resuming some regular Tabernacle Talk episodes in February or March, so please be on the lookout for those. Let's dive right in. Well, welcome back to Strength for the Day.
And for those of you that are watching, want to put in a little plug, a fake plug for my new t-shirt business.
Well, wait, it's called, I don't know, I can't think of a smart out name. Bryon's Shirts.
It's called Bryon's Shirts.
You can buy Bryon's Shirts.
There you go. And this one from one of my favorite Bible stories from Mark 5, Legion and the Pigs. When I was in fourth grade, I was on a Bible quiz team that my church had, and it was a ton of fun, memorized a lot of scripture.
Did you win?
A lot.
He says that in humility.
In all humility.
We won a lot.
Today, we're going to listen on humility.
We're big on winning. We do the most winning.
Don't do it.
Stop it. But we had, with all the different teams and stuff that were at the church, we had four or five people on each of the individual teams. And because we were going over Mark, all of the teams needed names.
And I thought the funniest one that you could do was Legion and the Pigs. And I even had a little diddy that we did for, which is Legion and the Pigs, Legion and the Pigs.
And for those of you just listening, you can't see Bryon dancing, so you need to go and watch.
Yeah. Go on Facebook, go on YouTube, and you can see it and it'll be enjoyable for you. Speaking of demons and pigs, let's get back to Colossians 2.
No, just kidding. There are no demons. Not in this episode.
That's next episode. Episode 6 has demons. All right.
Well, let's get into this episode.
All right.
Pastor Dennis, why don't you start us off and we're going to hopefully go through Verses 1 through 5 today. And why don't you read those and then we'll dive right in. Okay.
And looking forward to the study. All right.
Before I read it real quick, just remember Colossians written to the believers at Colossi. And I know you've heard this, but we have to remember why Paul was writing.
He was writing to help them and encourage them because of the attacks against the faith. And what attacks were those? All the isms.
Remember Gnosticism and Judaism and Asceticism, and all of the isms that we've learned about. There's a few more that are in there, but pantheism was a big one. And so today's verses actually go right along with his encouragement about the isms.
So Colossians chapter number 2, and beginning in verse number 1, here's what Paul writes, For I would that you knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts
might be comforted, being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In
this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in spirit, joining and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
Before we look at this holistically, I just want to point out verse number four. All right, I think verse four is crucial. This I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.
Quick lesson, quick thought, we all need to be aware of the voices that we are allowing to speak in to us. Absolutely. We have to, especially now, I mean, now we have a great resource in scripture.
At that time, the resource was some of the letters that were going around and circulating and some things from the apostles, but it was really kind of just the church and the pastors that you had, and if Paul was coming to town eventually, you know,
it's just, we have such great resources now to compare what we hear. I say that because of this, and I would caution you, even with what you hear on Our Strength for the Day, compare everything with scripture. Don't look to the internet.
You know, I do this all the time. We Google stuff. Don't believe every source that has Google, you know, that has an answer from Google.
And Paul writes this, he says, I'm writing this to you so you're not beguiled. So you don't aren't defrauded. So you don't get twisted up in with man's enticing words.
That's the isms that he's talking about.
And I was just reading earlier, there's a really the phrase there for in verse number four, the enticing words that specific, the underlying Greek words were used in classical Greek, like for plays and things for people that were attempting to
deceive, that you were trying to trick someone. And I think it was interesting how Paul even uses kind of that literary device, words that they would have known from reading about plays and bad guys in the plays, and he wants to frame it in such a
way that says, those that are against Christ and against the things that have been passed down through Jesus and the Apostles, if they are against that, they are the bad guys. These guys are not for you if they are against Christ and Christ alone.
Yeah, if I remember correctly, I don't know what you read recently about it, but the Greek in those words, having to do with theater, I think the Greek word from theater is similar to that one of enticing. I would have to look that up.
But the reason is because you're playing a different character.
Sure.
And so, enticing words is trying to get you to play a different character, believe a different character, maybe totally different, but I remember reading that at one point, and I'm going to be thinking about something else. But well, let's do this.
Let's get into these few verses.
Absolutely.
Why don't you give some thoughts? What do you think these verses are saying? Why is Paul writing?
And then what's some lessons we can learn from it? Yeah.
So I think in these verses, Paul, he's just given them that giant section of doctrine about Jesus, Jesus' mission, and then he gives them kind of, hey, here's my mission, here's my goal.
Just like Jesus died so that he can present you to the Father in all of the holiness and wonder and enjoyment that Christ has, the joy that he has his people and that they've been redeemed. He says, that's my goal.
I want to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. And that's kind of his goal.
And then he tells them, like, I want you to know the struggle, the conflict, the heartfelt battle that I fight for you in my prayers, in my spirit, here in the actual letter, that he's kind of going toe to toe with some false teachers.
And he's saying, I'm praying for you. I'm praying for those in the nearby city of Laodicea. And for everyone that hasn't seen me in person, but that has benefited from Paul's missionary work, that Paul saw someone saved, who saw someone saved.
And maybe that grandchild in the faith hasn't seen Paul. But he says, I'm praying for you all because I care about you.
And I think one encouraging thing that we can, or one challenge that we can see from that is we ought to have a love for those that maybe aren't right around us.
But we ought to have a heart to care for people that are around our state, around the globe.
And I think even some of what we do as a church in missions is a great help to that, where we would say, I care about the people in Thailand, even though I've never been there. Just like Paul cared about people that he had never seen before.
Yeah, that's a great thought, and really just seeing even a compassion that a Christian should have for every other Christian. Absolutely.
You know, as I think about this passage, and when I look at the Book of Colossians, one of the statements that I believe ties the whole chapter together, the whole book together, is in verse number three.
So here's Paul writing, and we've already been through all these doctrinal things. Knowing the isms that are battling against the believers and the Christianity.
Paul, speaking of Jesus Christ, he says this, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And then verse four and five, he almost is commending them, like, I'm writing this to you so you aren't beguiled.
Verse five, like, you guys are getting this, right? I'm proud of the order that is there. You're following the authority.
You're getting in the word. You're, but I want to encourage you. Keep doing that.
And he says this about Jesus and whom are hid all the with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I think about, if you had, you know, Brian, if I said to you, hey, listen, there is a million dollars buried in your backyard, a million dollars.
Like, if I said that to you, number one, you'd be surprised. Number two, you would, well, whose is it? Okay.
And I could say to you, well, if you find it, it's yours. It belongs to whoever finds it. You would be a fool if you didn't immediately get a shovel, right?
Start digging. You'd be a fool if you thought, well, okay, I need to know everything about my backyard before I dig into this.
Sure.
I'm going to measure everything. I need to make sure that every blade of grass can be taken out properly, right? You'd be a fool not to just grab a shovel and jump right into it.
And I think the same thing in our Christian faith. And this is where, and I know you'll elaborate on this in a great way.
One of the best things for us to do as a Christian is realize that all of wisdom and knowledge is hidden in Christ and in who he is, and in his relationship that he wants with us.
And I think of Proverbs 8 about wisdom being better than rubies, and you are a wise person to get in and dig and seek after and pursue wisdom, and the voice of wisdom cries out and says, I love them that seek me early, and you will find me.
And that really is just the voice of Jesus. Like, I have all wisdom, and I have all riches, treasures of knowledge for you. Come seek me.
And I think there's a great challenge to us in that, which I'm going to wait. I'm going to give you that in just a second. I want you, do you want to elaborate on that at all?
What's the thought there?
In Christ, we see in beautiful, stunning, clear detail what was hidden in the Old Testament, so that Christ would be ever more glorious as he was shown. So there were prophecies that were made that people didn't really fully understand.
There were stories and things, the sacrificial system that they didn't understand other than, oh, well, maybe in other places, there are these punishments for things, but here we are able to have forgiveness through the plan that our God has laid
out, that doesn't result in maybe some of the things that they would see in surrounding countries. But in Christ, we see the fullness of the full revelation of God. So we understand scripture as we see it in the light of Christ.
We read the Old Testament and we see the characters and we see the types and we see pictures of Jesus. Anything good that we see is perfected in Jesus.
Anything bad that we see shows us our need of Jesus and how earthly kings and kingdoms and people and prophets can never be who Jesus is.
And so we understand all of scripture in the light of Jesus and he is worth pursuing and spending our time learning about.
So the Gnostics during this time and many people today will pour incredible amounts of time into studying everything except for God's Word.
And sometimes, much like the Pharisees, at times we can even study God's Word but not be looking at it for Jesus. We can look at it for, okay, how can I, you know, become a better businessman?
And while God's Word would give us incredible business practices, our primary focus when we come to the Word of God ought to be that I want to see Jesus in whatever section of scripture I find myself. I want to see who he is.
I want to see how he loves. I want to see how he interacts with me.
And I think as we do that, we find God's deepest and most meaningful riches for our life in a way that benefits us, in a way that simply trying to get life hacks can't ever do for us.
Right. Yeah, we want, it's like high school, you want the Cliff Notes without reading the book. And, you know, I think a really good challenge as our time's almost up, so we probably need to wrap up.
But, you know, in my life, in my life, I know that there are times when I should dig deeper in my relationship with Christ, right? And realize that all of the riches that are in Him, He's offered to me.
And so I want to encourage you this week, whether you're watching, whether you're listening, whether you're driving in your car, you're at home, you're getting ready for the day, I just want to encourage you this week, the next seven days, like,
would you just make it a point to pursue Jesus this week? How do we do that? Well, John 1, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and that flesh, Jesus, then we have in Scripture. So He is the Word.
And so we have Scripture to dig in, and to learn more about Christ, to grow in who He is. I love what you just said, like, what about Him do I need to bring into my life? So I think there's a big challenge there.
I know I'm, even right now as we're talking, just challenged with that, like digging in and recognizing, and I say it at church a few weeks ago, like, God isn't playing hide and seek with things. Right?
It's just, it's a buried treasure that's, we know where it is. It's right here. Dig in.
So I don't know. Any last thoughts from you? Yeah.
I'd say one last thought, just in addition to diving into God's Word, is from verse two and verse five.
Paul gives two specific requests. He says, I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in it, together in love. And then goes on to talk about Christ.
And then in verse number five, though I have an absent body, I'm with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well-ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ. The Christian life is never meant to be lived in isolation.
Yeah.
And so as we follow Christ, as we're rooted in him, as we're learning about him, we ought to then have that effect, our relationship with others.
So the specific examples he gives is that it would knit together your heart with those in your local church and with other believers across the world, that it would be knit together because you're all pursuing the same goal and the same person.
And then what he mentions in verse number five, even as you mentioned earlier, prior to this point, they hadn't had the Book of Colossians. And so as they were following those that were following the Apostles teaching, he commends them for that.
And even today, I think, as we obey the scriptural commands, to obey those that have the rule over us from Hebrews chapter 13, as we look at Acts 20 in some different places, as we follow those in godly leadership over us that we have committed to in
our churches, like that would be a wonderful thing to be able to do, always going back to scripture and doing that. But as people follow scripture, as our leadership follows scripture, follow them wholeheartedly, and that would be a great thing to do
Yeah.
So some great thoughts for today, and I hope you receive strength for the day, strength for this week, and we look forward to seeing you next time as we dig into Colossians chapter 2, what, the next six or seven verses, something like that.
So we'll be in there and enjoy that. So we'll see you next time. Have a great week pursuing Jesus and pursuing him with people around you.
We'll talk to you later.
