Hope Uncompromised Series

Scripture Lesson: Colossians 2:6-19

Last night I received an email from a guy named Jim H. He says, “Twice today you sent me back the email containing some cute animal pictures that I sent out a year an a half ago, without explanation. I don’t know who you are and I don’t think I have ever had you in my mailing list. You must be sending me back the email that someone else forwarded to you.”

I checked my sent box and found that I did send him two emails to this guy by mistake. I couldn’t believe I did it. I was actually searching for some jokes that Mike sent to me. After reading the email, I must have been trying to get back to the previous page by pressing the back button like that of a web browser, but on an email browser the back arrow which is located at the same place as the back button on a web browser is actually a reply button.

Once you press that reply button, it becomes a send button. Since pressing the back button didn’t take me to the front page, I must have instantly press another time trying to get to the front page. Once you press that top left corner twice the email went out. You know that I am a computer geek, and I just can’t believe I made that mistake, and it was not just once but twice.

There was another guy that made a mistake with his email and messed up a big time.

It was couple from north Oklahoma decided to go to Florida for a long weekend to thaw out during one particularly icy winter. However, they had difficulty coordinating their travel schedules because of their jobs. It was decided that the husband would fly to Florida on Thursday, and his wife would follow the next day.

Upon arriving as planned, the husband checked into the motel. On his way up to his room, he saw a computer room and decided to send an email to his wife. However, he accidentally left off one letter in her address, and sent the e-mail out to someone else without realizing it.

In Houston, a widow had just returned from her husband’s funeral. He was a pastor of many years who had been called home to glory. The widow checked her e-mail, expecting messages of condolences from relatives and friends that couldn’t come to the funeral. Upon reading the first message, she fainted and fell to the floor, and died.

The widow’s son rushed into the room due to the noise, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen showing an email which came to her with the following message.

TO: My loving wife

SUBJECT: I’ve arrived!

My sweetheart, I’ve just arrived and checked in. They have computers here, so I decided to send you an email. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing you then! Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.

P.S. Sure is hot down here.

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A wrong message can seriously compromise people’s hope!

In today’s scripture lesson, Paul was dealing with the Christians in Colossae that had lost their hope because a false teacher there spreading wrong message to them. Paul was trying to correct the chaos created by the false teaching because, being a loving and passionate person, he hate to see Christians being misled. Paul gives them three instructions to avoid from being misled that you and I can also benefit from.

1 – Keep Making Spiritual Progress

The Bible says, “(be) rooted and built up in him (Christ) and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (v.7)

We live in a fallen world. The fallen world has the elements of fallen forces that always pull us to a fallen state. If we don’t make progress toward spiritual maturity, we will be sinking back to our destructive state. Our spiritual life is like rowing a boat up stream; the moment you stop rowing, your boat begins to be taken backward by the current.

So we must keep making spiritual progress so that we won’t be taken in by the wrong message of the world. How do you do that? The Bible says we must be rooted and built up in Christ. Paul was using a tree as a metaphor for a Christian maturity. For a tree to be rooted and built up, it needs nutrition. How do you get spiritual nutrition? God’s word is has the ability to nourish our spirit. Reading and studying the Bible can keep us rooted and built up.

If you say reading the Bible is boring, I can relate to that as I have been there at some point of my spiritual life. But if you never give up, you will breakthrough to a level of hunger and thirst for God’s word, and at that point, when you pick up your Bible and read, you feel like chewing a mouthful of tasty and nutritious feast.