How Do I Strengthen My Faith? Series

Welcome and thank you for worshipping with us this morning. Keep Colossians 2 open before you, will you?

Despite perceptions, people do love change. Many of you have been home with nothing to do for weeks now. If someone had come to you in early January and said, “I’ll give you a three month staycation with no responsibilities, you’d welcomed it with open arms.” Yet, after two months, you’re grown restless and you’re climbing the walls. You feel like your life is a scene from the movie, Groundhog Day where every day is the very same thing over and over again. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden where everything was quintessentially perfect, for some reason, they wanted a change – something new. When the children of Israel had angels’ food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner miraculously arriving in the desert each morning where all they had to do was go collect it, they murmured and complained. The truth is: we love change. Hold that thought with me for just a minute, will you?

Do you know how to find Colossians? Do you get confused in this part of your Bible? Someone shared this with me and now I share it with you, “General Electric Power Company”—Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.

Today’s Scripture (Passage Read Before Sermon)

“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.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:6-15).

1. Remember Your Training

Remember your training, remember your “boot camp.” Yes, lots of things change in life but one thing shouldn’t change for believers though: “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” (Colossians 2:6-7).

I was not surprised by the Jon Steingard’s announcement over the weekend. Steingard is the lead singer for a Christian group called, Hawk Nelson. Even though he grew up the son of a pastor and now plays and sings in the Christian band, he recently posted, “I am now finding that I no longer believe in God.” Just last year, the author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye renounced his faith as well. Former pastor, Joshua Harris, says he is no longer a Christian.

Continue in Jesus – find your life in Christ. While many things in life change, Jesus cannot change. Put Jesus at the center of your life and mold your life around Him.

Christians leaders leaving the faith aren’t a new thing. This happened even to the apostles as the New Testament was being formed. John writes of supposed Christians in 1 John, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).

Have you personally noticed how many people start the Christian life but quit along the way somewhere? Maybe some of the people who walked with the Lord during your school days have now turned away?

Listen to Paul here” you need to continue walk in Christ all your life. There’s a real danger for many people to start following but get lost along the way.

1.2 You Received Him

Look back at verse 6 with me: “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” (Colossians 2:6-7). You don’t earn Jesus; instead, you received Jesus.