INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• I want you to think about FCC for just a moment. When you think of FCC, do you see FCC as a strong vibrant church or do you see a church that is on life support?
• This is an important question because the church is special to Jesus and it is up to each one of us to do what we can through the power of the Holy Spirit within us to do all we can to help make sure that FCC is a healthy church.
• By the way, this is not just about building a healthy church, it is really about building healthy Christians because the church is the body of Christ and we are that body!
• Now as you have pondered that question, by what criteria did you come to your conclusion?
• What did you base your thinking on? How do you know if the church is a strong church or a weak one? Is it only a numbers game?
• If the offerings and attendance are high, that must mean the church is strong?
• Maybe, maybe not.
• It is just about the numbers or are there some other things we can look at to determine if the church is a healthy one?
• Today as we look at the book of Colossians, we are going to look at some ingredients that go into building a healthy church.
• As you read the book of Colossians it is easy to see that Paul has a great love for the church he once persecuted!
• As we dive into the text today, it is my prayer that I along with the leadership team of FCC and the staff are striving to help build FCC into a strong vibrant church that is full of growing, maturing, loving Christians!
• If FCC is going to continue to have an impact on the Sierra Vista community, it is essential that we all strive to keeping FCC a healthy church.
• Let’s begin by looking at Colossians 2:1-2.
• SLIDE #2
• Colossians 2:1–2 (ESV) For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ,
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
I. A healthy church focuses on building a strong heart.
• The church was important to Paul because it is important to Jesus.
• Sometimes I think it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the church is the bride of Christ and that it is important to Jesus.
• In Colossians 2:1, he says that he has been through a great struggle on behalf of the church.
• The word struggle comes from the word that we know today as “agony”.
• He tells us in chapter 1 verse 29 that he labors hard for the church, to see it be strong.
• Jesus does want to see HIS church weak, wounded and useless.
• A person is only as strong as their heart; a church is only as strong as its heart.
• A healthy person does cardiovascular work to keep the heart strong.
• Paul speaks in verse 1 about how he is hurting inside because he so badly wants to see the folks at Laodicea and Colossae to be strong of heart.
• We use the word heart to also mean determination, or staying with something.
• We see athletes that we will say they have no heart because they fold in the midst of pressure.
• One way to strengthen the heart is through encouragement.
• Paul wants to see the hearts of those in the church encouraged.
• The word encourage literally means to “COME ALONG SIDE OF.”
• Because a person can be called alongside for many purposes, the word has a wide range of meanings including,” to entreat”, appeal to, summon, comfort, exhort, or encourage.
• In the present context, however, it could be translated “strengthen” because the Colossians were inundated by false teachers and needed strengthening rather than comfort.
• WE must remember that during this time in the church, the New Testament had not been compiled so the main source for the church for biblical truth was the Apostles.
• This is one of the reasons the false teachers were able to come in and get such a strong foothold.
• Paul wanted the people to know that what they had been taught was truth.
• When used figuratively in the Bible, the word heart is usually more general and refers broadly to the inner person, the center of life. It often equates specifically to the mind.
• This is similar to the way we use it even today as I spoke of earlier.
• The emotions respond to what goes on in the heart, to what the mind perceives. The way to control the emotions, then, is through the mind. When the mind is filled with biblical truth, the emotions respond properly.
• Figuratively the heart is where feelings and faith come from.
• SLIDE #4
• Proverbs 4:23 (ESV) Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
• You have heard the statement, “don’t lose heart” or “your heart is not into it.” When our heart is weak, we will be weak.
• Many of you have known people with heart problems, they may look fine on the outside, but inside they are weakened to the point of not being able to do much physical activity.
• When we lose heart, we will not be strong for the Lord; we will be spiritually beaten and weak. We will be spiritually listless.
• Commentator William Barclay cites an example of “encourage” from classical Greek that parallels its usage here. There was a Greek regiment which had lost heart and was utterly dejected. The general sent a leader to talk to it to such purpose that courage was reborn and a body of dispirited men became fit again for heroic action. That is what [parakaleō] “encourage” means here. It is Paul’s prayer that the Church may be filled with that courage which can cope with any situation. (The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster, 1975], p. 129)
• This issue of the heart really deals with the inner strength of a person and of the church.
• There are too many people and churches that look great on the outside, but on the inside they are weak and listless spiritually.
• A strong heart will take you places you never knew you could go!
• Where does this strength of heart come from?
• SLIDE #5
• Ephesians 3:16 (ESV) that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
• It comes in part from God and the Holy Spirit living within you.
• As we live in the power of the Spirit, we grow stronger! As we exercise our Spiritual muscles, the heart grows stronger!
• We become fearless for the Lord!
• There is another source from which our hearts can be strengthened!
• SLIDE #6
• 1 Thessalonians 3:2 (ESV) and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith,
• We can encourage one another! Too many times we are quick to pick out the negative and ignore the positive.
• Listen, when you see something that needs to be corrected, that is ok, but if that is ALL you do, maybe you need to take a step back and look for some positives also.
• Next we see…
• SLIDE #7
II. A healthy church focuses on developing a bond of unity based on love.
• I speak about love a lot. I do so because the Word of God speaks a lot concerning the subject of love, and the concept of loving one another!
• The issue of a strong heart deals with our inner strength, whereas the issue of unity deals with our outer strength.
• Fervent love balances a strong mind and heart. Without love, what we have, what we do means little of nothing.
• For us to be able to maintain unity, we must first humble ourselves before God and each other. We have to understand that God desires us all to love each other and to grow together.
• Verse two gives us a good picture when it says that our hearts are to be knitted together in love.
• To “knit together” means to unite, or bring together. This phrase explains the main idea (may be encouraged) by further defining the strengthened heart as one filled with love.
• This thought is used in both Ephesians 4:16 and Colossians 2:19 when these verses speak of the joining together of the various parts that unite to form the human body.
• SLIDE #8
• Ephesians 4:16 (ESV) from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
• The church is united together by our love for Jesus.
• Because of our love for Jesus and our obedience to His call, we all possess the same eternal life, all come to Christ in the same way, and all were placed into the Body of Christ by the same Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 12:11-13). The church’s unity is not organizational, but organic. Believers are “all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28; cf. Rom. 10:12).
• When a person knits something, they are taking the material they are knitting and they are making something of use and value out of it. When our hearts are knitted together in love, we are valuable and useful to God and His kingdom.
• The encouragement believers receive when they unite together in love gives them a rich and full understanding of God’s mystery—Christ. When we can see Jesus active in the lives of those we love, it helps us to be strengthened and encouraged!
• “United in love” is a call to the virtue which binds “all together” (3:14) and which was inspired by God’s love for them (3:12). (College Press)
• A church that is not united in love is a church that will not be very strong.
• SLIDE #9
• Philippians 2:2 (ESV) complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
• If we are in church so we can just exercise some power over others, or if we are just here to watch for the preacher to mess up, we are not in the right place.
• Our purpose is to love the Lord and to be knit together by that love!
• Fervent love is the necessary balance to a strong mind. Christianity is not mindless enthusiasm, but neither is it a lifeless intellectual pursuit.
• In John 13 when Jesus washed the disciple’s feet, Jesus was trying to get His disciples to see that if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian.
• We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus’ claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.
• Loving someone is not defined by having warm feelings toward them, but by meeting their needs.
• The last time you made a sacrifice for someone was the last time you loved him or her.
• Love is first action, and then the emotions follow. So the strengthened heart is a heart that has learned to love.
• Let look at verse 3-5 as we examine our final thoughts.
• SLIDE #10
• Colossians 2:3–5 (ESV) 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
• SLIDE #11
III. A healthy church places an emphasis on understanding God’s Word.
• This is probably the area most churches struggle with the most, why, because most Christians struggle with this the most.
• We do not have a strong understanding of God’s Word. This is something that HAS to change.
• Paul speaks of wanting us to attain all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding. What we need to understand is that this means that spiritual riches come from practicing what is known concerning God’s Word.
• The “wealth” is meant not only material prosperity, but spiritual blessing. There is no understanding of God apart from Christ. There is no complete understanding of God apart from a personal relationship with his Son. (Life App)
• Paul desires that the Colossians also experience all the wealth that comes from full assurance.
• Without that assurance, believers cannot enjoy all the blessings that are theirs in Christ.
• For example, no one can look forward with hope to the blessings of heaven who doubts whether he is going there.
• SLIDE #12
• 2 Peter 1:10 (ESV) Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.
• Understanding means the ability to apply biblical principles to life. When you understand something, you can apply it. When we experience spiritual truth by living it. It means that we truly understand it.
• Many people struggle because they fail to apply what they know, and then they want to know more that they cannot apply.
• It is like the person who wants to learn how to multiply and divide before they can add and subtract or before they know the basic principles of math.
• SLIDE #13
• 1 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV) The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
• If we are not tuned into the things and ways of God, we will never understand God. We can only tune into God by knowing His Word!
CONCLUSION
• Is our church a strong church? How can you tell? Is our heart strong, our love deep and do we understand God’s word?
• These are areas in which the leadership works to help the church build, if we grow in these areas, we will become an even stronger church that will do even more for God!
• God wants us to grow and be strong, if you find that there is something in your life that is keeping that from happening, I would encourage you to change it so that you will not cheat yourself out of a wonderful life in Christ!
• God has a treasure chest of blessings that are available to you, do you want to open the chest?
