You’re Not an Island: Necessity of Encouragement and Unity (Colossians 2:1-5).Sunday November 1, 2026
Intro:
Things that thrill do certainly come out of Scripture, but they are not the source of power, since divine power is the day-to-day obedience of the believer doing God’s will; at home, at work, running errands, doing chores, and the common daily interactions with people while you’re doing all that – how do you do common things in a supernatural way?
1Co 4:11-16 To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless; 12 and we toil, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; 13 when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.
14 I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 16 Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me.
Phi 4:9 The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
Col 2:1-3 For 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, 2 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, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Paul has four objects in mind as he reveals his struggle to the Colossians:
Encouragement of heart. Knit together in love (3:14). 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,
Objective 1: their hearts may be encouraged.
A heart in trouble looks for comforters.
Psa 69:20 Reproach has broken my heart and I am so sick. And I looked for sympathy, but there was none, And for comforters, but I found none.
You have to know the specifics of the life you are encouraging.
Joh 13:17 “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”
Encouraged in heart (parakaleo): strength or encouragement.
The Colossians are facing false teachers and Paul isn’t there to face the false teachers for them.
Encouragement is a bigger word than our modern English world uses it for.
Your heart, as it is in the OT custom, is the center of personality, the whole inner life, the source of willing and thinking as well as feelings and affections.
So, a person encouraged in heart: an encouragement that touches the deepest part of our being and that affects every aspect of our persons.
What encourages them? Christ.
Part 2: Having been knit together in love.
Knit together (sumbibazo): to hold together, to unite (Col 2:2; Col 2:9; Eph 4:16).
Aorist passive - at some time in the past we became unified and we did not unify ourselves. The cause is told us: love.
Love is the love of Christ – vicarious, sacrificial love that rejoices over benefiting another.
The body is held together by the head and mediated by the members (joints: Eph 4:16; Col 2:19).
The false teachers saw Jesus as one of many heads, which in essence had them seeking virtues like love and piety in themselves.
Col 2:18-19 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.
Eph 4:14-16 As a result, 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, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
The unity of the community in love and the fulness of the knowledge of salvation in Christ are inseparable.
Col 3:11 Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.
And they embraced in the love of Christ.
Col 3:14 Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
2Co 7:6 But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus.
A solitary heart is timid and weak, but many weaknesses brought together make a strength.
Conclusion:
Encouraged in heart:
The cloud that hung over the Colossian church was not an emotional sorrow. They needed the ability to stand firm against the opposition, and what they needed most was courageous confidence in the right Person.
This means that you have to know the specifics of the life you are encouraging.
Is there any greater blessing when we view conflict with the serene assurance that victory already sits on us? Victory in Christ.
The sad heart tires in a mile but the strong hopeful heart carries in its very strength the prophecy of triumph.
United in love:
Together we are the greatest defense against spiritual error.
A community so interlocked will throw off many evils, as a Roman legion with linked shields.
The love of Christ in a community will now drive them to dig and dig into the treasure that is Christ. |