Cultivating Healthy Souls In Christ
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DEEPLY ROOTED FAMILIES |
Cultivating Healthy Souls In Christ
Colossians 2:6-7 (ESV)
6 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.
In the book of Josh McDowell, Right from Wrong, he wrote about what happens in America in a single day:
1,000 unwed teenage girls become mothers.
1,106 teenage girls get abortions
4,219 teenagers contract sexually transmitted diseases.
500 adolescents begin using drugs.
1,000 adolescents begin drinking alcohol.
135,000 kids bring guns or other weapons to school.
3, 610 teens are assaulted; 80 are raped.
2,200 teens drop out of high school.
6 teens commit suicide.
Today, these statistics are pretty alarming because they are not only affecting "their children." In one way or another, they are also affecting "our children." This reality reminds me of what the ancient philosopher Socrates once said:
"Could I climb the highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice and proclaim: Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrap every stone to gather wealth, and take so little care of your children, to whom one day you must relinquish it all?"
Isn't it really tragic that while parents work so hard to give their children greater wealth, they at the same time neglect to raise children who would be capable of handling all these riches responsibly?
This call to parents that Socrates wanted to make is the same call we would like to focus on beginning this Sunday as we enter our family months starting this Sunday. If you have been in Bible Church for quite some time now, the months of May and June are typically family emphasis months for us because, in these months, we celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day. So, these two months will revolve around the theme – DEEPLY ROOTED FAMILIES. And our key passage for this series will be Colossians 2:6-7.
Although this passage is addressed to the church in Colossae, I believe this could also apply to Christian families. In the Scriptures, the church is known as our spiritual family. It is also true that believers are called "Children of God." The apostle Paul also used the metaphor of husband and wife in picturing the relationship of Christ and the church. And then, our Lord Jesus used the picture of a comfortable home, earthly home to give us a preview of our heavenly home, "In my Father's House are many rooms" (John 14:2).
Therefore, as Paul addresses the church family in Colossae on what they needed to do in order to have healthy relationships with Jesus, we will also apply these truths to our immediate families. If we want our families to cultivate healthy relationships with Jesus, we need to fulfill three responsibilities:
I GET CLOSER TO CHRIST (v.6)
Our text begins with, "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him." If you are a regular reader of the Bible, you have to watch out and not ignore the conjunction "Therefore" because it signals that you have to understand the previous verses to comprehend the essence of the words after this conjunction.
So, going back to verses before our main text, Paul clearly conveyed his deep love and concern to this church family because they are in great danger of believing some false doctrines about Jesus Christ. Based on this concern, the very first responsibility Paul impresses on them is to get closer to Christ. Now, if we would progress in our relationship with Christ, we need to be doing at least two things:
A. Committing to Following Him
Looking at this first line, we must recognize that receiving Jesus Christ as our Savior is not enough. Instead, we must continue to get closer to Him by committing to follow Him as the Lord of our life.
After acknowledging Jesus Christ as our Savior, the One who forgave us of our sins, we should also move forward in our Christian life by recognizing Him as the "Lord" of our lives. In other words, we are willing to commit to following Him or obeying Him. The truth is that we will never enjoy our relationship with Jesus Christ not until we are willing to submit and follow Him.
Of course, following Him does not mean legalistically trying to conform to a list of rules but simply following the example set before us by the Savior we love. I believe this is the very reason why John can write these words:
1 John 5:3 (ESV)
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
To follow Christ does not have to be burdensome. It is always a blessed privilege to follow the person we love.
B. Committing to Fellowshipping with Him
The idea of fellowshipping with Him comes from the phrase, "so walk in him." Notice that the emphasis is not only on the activity of walking but with whom you need to spend this activity with. So, what is important to determine is: Who are you walking with today? Are you walking with Jesus?
In the New Testament, the imagery of walking emphasizes action and progress. Most often, we cannot walk and remain in the same place. So, it is safe to say that spending time walking with Jesus Christ will ultimately result in progress in our Christian lives. But are we just referring to our quiet times with God here? Of course, not! As believers, we must be conscious that we walk with Christ 24/7 in our homes, schools, or workplaces. We need to develop this mindset to advance in our Christian lives.
II GO DEEPER IN CHRIST (v.7a)
The second imagery in the text is related to farming, which was the common source of livelihood for the people during Bible times. What is projected in these words "rooted . . . in Him" is that Jesus is the soil, while believers are the roots. For any tree to be healthy and sturdy, its roots should go deeper into the soil and draw sufficient nourishment from it.
What is significant to emphasize in the text is the tense of the verb "rooted" in Greek. This word should be correctly translated as "once and for all having been rooted." At our salvation, we were already planted on suitable soil. So, our responsibility is to go deeper into our source of nourishment.
Again, it is essential to acknowledge that we can never be independent of Jesus Christ as believers. We cannot survive apart from Him. We need His fullness; we need His sustaining grace; we need to draw the necessary nutrients to make it through life. Matthew Henry writes, "if we live in Him, we shall be rooted in Him; and the more firmly we are rooted in Him, the more intimately we shall live in Him."
Of course, this truth is parallel with the symbolic teaching of Jesus in John 15, where He talks about Him being the Vine and believers as the branches. He said:
John 15:5 (ESV)
5 I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Again, just as the branches cannot stay alive without the Vine, so are the trees without sufficient nutrients from the right soil. Jesus, Himself emphasized – "apart from me, you can do nothing."
For the Colossian church, being so attached to Jesus Christ will be critical for them to be able to face the false teachers and their doctrines. Today, we need to make sure that we go deeper in Christ for our families and homes.
We are facing so many enemies that are threatening our homes today. The undermining of fundamental Bible truths in our public schools is, little by little, weakening the convictions of our children. For example, the attacks that God is not the creator of all things, the idea that life does not yet exist in the early stage of pregnancy, or the government can sanction marriage between two people of the same sex. Chances are, if they hear them enough from teachers they look up to, they will believe them and live them out.
Parents, this possibility is why we, together with our children, must have deeper roots in Jesus Christ. It is the only way we can stand against the enemy's attacks.
III GROW STRONGER IN CHRIST
After the imagery of farming, the next image is from construction – "built up in him and established in the faith." Any building we construct must have the proper foundation. Spiritually speaking, the only right foundation for our faith in Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:11 (ESV)
11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
In building a house, the weight of the house rests on the strength of the foundation. In our Christian lives, our faith must rest only upon Jesus Christ. This truth is why Paul added, "and established in the faith."
However, the word "established" might also be translated as "confirmed." Allow me to explain the significance of confirmation in our Christian growth. As believers begin in the Christian faith, they usually receive fundamental teachings from their parents, Sunday school teachers, or church pastors. Then, these believers will continue living their Christian lives, and these precious truths will be confirmed in their hearts and lives.
It would definitely be harder for these believers to be deceived by the Devil if what they believed were confirmed by their diligent studies of the Bible. Listen to these words of Paul in Ephesians 4:11-14 (ESV)
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Paul started this passage by talking about the different spiritual gifts in the church. When these gifts are exercised properly, the ultimate result will be the maturity of believers in the church. Now, verse 14 is the key verse I want to emphasize – Believers who have matured will no longer be carried by every wave of deceptive doctrines they encounter.
But, there is one more description of a mature believer that Paul added in Colossian 2:7. He wrote, "abounding in thanksgiving." This truth is essential because it talks about the joy of growing believers in Christ. As Christians grow in their conviction that they have the right faith, they will also become captivated by the grace and goodness of God that they overflow in their praise and thanksgiving towards the Lord. So, you will know a Christian growing in their faith because they will also increase their thanksgiving to God.
Are you cultivating a healthy soul in Christ? Three things you must do – Get closer, go deeper, and grow stronger in Christ. Let's not do this only as individuals; let's make sure that we affect every family member to do the same.
I heard about a preacher talking to a group of kids one time at a Sunday School Class, and he asked them this question, "Why do you love God?" Of course, he got various answers as he went down the line. But the one that he liked best came from a little boy sitting at the end of a row that said, "I don't know why I love God, preacher. I guess it just runs in my family."
-Bishop Jeremiah Lepasana