24/9/18 TREASURE BLOG 3 - TRUE TREASURE EMPOWERS, FALSE TREASURE STEALS (COLOSSIANS 1:4-5)

THIS BLOG CONTAINS:

• Community group/family study
• Daily bible studies 
• You can listen to all the messages at:  Click this link to audio content
• For more information visit www.communitychurchputney.com

COMMUNITY GROUP STUDY 3

COLOSSIANS 1:4-5 TRUE TREASURE EMPOWERS, FALSE TREASURE STEALS FROM US

I don’t know if you’ve ever used a diving board at a swimming pool - it is both fun and scary. The experts make it look easy as they effortlessly glide through the air. But you and I try it, assuming you are like me, and we realise that a ‘spring board’ has great power to catapult to glory or, as is mostly likely, a belly flop of shame and pain! Paul speaks of the power of hope – true hope is like a powerful spring-board that will empower us to feats of faith and love. 

Read Colossians 1:4-5

·      What does faith and love spring from according to Paul? 

·      Our hope as Christians is of going to heaven and, ultimately, of a renewed heaven and earth in which we will live in renewed bodies. Read Revelation 21:3-4 for a beautiful description. 

·      What two specific things are said (1:5) to spring from our hope, and why do you think this is the case?

·      This presents us with a great promise and principle. What will happen to you, your church, your Community Group as you think and thank God for your hope in Christ, and how can you go about doing this more? 

·      True treasure – our hope in Christ, will empower and build a healthy church community. However, there is fake treasure that promises much but only robs us. The Colossian false teachers, whatever they were teaching, were distracting this church from the gospel. Paul was trying to protect them from ‘hollow and deceptive philosophy’ (2:8) Everything is hollow if it misses Christ. What are the kinds of hopes and treasures that one can seek but rob us of spiritual vitality? 

Response

There are a number of ways that we can grow in our appreciation of our hope in Christ. What does Ephesians 1:18 teach about the importance of our prayer in learning about hope? 

Take a moment to pray for one another and endeavour to spend some time this week looking at what God’s word teaches about our hope in Christ. 

DAILY DEVOTIONAL WEEK 3

COLOSSIANS 1:4-5 TRUE TREASURE EMPOWERS, FALSE TREASURE STEALS FROM US

MONDAY – THE GOSPEL OFFERS US THE TREASURE OF HOPE 

Colossians 1:3-5We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people –  the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 

Christianity and religion more widely is often seen as something that takes from us. It steals our freedom, money, time, joy. Jesus, they assumes, wants to lock us up into a regime of behaviour that is driven by guilt and shame. It would be wrong to say that Christianity doesn’t demand from us. Jesus asks for everything from us, 

Matthew 16:24-26“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their lifewill lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.  What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Many things, however, also demand from us: buying a new car, getting married, having children, doing a job, education, cooking a meal…Many things in life involve sacrificing now for a greater return. Unfortunately, none of the things for which we sacrifice really give us what we are looking for – hope. For Christians, ‘hope’, in essence, is about the joy of being fully with God. It’s heaven, but it’s also the restored new heavens and earth that will be realised when Jesus’ returns. 

As Jesus says, this hope demands everything from us. To become a Christian means asking Jesus to be Lord and Saviour. As we invest ourselves in true treasure and ‘take up our cross and follow Him…’ we are actually enriched and find the true treasure of knowing God now and the future hope of glory. 

RESPONSE

Have you made Jesus the Lord of your life? Have you brought all that you have and are under His Lordship? Are you prepared do do anything He says to you in His word? How does knowing that true treasure lies in doing this (giving everything) help us to do this? 

TUESDAY – HOPE IS TREASURE THAT INSPIRES FAITH

Colossians 1:3-5We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people –  the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 

Maybe you know the experience of, in light of an upcoming holiday, being inspired to get so much more finished than on a normal day. The ‘hope’ of the holiday inspires faith which leads to action: we get tasks finished, get prepared, get packed, get up really early, travel massive distances – we sacrifice a lot because we have ‘hope’ that the holiday is worth it. 

In a similar way, the Christian hope of heaven and the restoration of all things will inspire faith – a quality of believing that leads to action. Hope will inspire all kinds of acts of faith but Paul says, specifically, that the faith that springs from hope is ‘faith in the Lord Jesus Christ’. To go back to our holiday analogy, to get to the hope of the holiday destination, one must put one’s faith in the plane – only in the plane is holiday-hope found. Likewise, only in Christ is hope of heaven and future glory found. Paul says that this hope was in ‘the true message of the gospel’ (1:5b). The hope of heaven and glory is offered through Christ in the gospel; and as we continue to be inspired by our glorious hope, this in turn causes our faith in Christ to go deeper – He is the ‘passport’ to that hope! 

RESPONSE

If we lose a vision of our true, future hope, our faith and love for Christ will wither. After all you don’t really need Christ for any of the treasures that are most people’s hopes and dreams. Is your hope in the right place – in Christ for heaven and glory or has something else filled your vision. What can you do to refocus on true hope? 

WEDNESDAY – HOPE IS TREASURE THAT INSPIRES LOVE 

Colossians 1:3-5We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people –  the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 

Why do we love the people that we love – why do we sacrifice time, money, concern… on some people? It is because we believe that they are worth it in some way. No one sacrifices themselves for the good of another without a reason! Our reasons maybe more or less admirable, but there is always a reason why we spend ourselves on another. What is true love? Jesus says,

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

True love is defined by the gospel. It’s laying our lives down for the good of another, and even those who don’t deserve it! How does love spring from hope? 

Love springs from hope because:

·     Love is a fruit of the gospel – loving others is always a result of someone becoming a Christian.

·     We know that the church are our brothers and sisters, loved by God, sharing the same eternal hope. Seeing one another in this light causes us to love His church.

·     A focus on the true hope (heaven and future glory) will cause us to stop wasting our lives on lesser hopes – an earthbound existence.  It free us to give our lives to what is valuable in God’s sight and this included the people of God. 

·     We see that Christ gave His life for us and His church for this hope, thus inspiring Christ-like love in ourselves. 

RESPONSE

Consider, meditate on, pray into the example of Moses as he loved God and His people because he had a future hope – What does God have to say to you?

Hebrews 11:24-26By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

 THURSDAY – THE DEVIL STEALS, KILLS AND DESTROYS

John 10:10-11The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

If you go to many coastal areas, you will often see boats on trailers, mud banks, drives… that seem to have been left to rot. I guess that someone decided that they needed a boat for the dream life only to find that it demanded too much from them! The devil has a mission to ‘steal, kill and destroy’. His goal is to do whatever is necessary to cause us to invest in fake treasure, to sink our time and talents into things that, whilst promising much, only steal from us. 

The devil will offer ‘true joy’ by avoiding God’s will. We see an example of this in the life of Jesus,

Matthew 4:8-10 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’

He wants us to invest in dross; he says to us, “you need that ungodly relationship… that bigger house…that faster car…that better job… more money…you would be happier without the church and without Christ…”

In our reading from John 10 today, we see that Jesus is the ‘good shepherd’. Unlike the ‘thief’, He has the wellbeing of the sheep at heart. In Psalm 23 we read of the abundance that comes to us as we invest ourselves in Jesus, 

‘The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul… You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’

RESPONSE

Is the Holy Spirit highlighting any area of your life where you know you are living in disobedience to God’s will? It’s time to stop investing in lies! Make it a habit to pray for protection against the evil one as Jesus taught us in Matthew 6:13. 

FRIDAY – SIGNS OF DEVOTION TO FALSE TREASURE

Colossians 1:3-5We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people –  the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 

True treasure is knowing Jesus. As we invest ourselves in Him, He gives us infinitely more; He gives us Himself now and in the hope of eternity. Today I want us to see that if faith and love spring from hope, the opposite is also true: as we invest our lives in false treasure this will cultivate weeds in our lives. 

Weed 1 - Lack of faith in Christ - If we invest our lives in things that don’t require Jesus, we won’t need Jesus! Heaven and eternal hope require Jesus. Only His death for sin get’s you there. Seeing this hope, our faith in Christ blossoms. 

Weed 2 - Lack of faith for life - If we are seeking to achieve things that you can do with a fair wind and some application, you won’t need Jesus. Why pray when you can do it? Seeing our hope and wanting to stand before Him having done all we can, we will seek Him to lead us into His works of faith. 

Weed 3 - Lack of love for God’s people - Investing is false treasure will result in lack of devotion to God’s people – “I will only lay my life down for the good of others if I’m not busy giving my life for myself!” We can also live for the good of others in a wrong way as described in 1 Corinthians 13. Loveless sacrifice is also seeking a wrong treasure: admiration, inner satisfaction, peace through self-righteousness etc. This may appease our conscience and may please people but it’s not the love-filled life that God requires. 

Weed 4 - Lack of love for people generally – Focussing on our hope sets a backdrop to our lives and we see the world in desperate darkness and need for the gospel. If we make status, respect, comfort our treasure, our desire to bring the hope of the gospel into people’s lives will wither. 

RESPONSE

Hope is the weed killer! As we choose to view eternal realities it kills the roots of faithlessness and lovelessness. Meditate and pray out of what Peter tells us,

1 Peter 1:13Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.