Colossians

Men's Workout #31 - January 6, 2018

HYMN
We opened our workout with a singing of "All People That On Earth Do Dwell" (hymn #18).
 
MEMORIZATION
We recited James 2:1-4 as a group.
Discussion points:

  • The point of the passage is to not practice personal favoritism. What are some ways that we could be practicing personal favoritism against people in the church today?
    • Racial and cultural discrimination
      • Ethnic churches tend to rally around their culture. It can be a really good thing to leverage your culture to reach people. But to gear a church body around a particular ethnic culture can lead to a "passive" discrimination in the interest of preserving a sense of identity. This can go against a proper obedience to reach out to all souls for gospel obedience.
    • Age discrimination
      • Multigenerational churches are great for worshiping with saints of all ages and experiences. But if they are separated, an attitude can be fostered where each side can look across the way and develop discriminatory attitudes, whether intentional or not.
    • Clique forming
      • It is easy to spend time with people you're more comfortable with rather than reaching out to someone you don't know as well, especially when they are in times of need. Being "clique-ish" can be very subtle and you could not even realize you are practicing favoritism.
    • Maturing children
      • Children can mature, become baptized, become members, and become willing and active participants in gatherings, ministries, and activities. We should welcome this and not look down on anybody simply because of their assumed lack of maturity due to age.
    • Distinctions between people of different life stages
      • Singles, married people, parents
      • A church with many children must not lose focus on ministry needs for single people.
    • Special attention toward rich people
      • Be generous and inclusive of all people, rather than excluding people based on your knowledge of their financial situations.
      • Practice generosity and make personal sacrifices.
  • The church must not practice favoritism.
    • Our faith in the Lord precludes favoritism. Why? Because the Lord received all people to Himself and did not discriminate. We ought to emulate our Lord's example and heart.
    • We ought to practice love toward those in need.
    • We ought to practice love toward the elderly who need special help. 

NEXT WEEK'S PASSAGE
James 2:5-9

  • "Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?" Where else in Scripture can we find a similar notion of the poor being blessed by God?
    • Luke 6
    • The rich man & Lazarus - Luke 16:19-31
    • 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
      • God's chosen the base and despised things of the world so that no one can sya that they have become acceptable to God by their own doing
    • The rich young ruler
      • How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God
      • Riches can be an obstacle to salvation
    • Scripture never teaches that one is saved by virtue of being poor. However, being in poor circumstances provides one with a greater situational opportunity to seek for help from God rather than in one's own provisions.
    • Barnabas sold his property in order to help those who were poor in the church
  • How do we reconcile being Christian and being wealthy? Is it impossible to be rich and also be saved?
    • Example of Job. Job was "filthy rich" but he cared for those less fortunate.
    • In this age, it is easy to learn about the needs for all of the less fortunate in the world, but it is practically impossible to help the entire world's needs
    • We can act in compassion and sacrifice to help those in need in our own communities, rather than staying within our own comfortable bubbles. We ought to use our positions, provisions, and blessings to reach out to our communities and serve their needs. This can provide a platform for the work of the gospel. We ought to actively seek these opportunities out.
  • We need to love others as ourselves because God has loved us first. "Put yourself in their shoes" and treat them the way you would want them to treat you.
    • If you love your neighbor as yourself, then you will not show favoritism.
      • James put its clearly in v9 and says that if you show partiality, you are sinning. Why? Because if you show partiality, you are not loving your neighbor as yourself.

DEVELOPING PROPOSITIONS
As a group, we developed some propositions from Colossians 1:21-29.

  • The gospel of Christ reconciles us to God.
  • God's will for every Christian is to be holy, blameless, and beyond reproach.
    • This comes about through the ministry of God's Word.
    • We must deal with every sin and every shortcoming in our lives, remembering that our sins are why Christ came to die on the cross.
  • All Christians should be striving to become complete in Christ - no one is under any exception.
    • The strive for holiness begins with repentance.
    • Holiness is expected of all believers.
    • No man can ever be sinless
      • 1 John 1:8 - "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."
    • Sin is inevitable and no man can ever truly be sinless in this life, but this is not an excuse to practice sin or be lazy about repentance. On the contrary, God's Word exposes our sins and reveals our shortcomings to us in order to compel us to live in greater holiness for God's glory.

Question: Is it heretical for Paul to say that Christ's afflictions were lacking (verse 24)?

  • No. Paul does not mean to say that Christ's afflictions are inadequate. Rather, Paul is stating that he is suffering for the church in a way that Christ did not literally suffer. Paul carries on the work of preaching the gospel at great personal cost and suffering for the sake of the church.

Men's Workout #27 - December 9, 2017

We opened our workout with a singing of "And Can It Be" (hymn #180) and a group recitation & review of James 1.
 
After our review of James 1, we studied Colossians 1 together. We went around the table to develop propositions through the chapter.
 
Colossians 1:1-4 (Henry)

  • Thankful Christians pray for one another.
  • Genuine believers exhibit faith, love, and hope.
    • Reminded of 1 Thessalonians 5:8 ("breastplate of faith and love; helmet of hope and salvation").
    • This proposition challenges us to ask ourselves: "What am I believing in? How am I loving God and others? What do I place my hope in?"

Colossians 1:5-8 (Daniel)

  • The gospel has been given to us.
    • There is no self-boasting in its discovery, or that we have found it out for ourselves. 

Other propositions from the group for verses 1-8:

  • The gospel continuously bears fruit throughout the world.
  • The gospel comes through people (in that faithful servants of Christ teach the gospel to others).
  • The gospel is heard, and the gospel is understood.
    • It is meant to be fully understood, not just heard and checked off a list.
  • Genuine Christians continually grow.
  • Christians share encouragement & praise reports with one another.
  • The gospel is the word of truth.
    • Simply put, the gospel is truth. People need to hear the truth. When paired with the understanding that we have the gospel, the truth that comes from God, we are compelled to share the gospel. In simple words, sharing the gospel is merely giving people truth that they do not yet have or understand.
  • Believers are in the Spirit.
    • Every genuine believer of God has His Spirit in them.

Colossians 1:9-10 (Sassoun)

  • Christians are to pray without ceasing.
  • Knowledge of God's will is a gift of God dispensed through prayer.
    • The bearing of spiritual fruit is a result of having this knowledge.

Colossians 1:11-12 (Nate)

  • A Christian's strength comes from God's power.

Other propositions from the group for verses 9-12:

  • Christians strive to be steadfast and patient.
    • Endurance and patience require strength that comes from God.
    • Real power is demonstrated in submission to God's will and timing. This falls in line with the worldview that God is sovereign and controls all things.
  • Christians give thanks to God.
  • God allows and qualifies Christians to receive the inheritance of eternal life.
  • God wants us to strive to produce fruit in every good work.
    • Not focused in only one specific area, but in a comprehensive way we are to excel in every good work
  • Having spiritual wisdom and understanding is necessary to please God.
    • Knowing and practicing God's will requires that we have spiritual wisdom and understanding. We ought to take God's truth and appropriate it in real life in tangible ways.

Colossians 1:13-14 (John T.)

  • Christ is our King and our Redeemer.
  • We are responsible for our sins and we need forgiveness and rescue.
  • We once belonged to the domain of darkness, but we have been transferred to Christ's kingdom.

Colossians 1:15-17 (Ming)

  • Christ existed before all things.
  • All things have been created through Christ.
  • Creation includes things that are invisible.
    • The world is more than what we can see with our eyes.
  • All things depend on God for existence and sustenance.

Colossians 1:18-20 (James)

  • Christ is preeminent in the church and in all things.
  • The church is the body of Christ.
  • Christ reconciled all things to God through the blood of the cross.
    • The truth that we need reconciliation shows that we are at enmity with God because of our sins.

Question: The Bible tells us about others who had been resurrected in the flesh before Christ's resurrection took place. Knowing this, why is Christ called the firstborn from the dead?

  • Christ is the first to be resurrected in a glorified sense.
  • The others who had been resurrected physically before Christ had not been raised unto eternal life and glory. Although those people were physically resurrected, they still eventually died physical deaths. In contrast, Christ was resurrected and is eternally alive.
  • The hope of resurrection we have is that we will also be raised unto eternal life and glory.

Men's Workout #15 - August 19th

OPENING DEVOTIONAL
 
Pastor Dan led us in a singing of "Wonderful, Merciful Savior" (hymn #162), after which he led us through a devotional of Colossians 1:1-12.
 
Some propositions from this passage included:

  • Christians should pray for spiritual maturity and growth.
    • Paul and Timothy knew that God is the one who causes Christians to grow, and so they relied on God in prayer for the Colossians' spiritual growth (v 9-12).
  • A Christian's hope is laid up in heaven, not in the world.
    • It is important for us to always be looking forward to eternity in heaven.
    • There are things in our lives on earth that are exciting, such as getting married, having a baby, or getting a new job. To be sure, these are all blessings from God; however, in reality, these things are all temporal and will fade away in time. In contrast, heaven and the blessings laid up there are eternal, and so Christians ought to place their hope in heaven.

Questions about this passage included:

  • What is the "big picture" of this passage?
    • Verse 9 mentions the "goal", which is that Christians should be filled with the knowledge of God's will.
  • The world filled refers to the idea of "a saturation of knowledge". The Christian life begins with the filling of the mind with knowledge of what God wants.
    • In verses 9-12, Paul outlines the resultant fruit that is borne from the life of a Christian whose mind is filled with the knowledge of God's will.
  • Verse 12 refers to God as the one "who has qualified us". What does this mean? Is this describing the selection of those who have been chosen to receive the inheritance, or does it the describe the qualification of those who will receive inheritance?
    • It describes the qualification; the word "qualified" should be understood as "made adequate".
    • God is the only one who can do (and who has done) something to make us fit for inheritance. He can be the only one who qualifies us. In ourselves, we have no credentials that can serve as credit for receiving the inheritance from God.

MEMORIZATION
 
Daniel Khuc, Nate Chang, John Tang, Peter Chen, and Pastor Dan recited all of Matthew chapter 6.
 
Some reflections from Matthew 6:

  • The full reward of recognition from men is contained in the earthly realm, but cannot be found in or brought to heaven. Social media can serve as a metric for us to measure and gauge approval from our fellow man (likes, etc.), but these earthly rewards, trophies, and honors are temporal and can be destroyed and forgotten.
  • Jesus calls God "our heavenly Father" numerous times. Hearing and reading about this helps to remind us that God cares for us and loves us as our Father, and helps to spur us on to love and thankfulness toward Him.