Paul’s letter to the Colossians is one long reminder that Christ alone is their salvation. In Col 3:1-4, Paul defines a Christ-centered life as being a life wholly directed towards Christ. In verse 3 Paul teaches that our life is hidden with him and in vs 4 Paul writes “he is our life”. Christ should occupy the primary position in our heart, superior to any other love. The effect of this upward focused Christ-centeredness is almost counter-intuitive as Paul goes on to teach that our relationship with Christ should affect our behavior and attitudes here on earth. He then goes on to describe the kinds of attitudes and behaviors we need to “take off” (vss.5-11) and “put on” (vss.12-17).
The Colossians greatest error was that they had allowed themselves to be influenced by their culture (2:16-23), displacing the superiority of Christ in their life and exchanging his salvation for a form of works righteousness. In turn, our message on Sunday challenged ICF in particular to NOT follow the Colossian error. The question was posed how are we tempted to displace Christ in our life by allowing our attitudes and behaviors to be affected by culture rather than by a Christ-centered love. We touched upon our society’s consumer-oriented mentality and general apathetic spirit and the effects this can have on a church
Our small group quite appreciate this opportunity to dig deeper into the sermons (even if we don’t shout “amen” during the service).
Thank you for the effort you put forth. It is helping us to focus on community even in our small group.