Colossians 1:28-2:5
[listen to sermon]
1. What is your favorite “treasure” story or movie?
2. Can you share with us an experience of being excluded?
In Colossians Paul is celebrating how Christ has united Jews and Gentiles.
3. What are some of the dividing walls in our lives today that need to be broken down?
4. Do those dividing walls affect you in your life? How?
Paul’s Heart for the Gospel
5. What are some of the words or phrases in our text that point out to you Paul’s “heart for the gospel”?
Twice Paul talks about his “struggle” (1:29, 2:1).
6. What kind of struggle is he talking about? How did he struggle?
Allan spoke of our desire to live life for Jesus AND for some of that “other treasure.” He said that when we keep God locked off in a separate compartment of our lives then we will “turn other things into God and you won’t even know it.” He said that perhaps the only symptom of our having turned other things into God may be a sense of boredom in those moments when we find ourselves with nothing obvious in front of us that demands our attention.
7. Do you agree with that? Why or why not?
8. What forms do you think our boredom can take? Busyness? Addictions?
Gospel Doesn’t Come Alive until it is Lived
Allan talked about how without God there is nothing worth dying for. He then went on to his second main point that we don’t see the truth of the Gospel until we live it. Verse 2 talks about Paul’s determination to live the Gospel with courage and love.
9. What does it mean for us to live the Gospel with “courage and love”? Allan talked about the divisions of doctors and lawyers, scientists and poets, etc.
10. Where are the tension points for you in our life together that are calling forth courage and love from you? Is the Gospel worth dying for?
