Counsel from a Concerned Apostle, Part 1

Today from Chuck Swindoll. Those who want to do shoot Paul's teaching do so by insulting track. No you about how concerned they are that you're missing a higher than you will ever get from between bindings of Bible functioning smooth talk many different now. One of them designed to look convincing fact without discernment we can easily fall prey to their credible appearance today on Insight for living.

Chuck Swindoll helps us pull off the map in order to reveal the insidious danger of false teaching. His convictions are rooted in the letter Paul wrote to the Colossians in which the apostle said don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies high sounding nonsense teaching from Colossians chapter 2 title this message counsel from a concern God is to enlighten us with understanding.

It's called the Ministry of illumination word of God is been revealed that's revelation God giving his truth to various people who would write it in them that meets directly with inspiration for those who are recipients of the revelation right his word without error is called an in errant document.

The original text of Scripture for this revelation. There's inspiration. Both of those have ceased. There is no further divine revelation and there is no further inspiration as we know it revealed in the Scriptures, but there is regularly illumination.

For example, if perchance today you discover you learn you realize you observe something from the Scriptures that you had not known or seen or learned before. You have been illumined if it weren't for the work of the spirit that could not take place. That explains why some are completely bored when the word of God is taught and others are on the edge of their seat. If you are here without Christ you haven't the spirit of God. That's not meant to be insulting.

It's meant to be accurate and without the presence of the Spirit in your life. Word of God is just another ancient book black print on white pages that sort of meanders from one subject to another without much to say and so I would say to you who live with those who have never trusted Christ the patient. There will be a time by the grace of God that they would come to Christ. And when they do the whole work of the spirit will begin to take place and there will be illumination even in their lives that were world are learning these days about the letter Paul wrote to the Colossians, Colossians, not to be mistaken with Galatians or the little letter of Philippians. This is Colossians were in the second chapter in our study looking at verses one through 12 today which I would like to read for you from the new living Bible Colossians 2 begins.

I want you to know how much I have agonized for you and for the church at Laodicea, and for many other believers who have never met me personally. I want them to be encourage and knit together by strong ties of love. I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God's mysterious plan, which is Christ himself in him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I'm telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments for though I am far away from you. My heart is with you and I rejoice that you are living as you should, and that your faith in Christ is strong and now just as you accepted Christ Jesus as the Lord, you must continue to follow him.

Let your roots grow down into him and let your lives be built on him, then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in the human body, so you also are complete through your union with Christ who is the head over every ruler and authority when you came to Christ, you were circumcised, but not by a physical procedure, Christ performed a spiritual circumcision. The cutting away of your sinful nature for you were buried with Christ when you were baptized, and with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.

Our hope is that we will be illumined with an understanding and also realized practical application of these 12 verses as we live our lives. Be sure to download his searching the Scriptures. Studies by going to Insight world.org/study another message from Chuck called counsel from a concerned apostle. We need each other. We really do.

I need you and that you need me, you need the person near you sitting around you, beside you living with you how much we need one another as an adolescent. In my spiritual growth where I went to the idea heretical, though it was that I really didn't need anybody. I do Christ I was able to read his word. I was engaged in the study of the Scriptures. I had a wife who love me and I II had a future that that seemed fairly bright good parents and now they have played their part and I was now on my own.

What a stupid way to think that I don't need anybody else.

Wall Street Journal came out several years ago with a great list begins. How important are you well more than you think a rooster minus a hand equals no baby chicks. Kellogg, minus a farmer equals no cornflakes. If the mail factory closes. What good is the hammer factory Paderewski's genius wouldn't have amounted to much. If the piano tuner had not shown up a cracker maker will do better if there is a cheese maker, the most skillful surgeon needs the ambulance driver who delivers the patient just as Rogers needed Hammerstein you need someone and someone needs you, you may not be convinced of that because you like I used to be, are an independent thinker. You'll make it on your own. Thank you so wanted to warn you, that's a dangerous way to live. Psychologically, it's dangerous and it may be dangerous physically. Phillips and Bardo when he was Prof. of psychology at the Stanford University wrote a piece in psychology today titled the age of indifference.

He puts his finger on the problem.

I know of no more potent killer than isolation.

There is no more destructive influence on physical and mental health that the isolation of you from me and us from them. It is been shown to be a central agent in the etiology of depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, right suicide, mass murder and a wide variety of disease states. Check it out next time you hear of a mass murder, chances are good. The one who did the murdering has been alone and isolated living unto himself or herself far too long.

What an unhealthy way to live and by the way, we seem to promote that whole concept no longer. We are share and share alike. People move into a home on the first things we do is build a fence to keep the barbarians at bay. We are independent clock clogs in complex corporate structures. We wear headsets as we jog redo our loans or walk to class or eat in Interiors are watchword's privacy are commitments or short term and haven't you bandit restaurants for nobody at the table is talking to the other person there all thumbing their texts to somebody somewhere else that ought to be talking to somebody and they're all lost in their silly little phone how valuable is that little phone. How did I ever get along without it very well very well. The Lone Ranger once a fantasy hero is now our model mask and all. Listen to the admission of a man who became a pastor. I was raised in the Jesus and me privatized individualized Christianity of the fundamentalism of the 60s and 70s. No one knew my father and mother. Hymie really knew them. No one had a clue what was going on in our home. No one helped my father to see through the blindness that allowed him to live a double life of skilled deception and duplicity. No one knew how troubled my mother was beneath her encyclopedic knowledge of the Scriptures.

No one knew we were Christian family and active participation in a vibrant church but what we were involved in locked one of the primary and essential ingredients of healthy New Testament Christianity, a trained mobilized and functioning body of Christ. For much of my Christian life ended portion of my ministry. I had no idea that my walk with God was a community project. I had no idea that the Christianity of the New Testament is distinctly relational from beginning to end. I understood none of the dangers inherent in attempting to live the Christian life on my own. I had no awareness of the blinding power of remaining sin I had no idea that I was living outside of God's normal means of sightedness encouragement conviction strength and growth ahead. No idea.

I honestly fear on occasion when we emphasize the importance of studying the word, and becoming stabilized in the Scriptures that we leave the impression just you and God. You're on your way. Don't bother with the others who worn in league with where you are. What an unhealthy way to think and frightening way to live. If it's any comfort to you. The great apostle Paul as student theologian, brilliant mind surrounded himself with people's letters or fill with names unfamiliar to us.

Very familiar to him because they were his friends. He is the magnificent doctoral treatise of Romans with one name after another after another after others and others, and others that you find nowhere else. But to be in the Bible because there is friends matter-of-fact when we get to the to the second chapter of Colossians, we find him writing words of of love and understanding and compassion for people he's never met. The only way he knows them is through a friend named Epp of France, who is mentioned more than once in this little letter but he cares about.

Which reminds me, you remember that litany of suffering and sorrow and hardship that he lists in the second Corinthians 11 you remember in the deep shipwrecked many times beaten with rods alone. Other occasions left to die under a pile of stones, and on and on and he comes to the very end of this list, which is heartbreaking versus 23 through 27. He comes to the end. In Chapter 11 the second Corinthians by adding and besides all this, there's the care of the church. That's all the things I was going through.

I couldn't get off my mind. The people that I administered to. I built into their lives.

I'm concerned about. If nothing else, I hope you will pick up from this message today that people matter. Your relationship with others is far more important than anything other than your relationship to Christ. We need each other, but begins the second chapter of Colossians. By the way, the letter runs on without chapter breaks as all of you would realize there's simply a letter that starts the beginning and runs all the way to the Bureau chapter breaks any more than your chapter breaks and litters you right so continuing with the thought of Christ's power that works within me. He says personal word at the beginning of chapter 2, I want you to know how much I've agonized for you and for the church at Laodicea doesn't even by that I mean he's not set with them, but in their homes. They not set in his tent. They did not know each other face-to-face, but he says agonized for you and I go home and is the Greek word I've been in agony. Thinking about what you're going through. In other words I care about. My heart is touched knowing what you're going through and will realize what that is in the moment I've agonized for you and the church at Laodicea as we know it was never there only a few miles from Colossae images for the end of the letter hydrocephalus another another church, another location and for as we know it wasn't there but he cared about if I go to copyrights on agonized for you and for the church at Laodicea for many other believers who have never met me. Personal we don't know each other face-to-face I pray for you. I have you in my heart, and he continues I want them to be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love. Look at those words. I don't know them personally, but I long for them to be encouraged to know what it is to have loving arms around her shoulder's.

I hope you're not trying to make it on their own. We need each other. He continues I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God's mysterious plan, which is Christ himself in him lie all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. By the way, it's a slap in the face of the cult of the Gnostics, not occult in our day, not by that name, but in that day there were those who spoke of the of the great emanations.

It came from the heavenly's and among the emanations that came from the heavenly's was Jesus you can name him, among them, and there were many others in this higher hirer of knowledge.

This great understanding of the light. I means it smacks of New Age fact this is a great time for me know at any time you're engaged in the teaching that demotes or decentralizes the person of Christ you're in error. Christ is the supreme one in him are hidden all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

As we will read but the calls come in, they let you have your Jesus if you want to talk about Jesus, remember the use in our vocabulary but they don't use our dictionary same words, but when they say light. They mean something different than when we say like when they refer to Jesus. They mean someone different than when the Bible refers to him, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now you're getting a hint as to why he's concerned why he's agonized over the verse four tells us I'm telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted argument.

The terms well-crafted convey the idea of persuasive we call it smooth talk you seen it. We often attributed to a salesperson. Watch out for him.

He's a smooth talker, or don't let her talk you into something that you don't really want to go to where you want to buy.

That's the term used here are concerned that no one deceive you with well-crafted arguments is a great time for me to pause and save those who want to seduce you into false teaching won't do so by insulting you. That would attract no one will tell you how valuable you are and how concerned they are that you're missing the true a higher truth than you'll ever get from between the bindings of a book called the Bible. Watch out for folks like that.

Smooth talking. If you can't think of another analogy. Just think of a politician.

I work they say all kinds of most of them don't mean bit of it but it gets them elected and you look back and go. What was I thinking, effective you were.

You believe how do you know they're lying. Their lips are moving pluses whatsoever. People like this, wake up.

I care about you just as you would care about the kid you send off to college, knowing that he or she is a little weak in their stepping right into those classes and you know the prompt takes great delight in shadowing their fate. Years ago I knew of an individual who told me that there were several props on our faculty who had one great desire, and that was to shatter the faith of the freshman you care about your fresh bioterrorism cares about these people living in Colossae only wanted deceive you with the well-crafted arguments for though I am far away from you. My heart is with you.

Those words of love by the way I'm not near you, but I got you on my heart, I rejoice that your living is you should get your faith in Christ is strong. I wanted to stay strong. I don't want to get weak. I don't want you to hear the siren song.

Some false teacher says to you, which are missing by the kind of narrow thinking Christ is in all back to mom let me teach you this and they come with her smooth, to be wary of false teachers and there's more wisdom ahead in this passage. This is insight for living Chuck Swindoll titled the section of Colossians counsel from a concerned apostle and learn more about today's study and this ministry.

Visit us online@insightworld.org. You often hear me reference the searching the Scriptures, study notes and we encourage you to dig deeper into Paul's letter to the Colossians by using this free resource use at the pace you can go as deep as you like to interact with the study notes online or to download the free PDF document go to insight.org/studies one of your fellow listeners said I read the Bible from cover to cover once and still read Scripture every day. But while listening to Chuck series. I'm also using the STS guy.

I also purchased Chuck's book on the subject and then this listener from Tennessee added even reference maps now which is an absolute first, the Bible has become more than just an ideal to follow this come alive when you find the searching the Scripture study notes insight.org/studies and to purchase Chuck's commentary on Colossians go to insight.org/offer. And finally, remember when you give a donation you're empowering us to provide a constant source of Bible teaching for you and for countless others come to rely on Chuck as well so thanks for doing your part in making these daily programs possible to give a donation right now. Call us if you listening in the US on 800-772-8888. You can also give online insight.org/donate nine dates by June is when Chuck Swindoll continues his message called counsel from a concerned apostle Friday insight for living. The preceding message counsel from a concerned apostle was copyrighted in 2014 and 2022 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2022 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. all rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited