Christ in You and You in Christ (Pt. 2) | Resources
Sermon Text: Colossians 2:1–5
“For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person. I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery—Christ. In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable. For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ.” (CSB)
Devotional
In writing, there is a term called flow state coined by a man named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He defines it as “an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness.” Achieving this flow state is a wonderful, satisfying experience. There is a similar but far more satisfying phenomenon experienced by Christ’s followers all over the world. I call it “Holy Spirit flow.”
The most memorable time I’ve experienced this Holy Spirit flow was late one Friday night during a girl’s weekend with three good friends. We were a hodge-podge group. Three of us were firm believers in Christ from two different Bible-believing churches with varying levels of participation in our respective congregations. The fourth friend believed in God, but she thought the Bible was merely a guide to living as opposed to God’s true, holy word. She struggled to understand how God can be true and just, fear-inducing, full of grace, and abounding in steadfast love all at once.
I’ll be honest; sometimes, when my unsaved friends struggle to accept that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, I struggle to tell them the hard yet life-giving truth: That’s exactly who He is. Instead, I try so hard to appease my friends and fulfill the Great Commission that my words can become choppy, confusing, and void of conviction. So, this time, I asked friends back home for help. They prayed fervently for all four of us on the trip that our words would flow from the Holy Spirit and our conversations would be filled with equal parts grace and truth.
Enter “Holy Spirit flow.” There we were, sitting in the back corner of a dark restaurant, waiting for our checks, when, one by one, we shared our testimonies. Not only did the Holy Spirit burst through my fears and doubts, speaking truth in love through me, but He did the same for all of us at the table! And one by one, our stories came to the same conclusion: We were all sinners needing the one True Savior Jesus Christ. That is the power of Christ in His children, near and far, united in Him, or what I like to call the Holy Spirit flow.
Discussion Questions
1. Who comes to mind when you read verse 1? Whose spiritual journey causes you to pray regularly?
2. What does verse 2 teach us about how to pray for friends and loved ones?
3. What comes to mind when you read verse 4? What are some reasonable arguments that can be deceiving?
4. What does this text teach us about the gospel?
5. In light of this text, what does it look like to obey the prompting of the Spirit this week?
Memory Verse
“More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:8