Rooted, Built Up, and Established

Colossians 2:6-7

You and I are not integrated, unified, whole persons. Our hearts are multi-divided. It’s like we have a board room in every heart. Picture it in your mind: a big table, leather chairs, coffee, bottled water, and a whiteboard. A committee sits around the table in your heart. There is the social self, the private self, the work self, the sexual self, the recreational self, the religious self, and others. Can you see the different characters? Notice what they look like.

Your committee is arguing and debating and voting, constantly agitated and upset. They can rarely come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision. We tell ourselves we’re this way because we’re so busy with so many responsibilities. But the truth is that we’re just divided, unfocused, hesitant, and unfree. We have divided hearts led by a committee of our various selves.

That kind of person usually tries to come to Jesus by inviting him onto the committee. Give Jesus a vote too. But then he becomes just one more complication. We want Jesus to become a part of our lives. To take his seat on the committee. But he won’t do that. He wants to fire the committee.

That means we have to say to him, “My life isn’t working. Please come in and fire my committee, every last one of them. I hand myself over to you. I am your responsibility now. Please run my whole life for me.”

“Accepting Jesus” is not just adding Jesus. It is also subtracting the idols.[i]

That’s exactly why Paul and Timothy wrote these words to the Colossian Christians back in the first century. They were in danger of losing their focus on Christ. There were those among them who were teaching something other than the beautiful simplicity of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They were teaching a “Jesus and …” gospel. Inviting Jesus to be just another member of a larger committee. Jesus was in the mix. He was savior. But he wasn’t Lord. Turn with me to Colossians 2:6-7.

When we say someone has “received Christ,” what are we saying? When I received Christ, I accepted the gift of salvation that God offers me in Christ. I heard and understood God’s offer of salvation and accepted that gift. Paul said, “… if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). That is what it means to receive Christ. But Paul wants to make sure we understand exactly who we have received. Look at how he describes Christ: “Christ Jesus the Lord.”

The first word in that title is Christ. Christ is simply the Greek word for “anointed one” or “messiah.” When we receive Christ, we receive him as the one who fulfilled all the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The one through whom God reconciled the world to himself. The one whose blood was shed for our forgiveness, who died in our place and who gives us his life in return. When we receive Christ, we receive him as savior.

The second word in that title is Jesus, a historical person who was God incarnate; Emmanuel, God with us. The name Jesus is simply the Greek translation of the Jewish name Joshua, which means “the Lord is salvation.” When we receive Christ Jesus, we receive the gift of a real person who was at the same time both fully human, as human as you and I are, and fully divine. God with skin on. God identifying with us in our weakness, sharing in our humanity, experiencing our plight. When we receive Christ Jesus, we receive the one who “is salvation.” The one who said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:6) In the process, we REJECT salvation in any other name. When we receive Christ Jesus, we receive the one who is THE way to our heavenly Father.

That’s where most of us stop. But Paul and Timothy don’t  stop there. They say, “Christ Jesus … the Lord.” Lord. It means master, owner, the possessor of. When referring to God, to Christ, it means the one who is sovereign over all. Not an elected leader who facilitates a discussion and pushes an agenda which others may or may not embrace, but the uncontested, unrivaled sovereign over everything.

We don’t understand the idea of a sovereign lord today. In our world of elected leaders who may freely be elected or rejected we don’t understand or accept lordship. With the poet William Ernest Henley, we prefer to say, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” We have had too much experience with human leaders who abused their authority. So we ask, “By what right does someone exert authority over me?”

So Paul and Timothy give us the resume of Christ. Looking back at Colossians 1:15-20, we read, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation … by him all things were created … all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col. 1:15-19). That’s some kind of resume! Is he qualified for the job of Lord of your life and mine?

When we receive Christ, we receive him as Christ Jesus the Lord. Most people like Jesus. Many acknowledge that they need a savior. But few want to make him their Lord. When we make him Lord, we go where he goes, we love who he loves. His word is on our lips and in our hearts. Our hands become his hands and our feet become his feet. We allow him to come alive in us.

That’s why Paul and Timothy don’t stop with receiving  Christ Jesus the Lord. Look at the end of V. 6. Walk in him. That is an ongoing word. An ongoing concept. Life in Christ is not a one-time decision and a lifetime of sitting in worship services and the occasional prayer meeting or Bible study. Thank God! It’s an ongoing walk IN HIM.

Are you walking in Christ? Are his steps your steps? Is his direction your direction? Is the power of the Holy Spirit enlivening you? Strengthening you? Encouraging you? Is your identity found in Christ, or in something else? In your giftedness, your body, your job, your possessions and wealth, your relationships, your roles in life? All of those things are wonderful things. But if your identity is found IN CHRIST, in being a daughter or a son of the creator God of the universe and a sister or brother of Christ, you can lose all of those other things and still not lose your sense of who you are, because who you are is found in Christ.

Now, look at V. 7. Paul and Timothy use three words to describe our ongoing walk through this world in Christ. The first word is “rooted.” This isn’t complicated. They’re talking about the deep roots of a tree. Roots do two things: they anchor the tree firmly in the soil, and they nourish the tree, allowing it to grow. The root system of a healthy tree has roughly the same depth and spread below the surface as the trunk and branches do above the surface. A follower of Jesus is one who is deeply rooted not in human tradition or the latest fad philosophy, but in Christ Jesus the Lord.

The second phrase is “built up.” They’re still talking about trees here, but now the focus is on the part of the tree we can all see – the part of the tree above the ground. The strong trunk. The leaf-covered branches that provide shade. The ongoing growth of a tree springing from a strong, healthy root system.

The third word is “established.” Set firmly. A mature tree is a tree that is established. You can’t move it. We can move young trees. We can dig them up and move them to a new place. It might take some work, but we can do it. But deeply rooted, built up, and established trees? Not so much. The small maples we planted along Fair and Titus streets four or five years ago have certainly grown, but if we needed to move them, we probably could. But the mature oaks along our western property line? If I told you we wanted to move them to the back of the church, you’d think I was crazy. They’re immovable!

Paul and Timothy are describing our maturing in Christ. When we are deeply rooted, built up, and established in Jesus, our lives might be shaken, but they will not be destroyed by things happening to us or around us. We aren’t stoic. We feel. We cry. We grieve deeply. Trees bend and sway in heavy winds. But healthy trees are not destroyed.

So what do deeply rooted, built up, and established-in-Christ people look like? Paul and Timothy give us this primary characteristic. It isn’t the only characteristic, but it’s a primary one and the only one they mention here. “Abounding in thanksgiving.”

They aren’t talking about some kind of mindless, shallow attitude of gratitude. They’re talking about a thankfulness that flows from a life deeply rooted in Christ. Minnesota playwright and storyteller Kevin Kling was born with a birth defect – his left arm was disabled and much shorter than his right. Then, in his early 40s, a motorcycle accident nearly killed him and paralyzed his healthy right arm. While he was in the hospital recovering from the accident, Kling learned a life-changing lesson about what he calls “the three phases of prayer.”

In the first phase of prayer, we pray to get things from God. In the second phase, we pray to get out of things. While he was in rehab for his accident, Kling learned the third phase of prayer – giving thanks to God. In an interview on NPR, he said,

I’d been through many surgeries during my six-week stay in the hospital. And each day, I would ride the elevator to the ground floor and try and take a walk. That was my job. 9/11 had happened the week before. And as our country was entering trauma, I was living one. After my walk, my wife Mary and I went into the gift shop, and she asked if I wanted an apple. She said they looked really good. Now, I hadn’t tasted food in over a month … I lost a lot of weight because food had no appeal. So I said no, but she persisted. Come on. Try it. So finally, I said all right. And I took a bite. And for some reason, that was the day flavor returned, and that powerful sweetness rushed from that apple. Oh, it was incredible.

I started to cry, cry for the first time in years. The tears flowed and as the anesthesia and antibiotics flushed through my tears, it burned my eyes. And between the sweetness of that apple and the burning for my tears, it felt so good to be alive. I blurted out, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for this life.” And that’s when my prayers shifted, again, to giving thanks.[ii]

That kind of gratitude is evidence of a life that is rooted, built up, and established in Christ Jesus the Lord. Are you trying to make Jesus just another part of a committee? Just another part of a collection of parts of yourself that argue with and compete with one another for attention and fulfillment. Or have you asked Jesus to fire the committee and take his rightful place not just as Christ Jesus, but as Christ Jesus the Lord?

In 1925, Christian missionary E. Stanley Jones had a conversation with Mahatma Ghandi. During that conversation, Ghandi famously said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” That’s a problem. A problem we continue to have today. Ghandi went on to clarify that he was not personally attacking any one individual, he was pointing out the gap between Christ’s life and teaching and the lives and actions of many Christians.

The Gospel of Luke tells us that Jesus walked into the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth on the Sabbath. During sabbath worship, and he stood up to read from the Scriptures. He was handed the scroll of Isaiah, and he read the words of Isaiah 61, and then rolled up the scroll, sat down, and said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:21). Isaiah’s prophecy has been fulfilled … in me.

What are the words of Isaiah 61 that Jesus spoke, and applied to himself? “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” That’s where Jesus stopped. But for an ancient Jew, when a Scripture was referenced, the entire Scripture was assumed. And that passage goes on to say …

and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion – to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;

That’s what Jesus says he is doing for and in us. And then it says that this will be the outcome …

that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

Oaks of Righteousness. Rooted, built up, and established in Christ Jesus the Lord. That is what Jesus wants for you. Let’s pray.

[i] Adapted from Ray Ortund, “#9: What Does It Mean to Accept Jesus?” Ray Ortlund: Christ Is Deeper Still (blog), (6-4-10)

[ii] Kevin Kling, “Prayer, Once a Last Resort, Now a Habit,” NPR (1-10-07); On Being, “The Losses and Laughter We Grow Into,” American Public Media (3-7-13)