What You Should Expect from Preaching

Expositional Preaching and the Sufficiency of Christ

Take out your Bibles and turn to Colossians chapter 1. And we are going to be looking at only one verse today. We're going to be examining verse 28. So if you'll hold your place there in a moment, we'll read that together.

One of the things I meant to mention during the prayer time was that we do have a new member class today. And so we need to be praying for those who have been with us and who have, over a time of deliberation, decided that they want to join our fellowship and they want to come to the class to learn what it means to be a part of Sovereign Grace Family Church.

So we need to be praying for those families. And the reason why I bring that up now is because during that class, one of the things that we hand out, and most of you have taken that class, those of you who are members, during that class we hand out several things.

And one of the things that we hand out is a list of expectations. It's entitled, What Should You Expect? And we ask the question, What should you expect from the church? And then, What should the church expect from you?

Because when you join the church, you become part of a covenant community. And in a covenant relationship, there are expectations. You should expect things from the body, and the body should expect things from you.

That's only natural. Well, the number one thing on the list of expectations that you should expect if you are a member of this church is that you should expect expositional preaching. That's the number one thing on the list.

And what that means is that when the person who is preaching, whether it be myself, or Andy, or Mike, or even one of you, that whoever mounts this pulpit, and whoever comes and stands behind the Word of God will in fact preach the Word of God.

Not opinions, not the latest and greatest pop psychology, but the Word. We are not storytellers. We are preachers. And though we may at times tell a story, the role is to preach the Word. That was the command Paul gave to Timothy.

Preach the Word. But why is this paramount? Why is expositional preaching paramount? Well, it is paramount because preaching is not entertainment. Preaching is training. I want to say that again. Preaching is not entertainment.

Preaching is training. We are moving toward a goal, and the goal is that we be more mature in our faith. And that's what we're going to see today. We are moving toward the goal of maturity in our faith.

And we do that through discipleship. And the primary means of discipleship among the body is the preaching of the Word of God. Now, there are other things that we do for discipleship, but the primary means of discipleship happens right here.

This is why it's so vital that you be here. This is why it's so vital that you come and you be a part of the body of Christ and hear the Word of God preached regularly. Because this is where discipleship begins.

And this is where maturity begins. Maturity comes through the Word. So our text today, Paul is going to give us three things the preacher must do and three things the congregation must expect when the Word of God is preached.

So with that being said, let's stand together and give honor and reverence to the passage we're going to study. Colossians chapter 1, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, it says, Him we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Father in heaven, I thank you again for your Word. May you now bless its teaching and preaching and may you be glorified through it in Christ's name. Amen. As I was putting my notes together this week and looking through my file folder for this particular series that we've been in, I noticed that we've been in Colossians for 14 weeks and we're still in chapter 1.

It wasn't on purpose. This is a rich chapter. We spent six weeks just on chapters 15 to 20 because it was all about Christology and understanding who Christ is. So this is a rich chapter. And what we have seen so far is Paul has given his introduction.

He's offered up words of thanksgiving for the people at Colossae. He has expressed to them the content of his prayers for them and now he is beginning to address his concerns to them. And the most important concern that Paul gives in this letter is the concern that it seems as if in the church of Colossae there has arisen a teaching that Christ is not enough.

That Christ is insufficient. And we see that based upon Paul's expressing the full sufficiency of Christ in chapter 1 verses 15 to 20. And then we see it again in chapter 2 when Paul begins to express all of the things that have crept up in the church.

Things like the worship of angels. Things like asceticism. Things like keeping Jewish ceremonies and Greek festivals and things like that. All of those show that this synchronism and that means simply the idea of bringing in all various ideas and religions and putting them together as one.

Synchronization, syncretism has crept in and what it has done is it has called into question the sufficiency of Christ. If I had to put the whole book of Colossians into one idea it would be Paul's battle against those who would say Christ is not enough.

Paul's battle against those who would say Christ is insufficient. Or a simpler thing would be the sufficiency of Christ. And I'm mentioning this because as I said we've been so many weeks in the book I don't want us to lose the theme of the book.

Sometimes we end up studying one part so much that we lose the whole and we miss the forest for the trees and we don't want to do that. We want to keep in mind what Paul's major idea here is and the major idea of the book is the sufficiency of Jesus.

Well in today's passage how that fits into the greater whole is that Paul is going to show that Christ is the object of our gospel proclamation. See Christ is sufficient and therefore he is sufficient to be the one to be the one we preach about.

I just sounded really repetitive there. I don't think I said that sentence very well so I apologize. Christ is sufficient for preaching. He is a sufficient subject for preaching. Preachers often think they have to be super creative.

And I love creativity. I love to build things. I love to make things. I love to look at the creativity of others. And I see some of you who are artisans and craftsmen and artists and painters and I see those things and those are wonderful gifts and I'm always impressed by craftsmanship and the ability to do those things.

But when it comes to preaching the Word it's not about being the most creative. It's about being faithful to the text and faithful to what this Word says. And so long as we are faithful to what the Word says God will bless the preaching of His Word.

And it is about Christ. Christ is the object of our preaching. The goal is to proclaim Christ, to warn with the law of Christ, to teach with the wisdom of Christ and to present every man mature in Christ.

That's what we're going to see today. That's what preaching is about. And I love to preach. This is the great joy of my life. I know Andy loves to preach. I know Mike loves to preach. But understand this, preaching is not the end goal.

Preaching is the means. The goal is maturity. May it never be that the goal is that you come see a show. What's Keith going to say this week? What's Andy going to say this week? What's Mike going to say this week?

We've got a show to see and we've got to be there at 10 .30 so we don't miss the show. It's not a show. It's a training moment. It has a goal. It has a purpose. It's not entertainment. It's discipleship.

1 Corinthians 3. Verse 2. Paul says this. Speaking to the Corinthians, he said, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready. The goal is maturity.

But the sad reality is we live in a generation, much like when Paul spoke to the Corinthians, we live in a generation of people who never desire to go beyond the milk. They never desire the meat, the solid food of the Word.

And therefore where churches proclaim the truths of Scripture and preach the truths of Scripture, well, they don't fill buildings. Maybe little ones. But you go in places where the pastor is a comedian or a showman and we have arenas filled.

Why is it? Because there is a general sense in which there is not a great desire for growth. In so many churches, preaching has become nothing more than a self-help story time or a second-rate comedy hour.

And preaching like that will never produce mature disciples. So that leads us to the question, what type of preaching should you expect? Well, as I said, this passage gives us four things that we ought to expect from preaching.

Four things that I say must be based upon this passage. And I'll give you the four things. I don't have them on the screen, but I'll give them to you one at a time. The first is that preaching must be Christ-centered.

Secondly, preaching must not fail to warn about the dangers of sin. Number three, preaching must be instructional. And number four, preaching must be with a goal in mind, and that goal is maturity. So let's look at the first one.

Christ-Centered Proclamation of Jesus

The first one is, preaching must be Christ-centered. Notice what the text says as it begins. It simply says, Him we proclaim. Him we proclaim. And in the King James Version, I actually prefer this way of saying it.

It says, Him we preach. Am I correct? I always look to my brother Mike, who I know is holding the authorized version. And it says, Him we preach. Because the word that is used here, the Greek word, is intending to put across the idea of the proclamation or the preaching of Christ.

It is in the present tense. And it's saying, Him we preach. And it's actually in the imperfect, which is durative and implies progression or ongoing action. Him we continue to preach. Every time we preach, we preach Him.

Every time we come behind the pulpit, He is the subject. And if you want to have a biblical example of that, just read through the book of Acts. Paul didn't go around giving marriage seminars. Now I'm not saying he never addressed the subject of marriage.

He did address the subject of marriage, and we'll talk about that. But Paul preached Christ. Paul didn't go about doing all of the fancy fanatical things that we often do today. Paul preached Christ and Him crucified.

He said, I knew nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified. And that's what it says here. It says, Him we proclaim. That's the ESV says Him in verse 28. Some of you say, Whom we proclaim. And the reason for that is because that particular Greek word there is a pronoun, and the pronoun has an antecedent.

The antecedent comes in the verse right before that when it says that Christ in you the hope of glory is the antecedent. Christ is the antecedent of that pronoun, and the pronoun can either be Him or Whom, because it's referring back to the verse right before it where it talks about Christ.

So Christ becomes the subject of this entire passage, and Christ is the object of what we proclaim. Him we proclaim. I want you to think about this. We did three years in the book of Genesis. Many of you were here for that.

We went all the way from Genesis 1 -1 all the way to Genesis chapter 50, and in those sermons we proclaimed Christ, did we not? Over and over and over again we proclaimed Christ. Now we did not shoehorn in allegories, because that's not the call of the pastor preacher.

But what we did was we showed Christ in shadow and in prophecy, and how, as he says in Luke chapter 24, that beginning with Moses those things were written about him. And so someone says, well, what if you're preaching in the Old Testament?

How do you preach Christ? You still preach Christ. You show how this points to Christ. You show how the overall meta-narrative of Scripture points to Christ. We were talking in our Sunday school class this morning with the young people about how there is one story throughout the Bible, and it's the story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

We tell that story now all the time. Just about every story that's ever been told has told in some way that story. Some kind of a fall, redemption, restoration story. That's the way we tell stories. There's a hero.

There's a villain. It's the way we tell stories. Why? Because it's based on the grand meta-narrative that God has created, and the grand meta-narrative is that there is a hero, and the hero is Jesus.

The hero of the Bible is Jesus, like when Brother Mike preached about David and Goliath. How many stories have you heard people talking about David and Goliath, and they want you to be David, and they say you just need to stand up to your giants, you just need to conquer your enemies, you need to go forward in faith, and all those things are true.

But when it comes down to it, at the end of the day, David is a picture of Christ, because it's Christ who stands between the people of God and the enemy, and conquers the enemy by the power of the Word of God.

You understand? We see Christ throughout the Bible. Christ is the object of what we preach, no matter what we preach. As Charles Spurgeon said this, he said, a sermon without Jesus is like bread without flour.

Now he never knew that gluten-free was going to be a thing. And you all know my wife has a gluten allergy, and she for 12 years has not eaten anything with gluten in it. And I've got to tell you, I've tried it.

Spurgeon was right. A sermon without Jesus is bread without flour, because it is like a shingle. And if you've ever put peanut butter on a shingle, it's still a shingle. Our sermons are pointing to Christ.

I want to read a quote from Graham Goldsworthy, from his book, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics. Now, hermeneutics simply means the method by which we interpret the Bible. That's our hermeneutic. And he says we should interpret the Bible with a gospel-centered hermeneutic.

And this is the way he says. He said, The hermeneutical question about the whole Bible correlates with the question, What do you think of Christ? The hermeneutical center of the Bible is therefore Jesus, in His being and in His saving acts.

The Jesus of the gospel. We can say that while not all scripture is the gospel, all scripture is related to the gospel, that it is its center. The Bible makes a very radical idea inescapable. Not only is the gospel the interpretive norm for the whole Bible, but there is an important sense in which Jesus Christ is the mediator of the meaning of everything that exists.

Hear that again. Jesus Christ is the mediator of the meaning of everything that exists. In other words, the gospel is the hermeneutical norm for the whole of reality. This is why Paul says, Him we preach.

Him we proclaim. Must be. We don't have anything to say but that. Christ must be what we preach. The second thing, our sermons must be Christ-centered. And again, if you're coming to be a member here, if you're joining this church, if you're visiting this church, this is what you should expect.

That your sermons be Christ-centered. Number one. Number two. That your sermons must not fail to warn. That your sermons must not fail to warn. Notice what it says. It says, Him we proclaim. And then it has, the word proclaim is the main verb.

Then it has two participial phrases. One is warning. One is teaching. And then later, it has another phrase, which is another verb, which says, we may present. And all of those are tied to two Greek words, Panta Anthropon, which means every man or every person.

So if you imagine it like this, Paul says, we have to be warning every person, teaching every person, presenting every person mature. So that every person happens three times. Every man, every man, every man.

And so the three things that Paul says, once we are in the midst of proclaiming Christ, this is what we do. And the first thing is warn. And the word warn there is where, some of you may have heard this word, this is kind of a weird word.

But if you've ever heard the word newthetic, the word newthetic. And there used to be a, and there still is, something called newthetic counseling. Newthetic counseling means counseling with the Bible, with the purpose of seeking to confront the person.

Because the word here, the word newthetuntes, actually means the idea of confrontation. It means to warn someone, to admonish someone, to face them, to come and place before them the need for change. In fact I want to read, this is from the Mid-America Institute for Newthetic Studies, Jay Adams, I think was the name in it, Jay Adams.

This is how they define newthetic. He says, Newthetic counseling consists of lovingly confronting people, out of a deep concern, in order to help them to make the changes that God requires. So newthetic counseling is, confrontation, concern, and change.

And that's the idea here. As Paul says, when we preach Christ, there's going to be a confrontation. When we preach Christ, we are going to have to confront sin. And one of the saddest things in the world today, is preaching that is afraid to confront sin.

Sermons must confront sin. If they don't warn about the dangers of sin, and the consequences of rejecting Christ, they may lift the heart, but they will never mature the soul. A sermon that tells all the good, and never confronts with the bad, may make you leave feeling good, but it will not grow you in your faith.

Paul says, warning every man, confronting, exhorting, admonishing, whatever word you want to put there, it can be translated again, admonish, warn, console, exhort, all of this is the idea in this word.

I want to tell you, there is a real temptation, to dilute warnings. Genuine temptation to dilute the warning. Because the one who gives the warning, is often not very popular. The one who confronts, is the one who is avoided.

The one who calls out, is the one who himself is called a radical. And so because of our ever desperate attempt at popularity, because of our ever desperate attempt at trying to make friends and influence people, we tend to diminish and dilute the warning, because of this one attitude, and I'm going to be real honest for a moment, speaking as a man who is in the place of elder here, with our other elders, here's the thing, that I know other pastors feel, and other churches, if you confront them, they will leave.

If we say anything, they'll be offended. If we go to them, they'll be angry. So it's better just not to say anything. You understand why that's a problem? But you understand that's what happens in so many places.

We're so afraid to offend, that we won't preach. I'm not saying we, I mean by God's grace, I'm surrounded by men, who if I didn't preach the word, they would kick me out of the way. And they would do it.

And by God's grace, that's good. And I'm not saying we have a perfect church. We do not. And I'm not here to kick the teeth of every preacher in the surrounding area either. But I am saying this, the problem that exists, and the reason why we don't see revival, the reason why we don't see change, the reason why we don't see the movement of God's hand in the churches, is because we don't want it.

I know of a pastor, very older, a man, very much my senior, and he was sitting right out here one day, this was about 15 years ago, we were having a men's barbecue. We were sitting out here, and he was, been in the ministry 50 something years.

And he was just confiding in me, some of the things that he's faced in his 50 years of being behind the pulpit. And he said, yeah, just the other day, just the other day, he was in a business meeting, and the lady in charge of the meeting, chairman of the whatever, wasn't a church like this.

It was, we don't have that kind of stuff here, but they used to. But the idea of chairman of this, and in charge of that, whatever. So this lady who was in charge, looked at the pastor, looked him dead in the face, and she said, don't you know we pay you to tell us what we want to hear?

Don't you know that's what you're paid to do? Just tell us what we want to hear. Now first of all, imagine, the sheer intestinal fortitude, to say something so stupid. Because you've got to have guts, to say something so wrong, and yet be so confident.

But beloved, she ain't by herself. It's okay if I'm talking about, things that don't pertain to you. But don't you think my email won't blow up, if I say something that steps on your toes? That's the problem.

Who do I have to be afraid to offend? That's right. That's right. That's the point. That's the point. And that's what Paul's saying. My job as a preacher, is to warn every man. Not some of you, but all of you.

And the most important warning is this, if you are continuing in sin, so that grace can abound, if you are continuing to live a life, of unrepentant rebellion against God, you will go to hell. And you need to turn from your sin, and turn to Christ.

And if you call yourself a Christian, and your life is marked by habitual, unrepentant sin, you need to go to the Scriptures, and see if your calling and election are sure. Now we don't want to live like this all the time, worried.

But we do want to be honest. If you leave this place today, and you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, know this, my heart breaks for you. Because if you walk out of this place today, and on your way home, you do not make it home.

You will find yourself in a place, of eternal torment forever. And I give you that warning, because I love you. Like the atheist, who I went to see in the hospital that time, who told me, I never came back to your church, because I came one time, and you talked about hell, and it offended me.

And I said, do you know why I talked about hell? No. I said, because it's real. I'm not warning you about something, that ain't going to happen. I'm warning you about what the Scripture says, happens to those, who reject the Lord Jesus Christ.

How much would you have to hate a person, to know that they were going to go to hell, and refuse, to tell them about Christ. Paul says, we warn. We preach, to warn men. And not just about hell either, because you can be a believer, and still be affected by besetting sin, and you may need some help in other areas as well.

So don't think I'm just talking to the unbelievers. You may need to be warned about your relationship with your wife. You may need to be warned about your relationship with your children. You may need to be warned about your own spiritual disciplines.

You may need to be warned about a bunch of different things. And that's why we don't preach just one sermon over and over. And that's why we preach through books of the Bible, so that we can hit every area.

You know what happens when you only preach topically? You only talk about the topics you want to talk about. You know what happens when you preach through books of the Bible? You end up having to preach on the daughter of Jacob, who got raped, and I had to do a whole week on that.

Because that's where we were. But you get the whole word. So we must warn. Next. We must be instructional. We must be instructional. Not only must we warn, but Paul says, we must be teaching. He says, Him we proclaim, warning every man, and teaching every man, with all wisdom.

John MacArthur, in his commentary on this particular text, says that he sees this as a negative and a positive. He says he sees the warning as the negative, and the teaching as the positive. I'm not certain I agree, but I think that that's a possible way of looking at it.

I do think the warning can be negative. I think an exhortation can have positive and negative. So I'm not sure Nuthantes is only negative. But I get what he's saying if you compare the two, because the idea, one, is confronting or warning about something that we shouldn't be doing, but teaching is instructing in godliness, instructing in what we ought to be doing.

And so I can see that as a balance here, and it could very well be how Paul is balancing out these two ideas. Because teaching adds to what you know about the Word of God. That's what we are doing. Is there a difference between preaching and teaching?

Well, philosophically, practically, there are some distinctions that can be made. Preaching always has a goal in mind. Preaching always has a sermonic thesis. Mike and I have talked about this many times, about what preaching is and distinguishable from teaching.

But preaching should always include teaching. Preaching is not just getting up and telling 50 stories about, you know, different things in life and all this stuff. Preaching should have an instructional component.

It is a sad thing for a person to spend their whole life as a Christian and not grow in their knowledge of God. It is a sad thing. And I've said this before, but some of you may have never heard it. I want to say it again.

If you spent your whole life as a hunter, but you never became a better hunter, there is something wrong. Because if you spent your life caring about being a hunter, you would get better. How is it then that we can spend 5, 10, 20 years under the preaching of the Word, and still not know the Word, and not get better?

That's the point. Paul says we're teaching the Word. Some people say, well, I just don't need to. I don't need that. I don't need to understand the Bible. You do that for me. Oh, no, I don't. That is not the job of the elders here.

We are not here to be your Bible answer man. We are here to shepherd your souls. But as I was teaching on Friday to our homeschool group, I said the job of the elders according to Ephesians is to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

To equip the saints. That's our job is to instruct you and equip you. You are the ministers here. We guide and direct and shepherd and teach, but you are the ones doing the ministry. If it's only the pastors doing the ministry, it won't be enough.

If it's only the deacons doing the ministry, it won't be enough. Those deacons have the responsibility of being shepherd. I'm sorry, no. Of being servant examples. Of being servant examples. They go out front and lead, but they can't do it alone.

We must grow. We must be instructed. We must learn. Somebody says, well, so long as I have God in my heart, it doesn't matter, right? So long as I have God in my heart, what does it care what I know? I don't need to be able to explain the hypostatic union.

Who cares? I don't need to understand how to describe the doctrine of the Trinity. Who cares? Until the Jehovah Witness shows up and you don't know how to answer any of their questions and then you're calling one of us.

Oh, did I just step on your toes? Well, I don't know what to do when the two boys on the ten speed come to my house and want to share another Jesus. I don't know what to do. Is that enough? Did that get you?

Okay. I love what R .C. Sproul said this. He said, the Word of God can be in the mind without being in the heart, but it cannot be in the heart without first being in the mind. Yes, a person can have God up here and not have Him here.

Yes, that's true. The 18 inch gap. There are people who just know, but don't have Christ in their heart. Yes, that's true. But if Christ be in your heart and you don't know Him, then the Christ in your heart probably ain't the real Christ.

We must be instructed. And I'm not saying everyone has to be Andy and Mike or Mike Smith or Mike Ward or Gary. I mean, I could go around the room. We have some very learned men here, and I'm very thankful for that.

Not everybody has to be that. I'm not saying that. But as I said to the men yesterday, we had our men's dads and dudes. What did I say to the men at the very end? I said, 1 Corinthians 14 says this. It says that women are to be quiet in the church, and if they have a question, who are they supposed to ask?

The pastor? No, their husband. What does that verse say about the responsibility of the husband? That he is to know the word. If she is to be able to go to her husband, then her husband ought to know the word.

So the responsibility is on you men to know the word. And we got some fantastic lady scholars here too. And they ask some hard questions. And that's good. But you understand, we do need to learn the word.

We need to be instructed. And it starts here. It starts with the preaching of the word of God. As it says, as goes the pulpit, so goes the church. So it begins with warning and instructing. And finally, thirdly, well, fourthly, it must be Christ-centered.

It must not fail to warn. It must be instructional. And finally, it must have the proper goal in mind. Notice what it says. That we may present every one mature. We have in this what's called the henna clause.

And that basically means a clause of in order that. And that's actually what we need to consider. Is that the warning and the teaching are done in order that every man might be presented, every person might be presented mature in Christ.

Now sometimes this is translated perfect. Some Bibles will, this word, teleon is the word. And sometimes it is translated perfect. Like when in Matthew chapter 5 verse 48, it says be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.

That's the same word here. The word for perfect. And some people then take an eschatological approach to this passage. Meaning that they see Paul as saying that the goal of preaching is that at the end of time, every man will be in Christ.

And therefore every man will be perfect in Christ. And that's the goal. Well I think that's a possible understanding of what he's saying. But I don't think that's the actual intention of it. Because I think this has a practical use.

And in that sense it would not be the idea of eschatological perfection. But rather Christian maturity would be what is. And that's why the ESV does translate it mature. And I want to show you another passage to show you why I think that.

Remember how I said that Ephesians is a sister book to Colossians. And much of what Paul says in Ephesians, he says in Colossians in a slightly different way. Well I want to show you how Paul says this in Ephesians to show you the comparison.

And show you what I mean. Go over to Ephesians chapter 4. And go to verse 11. This is the passage I was saying that I used for the kids on Friday. But we only looked at verse 11. Today we're going to look at the verses that follow it.

And I want to show you Paul's argument here. So Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11. Speaking of God he says,. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.

God gave the church men. What's interesting is we don't plan where the confession lands. But isn't that exactly what the confession this morning says? That God has risen up certain men within the church for the purpose of leading and overseeing and teaching.

That's what God did. Well that's what Paul says God did. He says he did that to equip the saints. That's you. For the work of ministry. For the building up of the body of Christ. Notice what he says in verse 13.

Until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

Rather speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Guys we are a body and we are a maturing body and we mature by the preaching of the word. That's Paul's point. That God has given men to preach the word so that the body doesn't remain a baby body but that the body begin to grow muscles and begin to get some definition and strength and maturity and over time we see that we have reached mature manhood and we are no longer feeding off the milk but we are now eating the solid food of the word of God.

That's Paul's analogy here. That's what the goal must be. Practical maturity by sanctification through the preaching of the word. That's what preaching is and that's what you should expect. You should expect that your sermons focus on Christ.

You should expect that your sermons confront your sin. You should expect that your sermons teach you the word and you should expect that through that God will grow you in this most holy faith. Now I draw to a close.

I want you to notice one more thing in Colossians if you'll jump back there. In Colossians chapter 1 verse 28 it begins with the pronoun which relates to Christ. We talked about that earlier. Him we proclaim and it ends with the word Christo which is the word for Christ.

So we have in this passage beginning and ending with Christ. In Him we proclaim for what purpose that we might be mature in Him. If it is the purpose of the preaching to proclaim Christ, warn and teach and seek to mature, I ask you this and this is the confrontation of today.