Jesus + Nothing Part 1 – “Staying Centred on What’s Central”
Jesus + Nothing
Week One: Staying Centred on what’s Central – Colossians 1:15-23
Opening Questions:
1. What was the weirdest/most difficult job you’ve had. What was hard? What made it worth it?
2. Have you ever had to reconcile with someone? What was the circumstance, and how did you both make it through the rough time?
Good to Know:
This text is one of the clearest of Paul’s doctrine of Jesus in the Bible. Paul was responding to reports that the church was mixed up with teachings that Jesus was not God. Paul asserts that Jesus is fully Divine, and that He was not only involved in Creation, but also sustaining all things.
Paul then states that these things are not only BY Christ, but FOR Him. He is not only a tool of Creation, but the reason for it. Paul then writes a poem on the hope of the Gospel for reconciling us to God, through our faith. It is for this hope that Paul declares himself a “servant.”
Questions from the Text:
1. What does it mean that all things were created by Christ? For Christ?
That all things hold together in Christ?
2. How much of God dwells in Jesus? (vs. 19) This can be a very difficult concept for people to understand. How would you try to explain to someone that Jesus is fully God?
3. How are all things reconciled to God? (vs. 20)
4. What does it mean to be alienated from God? To be an enemy of God? (vs. 21)
5. According to verse 22, how are we viewed by God, through Jesus?
6. Verse 23a says to continue in our faith of the hope of the Gospel. What is the hope of the Gospel? What work did that require from you?
Who already did this work for you? So you being presented to God as holy and blameless rests only on the actions of whom?
7. In verse 23b Paul says he has become a servant/minister of the Gospel. What does it mean to be a servant/minister? What does this mean about Paul’s commitment/duties for the Gospel?
Life Application Questions:
1. The Colossians had a problem with remembering the deity of Jesus. Is there anywhere in your own life where you have been treating your relationship with Jesus as purely a human one, rather than as a relationship with the God of the Universe? How could it change your life if you remembered that He is fully God?
2. What does it mean to be a servant/minister of the Gospel for us now? How have you seen others doing this well? How would you like to grow in this? Name one way you will do that this week.
Memory Verse:
For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. Colossians 1:19-20
