Is there somewhere in that chain where a link is broken and if so what will it look like to put it right so that you can play your part in building up the church, helping others see Jesus? Paul shows them one way of doing that is through what they sing.  Paul calls the Colossians to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  That’s not Psalms, old hymns from a couple of hundred years ago and new songs written in the last few years.

Paul makes the content clear in (16)“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.”

We’re not left to admonish people with our wisdom, that would be terrible wouldn’t it, because we don’t have an awful lot of wisdom of our own!  But we admonish and teach one another the message of Christ.  That’s not just the gospels, but everything Jesus taught and everything about him.

Think of the Road to Emmaus as he began with Moses and the prophets and explained to those two disciples what was said in all the scriptures about himself.  Or what he taught his disciples post resurrection as he opened their mind to understand the scriptures and what they taught about him.

The content of admonishing and teaching, of our warning and instruction of one another is Christ’s words, or the message about Jesus that we find in all the bible.  And the goal is that the message of Christ, the good news of a kingdom come and entry into it by faith in him dwells among the church richly.  Think of a chocolate cake.  This isn’t just any chocolate cake, but it’s a luxurious, rich chocolate cake.  Full of chocolately goodness, saturated with it in every molecule of cake.  That’s the goal of this teaching and admonishing, to fill the church with the message of Christ, to saturate the church with it so that it positively drips with the message of Christ.

We aren’t sharing our wisdom, our thoughts, we’re sharing Jesus.  We’re instructing with Jesus words and message.  We’re warning as Jesus warned, comforting as Jesus comforted, instructing as Jesus instructed.

But how are we to do it?  There are two main ways.  Paul and Timothy are an example of it in (1v28)“[Christ] is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.”  Those who teach in church must be proclaiming Christ, admonishing and teaching with his wisdom, leading us to maturity as they warn, instruct and show us Jesus and all his has done for us so that it permeates every part of church life together.

And we as a church we must do that too.  As we are taught the message of Christ, as it dwells within us, we must pass it on.  Teaching and admonishing one another so that Christ’s message dwells richly among us.  We do that as we hear Christ’s words, handle them rightly, heed Christ’s words and are changed by them, hide his word in our hearts and don’t keep it to ourselves but hold it out to others.

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