Sunday Morning Service

Colossians 2

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“Steps To Safety In Christ” • 5.4.14 • Calvary Christian Fellowship, Sunday Morning Service

Intro.

- In chapter 1, the Apostle Paul moved the Colossians to correctly understand the nature of what they possessed in Jesus Christ.

- A simple cursory glance back reminds us that Jesus is the Lord, Redeemer, the Image of God, the Firstborn of Creation and of the Dead, the Head of the Body and God's sole Peacemaker.

- What more could anyone want or need? The church and her people have a direct relationship with God, through Christ, by the enduring work of the Holy Spirit.

- And yet, the world is full of Sub-Christian groups divorced from Orthodoxy claiming deeper truth and greater satisfaction. How is it possible?

- Chapter 2 is a sturdy defense and a ready witness against such false thinking. 

Text

• Colossians 2:1-3 : "For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." : Paul finished the last chapter speaking about his stewardship of God's Word, and the agonizing and striving in the strength of God's might that his call required.

- He struggled, wrestled and contended in prayer for the Colossian and Laodicean churches and for all the churches that he had been unable to visit.

- He wanted to communicate these things to them face to face, to be sure that they understood. What did he desire for them? Great growth? Big numbers? No.

- That their hearts would be encouraged or comforted. When do people need to be comforted or encouraged? When they are discouraged.

- Persecution from the Roman Empire was ramping up outside of the church while false prophets were rising up within the church offering falsely a deeper truth than they had!

- To continually hold the line when that is the case is difficult. Paul prayed that these saints would be encouraged and their spirit's would be lifted and that their love would grow.

- Lord, let them be knit together, joined together in love. Strengthen that bond. Let them love one another and grow in their love for the Lord! What a great prayer for our church as well!

- The final part of Paul's prayer involved their continued growth in the Lord. These phrases in verses 2 and 3 are difficult to comprehend in the NKJV.

• Colossians 2:2,3 (NLT)  : "I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself. In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."

- The Gnostics or those with a Gnostic type faith, were offering a mystery that was derailing the confidence of the Colossians in the Gospel. Paul prayed for their confidence to return.

- He saw that they wanted all the storehouse of wisdom and knowledge that the Gnostics were offering, but there was plenty hidden in Christ for them to find!

- Ultimately, his prayer was that they would be satisfied with the depth of the knowledge and wisdom that are found only in the Lord. What a great defense!

- When you are in a relationship and your needs are being met, there is never a need to look elsewhere. That's what Paul wishes he could communicate in person.

• Colossians 2:4 : "Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words." : Wait, someone might try to deceive me? Absolutely!

- The word "deceive" refers to adding things up in a false way using enticing, specious, "superficially plausible" words that were purposely misleading.

- The people who were "deceiving" them were not contradicting established truth. They were offering a "truth" that was additional to the truth that they had!

- The enticement is tempting to such a degree that you want it to be true! It sounds good and seems right, but there is a check in your spirit.

• Colossians 2:5-7 :  "For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." Paul was able to "see" them through the report that Epaphras brought to them.

- He saw their good order, a term referring elsewhere to military arrangement.

- Today, in our post modern society, order and authority are looked at suspiciously, but Paul calls is good. It's a deterrent to ills that can hamper the whole. It's a great defense against the enemy.

- Their good order and their steadfastness, which follows the metaphor, presents a picture of a solid frontline of soldiers, standing arm and arm in the faith in Christ.

- Imagine trying to sell something false to an entire group of armed soldiers? The enemy is not that dumb and neither are his servants!

- This is why true Christian fellowship is so important. It's very difficult to be duped when Christians of varying experience care for one another!

- A group of people united in Christ cannot easily be taken! That's why they seek out those on the fringe. Two biblical examples come to mind and I offer them for your perusal later today.

- When the people of God first came out of Egypt, they were attacked by a people known as the Amalekites, who went after the old and tired stragglers in the back of the field. (Deut. 25:17,18)

- More recently to our minds is the teaching concerning Reuben, Gad and Manasseh, who settled just outside of Israel and were the first to be taken captive by Babylon! (I Chronicles 5)

- Sheep who stray are sheep who are prey! Unity, order and being in step with one another provides a natural defense against error.

- If anything, fall back on what you know to be authentic. They had received the Lord. They had acknowledged His claim and took Him at His Word.

- Now, Paul commands them to walk in, continue to follow Him. Just keep doing what you have always done! You came to Him in simplicity. Keep walking forward in that same simplicity!

- That is the standing order of the people of God. Keep walking forward in Jesus! Is that a command in your ears? It should be!

- Keep on walking rooted in, built upon and firm in the faith! There is resolution here. I want to be fixed in my faith, but I also want that faith to be built upon.

- My faith is built upon when I agree with God's scripture, when I take it's positions and make them my positions, when I add experience to my theory.

- But then, I want it to be a firm passionate conviction that nobody can take from me, not because I am a witless robot, but because I have done all my due diligence.

- I will have answered the skeptics objections and followed their logical conclusions.

- This was how they had been taught, having received the gospel with thanksgiving! Never forget what got you here! It's been enough to get you this far and it will be enough to get you home!

• Colossians 2:8-10 : "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power." : Beware. Be on the lookout. Be sure of your next step spiritually because this is not a walk in the park, this is a minefield!

- Be careful because there are those that look at you as if you were treasure to be looted. The word "cheat" has the sense of one who has robbed and is now carrying away a captive.

- How were they trying to take the Colossians captive? Through philosophy and empty deceit. The philosophy in question will become clear as we continue our study.

- But the words, "empty deceit," refer to a vain sensual experience substituted for a spiritual experience with the Lord. These are worldly traditions, not godly ambitions!

- The word "for" seems to explain some of the philosophy that was being used. "You can experience a part of God by giving into your bodies desires."

- Religious philosophies always predicate themselves on something that is missing with what we already have. But Paul assures them again that there is nothing outside of Jesus!

- He is God and you Christian, are complete, fully supplied in Him, the Lord of all! There isn't an ounce of value in any other office and certainly not in any other offer!

• Colossians 2:11-15 : "In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it." : Paul turns his attention now to religious deception, which continued in spite of an authoritative letter from Jerusalem to the contrary.

- In Jesus, you and I were circumcised. We received the rite of entry into the fraternity of God's people, but not with an outward marking. It was done inwardly, without human hands.

- Paul tells the Colossians that they were entered into His body, united with Him in baptism, being symbolic of His death and were raised with Him through faith in the working of God.

- We are united to Christ in such a way that the reward due His actions are accounted to us! When He died, we died and when He rose by the power of God, we rose into newness of life!

- You are entered into that perpetual, eternally satisfying work of Christ by faith, trust, belief in Him! Those outside of the faith are now what you used to be!

- Paul tells them that they had been dead in their trespasses, unresponsive to God because of their sin and uncircumcised, excluded from any covenant relationship with the Lord.

- He has made you alive together with Him. You who have believed upon Christ have been regenerated, united with Christ!

- All of those transgressions that once separated you from the Holy One have been forgiven, sent away from you permanently!

- How permanent? He has wiped off, blotted out, covered over with plaster, the decrees that were against you and I! Those laws existed not to conform us but to condemn us!

- He canceled what was once held against us by nailing it to His own cross once and for all! It's out of the way! The curse of the law was nailed to the cross when Jesus became accursed for us!

- When He died, the law lost all it's teeth to condemn those in Him. Jesus disarmed, stripped all rulership that would raise an accusation against His people.

- He made a spectacle, an example of them and celebrated over them! The word denotes a parade that occurred over a conquered foe!

- Paul's point through that entire section is that God has won the battle against our sin. There is no foe that has been able to stand! He has won decisively!

• Colossians 2:16-19 : "So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God." : Listen to those words and embrace them fully: So let no one judge you!

- "So" points us back to the natural consequence of the finished work of Jesus Christ. His thorough destruction of all that could be held us against us puts us in an untouchable category!

- Don't let anyone condemn you in what you eat or drink. Remember that the people who were still attempting to win Gentiles to Judaism sought to do so by pushing dietary regulations.

- The same was true regarding the religious calendar of the Jews, either in terms of the feast calendar, the new moons or the Sabbath regulations, which were specifically for the people of Israel.

- As an aside, for those of you with friends who are Seventh-Day Adventists. Of all the 10 Commandments, all except for the Sabbath are repeated in the New Testament.

- There is no Sabbath regulation for Christians! You cannot find it in the New Testament. They do not have a scriptural leg to stand on in proposing that.

- Why are we as Christians not to be judged or condemned by our non conformity to such things? Because they are a shadow of things to come!

- A shadow points to a reality behind it. The shadow itself has no substance. The substance of the Old Testament pictures and types is Christ!

- Literally, it's the body, the physical body of Christ which is behind the shadow that is cast!

- I heard a great illustration of this this week. I carry a picture of my wife in my wallet. It's her University ID card and it's roughly 18 years old.

- Worshipping on the Sabbath, honoring the feast calendar or any other Old Testament regulation is akin to having my wife presently, but only wanting to hang out with her picture!

- Let no one judge you and let no one cheat you! This is a fascinating word and concept.

- The word speaks of an umpire standing over your accomplishment, deciding whether or not you can keep your reward! That's exactly what legalists love to do.

- They love to stand there with their Bibles marked on their favorite verses, standing over you, ready to pronounce you saved only if you abdicate to their out of context verses.

- Don't let anyone cheat you of your reward! How do they do this? First, by taking delight in false humility. The NLT renders it "insisting on pious self denial."

- "Look at how much I love the Lord by giving up these particular things." "Look at how much I fast, how little makeup I wear, how many services I attend even though I'd rather be elsewhere!"

- It's all external based activity usually divorced from any heart activity! Perhaps it's not so earthly. The Gnostics believed that they could not receive from God Himself, but from His Angels.

- Paul tells us that such a person is intruding into what he has not seen! The word speaks of a nosy investigative reporter, snooping around where he has no business!

- Their so-called knowledge, which is actually empty or vain, has caused them to move away from their Head, Jesus, who nourishes and keeps the body healthy.

- Let me just ask: How healthy are you going to be if you moved your body away from your Head? Yeah, not so much!

- Those who believe that they are more sincere, more religious, more devout or more deep than another are exactly the ones who the most malnourished and unbalanced spiritually!

• Colossians 2:20-23 : "Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—'Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,' which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh." : Since you died with Christ from the rudiments, the basics of the world, why do you subject yourselves to regulations?

- Good question Paul! Since you are fully saved, why would you now act in a way that betrays a sense of needing to be saved!? Jesus said it was finished, not "Go finish it!"

- It's interesting. Those who subject themselves to law keeping legalism often do so because they believe that they've reached "Super Christianity."

- Paul says the exact opposite! You're going back to basics! In Galatians, Paul equates going back under the law as one who is going back to their childhood tutor!

- Food and touching things. You use them once and they are no longer useful. The ordinance, the law is corroding.

- Each time you practice such an ordinance you are actually experiencing a diminishing return! Why? Because they are according to men! Men came up with religion, not God!

- Traditions, dogmas, rituals all have their roots in man made religion! They have an appearance of wisdom in worship that is self prescribed.

- I love the way the NLT renders this verse: "These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires."

` - What does Jesus offer? Freedom, love, and the power to walk with Him! We freely surrender ourselves to His Holy Spirit, reckoning ourselves to be dead and the sin nature abates.

- It no longer dominates the believer! In a very real way, it only rules as much as we allow it to! Self-made, self-proposed religion does nothing against that!

Conclusion

- As we close, there are those who are trying to deceive you, cheat you and judge you! Remember these words: "You are complete in Christ!"

- If you would stay the course, pray that you would grow in love with God and His body. Find yourself often in their strong company. Invest in your faith. Grow in it.

- Continue to walk with Jesus in the same way that you received Him, thankful that He has saved you and is saving you! Such a person will always be safe in Christ!