Good morning everyone…its so great to see you all here this morning where hopefully faith comes to life! Kids, right now you get to go on a new and exciting adventure in your amazing children's classes. On your way out this morning be sure you give a big smile to everyone you pass byAnd for those of you joining us online, we're thrilled you're with us – welcome as a part of our extended Spiritual family today.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been in a series called Watch out for Wolves as we have been looking at the idea of wolves in sheep’s clothing. In other words we have been looking at what it looks like to have people pretend to teach the Gospel, but actually have other motives in their teaching. Well, like I said before, this is not a new thing that has just started happening…this is something that has been happening for generations, al the way back to the beginning when Satan deceived Eve in the garden. We have seen how we are to be on guard and be aware of the danger of false teaching that will creep up all around us…many times from within the church.

We have also talked about the various influences of the world around us and the influence of people who claim to be teaching the Gospel, or some version of the Gospel. There is a guy by the name of Jesse Duplantis who would be of the genre of false teachers that teach the prosperity gospel…or health and wealth. In other words, if you have enough faith you will be healthy or you will be wealthy. Well, in a somewhat recent viral video there is Jesse Duplantis speaking in his church and says that one day his daughter asked him why she has never seen him sick. She is 40 years old. He told her, “I tried that once, didn’t like it. Tried being poor too, didn’t like it” Then Jesse goes on to talk about his house and how he has the biggest house of any preacher in America, and the biggest hose in the state of Louisiana. He even has a special name for his house. He says that his house is 40,000 sq feet. He brags about how he has chandeliers in his house worth more than most peoples homes…Jesse teaches that all of this was a gift from God because God wants him to be rich. And, of course if you just follow him, God will want you to be rich also. If you are in debt then you need to buy his DVD that will teach you how to have enough faith so you can be rich too…and well, if you are not rich, then you simply don’t have enough faith...

See, Jesse is obviously a false teacher, although his church has thousands of people who attend, and they do some good in the community. You see, Jesse has to continue to do certain things in order to not be as obvious as some other false teachers who are out there. So the church, Covenant church, which is housed on the Jesse Duplantis Ministries website, showing that Jesse is the main focus on both the church and all other ministries that they are involved in. Jesse owns a lavish plane, actually I think a couple of planes, and he continues to brag about how rich he is because that is how you can see his faith which is what gives him the right to tell you and preach to you about your faith, or lack there of. I tell you about Jesse, because some false teachers are more obvious than others, at least for many people. However, there are those that will fall into the trap of this very false teaching.

So, this morning I want to talk about how to protect against falling into the traps of false teachers. We are going to do that by being

Rooted in God’s Word: protection against false teaching

That is a long and complicated title for this message isn’t it…but that is the reality of what we need to look at. How can you or I protect ourselves from false teaching? How can we be so prepared so that we don’t fall into any traps that seem obvious, but millions of people are falling into, so maybe I shouldn’t be so arrogant about myself…right? The reality is that we are all one bad decision away from listening to a false teacher....and that is what we are going to talk about today. Now, Im sure you all remember the story about how a treasury agent trains to spot counterfeit money, just in case, let me remind you. A treasury agent doesn’t study counterfeit money to learn how to spot these bills, there are to many and they are constantly changing. No, these agents spends 100’s of hours studying real money so that they know it so well that they can spot counterfeit across the room. You and I would fall for it, and likely have at some point in our lives, but a treasury agent will never fall for a counterfeit bill…because they study and know the real deal…That my friend is how we are to spot false teaching. We should each be so familiar with the truth of Scripture that when I or anyone else says something false you just feel it in your gut…because you know the truth! Let’s take a look at our passage today and see what we can learn this morning. Now you are gonna need your Bible so that you can follow along in Scripture for yourself. If you don’t have one of your own, then grab one from the back table and take that home with you. If you forgot yours then grab one from the chair in front of you and use that, and if you use your phone, then just open up that app and take a look at

Colossians 2:6–8 (ESV)

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Let’s pray

Now in this passage are able to see a few things that will help us to really protect ourselves. First of all , let me tell you about this passage a little. Paul, who has dedicated his life to sharing the Gospel of Jesus, cared about the Christians in Colossae. Paul cared so much that when he saw that there was a dangerous false teaching invading the church there, he wrote this letter to attempt to encourage and protect those Christians. You see, False teachers were tricking people into moving away from their Christian roots and to accept other religious ideas. So, Paul wrote this while he was in jail because this was an important matter that could not wait until he was released.

Now that we understand the context a little, let’s see what we can learn from this small section. Well, we see that we are...

Called to Walk in Him: (Col. 2:6)

You see, those of you who were called to the Lord, meaning you have surrendered your life to Jesus, you Paul is calling you to live in the way you surrendered. Plainly said, never allow any philosophical system, whether good or bad, to replace your relationship with Christ. That is what Paul is telling the church at Colossae, and frankly, that is what Paul is telling us today as well. Basically, let me put it this way…Do you remember the moment of your salvation? Do you remember when you actually gave your life to Christ, meaning surrendered to his Lordship? First of all, if you don’t remember that…please reach out and let’s have a pretty important conversation! Now, remember that time when you gave your heart to Jesus…remember what you were experiencing, what you were feeling, what you were committing to....Now live like all that is still true!

Remember the truth that you believed back when you first commited to Christ. Remember the the basics of the Gospel that you held so dear…Do you still hold those things to be true…or have you lost yourself to society and the culture you live in? Paul is calling us to live according to the Gospel that we received from Scripture. Church…we’re not always doing that are we? I believe we want to…So, this morning let me encourage you to revisit the Gospel that you surrendered to. Start every day with the Lord and end every day with the Lord. The way to do that is as simple as praying that God will guide you and committing to whatever God has for you today. Its as easy as saying, “God, today is yours and i trust whatever you have planned. Please teach me your truths.” Then ending your day with something like, “Lord, thank you for such a wonderful (or maybe hard) day today. I trust that you were working in m life even if I didn’t see it every minute. Lord thank you for your forgiveness when I fell short of your glory, please continue to teach me your ways everyday.” Of course that is added to time where you are actively reading, or listening to the Word of God. That is the single most important step you can take in order to grow deeper in your relationship with the Lord and walk in step with Him.

There is a bit more though because as we continue reading we see that Paul actually teaching that we are to

Continue our lives in Him: (Col 2:7)

It’s basically the same thing that we just talked about, but Paul is adding a little more to it here. You see, Paul uses three separate metaphors in order to speak to the church in Colossae. He uses, rooted, built up, and established in the faith. These are all phrases of things that have happened, or are happening now. Paul is reminding the Christians in Colossae who they are. Essentially Paul is telling the Christians that their foundation is in the Lord and he is reminding them that this foundation needs to be built on, not chipped away.

So, my question is…what does it mean to have a strong spiritual foundation and…is it possible to build on your foundation? This is what Paul wants to remind those reading this letter…including you and me. You see, these letters that Paul wrote to various churches in the first century but God, in his wisdom and sovereignty has kept them for you and I meaning we need to read these letters humbly to learn and grow ourselves. The biggest question you and i might have while reading this passage is, How do I strengthen my foundation? There are a few things I want to encourage you with here. 1. Daily Bible study and meditation. Now, when i say meditation, I don’t mean sitting there and contemplating the meaning of life or some other progressive thoughts…I mean reflecting on what you have read and how it impacts, or should impact your life. 2. Consistent prayer and fellowship with beleivers. Yeah…I said consistent. I know, there are some who will only want to pray when things are hard or only want to go to church a couple times a year…That is not consistent is it? Listen, when you have a kid there are some things you have to do consistently, aren’t there? You have to feed…and you have to change your child. If you do not feed your child, your child will not survive the week…If you do not change your child’s diaper, then your child will have a severely foul smell and will become ill and eventually not survive. You don’t want that, and so you consistently feed and change your baby…the same is true with prayer and fellowship with other believers. Listen, you will not spiritually survive without prayer, communication with the father. And, if you stop fellowshipping with other beleivers, for example, attending church, then there will be a foul smell (attitude) and you will become infected by the culture you live in and have a hard time surviving spiritually. 3. Actively serving with the body. There are ministries that are waiting for you to join in. There are outreach opportunities that would benefit by your participation. Specifically, let me tell you about this years Trunk or Treat coming up next month (brief explanation). We are going to be collecting candy to help everyone’s trunk and we need to have people sign up to host a trunk, or maybe even host a small game or whatever you can do… Being a part of that event is an example of actively serving with the body. Here is the deal though…You have to make a choice to prioritize and invest in your spiritual foundation if you are going to be ready for what is coming at you full force...

Now there is another verse here that tells us a little about what is coming at us…We need to

Guard against Deception: (Col. 2:8)

You have to be prepared to guard against the deception that is coming after you. Satan uses deception to convince you that various levels of sin are actually ok. Satan also uses the culture that we live in to deceive us daily. Listen, we see it by the recent passing of legislation in Illinois preventing schools from banning pornographic books in the school libraries. That is the culture telling us that sin is ok…That is our children being raised in a culture that says sexual self-expression is normal and good…That is deception. These are the types of things that we must guard against. You see, you and I have to acknowledge that there are in fact philosophies in this world that are unbiblical and that are leading even Christians away from the Gospel. For instance, there has been an attack on the nuclear family for the last 50 years…Most recently it has been claimed that the nuclear family, meaning a husband and wife or a father and mother with children is a symbol of white supremacy. This has been claimed because Satan uses deception to convince you that sin is ok. We know that children in single parent households are more likely to experience psychiatric illnesses, alcohol abuse, and suicide than those in two parent households. This is because Satan uses deception to convince those children that they are less important than others.

Then of course we have the idea of materialism. Yeah, we want more of everything that we see. Listen, we all fall into this one if we are honest…our entire online existence is paid for by ads isn’t it. I mean, we talk about something and then we see adds for that thing on our phone so that we will hurry up and buy it. We see in our social media that every other post almost is some sort of paid advertisement to consume more and more. Materialism is all over everything we do and see. Still there’s more…We also see in our culture that the idea of relativism has snuck in really well. Satan is great at marketing… We have people all speaking their truths, but the problem is that your truth and my truth can’t both be true, can they? There has to be some absolute truth…something to give us a standard, but our culture says that all that matters is that you live your truth…do whats right in your own eyes…seems like I remember reading that in the Old Testament.

Judges 21:25 (ESV)

In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

I mean, I image they experienced exactly what we are experiencing today in the US…well really all over the world. We have removed God as king and so we will do what is right in our own eyes…Satan is convincing.

This is what we must guard ourselves against though. However, how can we guard ourselves if we aren’t even actively building onto our spiritual foundation? We can’t can we? How can we see false teaching if we are not studying the truth? We can’t, can we? You see, here is what happens when we do not build our spiritual foundation and we are deceived by some false teaching…1. You will stray from the Gospel that we know is true…2. You will lose the Joy of the Lord you once experienced. 3. You will feel spiritually empty or trapped by all life’s worries and stress. You see, when you have not prepared to guard yourself from false teachings it is so easy to follow something other than the truth…however slow that fall will be.

Listen, there is a man I know who at one time was a solid Biblical teacher. This man can write and bring things out of Scripture that will really make alot of sense. However, something happened to this man. He confessed one day that they only time he ever read Scripture, was for his job. Oh yeah, he was a pastor. So he confessed that they only time he read Scripture was when he was preparing a sermon. He wanted to be a great public speaker, and he could speak very well to gather the attention of many people. However, he was not reading the Bible. This man had been to seminary, that’s grad school for those in ministry, but he was not reading Scripture for himself, except when he was preparing a sermon. This man was hungry to learn from others who were more successful than he was…but he wasn’t hungry to read Scripture. Let me tell you where this man is now. The church that he planted is struggling to survive. He has bailed and is no longer active in ministry, and when he does write or talk to others, he is filled with this sort of “cultural Christianity” that has far more in common with the culture than with historic Christianity.

You see, if you are not actively guarding yourself…it is only a matter of time before You will be taken captive by philosophy and empty deceit...

So if you are here this morning I want to encourage you right now, forget about what happened yesterday…forget about what happened last year. Make a decision today to start building or maybe rebuilding your spiritual foundations so that you will not be taken captive by someone or something teaching unbiblical ideas. Make a commitment today to go back to your original level of commitment and what that means in your life. Make a commitment to daily reading, consistent prayer and active participation in the body. Don’t let your age or your job keep you from what you know you need to be doing. Don’t let cultural teaching or passivity keep you from guarding yourself and your family.

As we close out I want to make sure everyone here knows that there are options for you to grow in your faith. There are ways for you to strengthen your foundation, and there are opportunities for you to guard against deception…however, all of that starts with your commitment to the Lord. This morning let me challenge you to reset that commitment. Maybe you are here and you would say that you have never made a commitment to the Lord to begin with, but you are ready today. Maybe you are here and you would say that you have made a million commitments to the Lord and you keep falling short, but you want to continue striving to be more like him. Maybe you’re here and something else describes your perspective…whatever it is, please make that commitment to the Lord and immediately begin to build that foundation that can withstand the onslaught of deception that is coming your way. Whatever that commitment please reach out and let me know what commitment you made so that I can pray for you specifically this week.

Let’s pray

Brief talk about the vote on the name change of church