Colossians: Christ Alone, Week 3

Christ is the Answer

Good morning, Harmony!

This past week has been an amazing week! The Missouri Baptist Convention was Monday and Tuesday, and we’re making some new connections every time that we go and spend that time with some like-minded folks that are keen on seeing Missouri and our country and all nations hear the gospel.

And I know most of you all are probably not excited about the weather, but I am glad that it has changed to be my kind of weather, but at the same time I am actually kind of bummed. I’m bummed because I don’t get to stay here and enjoy it with you all this week. Today, right after church, I have to go get on a plane to go to San Diego for a week of training for my job on post. So, don’t worry, I’ll be miserable this week too.

The past couple of weeks we’ve been in Colossians in this series titled Christ alone. We’ve kind of seen how Paul wrote this letter to the faithful believers in Colossae to firmly root them in the gospel, and Paul has demonstrated how Christ alone is all that is required for the gospel. He’s addressing the heresy that was present in a group of people that were taking away from the deity of Christ, adding extra special knowledge to the gospel, and working to incorporate the Old Testament Law, the Old Testament Covenant if you will, into the New Covenant or the New Testament Church.

And today we are going to look at chapter two of Colossians, and we are going to see that:

Main Point: Christ is the powerful answer both to erroneous philosophy and empty ritual.

Christ is the answer to everything.

Today we are going to examine the Sunday School answer that everyone loves, we are going to see and understand that Christ is the answer of God for every question.

Beginning in verse one of chapter two:

Colossians 2:1–23 CSB

1 For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person. 2 I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery—Christ. 3 In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable. 5 For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ. 6 So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, 7 being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude. 8 Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ. 9 For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ, 10 and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority. 11 You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, 12 when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. 14 He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him. 16 Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is Christ. 18 Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind. 19 They don’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with growth from God. 20 If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: 21 “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”? 22 All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines. 23 Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.

Prayer.

Again, today we are going to look at how Christ answers what it is that we as people often consider as we grow older and as we seek to know more about life and purpose for ourselves.

And here in Colossians chapter two, Paul is going to give some answers and some reasons for the believers in Christ to get a firm grip on the gospel and understand what Christ did and how that impacts all of the other areas of our lives.

And so, what we are going to look at today is how Paul demonstrates that Christ is the answer to what people seek in five ways.

And so, the first answer that Paul demonstrates is that:

1. Christ is the answer to MATURITY, vv. 1-7.

Christ is the answer to maturity. Paul starts out with his struggle for them in verse 1, but then in verse 2 Paul says, “I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery - Christ.”

Verse 4 Paul says, “so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.”

Verses 6 and 7 “just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him…just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.”

Paul says I want you to be mature in Christ, because in Christ you are matured through all the riches of complete understanding that comes from Christ - continue to walk in Him just as Epaphras, our faithful brother from chapter one, has taught you.

If you want to know what maturity is, Paul says, then look to Christ.

Why is this important?

Because all too often we will look somewhere else to find out how to become mature people. We’ll look at what we think are mature relationships, or mature television shows, or we’ll look at these images or these how-to books or all kinds of other places, the internet is full of them, that will demonstrate how to be mature adults or mature teenagers or mature people.

Today more than ever before people are seeing therapists and psychologists or reading books on how to function in society because they don’t know the answer to how to mature.

And the biggest problem is not the doctors or the therapists, the biggest problem is that that form of maturity that is being sold by television and by those relationships is based on a flawed, confused, broken society that cannot answer that question.

Stop trying to follow or listen to what Paul calls arguments that sound reasonable and start looking to Christ for what it really means to mature in Christ.

If what you are chasing is societal norms or societal maturity, that is a changing landscape that will never give you a true answer to what maturity looks like. Society is always changing, but we serve a never changing God. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday as He is today, and He will be the same for all eternity.

If you’re looking for maturity, spend some time with Christ every day, getting into His Word and praying and gathering with like-minded saints to grow and mature in Christ.

In verses 8 through 10 Paul continues and shows us that:

2. Christ is the answer to PHILOSOPHY, vv. 8-10.

Christ is the answer to philosophy.

Now what I used to think of philosophy was those nutcases that asked those deep philosophical questions like “is the chair really there” and stuff like that.

So, when I had to take philosophy for my undergraduate studies, that was the sort of thing that I was expecting.

That isn’t what philosophy truly is though. Philosophy is the study of knowledge. So, when Paul says in verse 8 for us to be careful that no one takes us captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition or elements of this world, Paul is saying make sure that the knowledge that you attain is true knowledge, not just things that sound good.

Again, Paul has heard that there’s a group in Colossae that is trying to remove the deity from Christ, and they’re using a philosophy or a human study of knowledge that sounds plausible, because how could a man be both God and man - these people are attempting to use a rational that doesn’t match the gospel accounts for who Jesus says He is nor who God says He is.

And so, Paul says be careful that you don’t try to apply human wisdom, human philosophy, based on how the created world works, to the Creator.

Christ the Creator Has currently dwelling in Him the entire fullness of God’s nature.

There’s worldly rational knowledge, then there’s knowledge that comes from Him. Knowledge that fills us by Him, and He is the head over everything.

Christ is the answer to philosophy because once we understand that all knowledge of the world is seen in Him, we see the world differently. Once we enter into that relationship with Christ, once we receive Him as our Lord and Savior, and we begin to follow Him, that changes our perspective.

The question no longer lingers about who am I and what is my purpose, it becomes clear that I am a child of the God of the universe, and my purpose is to glorify Him in everything that I do.

Christ is the answer to maturity, He’s the answer to philosophy, and:

3. Christ is the answer to THE LAW, vv. 11-14.

Verses 11 through 14 begin speaking of the Law, and Paul gives an interesting word picture for us to understand.

He says that we were circumcised not in the physical sense, that is the Old Testament Law sense, but by receiving Christ we are circumcised by putting off the fleshly desires of this world when you were buried with Him in baptism and raised to life through our faith in God who raised Him.

He says while you were buried with Him in that baptism and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive with Him and forgave all our trespasses.

Now before we get to verse 14, what is Paul talking about here?

He’s saying that when you received Christ, when you enter into that relationship with Him, that your life as you knew it is gone. You are a new creation. You are no longer bound by the Law of circumcision because you have entered into the New Covenant.

New Testament believers are not bound by Old Testament Law. That’s why we aren’t bound to make sacrifices of animals anymore, that’s why we don’t have to stone our kids when they act up, that’s why we don’t have to do a bunch of feasts and festivals anymore.

Paul says when you receive Christ the Law no longer applies to you.

That doesn’t mean that the Old Testament doesn’t have value or that it doesn’t still have things for us today, it simply means that we are no longer bound by that Old Covenant because instead of trying to obey every aspect of that Law we are now to obey Christ and Him crucified, whom we are crucified with and raised with so that we can become alive WITH Him and be forgiven of every sin, past, present, and future.

Verse 14 says He, Christ, erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

We are no longer bound by any of the Law. We are no longer bound to any of its obligations. The Law is there to show us what it takes to be holy and perfect people. The Law opposes us, and it is against us, in that it reveals to us our sin nature and who we are without Christ. The Law binds us as slaves to sin because we are unable to meet those requirements.

But through Christ we enter into a New Covenant, that takes the Law and leaves it at the cross of Christ. All of our debt that was due was due to be paid through the Old Testament Law. The debt of that law for every believer in Christ was nailed to that cross and it has been paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the answer to the Law. He fulfilled the Law by rescuing us from the debt of the Law.

Jesus is the answer to maturity, to philosophy, to the law, and:

4. Christ is the answer to OPPRESSION, vv. 15-17.

Christ is the answer to oppression.

Paul says He disarmed the rulers and authorities. Paul is still speaking of the Old Testament Law and its authorities, and he says that Christ triumphed over the rulers of the Law.

Don’t let anyone judge you in regard to the elements of the Law, because, as verse 17 states, these are a shadow of what was to come, the substance is Christ.

Christ took away the authority of the human rulers and authorities because they were being oppressive in their actions. They were adding to the burden of the people, and they themselves were not living in accordance with the Law that they judged by.

Therefore, Christ triumphed over them by taking it away from them.

Christ didn’t come to remove the Law, He came to fulfill the Law, and in so doing took the authority from the rulers that were oppressing people with the Law.

The Law is only oppressive to those who are still under the Law, those who still live apart from Christ.

Before I became a Christian, the Law still had authority in my life, in the sense that I was still condemned by the Law.

In Christ, after becoming a follower of Christ, after becoming a Christian, I am no longer bound by that Law. Instead, I am bound by Christ to the New Covenant that involves obedience to Christ. Through obedience to Christ, I am no longer oppressed by that Law, however, as a follower of Christ walking in the New Testament I obey Him and that means that I no longer desire sin because it is Christ living in me via the Holy Spirit and guiding me away from sin and convicting me of sin.

It’s not that the Law is no longer present in the world, it’s that for the believer in Christ I am bound by something far greater and far more powerful than the Old Testament Law that I was freed from.

Because that Old Testament Law was just a shadow, now we have the very Spirit of God living in us as believers and followers of Christ.

Our maturity is only found in looking to Christ. Our philosophy is only made clear through Christ. Our freedom from the Law is only found in Christ. Our freedom from oppression is only found in Christ, and because we have Christ, and we follow Christ and we look to Christ as the answer to all of these:

5. Christ is the answer to FALSE RELIGION, vv. 18-23.

Christ is the answer to strengthen us when we begin to hear things that don’t sound right.

Paul has addressed the deity of Christ, the freedom from the Law, and then he turns to this false wisdom that has become an issue.

He says let no one condemn you, so we’re still in a phase of oppression, let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices (that means vain humility) and worshipping angels, claiming access to a visionary realm.

Let no one condemn you by delighting in vain humility. Just because someone acts mature, doesn’t mean that they are mature. Just because someone acts humble, doesn’t mean that they are humble.

Let no one condemn you by the worship of angels and claiming access to a visionary realm. It’s interesting the number of false religions that have come from people claiming to have had visions from angels telling them that the Word of God is wrong or wrongly interpreted.

I received a letter a couple of weeks ago that was addressed to “Pastor, Harmony Baptist Church” from some place in Colorado. In the letter the writer is quoting a book and talking about all sorts of special angelic revelation that talks about how we have interpreted the Bible all wrong and we need to listen to this angel that said we should do this instead.

In case you were wondering, if you would ever like to receive letters that come from people that delight in ascetic practices, worship angels, and claim access to a visionary realm, just become a pastor, and they’ll come to you!

I get letters every now and them from Jehovah’s witnesses and others that are all along the same lines - pastors of churches over the past 2,000 years have been interpreting the Bible all wrong and this was what was meant, and I got this from an angel.

Let no one do those things, because they are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind.

Special revelation from angels, well, it’s special alright. It’s special because the one who says that they hear these things has an unspiritual mind, thus they aren’t in Christ, thus the very first problem is that these people don’t have the gospel of Christ in the first place!

These people don’t have Christ verse 19 says, therefore they aren’t growing in maturity in Christ because they don’t have Christ, and because they don’t have Christ, they don’t have God.

Ok, so these folks don’t know Christ as God the Son, they are still living as under the law, and they have this special revelation that they say that they have from angels. And Paul hits them with this truth in verses 20 through 23.

Paul says if you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you still live like you are of this world?

In Christ’s death and resurrection, He conquered and became the authority over every ruler. In Christ’s death and resurrection, He has freed us from the elements and the powers of this world, and Paul says why would you consider going back to that as a new creation in Christ?

Why are you submitting to people that are saying don’t handle, don’t taste, and don’t touch, Paul says here.

These are the things of the Law - you couldn’t handle dead things, you couldn’t taste certain foods, you couldn’t touch certain things.

And Paul says that all of these things, all of these regulations, they point to something destined to die. Paul says these are now human commands and doctrines that are pointing towards death.

You and I are not destined to death though. Paul is reminding us that those that are in Christ are destined for eternal life because even though this flesh is destined to death we are not! We are destined to eternal life with new, glorified bodies that are going to be pain free, blame free, holy, and bringing glory to God.

Verse 23 tells us what the false religion brings - self-made religion. The problem with a self-made religion is that it rises and falls on me. A self-made religion doesn’t have redemptive power. A self-made religion lacks grace and mercy. It leads to a false humility, that tells us that we are righteous when we are not and cannot be apart from Christ. False humility is based on whatever I want to see as humility.

The world’s wisdom and self-made religion leads to severe treatment of the body to achieve one’s own religion. It’s one thing to give sacrificially of yourself for another, but this is talking about severe treatment of the body for the purpose of achieving one’s own false humility and false sense of sacrifice.

They’re cutting themselves and mutilating themselves for a false wisdom that tells them that doing these things will lead to fulfillment and to happiness. Society tells them that it’s ok, they should be pursuing these things to be “happy”, but the reality is that the surgery doesn’t solve the problem, psychology doesn’t solve the problem, the drugs don’t solve the problem, and the false religions of humanity cannot solve the problem.

The only answer to this false religion of self and the world is a true relationship with Christ.

A relationship with Christ means that we have found the answer to false religion, and because we have Him and we are maturing in Him as His Holy Spirit guides and directs us we are able to know true knowledge instead of false philosophy. Because we are able to spend time in His Word and to know His Spirit, we are able to mature in Christ and that surpasses the condemnation found in the Law and the oppression of this world.

Jesus Christ is the answer for it all!

Through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, we have the answer to maturity. Through the power of Jesus Christ, we have the answer to philosophy. Through the blood of Jesus Christ, we have the answer to the Law. Through the atonement of Christ, we have the power to overcome oppression. And through the redemptive work of Jesus, we have been set free from the false religion of this world.

Now the question is, do you know Him today?

Would you stand and pray with me?

Prayer.

Today I want to do something just a little bit different. Either on the connect card in the bulletin or through texting the number on the screen, I’m going to ask you to do something.

If you’ve made the decision today to follow Christ, I’d like you to simply either write that on the connect card right now or use the number and text that in to us.

If you’ve made the decision to rededicate your life to Christ today, you can do that same thing.

If you’ve done that before, and you’ve never been baptized yet, you’ve never made that public profession of the work Christ is doing in you, you can do that same thing.

If you feel that God is calling you to do more today, to serve in the ministry in some capacity, and it’s been weighing on you or you need to have some prayer or would like to discuss really what that looks like, you feel that God is calling you into the ministry and you’ve got some questions - same thing, just fill out that card or text that in, and let’s explore what that looks like this week.

Whatever it is that God is calling you to do, as this music plays softly for a moment, you can be filling out that card or that text right now, and you can come forward in this time and one of our leaders will pray with you if you’d like, but really as you and others are making decisions based on the Word today we’re going to just have the music playing softly, and then in a moment we’ll pray and sing together once again.