Serve Christ

We’ve been going through Colossians and we’ve talked about how great Christ is and His supremacy and we talked about how we are supposed to live our life for Christ. Today we are going to look at how we sometimes fake ourselves out as living for Christ.

Colossians 2:16–20 “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules:”

Paul starts off this section and he talks about how certain worldly traditions don’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you are eating or drinking, it only matters if you are serving Christ while doing it. Paul warns against something here called “asceticism.” Asceticism is a severe form of self-discipline. You would think that self-discipline is a good thing for a Christian to practice and that is true but this severe form for some reason is not good. Here is what I think it is. When someone is practising this severe form of self-discipline they are taking the glory away from God. What they are doing is saying “look at me look at me. I can do this on my own.” That is not what the Christian life is about. We are not called to do things on our own but we are called to live a life serving Christ. So yes there is some self-discipline that is needed but not to the extent that we are only doing it to make ourselves look good. This asceticism is to glorify yourself and not Christ. We are to serve Christ out of a love for Him not to make ourselves look good. We serve Christ to make Him look good and not ourselves.

Colossians 2:21–23 ““Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

We move onto the second half of this passage where Paul starts to get into the idea of living for the world versus living for Christ. When we live for the world we do things to make ourselves look good. When we live for Christ we do things to make Him look good. This comes down to where our heart is at when we do things. The motivation that we have behind what we are doing. Let’s break this down a little bit. Earlier we mentioned this idea of asceticism which is severe self-discipline. Why do you try to live a life that is glorifying God and is sinless? We do it because that is what God has called us to do. Yet Christ has also given us freedom in Him so how does that work? So Christ has freed us from a bondage to sin not for us to continue sinning but so we can live for Him. This week check your motivation behind what you are doing and make sure it is out of a love for Christ and not for yourself