FORGIVENES

Colossians 2:8-15

8 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. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

This next section of the letter has to be one of the most positive warnings in the Bible. It is a serious warning but filled with overwhelming good news throughout. He uses this warning to show off just how great Jesus is and just how ridiculous the alternatives are. Now, we’re not exactly sure what specific teachings he was warning the Colossians against. The next few verses gives us a clue, but we don’t have many specifics. However the warning and the subsequent remedy, speaks volumes to Christians today in ANY context. By the end of the argument he makes ignoring this warning look like choosing dog food over chocolate chip cookies.

Don’t get trapped in systems of thought that lie to you and leave you empty. Such as things that depend on the traditional and mystical, rather than Jesus. Because in Jesus you have all of God, and you have all of God available to you. He did what the tradition could not, he changed your heart. Your old self died with Jesus and your new self was resurrected by the power of God through faith. You were dead and guilty, now alive and forgiven. By the cross he satisfied the law and paid off our debt. Now anyone who accuses you will be embarrassed to speak, and will have no validity.

The passage goes, warning….then good news, good news, good news,

He tells us not to be trapped by seemingly sensible systems that follow the rules of the world instead of Christ. Ok, why? because Jesus is God, and you have in him what the other things can only barely promise. He fixed the tradition, gave you new imagery. Not just that but he has changed you as well as cleared your name! He took away the teeth of the accusers.

Don’t Be Captured

There is something that is wanting to draw you in and take you and then something that gives you all you need.

Beware! There is something that looks good that is bad, there is something that seems right that is wrong, there is something that seems true, that seems fulfilling, that seems even sensible that leads to emptiness.

You make sure that you don’t get captured by philosophy. This is a command that the believer is expected to be able to carry out. “See to it”. Open your eyes, pay attention, look around. Watch out for traps. There is something that is trying to trap you. Watch out for it’s markers.

Philosophy-

That’s a broad word, especially in Paul’s day. Philosophies could be anything from systems of beliefs to deep mystical knowledge to, what we recognise now as the study of knowledge. The actual definition is “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.” The word literally means “love of wisdom”. We want to know, humans have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Less directly it is a predetermined belief system that predicts your actions. A philosophy on life would be “get all you can, can all you get, and sit on the rest.” “Do unto others as you would have done to you” is a good one. “Get ahead, stay ahead” might be another.

And Paul tells us of a trap hiding, in these systems of thinking. Humans can make really compelling arguments that lie to us and trap us. He is not condemning philosophy, or love of wisdom completely, but a specific type of philosophy.

Whatever this philosophy is, it is in opposition to 9-15, it is not “according to Christ.” Here are the categories he does give us. I think we can fill in the specifics pretty well on our own.

3 Empty deceit, tradition, elemental spirits.

Empty Deceit-

Let’s use scripture to help us here. Hebrews 3:13 “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” As many here who have been saved from a life of sin can tell you, there is nothing more deceitful that the satisfaction you are supposed to get from sin. It is the most basic trap. It is enticing and leads to death. It looks great but is a deadly poison. Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” Sin is so sinful because in sin we choose something so much less than God. We choose something so much worse, something that actually kills instead of satisfies. Paul is not just telling them to “be good girls and boys, suffer through and get by. He is telling them that there is actually something better and more.

Your fleshly desires lie to you, your earthly ambitions lie to you, and Paul says my goodness there is something that actually provides what these things promise, in reality. Jesus is better.

But there is more to empty deceit here than just sin, if there is a philosophy that is infiltrating believers and taking them captive then it can be more subtle than just blatant sin at first. We find it in the next 2.

Tradition-

The trap of tradition. The way we’ve always done it, it’s worked well so far, follow the ways we are comfortable with. Matthew 15:9 “in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’  We take “the way we do it” and we use it as our morality. We say “we are following the tradition, therefore we must be right with God.” When God is saying “you invented that!” Isaiah 29:13 “And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,” These passages are all pointing to people who worship God only out of tradition. It’s a trap because your habits and traditions can emulate and fake a real relationship with Jesus. Many will say Lord Lord, I did all this stuff, and he says, “depart from me, because I never knew you.”

The tradition trap results in religion without power, moralism without transformation. The ultimate result of tradition is that it loses people… It has no staying power because it has no changing power. The kids who grow up in homes where worship is lip service and just tradition, leave the church. People who live in traditional habits for years will wake up one day just walk away… and be happier. What was missing? Transformation, change. They never came to know Jesus as the one who saved them from death. No repentance, no sanctification, just the gray safety of tradition. Jesus is better.

Elemental Spirits-

This trap ends up much the same as tradition but with some different characteristics. We end up basing our philosophy on empty elemental spirits when we humanize or materialize the spiritual. In other times and other cultures this would result in worshipping trees or planetary bodies. Later on here he talks about worshipping angels. We find this in modern day astrology and horoscopes. We take the work of God and dumb it down and twist it into something that we feel is easier to grasp, easier to explain and more comforting. We want something that we can have a hand in. Instead of growing and maturing, or “being rooted in Christ” as he tells us in V7.

I’ll give you a few examples. Someone dies, we say “God needed another angel, now they are looking down on us and taking care of us.” That is NOT scriptural, nor comforting. There is better comfort than that. You have Jesus! A more mature grasp of the gospel tells us that the loved ones who have died did not turn into angels, they became perfect worshippers (if they were saved). Their focus is not back down here on the corrupt world, it is on God.

Or the concept of hell as the devil’s domain and Heaven as God’s domain. Another immature grasp of the gospel actually. Hell belongs to God, it is his perfectly just wrath carried out against Satan and all who reject the free gift of Christ. Seeing that rightly actually makes the cross and Jesus’ sacrifice a bigger deal. God satisfying his own justice by his own sacrifice is a bigger and better deal than “The powers of good and the powers of evil are in an epic and almost equal struggle and we just hope the light wins.”

This is just 2 examples of this.

In some places we find this trap resulting in, praying to Saints, or in the following verses, worshipping angels. And oddball spiritualism like astrology, horoscopes or manifesting. Based on the principles of this world. Rudimentary things. Literally “elementary” things we should have grown out of because Jesus is better.

This passage is telling us “have your thoughts, your motives, your philosophies on life, based and rooted in a growing understanding of Jesus. This makes you less vulnerable to traps.Following other philosophies will leave you trapped in your own morality and ignorance. Which is what condemned you in the first place. Under the next point I will move into the positive stuff. The cookies compared to the dogfood and gravel of these other things. We must show how Jesus is better.

Don’t be captured but instead….

Find Freedom in Christ

In contrast to the emptiness found in v 8 we turn to fullness in Christ. We see the fullness of deity in Jesus and then a transfer of that to us.

Fully God-

Col 1. In Jesus we do not see things about God, or things like God, we see God. Only God could accomplish what Jesus did. Only God has the power to pay and accept payment. Do not tolerate the philosophy that says he was just a great moral teacher or just an example to us. He is God. Why follow little human beliefs about life when you have access to the God who gave life?

Fullness in Christ-

As in lacking nothing. I don’t need special secret wisdom of mysticism, I don’t need to add immature concepts that make me feel better. A deeper growth in Christ clears all of that up. I don’t need to check the boxes of tradition and say “if I’m doing xyz then I must be fine”. What I need is to be rooted and growing in Christ.

When you think of fullness in Christ, what do you think of? full access, full sonship, satisfaction, full confidence (bet on the kindness of God). What about fulfilment? I am doing, I am accomplishing all I should. I attach your personal fulfillment to this passage, and I think Paul does as well, because that is a concept you will wake up to every day. You will find yourself daily, trying to work towards fulfillment or away from emptiness. The answer is here. You have even the answer to that in Christ. Growing in Christ will move that fullness from myself and my actions, to his.

Transformation-

V11 Jesus has done what we only had an image of doing. Circumcision was a mark of being part of God’s people, of belonging to him. So when Jesus takes that and puts it on our hearts, that means that he has changed us internally into one of his. We were dead, we were indebted, now we are free and heirs. Transformation is what these other things lack more than anything else. I can practice the traditions and rudimentary principles, but without Christ I am a being who is dead in sin going through the motions of living. These things cannot change you! Only the God who created you can do that work. Everything else is a lie, it’s fake! It is deceitful emptiness. The pleasures of sin, the mechanics of tradition, the immaturity of elemental spirits. At the end of the day they lack all power. The change that you need is not found in them. Only Christ fills the God shaped hole in our lives. Without him we are eating dogfood and calling it cookies, we are filling the tank with water and calling it gas.

He makes you whole, transforms you. God has done the work that tradition and human wisdom cannot. We are complete in Christ. A new creation.

He shames accusation-

V 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Remember, Paul wrote this letter and sent it out at the same time as Ephesians, and in Ephesians we find this same language of powers and rulers. Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We need to remember this when we think of what he is putting to shame here.

Here is a kicker, the accusations are often correct! It’s not that “satan is out there saying I’m a bad kid and I’m not” I am a bad kid. The accuser uses the law and uses it correctly to make a valid accusation against me! Then how are they disarmed? He nailed our crimes to the cross with Jesus. Jesus took the debt with him and paid it. (Story of the check stub). Jesus has put them to shame because it has been paid. It’s like the prosecution has the media there, and the witnesses, and the jury, and then the judge throws it out in the first few seconds of the trial. They all leave embarrassed.

He pays the debt. But there is a second way that he shames the opposition. He shames the sin by showing that he is better. “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” C.S. Lewis. If we would only have the gumption to step to it in faith. The cookies and dogfood image again. We would chase cheap foolishness when the pleasures of the creator are at hand.

What do we do with this warning? If you have all of the riches of Christ at your disposal why don’t you use it? We are so unwilling to do the hard work when it comes to spiritual growth. Even when the hardest part is done for us.

How is Jesus better? Can you answer that question? Here…. I’ll tell you an excellent way to live: Get up in the morning and eat healthy, maintain a positive attitude, go to work and be diligent, do your best, be a good parent, don’t do anything bad to anyone, be the best person you can be and that’s all you can do. How is Jesus better than that? Set a high standard for yourself and always strive to outdo yourself…. How is your nailed God any better than that? Have you developed the spiritual mentality to answer that? The problem with this philosophy is exactly what Paul tells us, it leaves you empty. At the end of the day you still have the problem of not being good enough. You still would not have a framework to process all of the bad stuff in your life or in the world. In order to buy into this philosophy you have to believe the lie that if I do enough I will be enough.

What philosophy are you living by? What lies are you believing, what has you trapped? What is the thing that makes you question the fullness of Christ? What brings on shame or doubt? Don’t be trapped by it. You have something better!

Press in to the access you have been given. We either have really low spiritual expectations, or we don’t realise how good it can be. Paul is begging you to see it. Stop treating your faith as a sidebar to the rest of your life! Set roots and grow!

This is the argument he has made in this passage. Only Jesus can actually reshape your heart, tradition cannot. Only Jesus can settle the debt. Morality cannot. Only Jesus can give you access to God, religion can’t do that. Only Jesus can silence the very valid accusations the law makes against you. Your best moral character can’t accomplish that.

As you are hammered by the philosophies of the world remember, you have what you need in Christ. Don’t go on choking down dog food when a feast is set in front of you.