The Walk the Changes Everything

Greeting

Good morning Lighthouse Church! How is everyone doing today?

Before I get into my message this morning, I want to briefly talk about Easter with you. You all know that it is coming, and we all know that there are people in our lives that need Jesus. I hope you have been praying for them to come. That should be the place that we always start - with prayer.

Now, today we have these invitation cards that we are going to hand to you as you exit. These are not for your refrigerator. These are for you to give away to someone as you invite them to Easter.

And why do we lean in so heavy to that?

There are two times a year people are more likely to say yes to an invitation to church, Christmas and Easter. So let’s lean in to that. Let’s all bringing that co-worker, that family member, that neighbor, or that other family from your sports team.

Reading

Colossians 2:6–8 NIV

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

The Walk that Changes Everything

Introduction

Have you ever started something strong, and then slowly drifted away from it?

We all do, right?

We start a book strong, and then by chapter 3 we fade…

We start a diet strong, but then the cake at the birthday party you attended leads you away…

We start our new workout routine strong, but then day 8 comes around and your “off day” turn’s into an “off week” and then an “off month”… and you find yourself saying, next year is going to be my year!

That is the condition of our human nature and it is something that we are all going to wrestle with.

But in the same way, this happens to us spiritually.

Many people come to faith and over the course of time, they begin to drift.

They get distracted.

They start looking around to other things.

In Colossae, not only did they start to drift, but they began to add things to following Jesus.

Transition

When they added things to Jesus it led them to a very dangerous place, and when we do the same, we’ll find ourselves in the same dangerous position.

Paul’s advise from the word is that how we began with Jesus is how we should continue with Jesus.

Text & Application

Receiving vs Earning Christ

Colossians 2:6–15 NIV

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord

I want us to consider this phrase, and to examine this word receive.

Notice that Paul doesn’t use the word earn. You cannot earn Christ, He can only be received.

Some of you need to sit with that.

Some of you have been living your life under the weight of performance.

You’ve been performing to try and earn the approval of other people, and in that process you’ve added Christ into the group of people you are trying to earn from.

Here is why that won’t work - The thing you used to earn something from someone is the thing you use to keep them. [PAUSE]

If I worked hard to earn Christ, then I will have to work just as hard to keep Him.

That is not the message of Jesus. That is not the gospel.

Hopefully, like the love you received from your parents, it wasn’t earned it was received.

When I look at my boys I will remind them that they are loved not for what they do, but for who they are. They don’t have to earn my love, they only have to receive my love.

In the same way, you receive Christ Jesus.

Let’s go a little deeper and define that word receive so that we are all on the same page.

To receive something implied that they are “take to oneself”, “accept a tradition,” or “to embrace.”

If I was to once again use a familial example, my sons do not earn my love, but they receive my love. Now, along with that, receiving my love to them as a Father brings them into the larger story that I have parents, meaning they have grandparents that also love them. Probably better said, spoil them. And that’s OK.

It means that the things that I work for I freely give to them. It means that so many benefits that I have, they get to enjoy.

One such benefit that they seemingly want to enjoy all of the time if my Chick Fil A Black card…

So we embrace everything that comes with Christ Jesus!

We live like we know who our Father is. We are not defeated, but we live from a place of victory, but Jesus Christ is our Victor.

Jesus is Lord

Now, Paul is very articulate when he calls him Christ Jesus.

Christ is not a name, it is a title.

His name isn’t Jesus Christ, with Christ being his last name either…

When they would call Jesus the Christ they were calling him the Messiah. Here is what that meant…

To the Jew, he is the Promised Deliverer

To the Roman, he was a divinely commissioned ruler

To us that makes Him our anointed Savior

[Transition]

This is why Paul calls him Christ Jesus our Lord.

Do you want to know how difficult this statement was for Paul to pen?

It invited persecution into his life. The title Lord was the title that Caesar demanded upon himself. Citizens of Rome were commanded to say Caesar is Lord. But there was one group who could not do it… it was those who followed Jesus and boldly declared, Jesus is Lord.

Saying Jesus is Lord wasn’t a church phrase. It was a dangerous phrase.

And yet, the first century believers would state this time and time again, even to the point of death.

[Pause]

Now, today we have to apply that truth.

For the most part, we don’t walk around declaring our allegiance to anyone or anything… OUT LOUD.

But with the choices we make, the energy that we give something, and the way we treat our resources, we are making a statement about who or what is Lord in our life.

Your search history tells me who or what is Lord in your life.

Your bank statements tell me who or what is Lord in your life.

The things that

With that said, is Jesus Lord of your life?

Walk This Way

Colossians 2:6–15 NIV

continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Paul then tells us we are to live our lives in him.

The English language gives us a transliteration of the Greek phrase Keep Walking In Him.

[Work your way slowly through this section]

When I read that phrase, "keep walking in Him," my mind goes all the way back to the beginning of the Bible.

Genesis 3 records the fall of Adam and Eve and when that happened they “stopped walking with him.”

Genesis 3:8–9 NIV

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

You see when God came walking in the garden, the text tells us that Adam and Eve would walk with him. This was not just the way that God intended to live in relation to Adam and Eve, but it is how God intends to live with us.

God wants to walk with us.

But Adam and Eve stopped walking with God because they believed something else could give them more.

And how many times do people start a walk with Jesus, but stop walking with him because they start chasing after other things.

Paul is hearing that the Church is doing what Adam and Eve were doing, and he’s using garden imagery and garden language and he’s saying, “Keep Walking In Him”

When life gets hard, take a walk with Jesus

When you’re going through a trial, take a walk with Jesus.

When you feel like you are falling apart, take a walk with Jesus.

And when you’ve fallen, do not let shame deceive you and tell you that you can’t walk with Jesus.

And then Paul tells them these things in rapid fire:

Stay rooted

Build yourself up

Strengthen your faith

And the as a result of these things, you are going to be overflowing with thankfulness.

That word, overflow, is great, isn’t it?

We all want overflow in our life. It speaks to abundance. It speaks to above and beyond.

But how do we get there?

Spiritually speaking, Paul gives us a blue print:

Stay Rooted - We root ourselves in Christ - we read our Bible and we pray to Him daily

Build Yourself Up - Make Sunday’s a Priority. The church isn't something we attend occasionally. It's something we build our lives around.

Strengthen Your Faith - Get plugged in to a Connect Group. You need a circle to get you through life Monday through Saturday.

Here is my promise to you… if you do these things, you are going to see your life begin to change. You will start to live in that Overflow.

This is the walk that Changes Everything.

And if there is a cynic out there thinking that I have some ulterior motive… “Here goes the Pastor trying to get us to do more than Sundays again…”

I want to lovingly tell you that the the church was not my idea, it’s God’s idea.

It was a promise to Abraham

It was fulfilled in the Book of Acts on the Day of Pentecost

There is a blue print that we have been handed down and it is the church, the eklesia, that is, here it is again “Walking In Him” and showing this world what it was supposed to be life before sin got in the way.

Conclusion (Christ is Enough)

Now, here is why Paul was writing this:

Colossians 2:8 NIV

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

Paul was writing to the church because syncretism was creeping into the church

Let me define what syncretism is:

Syncretism is the blending of different religious beliefs or practices into a new hybrid system.

This is what it looked like in Colossae:

Jewish religious practices

Greek philosophy

Pagan mystical religion

Folk spirituality involving angels and spirits

And in case you think this was just a problem for then, this is also a problem for today. Syncretism in today’s church looks like:

Jesus + Self-Help

positive energy

manifestation

motivational spirituality

Jesus + Cultural Ideologies

political ideologies

nationalism

social movements

Christianity + New Age Spirituality

astrology

crystals

energy healing

spiritual vibrations

Christianity + Legalism

specific lifestyle rules

extra religious practices

external standards beyond the gospel

Paul’s message to them is the same message today - Christ is Enough.

Come on, how many of you know that Jesus + Nothing = Still equals Everything.

You can have the whole world, but if you don’t have Jesus, there will always be a God sized void in your heart until you come to the knowledge of who He is, and have bowed your knee to His Lordship.

And when you have Christ, don’t allow the enemy to entice you to look the other way or allow yourself to get distracted by the fruit on the wrong tree.

Christ is enough.

Call

So what’s our next step? Let me just read it to you…

Colossians 2:9–12 NIV

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Paul plainly tells us that we need to be buried with Him in Baptism, and we will be raised with Him through our faith.

Many of you here today need to make a commitment to take that next step.

I’m going to place my faith in Jesus, and I’m going to be water baptized.

Through the obedience of water Baptism I am going to start a new walk with Jesus. I am going to walk with him from this point forward in my life.