CELEBRATE YOUR FREEDOM

CELEBRATE YOUR FREEDOM Colossians 2:20-23 February 17,  2002 Given by Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory This morning we will finish our study of Colossians 2 with a look at the third of three kinds of false teachings about which Paul warns us. For a running start, let's go back and review Colossians 2:13-15     "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." As a prelude to this wonderful passage, Paul writes that we have been "…buried with him [Christ] in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead." [webmasters note: verse 12] Two deaths and a resurrection. We start out dead in our sins, then, when we come to faith in Christ and are baptized into him, we actually put the old sinful person we were to death, burying him in the waters of baptism. As we come through baptism and rise from the waters, we are raised with him (as Romans 6:4 puts it) - "…just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." Since we have come through these experiences and are now reconciled to God, forgiven of our sins and joined with Christ, Paul says, there are some things I want you to be careful of. I want you to watch out for the weirdoes who will try to suck you back into bondage to the things you are freed from. Eugene Peterson's translation [The Message] of verses 13-18 is just too good not to quote: "So don't put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship service, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance in Christ. Don't tolerate people who try to run you life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They're a lot of hot air, that's all they are. They're completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us. So, then, if with Christ you've put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bulled by it? 'Don't touch this! Don't taste that! Don't go near this!' Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they're just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important." As we have studied in chapter two of Colossians, we have seen what Paul says are three kinds of weird teachings that weirdo false teachers have been trying to spring on the believers there: 1. Mystic philosophies-deep and esoteric things that the teachers says they have and you need. This kind of heresy makes you feel out of the loop and spiritually inferior. 2. Religion that insists on law obedience and strict attendance at religious festivals as the way to stay on God's good side. This kind of heresy keeps you frantic and worried as you busily do all that's "expected" of you. 3. Rigid adherence to laws of asceticism [asceticism is the rigorous exercise of self-denial in order to appease God]. This kind of heresy keeps you hopping by prohibiting you from doing things because they are "taboo". It is legalism at its worst, because this kind of heresy preys on you by keeping you feeling guilty for not being good enough. "Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 'Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!''? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings." (Colossians 2:20-21) The warning against mindless submission to rules False teachers prey on two characteristics of well-intentioned Christians: their zeal and their ignorance. Those who know Christ personally are so grateful for what He has done for them, they just want to please Him in any way they can. They're thinking all the time, "How can I please Him? What can I do for Him Who has done so much for me?" They want to grow; they want to become all God destined them to be! They are well-intentioned, willing to do whatever they are told to do by anyone whom they think knows what they are talking about. So, basically, if you can look and sound religious enough, you can manipulate a young, enthusiastic Christian almost any way you want to. Now, you usually can't lead them into sin-they recognize that old territory and they won't go there. But, if it sounds religious, they'll do it. This is why believers need good, solid instruction in the Word, so that their personal maturity will match their zeal. Zeal is good, but ignorance can bring you low. There is no person quite so vulnerable to false teachers as a spiritually ignorant, wet-behind-the-ears Christian. You see, it's just so hard for human beings who are saturated with a "there's no such thing as a free lunch" mentality to really believe in grace. And for most of us Christians, we often find it difficult to believe that the life of rule-keeping is over. But, sure enough, there it is in the Bible, plainer than most doctrines - Jesus Christ has paid our debt and we are free from the law! False teachers prey on this propensity we have to think that we can't be righteous until we obey some set of rules. The heretic teachers were trying to CONTROL the Colossians through guilt and manipulation. And, believe it, that is the tried and true method of all false teachers: guilt and manipulation. The most dangerous thing about legalism is it sounds right! Tell me I have a couple of religious things to take care of and a couple of things I should avoid, and I like that! It's easier to have rules! But God doesn't call us into a rule-keeping religion; He calls us into a personal relationship. Four things wrong with such (ascetic) rules First, they deal with the temporal things in life. Paul says that the kind of things these rules tend to deal with, like food, material items and pious activities, are all "…destined to perish with use…" The implicit question is why get so worked up and focused on things that are not going to last? Brothers and sisters, what's important in your life? If it's stuff, even good stuff, the Bible says you are foolish. Paul will also add that if it's meticulous rule-keeping of insignificant prohibitions, you are not only foolish, but you're missing the whole point of what Christ has delivered you from. The second thing wrong with ascetic rules, Paul says, is that they don't apply to you anymore! You are dead to such regulations. Here what he says in Galatians 3:13-14     "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is anyone who is hung on a tree.' He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit." There is an old story about a man who went to see a psychiatrist. When asked what was wrong, he told the doctor, "I'm dead!" The psychiatrist tried to reason with him, but the man kept insisting he was dead. Seeing he was getting nowhere with his line of reasoning, he tried a novel approach. He told the patient he wanted him to tell himself every morning when he woke up this simple phrase: "dead men don't bleed." Then he should repeat it to himself at each mealtime and before he went to bed. The man agreed and made an appointment for the next week. When he returned the doctor asked him how he was, and he said, "I'm dead!" "Did you do as I told you-did you repeat the phrase I gave you every day, several times a day?" "I certainly did, but it didn't do any good because, I'm dead!" The doctor took the man's hand, stuck a needle half an inch into his thumb and squeezed out a big red drop of blood. He turned the man's wrist and put his bleeding thumb right in front of his eyes and said, "Now what do you have to say?" The man's eyes popped open wide with surprise, and he said, "Well, what do you know! Dead men do bleed!" Biblically speaking, dead men aren't bound to the law. "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1) Thirdly, ascetic rules are wrong because they have a human, and not a divine, origin. They're man-made and they're not from God! That's what's wrong with imposing extraneous rules on Christians. Someone will ask, "But, it's okay to fast and attend festivals and avoid certain foods, isn't it?" Sure it is, if you have decided from pure motives to follow that particular behavior-that's freedom. But it is wrong to allow such rules to be imposed on you. That's bondage. Lastly, the ascetic rules are ineffective in overcoming sensuality. "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." (Colossians 2:23) Consider the irony, people rush to find someone who will give them "the rules" on how to restrain their sensual passions, so they can die to their carnality. But trying to follow rules actually resurrects the dead sinful nature! It is in the freedom of the Spirit life, where there is not law bondage, that sensual indulgence is actually conquered! Listen to the logic in Romans 8 - "…through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit." (Romans 8:2-4, see also 8:6-17) The September issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry includes an article based on a study of teenagers and alcohol. For a secular journal, the bottom line was startling: teens with an active spiritual life are half as likely to end up with problems with alcohol. Half! Statistically speaking, that is huge. But here is the most fascinating thing about the study and results. Their researchers made a big deal about differentiating between "religious" and "spiritual". Spiritual teens fared far better than "religious" teens. I recently heard another alarming research statistic. Do you know what people group has the highest percentage of incest? The Amish! Rules will not work in restraining sensuality. But Freedom in the Spirit does. True maturity and growth comes from relationship with the Lord God's plan for our growth into the image of Christ is this: forgiveness of sin and His Holy Spirit indwelling us. Titus 3:5 - "…he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth [symbolizing baptism and salvation] and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously…" Alexander Maclaren: "There is only one thing that will put the collar on the neck of the animal within us, and that is the power of the indwelling Christ." It is not the law that can help us remain dead to our old sinful nature-it is His grace, expressed through forgiveness and the indwelling Spirit. It is grace-the freedom of grace-that delivers us from sensual indulgence! "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us [what teaches us? Grace!] to say 'No!' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age…" (Titus 2:11-12) Grace is the teacher of choice-infinitely more effective than law-when it comes to learning to live the mature spiritual life of victory over sinful indulgence. The way to grow is to cultivate our relationship with the Lord through the Word, prayer, fellowship with like-minded believers and worship in all its forms. Did I just give you a set of rules there?! No, these are your aids to cultivating your relationship with the Lord, and they're right there in your New Testament. Following Jesus is not a religion of prescriptions, antidotes and brownie points. It is "relationship". Legalistic religion produces 1. Superficial Spirituality - "all I have to do is follow the rules, then I'm okay with God (and it's all He asks of me)" 2. Personal Pride - "I did all the church asked me to do, and now I'm good-in fact, I'm really very good (compared with the others who didn't do all I did!)" "God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble." 3. Deep despondency - you get all done (you think) and you feel pretty good about your spiritual status, but then you get home by yourself and you know (because you can't kid yourself) what a wretch you still are, with all your impure thoughts and hidden agendas. Now you're stuck with being a spiritual wretch and everyone else thinks you're fine and you can't honestly share it! 4. Pious Pretense - so you resort to more superficiality-veneer religion. "At least I can maybe fool others into thinking I'm pretty spiritual!" And a lot of effort goes into maintaining your spiritual fa?de. Now you're miserable, alone, deceptive and a hypocrite! 5. Miserable Model - the worst thing of all-now you become part of the systemic problem. You and others around you have built up a system of dishonest, superficial, lonely and hypocritical religion. And more and more it seems no one is real, no one's faith is genuine and it's just empty meaningless religion drained of all meaningful relationship with God or others. Relationship beats rules every time Second Corinthians 3:6 - "...the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." Rules seem good and, in a lot of ways, they seem easier ("just tell me what to do and what not to do so I don't have to think on my own!"). Rules get complex, but relationship is simple and pure and uncomplicated. Did you know you can never write enough rules? Every time you get one written, someone asks, "but what about this situation…?" Every new rule breeds ten more. What kind of a boss would you rather have, one who is always harping about the way you should do shouldn't do things, or one who is relational and says, "Hey, let's get the job done together, and if you ever need me, I'll be right here!"? Rules rely on my power and relational faith relies on His power. Through Christ you have a glorious privilege. You and I can exchange a "got to" religion for a "get to" relationship. In Christ, we simply learn to trust Him and say "yes" to Him, then He empowers us with His power to get things done. Conclusion God's desire is to give you rest, not worry, anxiety and religious oppression. Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30) I urge you to shed your "religion" and come to Jesus for the saving relationship that will deliver you from bondage to rules, laws and regulations. Your religion should not burden you-it should free you from burdens. Come to Jesus, let Him give you rest.     [Back to Top]