Sermon Tone Analysis

*Colossians Series #9*

*Rules, Regulations And Spirit Guides (Col.

2:16-19)*

*By Bill Denton*

 

*Introduction*

A.  Illustration (Lest you think the scriptures are out-dated and out-of-touch with modern times)

Carlos Santana won eight Grammy awards for his album /Supernatural,/ which has sold more than 10 million copies.

A Rolling Stone profile describes Santana's spirituality:

His meditation spot is in front of the fireplace.…

A card with the word Metatron is spelled out in intricately painted picture letters lies on the floor next to the fireplace.

Metatron is an angel.

Santana has been in regular contact with him since 1994.

Carlos will sit here facing the wall, the candles lit.

He has a yellow legal pad at one side, ready for the communications that will come.

"It's kind of like a fax machine," he says.…

There are few conversations with [Santana] that don't lead to discussion of angels, or of the spiritual radio through which music comes.

Santana has been increasingly engaged by angels since the day in 1988 when he picked up a book on the subject at the Milwaukee airport.

"It's an enormous peace, the few times I have felt the presence in the room," he says.…

"My reality is that God speaks to you every day.

There's an inner voice, and when you hear it, you get a little tingle in your medulla oblongata at the back of your neck, a little shiver, and at two o'clock in the morning, everything's really quiet and you meditate and you got the candles, you got the incense and you've been chanting, and all of a sudden you hear this voice: Write this down.

It is just an inner voice, and you trust it.

That voice will never take you to the desert."…

Santana credits Metatron with alerting him to the recent changes in his life.

Chris Heath, "The Epic Life of Carlos Santana,"Rolling Stone (4-16-00), p.41

 

 

1.

I think a lot of people would wonder where's the problem - here's a man making an

     an attempt to be "spiritual"

a.  he's obviously interested in God

b.  he's got an angel who brings spiritual messages

c.  he's exercising a faith that ought to be commendable

 

2.

The problem:  whatever positive you'd like to say about Carlos Santana's spirituality

     it's the very thing the Bible warns us about

 

B.

There are lots of other problematic behavior and practices

1.

Many of those include rigorous rules and regulations that enforce spiritual discipline

 

2.

If you don't think religious rule-keeping is powerful, take a long look at Islam, at the

     various forms of Christian orthodoxy, or perhaps in our own brotherhood

 

C.

In Colossians we've been looking at the total, complete sufficiency of Jesus Christ

1.

This is one of those issues that demands constant awareness and thought

 

2.

It's too easy to substitute something for Jesus and lose sight, not only of salvation, but

     of all that puts us right with God and keeps us right with God

 

3.

Today, let's think together from our text and be reassured about Jesus

*I.

Remember The Larger Discussion*

A.  Our text today is part of a larger discussion in which Paul warned the Colossians not to

     become a prisoner of worthless ideas

1.  Colossians 2:8

8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

NASB95

a.  there are all sorts of captivating philosophies, religious and spiritual teachings

    that sound awfully good, tap into our needs and interests, and offer great things

 

b.

but these things are based on the created order - a fallen and sin-damaged

    order

 

c.

however good these things sound, they are essentially empty, deceiving us

     into thinking we've found the answers to life's mysteries and problems

 

2.

Colossians 2:9-10

9For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10and in Him you have been made complete. . . .

a.  this is Paul's point in a nutshell

1)  all the fullness of Deity dwells in Jesus Christ - there is nothing or

     no one who is more divine, more authoritative, more powerful, more

     all sufficient than Jesus

 

2)  we are made complete in Him - and if you are complete, you lack

     nothing

 

3)  we're like the old advertisement for enlisting in the Army - be all that

      you can be - only with Jesus, this is no empty promise

 

B.

The problem is that we are so easily persuaded that we're somehow missing something

1.  Just about every heresy is rooted in somebody's idea that we need something more,

     something different, something better, something stronger

 

2.

Ancient gnosticism is a good example of this - it suggested (bless their hearts) that

    some Christians just didn't have all they could have - they needed special knowledge

 

3.

You'll hear this kind of thing even today

a.  even among Christians, you'll hear about one gimmic or another that will

     guarantee a special walk with the Lord that others don't have

 

b.  it might be some doctrine; some emotional emphasis; some methodology;

    it may appear in different forms, but it always suggests itself as a way to

    God that is better than through Jesus alone

 

*II.

Since Jesus Has Made You Complete*

A.    Colossians 2:16-19

16Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— 17things which are a /mere /shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

18Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on /visions /he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. NASB95

1.

There are two basic fallacies addressed in this passage

a.  one has to do with religious rules and regulations

 

b.  the other has to do with spiritualism, including worship of angels and self-

     induced visions

 

2.

These can become powerfully persuasive to those who engage in them, but they are

     still empty and worthless

 

3.

If you are complete in Christ, such things are a step backward, not forward

 

B.

Rule keeping

1.  Paul's reference to food, drink, festivals, new moons, Sabbath days, etc., are about

     various forms of rule keeping - observe these things and you will do the things that

     make you right with God

 

2.

But rule keeping is a flawed idea

a.  first, nobody keeps the rules perfectly

1)  Israel under the old covenant certainly had its share of rules and

     regulations to keep, but they failed at it

 

2)  that was actually one of the reasons God had for giving them all those