Sunday Sermon Colossians 2:11-15 (2)
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Introduction
Introduction
Good morning and welcome to First Community Church where we worship God in Spirit and in Truth, one verse at a time.
Thank you for the wonderful song service and please church, always keep our worship team in your prayers as Satan does not like them ushering us to the throne of grace, therefore, they are susceptible to attacks by our enemy.
Next week we will be baptizing Arianna who gave her heart to Jesus a few weeks ago.
I find it amazing how Jacob committed his life Christ and was baptized, then the Holy Spirit went to work on his little girl and she surrendered her life to Christ and wants to be baptized and then the family was quarantined for Covid.
When John baptized Jesus and the Spirit of God descended on him like dove, he was immediately led to the wilderness and tempted.
Sometimes, it seems like this happens after baptism.
Prayer
Prayer
Read Colossians 2:11-15
Read Colossians 2:11-15
Review
Review
It is important for us to remember church that Paul just told the Colossians and us that we complete in Christ in verse 10.
For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
It is important for us to understand because the Gnostics, the Judaizers, and the Ascetics, were attempting to confuse the Colossians by saying Jesus is not enough.
The Gnostics tried to convince them that it was Jesus plus there secret knowledge, therefore, they were attacking the Deity or Supremacy of Jesus Christ in the life of the believer. Remember, they did not believe that Jesus was God in flesh but an emanation or an angel from God.
And last week we learned that the Judaizers were attempting to convince the church at Colossae that Jesus was ok, but that you must be circumcised and baptized in order to be saved.
This made it Jesus, plus circumcision and baptism.
Sadly, the Jews became so legalistic and ritualistic that they really believed that if you were circumcised and baptized you were good to go with God! Therefore, get this done and live like you want, NOT!!!
Legalism- The word “legalism” does not occur in the Bible. It is a term Christians use to describe a doctrinal position emphasizing a system of rules and regulations for achieving both salvation and spiritual growth. Legalists believe in and demand a strict literal adherence to rules and regulations.
We could call the circumcision and baptismal regeneration.
This means that if you fulfill these two ordinances your saved.
Like infant baptism.
This is not true church for the thief on the cross did not have time to physically be baptized or circumcised, but he was spiritually in Christ.
Circumcision was the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant church, but was dealt with at the Jerusalem council in Acts 15:
Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.
We learned that circumcision is not about male anatomy, but rather of the heart and a spiritual circumcision.
The circumcision that Paul is teaching us about is made without hands, church1
Therefore, it is a cutting away of the heart, the cutting away everything in our lives that is not the will of God!
When you became a Christian, Christ cut away everything sinful from your life. The cutting away of the sinful things.
When you became a Christian, your old nature was taken away, and you became a new creature with a new nature. Okay? Now listen, any old priest or any old anybody can circumcise a man’s foreskin, but only Christ can circumcise a man’s heart, and that means cut away the old sin nature.
God never meant circumcision to become what it was with the Jews, he always meant for it to be about the heart. This became a meaningless ritual because of the tradition of men.
Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.
To be stiff-necked is to be obstinate, stubborn, and difficult to lead. The Bible often uses this figure of speech when describing the attitude of Israel toward God (e.g., Exodus 33:3; Deuteronomy 9:13; Nehemiah 9:16; Acts 7:51). The term was originally used to describe an ox that refused to be directed by the farmer’s ox goad. When a farmer harnessed a team of oxen to a plow, he directed them by poking them lightly with a sharp spike on the heels or the neck to make them pick up speed or turn. An ox that refused to be directed in such a way by the farmer was referred to as “stiff-necked.” A stiff-necked animal (or person) refuses to turn the head in order to take a different path.
Let us not be stiff-necked like Israel church!!!
And if we are, let us repent! Amen!
So we pick up in 12, but I will read 11 again.
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Note: the circumcision made without hands, therefore this is spiritual.
And the result is that putting off the body of the sins of the flesh.
You might ask, then why do I still sin? It is because of our flesh church!
We were born again and given a new heart, a heart that is bent toward heaven, therefore, we were made complete in Him at the moment of conversion , we were given the Holy Spirit.
However, even though we are alive spiritually now, we still live in this body. And this body or the flesh is bent toward sin.
When we die, we will be glorified and given a new body, a perfect body that no longer has the sin nature in it.
This is why Paul wrote:
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
Who is going to deliver me from this body of death?
So we are complete in Christ because of our great salvation that comes through the circumcision made without hands, but also because we were buried with him in baptism.
This is talking about a spiritual baptism that occurs at the moment of salvation, but then we share our commitment to Jesus Christ publically by water baptism.
Paul used the word baptism in a figurative sense in this section of his letter—for no amount of material water could bury a person with Christ or make him alive in Christ.
Water baptism by immersion is a picture of this spiritual experience.
Church When a person is saved, he is immediately baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ and identified with the , Jesus Christ.
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.
This identification means that whatever happened to Christ also happened to us. When He died, we died with Him. When He was buried, we were buried. When He arose again, we arose with Him—and we left the graveclothes of the old life behind (Col. 3:1–14).
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Are you walking in the newness of life?
Let go back to verse 12 because I want to point out one word that I think will speak to your hearts:
buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Note the word working: One scholars says this:
Working translates energeia, from which we get our English word energy. It refers to God’s active power—the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. Those who believe that God raised Jesus from the dead will also be raised with Him. “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the
So what does be Complete in Christ mean?
It means complete salvation as we have already covered last week and today and it means complete forgiveness church.
We are completely forgiven in Christ!
And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
The Puritan Thomas Goodwin used to say, “There are but two men standing before God: Adam and Christ. And these two men have all other men hanging at their girdles.” (Source unknown. By “girdles,” he meant “belts.”) Either you’re spiritually dead in Adam; or, because God made you alive, you’re in Christ. There are no other categories!
Pop Quiz
What are the prison epistles?
Colossians
Philippians
Philemon
Ephesians
Who were the Gnostics?
Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus and said this, now remember that Ephesians is a prison epistle just like Colossians and there are many parallels or similarities between these tow letters, in fact, I have started thinking abut our next book already and Ephesians keeps coming to mind.
Read Ephesians 2:1-13
Read Ephesians 2:1-13
I think it is important for us to realize that the church at Colossae was primarily Gentile, therefore, they were outside of the covenant and without hope like us.
The Jews had the promise of the covenant church, the Gentiles did not.
However, praise be to God that he gave us the New Covenant that is unconditional and it is for the Jew and Gentile alike because of what Jesus did upon the cross.
We are complete in Him because of His forgiveness of our trespasses.
So, notice the “He” and the “Him” in there contrasted with the “you.” “And you, dead in your sins and uncircumcision of your flesh,” - that doesn’t sound too good – “hath He made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” You are in bad shape, but He conquered it all. You share His resurrection life. You were dead in your sins.
Church when you were born, you were born dead spiritually.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.
And what does death mean? It means an inability to respond.
You see dead people, and you can do whatever you want, and they don’t react.
Dead people can’t respond.
That is the – that is the signal that somebody’s dead; they don’t respond. Now, I don’t want to get into all the technicalities of that, but when you see the little thing going bleep-bleep-bleep-hmmmmm, it’s all over. Can’t respond. No ability to respond.
That’s what spiritual death is: to be dead in sin. It means to be so locked in sin that you are unable to respond to God. Thats why Paul wrote this:
For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
He forgive all your sins upon the cross church, the great exchange happened !
He exchanged your sinfulness, for his righteousness.
Tresspasses-par-ap'-to-mah-to fall beside or near something, a lapse or deviation from truth and uprightness, a sin, misdeed
All have sinned church and falling short of His glory, but God sent his Son Jesus to take way the hand writing that was against us and in exchange he gives us forgiveness for those that come unto him.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered.
As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.
I could go on and on with texts that teach about forgiveness, but we are going to stop, because we are running out of time.
Foriveness- charizomai-to show one's self gracious, kind, benevolent, to pardon, to send away, to grant forgiveness, to pardon, to give graciously, give freely, bestow, to forgive, graciously to restore one to another, to preserve for one a person in peril.
It is important to note that the root word here for forgiveness in the greek, come from the greek word grace.
I am always amazed at the fact that there are many Christians who continue to remember what God has forgotten. I used to call it a God complex. Listen, the highest court in the universe is God. And if God has forgiven me, the only thing that would justify my holding myself guilty for sin is if I am a higher authority than God. If I’m not, then I might as well forgive myself.
If we hold on to our sin church, we will be the most miserable person ever.
God said he has forgiven you, therefore, IT IS FINISHED!
having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Now let’s look at verse 14, this marvelous verse, “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances against us, contrary to us, He took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.” I want you to look at two words here that’ll give you the picture here. Two Greek words in which the whole idea hinges. Number one, the handwriting which was against us was blotted out. The word is cheirographon, literally autograph. “Blotting out the autograph.”
The technical use of this word is interesting. It was a handwritten note of a debtor acknowledging his indebtedness. You know what it literally was? An IOU.
You know what happens? A signed confession of debt, your sin and mine, piled up a debt to God. Right? We owed God for that. We got to pay. And it is against us. Notice it, against us. It was against us. In to her words, it would destroy us; it would condemn us. We couldn’t pay it. It is a self-confessed recognition of those debts.
But when you’re willing to go up there and sign it and say it’s true, I will sign my name on that line, “This is true; these are my debts.” It’s the minute that you sign it and confess it that God blots it out.
Let me take you to the second word, and we’ll put it together. It says, “That which was against us, was contrary to us. He took it out of the way.” Literally, He wiped it off, like erasing a blackboard. This is the forgiveness of God. The day you walked up to God and signed your confession is the day He erased it totally. And what were you confessing? Sin. This is – I’ll give you the idea of this.
The substance on which ancient documents was written was a papyrus. And papyrus was a kind of paper made of the bulrush. There was another thing that was used, vellum, which was made from an animal’s hide. And both were fairly expensive and wouldn’t be wasted. And since no ancient ink had any acid into it, the ink never bit into the papyrus or the vellum anyway. But it lay on the surface. If nobody fussed with it, it would remain there because it didn’t bite into the surface; it had no acid.
And sometimes a scribe, in order to preserve his paper, and because he didn’t have too much money, would simply take a sponge and wipe the ink off the papyrus or the vellum and use it again. And that’s exactly what he’s saying. When you receive Jesus Christ, and you walked up and signed your confession, that’s when God nailed it to His cross, paid the penalty, and wiped it clean. It’s a great thought, isn’t it?
So, God, by our faith in Christ, took that indictment, nailed it to the cross. We signed it, and He erased it. You know what’s left? Not one trace. And He remembers it – what? – no more. Complete forgiveness
Did you get this? The hand writing is gone church!Gone!
We are no longer under the law, but under grace!
Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
The Lord disarmed principalities and powers church, this means spiritual forces of wickedness and gave us the victory!
We are complete in Christ because of the victory that was one at the cross
We dont fight for victory church, but from victory.
We are complete in Christ!
Prayer
Prayer
Announcements
Announcements
Are there any announcements?
Arianna will be getting baptized next week, so please come out and clebrate what the Lord is doing in her life.
If the Holy Spirit is tugging on your heart and calling you to be baptized please see me after church and we will include you next week.
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Benediction
Benediction
For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
The Lord Bless you!
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