How Do You Love Jesus?

Scripture Reading/Prayer

Tonight’s sermon will be based on Colossians 2:16-23, which is on page 984 if you’re using one of the black Bibles on the table. Let’s stand for the reading of God’s word:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Let us pray: Our glorious, wonderful, and almighty Father in Heaven, we worship and praise you that we are able to come and freely hear the Word proclaimed. I pray that as we examine this confusing text in Colossians that the Spirit would magnify Jesus Christ in our hearts and reveal to us the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord, and to repent and believe in his gospel. I ask this in the name of Christ, Amen.

Introduction and Recap

Tonight we are continuing our new series in the book of Colossians, and we are now coming up on one of the most confusing and difficult passages in the entire book. Last week we looked at how the love of Jesus Christ makes us who we dead alive again, and how on the cross Jesus Christ paid the record of debts that stood against us so that we could be made alive in Christ and now walk in Jesus Christ and according to Jesus Christ. For the past several weeks, we have been looking at the book of Colossians largely through one particular question, “who is Jesus, and why do you love him?”, and we have been asking this question because it’s extremely important for us as Christians to personally be able to explain who Jesus is and personally explain why it is that we love him. But now we are at a critical junction within the point of Colossians where Paul begins to shift the conversation slightly. Having explained who Jesus is (the perfect, righteous Son of God) and why we should love him (because he paid the penalty for our sins in our place on the cross), Paul is going to tackle the question that we are going to tackle tonight and the rest of Colossians is going to focus on: how do you love Jesus? And if you think about it, this is a perfectly natural question to ask in response to all the things Paul has said about Jesus so far - knowing who Jesus is and knowing why we should love him, how do we actually do that?

If you’ll recall, a couple of weeks ago when we looked at Colossians 1:15-20 I framed that section in terms of what Paul was saying about Jesus is and also about what Paul was saying Jesus is not, and beginning in tonight’s text Paul is going to double down on answering the question “how do you love Jesus?” by starting with the ways that we do not love Jesus. And part of the reason for this is because the Colossians were dealing with a group of false teachers that were attempting to impose on the Colossians all of these practices and rituals that were mandatory to loving Jesus, and Paul is going to have to confront these misconceptions directly before he can begin instructing the Colossians how we should love Jesus. But in order to do that, Paul had to first start by explaining who Jesus is and why we should love him because it’s how we understand who Jesus is and how we understand why we should love him that determines how we ought to love him. So, let’s look at the two ways Paul outlines here that we don’t love Jesus, and then we will end tonight with a brief introduction to how we should love Jesus, which will be the basis for how we look at the rest of the book of Colossians.

1) Legalism: Rules for Rule’s Sake

The first way that we do not love Jesus is captured in verses 16-17:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Paul is addressing something here that is known as “legalism”, or the observance of a rule or practice simply for the sake of observing the thing. Paul is specifically referring to the Old Testament law, which was likely a factor in the false teaching in Colossians. In the New Testament, one of the biggest obstacles that the apostles have to overcome is objections from the Jewish community that in order to be a Christian you had to keep the entire Law, and that if you didn’t keep the entire OT law you couldn’t really be a Christian. Paul’s response here is to show that the point of the OT law was to point to Jesus Christ, and all the dietary laws, festivals, and Sabbath regulations weren’t means to their own ends, but meant to point us to and teach us about Jesus Christ, and now that Jesus Christ has come, we are able to enjoy the fullness of everything the OT law was pointing towards.

The essence of legalism is that it takes something that is likely good - like the OT law - disconnects it from the end or goal it’s supposed to point towards. As we talked about last week, because we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, we are to walk in him and be built up in him, and all of the activities of the Christian faith are meant to help us walk and be built up in Christ. Things like reading the Bible, attending church on Sunday, praying, sharing the Gospel, and our charitable giving are not things that we do simply for the sake of doing them - these are things that we do to grow in Christ. They are means to a greater end - these things are not the end itself.

Maybe an analogy will help here, and like all analogies, this one is not perfect, but I think it it’s worth using tonight. But before I get to the analogy, I want to let you in on a little secret about me: one of my pettiest, most ridiculous pet peeves is when people explain board games badly. I’m serious. It is stupid, it is silly, but it makes me way more annoyed than it should. And just to be clear, I have been like this for years now, so this is not a subtweet at any of you specifically. When someone asks me if I want to play a board game and it’s a game I’ve never played before, my usual question is to ask “what is the goal of the game? What are you trying to do to win?” And obviously, I know the goal is the game is to win, but what does “winning” specifically look like? For Risk, you win when you’ve conquered the world and have defeated all the other armies. For Catan, you win when you get 10 Victory Points, which you get through building and developing cities and roads. For Unstable Unicorns, you win when you’ve filled your stable with adorable magic unicorns. It drives me absolutely insane, when someone is telling me about a board game, when they immediately launch into explaining the rules and steps of the game without explaining how you win at the game. It’s confusing and often kills my interest in playing the game because I don’t know why I’m supposed to do all these things or why these rules matter. But when you start with the goal of the game and then begin to explain the rules to me, usually I’m all in because I know what the goal is and how to get there. And I think part of the reason why I’m like this because if you think about, the point of playing a board game isn’t really to follow the rules. I don’t need to play a game if I want to flip a coin, draw cards, or roll dice - those things are part of playing a board game, but they’re not the point of playing the game. The rules of the game point to the goal of the board game, and to play a board game just for the rules of the game is to completely miss the point of the game.

Where am I going with this? I think, for many of us in here, we have come to associate being a Christian with reading the Bible, going to church, praying, and do these other things simply for their own sake, and we’ve lost sight of the fact that the goal of being a Christian is being rooted in Christ and growing in Christ. The practices of Christianity, like the rules of a board game, aren’t the point - the point of Christianity is to become like Christ, and the practices of Christianity, like the rules of a board game, are how we reach that goal. Paul wants us to know that the substance of our faith is found in Christ himself - the substance of our faith is not found in the practices of our faith if they’re disconnected from Christ.

But there is another element to legalism here that’s important to mention - not every practice we can do in the Christian faith is necessary or even helpful for us to grow in Christ. In fact, all throughout the history of the church, Christians have been convinced they needed to invent or add practices or “rules” in order to grow in Christ, and the same is true for us today. Often times, in our context, we will hear things that “in order to be a Christian, you need to be a Republican or a Democrat”, or “in order to be a Christian, you need to support Christian businesses”, or “in order to be a Christian, you need to - “ and you can fill in the blank. Legalism can disconnect good and biblical practices from their right goal - to grow in Christ - and it can also introduce practices that are not necessary to grow in Christ. In fact, this is what Paul is going to explicitly focus on in the remainder of this passage, so let’s look at the next way we don’t love Jesus.

2) Asceticism: Everything Is A Rule

Let’s read the rest of the passage real quick:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh

So what exactly is Paul referring to here in these passages? To be totally honest - we aren’t quite sure. We know these false teachers were trying to get the Colossians to adopt these new practices in order to be Christians, but we aren’t really sure what these specific practices looked like - we just don’t have the historical data that we’d like. However, we can clearly recognize that these practices were concerned with making as many rules and practices as possible with the goal of having these mystical, supernatural experiences, and whether or not you had one of these visions or participated in the “worship of angels” was your proof of whether you were doing enough to be considered a true Christian.

Paul uses the word “asceticism” to describe what is going on, and asceticism is a severe and extreme form of self discipline that governs an entire person’s life. Ascetics had rules governing every single facet of their life and dictated every single moment of their day, and all with the explicit goal of pursuing the highest possible religious life. In the context of Colossians, these false teachers were telling the Colossian Christians that in order to be a “real Christian”, you had to have these mystical experiences, and the only way to attain to these experiences was to submit every single facet of your life to extreme discipline, which often involved cutting out anything and everything from your life that wasn’t necessary for your immediate survival and for devoting as much time as physically possible towards prayer, worship, or some other spiritual exercise. I can guarantee you that none of us in here have any kind of frame of reference for the kind extreme discipline and self control that asceticism requires - there is nothing in our culture that we can compare it to.

But some of you may be thinking - what’s the problem with that? At Redeemer Youth we want each of you in here to have a rich and vibrant relationship with Jesus because we believe Jesus changes everything and is worthy of all our devotion and obedience - why wouldn’t we minimize every single unnecessary thing about our lives in order to maximize the amount of time we can spend with Jesus? The problem though, as Paul spells out, is that this severe treatment of your body and mind isn’t actually capable of controlling the very thing that separates you from Christ - your sinful desires. Our physical discipline and willpower cannot subdue our sinful tendencies and desires, because our sinful desires are a spiritual problem that requires a spiritual cure. We cannot cure our spiritual sickness through physical discipline - that’s just not how that works.

Interestingly enough, the history of the church - which, if you are a Christian, is your history - would perfectly prove Paul’s point here. Several hundred years after the Resurrection, in the 4th century, a movement called Monasticism began in the church which was based around - wait for it - asceticism. Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire and because Christians were no longer being persecuted, they were becoming complacent and lazy in their faith. For Christians who took their faith seriously, they decided that they couldn’t stay in normal society anymore, but that they needed to collectively retreat from society to serve the Lord with rigorous discipline and zeal. And here’s the thing - for a while, this actually worked! For the first several hundred years of monasticism, it was an incredible force for good in the world. The monastics fed the poor, built hospitals, went on the front lines as missionaries, and through this model the Gospel went forth into the world in some incredible ways! But eventually, Paul’s point here would become reality, and rather than being a force for good, monasticism would eventually become terribly corrupt. Rather than sacrificing everything that was unnecessary to survive, monasteries became places of immense riches and wealth. Instead of maximizing the amount of time they could serve the Lord and serve the poor and needy, the monastics would become lazy, and eat food and drink wine that they didn’t have to pay for or work for. Rather than promising the best possible relationship with Jesus Christ, monasteries became spiritual strongholds of immense darkness, where the very indulgences of the flesh that Paul wrote about would take place. On paper, this seems like a good idea, but in practice, this is not the right way to love Jesus.

3) How Do You Love Jesus?

Well then, what is the the right way to love Jesus? If doing things for the sake of doing things isn’t how we love Jesus, and if extreme discipline and zeal also isn’t how we love Jesus, then what do we do?

The good news here is that Jesus answers that question for us:

English Standard Version Chapter 14

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments

If we love Jesus, we will obey him. Period. We cannot say that we love Jesus and have no desire or concern to obey him. We cannot say that we love Jesus and center our lives around things that He has has said are sinful. We cannot say that we love Jesus by presuming to do all of these extra things for him and ignoring what he has commanded us to do in his word. Paul is going to spend the rest of the book of Colossians expounding on what it means to love Jesus, and nothing that he will say is disconnected from what Christ has commanded us to do. We need to know who Jesus is and why we should love him, and if we love Jesus, we will obey his commandments. We do not obey his commandments simply out of blind obedience - we obey his commandments because we desire to grow in Christ to be conformed to Christ. We do not obey his commandments by adding to his commandments - Jesus is our Lord, he doesn’t need us to add to his perfect rule and authority to tell us how he desires us to live. We do not obey his commandments by subjecting our lives to extreme discipline, because he has told us that He is the only one who can cure our spiritual disease, and that we cannot cure it ourselves. We love Jesus by keeping his commandments, which he has revealed to us in his Word.

But all of his commandments are based around one primary, foundational commandment - to repent and believe in Christ for salvation. None of talking about the practices of Christianity and growing up into maturity in Christ are worth talking about if we have not placed our faith in Jesus Christ for our salvation. Everything we have talked about tonight is based on understanding who Jesus is - the sinless, righteous, perfect Son of God - and why we should love Jesus - because he willingly took the penalty we deserved for our sin by dying on the cross in our place. If you are here tonight and you don’t know if you are a Christian or don’t know what it means to become a Christian, I encourage you to talk to one of your small group leaders, or Andrew or I, about what that means. Becoming a Christian is not a decision to make lightly, and it is a costly decision to make, but it is the single best decision that you could ever possibly make. And if you’re here tonight and you are a Christian, I pray that you would ask yourself - am I loving Jesus the way I know I’m supposed to? If you are, great! If not, use this time of worship as a chance to reset and resume loving Jesus the way he has commanded. Let us give all the praise and glory we can to Jesus by singing to him with our full focus and attention.