The Believer's Training--WOULD NEED WORK

Colossians 2:6–23 ESV

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. 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. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 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, 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. 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— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 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.

Scripture: Colossians 2:6-23

Sermon Title: The Believer’s Training

           The theme of Colossians that we’ve been focused on, as we slowly moved through chapter 1 and into chapter 2, is Christ and the Believer. With that, we recognize there is a relationship between us and the One God has sent for us—a relationship expressed in our faith in him and in his giving of that faith and giving the benefits of his work, his accomplishments, his grace.

           Yet there’s something else that can be said, which is at least alongside of this relationship, if not deeper and more intimate. We have union with Christ; we are united with him. Not only do we belong to him, “in body and soul, in life and in death,” but spiritually we have suffered with him, died and been buried with him, we rise with him. Those actions, of course, speak of what he went through for our salvation. Yet we recognize that for true believers, these things happen in our own lives. They happen with regard to our sinful nature and pursuing holiness anew. None of us can genuinely do that on our own; it takes God in us, Christ in us, to truly have that happen.

Here’s what that looks like: any person, Christian or not, can say, “I’m not going to do this action anymore. I don’t like it.” Maybe they even say, “I don’t think it’s right”—and that can be based on a matter of conscience or cultural acceptance or a spiritual direction. Any person can say, “I’ll stop this, and do that instead.” Yet it’s union in Christ that compels the believer to recognize what they were doing wasn’t just something to “not like,” but it’s sin. It was sin requiring payment and punishment, sin that’s been forgiven, and now you’re trusting in Christ for a new life.

That’s the foundation Paul has laid to bring us into today’s reading. As he has talked about the Colossian believers’ faith and hope, about the gospel, the knowledge of God and his will, his power, the redemption had through Christ—the Creator, Redeemer, Reconciler, the One in whom the fullness of God dwells, the only key to “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”—this all points to not only a relationship but the union of Christ and believers. What do we do with that?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have been created by God to grow. A baby that is born healthy is expected to grow in length, in weight, in the size of their heads, in their reflexes. Those are some of those key measurements that nurses and pediatricians look at shortly after birth. But they don’t just record those and never come back to them. What Christie and I have experienced over the past six years since we started having kids is that children go to their pediatricians at regular intervals for check-ups. Each time, not only do they measure certain physical things, but there’s a questionnaire we have to fill out about what we observe our child is able to do. The staff take that information and compare it to responses from other children the same age or to certain established norms to see if they’re ahead, behind, or average in development. The measurements tell them and us as parents if there are certain things to be watched out for or worked on.

For many of us, when we have healthy kids, we’ve probably taken a lot of this for granted. In order for a baby to grow, though, there’s a combination of factors. Are they getting the right amount of food, are their bodies processing it the way they should? They develop socially. That gets into attachment issues, and love, nurturing, and affection. There’s mental development—as they age, are they learning how to make sounds and eventually speak, how to count and sort, to spell and read, to see and comprehend? All these affect how they think and grow.

Another significant factor in all this is who is training them and what kind of training they are receiving. Are parents present or absent, are they heavy-handed or lax? Does the child have other teachers and people who engage them, care for them, encourage them? What are they being taught as they grow from childhood to adolescence and on? When they, when we get to a certain point in life, we have to take responsibility for our education, our minds, our continuing development Do we continue to invest in growth, or are we content to just exist and get by? What happens when we are taught something different from what we previously learned or were told—do we test it, do we reject it, accept it? How do we do that? To whom or what do we look for truth?

 These are significant questions that many people are asking today, and likely have for a long time. They come to mind when we look at schools, when we talk to family members, when we talk with others who we agree or disagree with. In asking or thinking about their training, we might wonder: what caused them to think the way they do, to come to their conclusions?

The growth, development, and training of our faith and Christian beliefs aren’t all that different. Our first point echoes what I said in opening: We have been created by God to grow, but we need training. Our faith is nourished by being in God’s Word, by being with God’s people, by seeking the Lord and trusting him. But imagine a situation in which you have a question about a decision you have to make, or you’re wondering about something you’ve been hearing. Imagine someone tells you, “Just go read your Bible.” That seems rather simple and straightforward, and yet what lens are we or they using? Do we take into account what we find across the pages of history and how different times, different situations, inform others? Or do we just focus on one part of the book? Is the Bible a book of rules and facts and truth or is this just a story or advice that we can just take or leave? What does our reading tell us about God, and what do we do with that? How we interpret what we read is a choice—not all roads lead to true growth.

We have been created by God to grow in our faith. Christianity is not a single-dose pill, it’s not a participate one-time and don’t worry about returning again. No, we read in verses 6 and 7, “Just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” This is a command, “continue to live,” other translations have “walk” in him—our faith should be an ongoing journey that we are active in. It’s not an accomplishment. Some commentators recognize imagery of a tree—roots and growth, strengthening as time goes on, overflowing, bearing fruit. God doesn’t intend for us to simply be a foundation that he’s made; no, we’re to grow up in him.

But you can’t teach algebra or calculus to a child who hasn’t figured out how to add and subtract simple numbers. You shouldn’t expect someone who can hardly build with blocks to be knowledgeable and approved with an engineering or construction degree. Why? Because they have not developed or been trained properly. So too, as Paul spoke to believers in Colossae and elsewhere, he couldn’t expect them to know all they might know if they were babies in the faith, if they were still in early development. Yet growth is the only way that they would be able to handle these people who were bringing different ideas and philosophies to them, who were raising questions about traditions and why they weren’t doing them. Maybe these other people sounded right, but was their message true? To discern that, they needed training.

Another word we might use for training is discipleship. It is vital that we as people of God, whether we’ve been in the faith for a short time or long time, whether we consider ourselves mature or young, we need to be discipled. We need to seek God, but also to do that along with others. If we’re able, we should disciple others, to train them, raise them up in the faith, to know the Lord, to honor him. That may be a fearful task, but we are called to it. As we grow and are sharpened, we learn how to engage God’s Word better.

           We take that into our second point: How do we know what’s the truth, what’s right, what’s wrong, what should be expected of us and others? Do we have any right to tell people what to do? Hopefully one of the things you see in that list of questions is the concept of truth, that there is a truth, a way that things should be and are meant to be. One of the reasons Christians are so divided and we see churches and traditions going all different ways is in part because we’ve softened on whether or not there is truth. There is truth. There are ways things should be among believers. How do we know what we can tell people, though, and believe that we’re serving them well?

           If you have a pew Bible open or have brought one from home, the title given to this section may read, “Freedom from Human Regulations Through Life with Christ.” That’s worth emphasizing: when it comes to human regulations and traditions that people say you have to incorporate this into your life or else you can’t be saved—that’s unnecessary. That’s not serving one another well. If there are things that cannot be found in the Bible or rooted in the Bible pointing us towards righteousness and glorifying God, then we can’t require people to do them.

We take Paul’s example in verse 16, “…Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to [their religious festivals].” We can read all about the dietary restrictions God gave to Israel, foods were clean and unclean, and he desired them to honor his decrees. That’s true. Yet later God revealed to Peter that nothing was to be considered unclean. When the Jerusalem Council met, Acts 15, they determined only don’t eat meat with blood or meat sacrificed to idols. If anyone told the Christians in Colossae that they had to abide by the older rules, which conflicted with what God had revealed, and tried to require that of them, they were wrong.

           What about these religious rituals, though? The Hebrew word, “shabbat,” which is translated in English as Sabbath, is used 111 times across the Old Testament. There are a variety of uses. Quite often it’s related to the commands given to all the Israelites: to “keep” the Sabbath, recognize it as a day of rest and holy, a day most people were not to work on. Sometimes the duties of the priests on that day are explained. Sabbaths also marked time—they marked a week, and when Sabbath came, you worshiped.

New moons represented a different time period, the month. Again, from one week to the next, there was time for worship; so too, from one month to the next was also a reason to worship. To bring this together along with festivals or feast days, we read in 1 Chronicles 23 verses 30 and 31, King David reminded the Levites of the duties God had given their ancestors. He did this as the temple was going to be built. “They were also to stand every morning to thank and praise the LORD. They were to do the same in the evening and whenever burnt offerings were presented to the LORD…” When did that happen? “…On Sabbaths and at New Moon festivals and at appointed feasts.” Solomon followed through on dedicating them to that in 2 Chronicles 8:12 and 13, where these duties are recognized as “commanded by Moses.” We can trace that back to Numbers 28 and 29. These rituals weren’t practiced faithfully throughout Israel’s history, but they do show up when the people were returning to the Lord. These religious times were a good thing in Israel.

But all of the sacrificial requirements met their fulfilment in Jesus, in his sacrifice, the complete sacrifice. It’s because of him that we no longer live under that system. Going back to Colossians 2:16 and 17, we can understand where certain Jewish groups were coming from with their insistence on these practices and circumcision and other traditions. These had all been important and good things for them.

Yet as Paul writes, “These are a shadow of the things to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” He’s not saying those things were wrong or evil, that the Jewish people, Israelites, should have never done them. No, God had commanded the worship of Israel to include those things. But now, after Jesus, particularly for Gentiles, there was nothing to be gained by doing them. It wouldn’t save them to a greater degree if they did these things, nor would their salvation be in jeopardy if they didn’t. So don’t allow others to try and convince you of such.

           How do we know the truth? We have to search the word of God like this. There are times when something is part of the old covenant, but it no longer applies. Yet there are things in the New Testament, following Jesus, that believers are expected to practice. Part of our growth as Christians is obedience to the Lord. The Christian life is not an unregulated life. You can look where we’ll be next week in Colossians 3, the title given is “Rules for Holy Living.” There are things we put to death and things we clothe ourselves with. But in order to determine what is right and pleasing to the Lord, what we should do so that we don’t intentionally provoke the Lord to anger, we have to be in the Word, we have to be studying it, listening to it, putting it into practice. We don’t just assume that what’s always been done is the way it has to be done. We don’t need to place unnecessary restrictions on ourselves.

           That brings us to our final point, remember your journey in Christ. We’ve all heard it said, “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet” or “that you see on TV.” Unfortunately, the same can be true when it comes to Christian labels. When we see words like “Christian” or “faith,” “biblical” or “church” on something—it’s easy, it makes sense to assume that this is something beneficial for us. It would serve us well. Yet that’s not always the case.

           Building on our last point, part of how we can test if things are good and true and right is by remembering our journey in Christ. What I mean by that is where we started this morning in my comments about union with Christ. It’s what we find in verses 11 through 13, “In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature…with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. 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…”

           The things that believers should fill themselves with, that we should trust, that we can identify as training us to grow are things that point us to Christ and what he’s done. If we’re not being called out of sin and are being told to just figure things out—that’s not beneficial for us. If we’re not being reminded that Christ is our Savior, that he has redeemed and forgiven us—if we’re being taught just to live morally, appreciate yourself—we don’t need faith to do that. If we’re not hearing or seeing anything about the miraculous power of Christ—that he can change and transform anyone and anything according to his purpose—that he brings what was once dead and enemy to God to life and the bride of God—leave it behind.

This is part of the benefit of using the forms that we do for communion. In a few minutes, we’re going to be taken on that journey of our redemption in even greater detail. The journey of obedience to agony and death, but also to resurrection and renewal. That Christ gave himself for us and continues to give us his Spirit to sustain us on our journey. What we’ll hear continues to be the truth that has been written and summarized from God’s word. Brothers and sisters, may this and train us well to be people of gratitude, wise believers in what the Lord requires. May we fill ourselves, in what we read and see and learn from, with things that point us to the work of Christ. Amen.