Old Life Gone

HBI: Our Lord is Christ through whom we hold fast to as we live a new life in Christ remembering that the old life is gone.

This is because we have died to our old life and have risen to a new life in Christ. We have died to the Old covenant and risen in a new covenant in Christ.

Intro

How many of you have ever played the game the floor is lava? Or maybe seen the TV show. Our kids like to play all the time by using our furniture as little trampolines to keep off the floor. I admit it frustrates me when I see them jumping on our 10 year old couches. But the idea of the game is sound, do not touch the floor, do not touch certain things or you are dead! Well figuratively anyways.

There is also a way of living like this, do not touch, do not eat, do not do anything. The world is lava so let us forsake it all for fear that we are all going to die. Monks and Nuns would do this, forsake the world for it would lead the astray and they needed a place to focus on God away from it all.

sometimes People even look down on other people because they have not taken to their same lifestyle of ascetic living. They think, you must live like me in order to be saved, you must give u all these things or follow all these laws.

But what we learn is that because of the sufficiency of Christ we are to walk in Him, we are to know Him we are to rooted in Him so as not to be led astray by the false teachings of the world. After all, as followers of Jesus we have died to our old life and been risen to new life in Christ. because of who Jesus is and what He has done, part of our response to all that Jesus has done is our freedom in Him. What we have today is in response to the passage Dustin went through.

We see that what the all sufficiency of of Christ means is that we can be sure of our standing before God. We can know for sure that we know Him, as we walk worthy of Him. What we continue to learn about Knowing God and waling worthy of Him is that Our Lord is Christ through whom we hold fast to, as we live a new life in Christ remembering that the old life is gone.

Why should we live with any desires for the world when we have new life in Christ? Why should we be tempted to submit to the ways of the world when Christ has given us new life.

16-17 - do not judge

We continue on with the idea last week with the symbolism behind baptism, that we are dead to sin but alive in Christ. We are dead to the old way of life and alive in a new covenant written in the blood of Jesus.

At the time, it seems with all the animistic faiths around there one of the common themes was a more Ascetic way of living. You cant touch this, you cant eat that, this is no good for you, everything is evil so we need to forsake all the world. this type of thinking was likely rooted in two types of religions that where going around at the time, Gnosticism and Judasim. Judaists where Jewish people that held religiously to the Mosaic law, kind of like the Pharisees. They advocated for Jewish rites and practices. And the Gnostic's where similar except they didn't follow God. They believed that all human beings contain a divine spark of God but our bodies and the material world are evil and dying. Knowledge is required for this piece of god in us but it must come from outside the world.

so we have one group that required a strict following of a set of laws and one group that required a forsaking of all things.

But what we learn as followers of Jesus is that it is all about our relationship with Jesus, about Knowing Him above all else and walking worthy of him. Being rooted in Him and built up in Him. Because of this....

Col 2:16 “16 Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.”

do not let anyone judge you. But what is it that we are not to let anyone judge us on? Based on our relationship with Jesus, we are not to let anyone judge you in regards to the observance on the mosaic laws, food laws or any other arbitrary laws that people make for themselves that makes them think that they are better Christians then you. This passage goes beyond Mosaic food laws though.

What we are being told though is in reference to Christian Liberty and their freedom in Christ and this must be kept in mind as well. That our freedom in Christ allows us to partake of things that they where saying where not allowed, or may not have been allowed as part of the Mosaic covenant. Col 2:17 “17 These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is Christ.”

But what we are told is that these have no substance, they are but a shadow, the substance lies in Christ. Frank Gaebelin refers to it as the legal shadow and the gospel substance. the legal side was just a shadow. the festivals the Judaists followed, the laws and sabbath where a shadow of Christ.

Dont get me wrong, the OT is important, and we need to know that Jesus can still be found in the OT and in the law, because it all points to Him.

Think of it like Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, a fairy that is only alive as long as people believe in her. The only substance she has is what people give her, if not for people she would be but a shadow and die. The law was bust a shadow that pointed to the substance of Christ. Therefore our new life in Christ is the way that we are to live, not a false set of laws that people make up for themselves. The work of salvation was finished on the cross, there is no more that needs to be done. There is no deeper spiritual life for those that follow extra laws or do extra things, Christ is sufficient for all.

18-19 - do not condemn

the same idea is echoed in people insisting on Ascetic practices. Legalism and the law have no power to prevent sin or take it away.

but this time it is dealing with Ascetisim. The idea of why have you not given up everything for God, this life and this world is evil and we can not live in the dangers of this world anymore.

there is some truth to this though if you think about it though. The forsaking for the world to avoid sin and the evils. Sometimes this is required of us to avoid sin, sometimes God even tells us to give up all for the sake of the cross, but it is not a requirement of faith,though the willingness to do so is.

there is no outward semblance of faith that can replace inward conversion. legalism can make you look like a good Christian, like look at me and see how spiritual I am. it is a matter of the heart.

There was this show i used to watch as a kid called romper room. At the end of the show she would look in here magic mirror and be able to see people in it sitting at home and say I can see (insert names). Imagine if we had one of those mirrors and could see into each others houses where no one was watching. You may put on a good show when people are watching but when no one is watching does the facade fall or is what is being shown to the world alive and well and working in your heart.

Col 2:18 “18 Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind.” we re told to not let anyone condemn you, or what it really means is that we are not to let anyone declare us unworthy of the prize

phil 3:14 “14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”

our prize, the goal we run towards as followers of Jesus is is eternity in heaven. People though will try to disqualify based on the following of laws.

I had someone try to disqualify one of the kids in my youth group once based on some misquoted scripture. She thought you had to speak in tongues to be a follower of Jesus and since he had not spoke in tongues yet, he was not a believer.

Trying to disqualify a christian boy based on some untrue beliefs added to the word of God. The unspiritual mind one based on an unrenewed life that is till living according t the old way of life.

col 2:19 “19 He doesn’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with growth from God.”

you see, someone who is truly a follower of Jesus glorifies in Christ alone. Christ is the head of the church, our Lord and savior through which we live our lives. We glorify in Christ, not in our own experiences, our own laws we make up. The only experience we need to go back to is our relationship with Jesus.

Let know one disqualify you or judge you based on living a life for Jesus. But the life needs to be lived for Jesus, not based on laws or emotional responses to God. Christ is sufficient for all and when other people condemn you for the we are not to take it to heart.

20-23 - Old life gone

And why is that, our old life is gone. To continue to know Jesus more, to wlk worthy of Him He needs to become central in our life. He needs to be the reason why we live. When people try to judge us, disqualify us or condemn us we need to know that we are standing firm on the word of God and leanr to keep Jesus central in our lives.

Jesus is the substance of the laws shadow, Jesus is Lord and the old life is gone.

col 2:20-22 “20 If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: 21 “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”? 22 All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines.”

We keep wanting to go back to the world. We get so tempted to go back to that old way of life. Forget for a minute the gnostics and the Judaists. What in your life is drawing you back to your old way of life. Why is it that we keep wanting to go back to our old way of life.

Why is it that if we are followers of Jesus do we live as if we did not die to our old way of life, as if we still belonged to the world. Jesus is the Lord of our lives, or at least should be so we need to live as if he is the Lord of our lives.

we would we still submit to the regulations of the world that go against the word of God, why would we even care. We need to remember that this world is not our home, that our time on the world as we know it is temporary. Are you trusting in the Lord and forsaking your old life of sin? or does it keep drawing you back.

SO What?

What are the desires of your heart? we are told by some that the world as lava, that we need to forsake it, we are told we need to follow a series of rules and regulations to become a christian. Our old life of sin continues to draw us back to our old life. The passions of our heart try to make us turn to ways that we should not. But what the powers of Christ should do within us is place new desires within our heart.

We may still be tempted to go back to that old life, but that old life has been dead since we became new in christ. The new desires of our hearts should be coming from our walk with Jesus.

What this is telling us is that Christ is supreme, He is sufficient for all. If we are to walk with Him and Know Him we need to let the all-sufficiency of Christ work within our hearts so then what are the desires of your heart? Are they to seek Jesus above all else? are you being tempted to return to your old life, or have you died to your old life and are resting in the sufficiency of Jesus.