In Christ Alone

Introduction

So good to be here again with you tonight. I’m thankful and appreciative to the leadership for allowing me to come and spend a few days with you. I do not take lightly this responsibility and opportunity, and I can appreciate the fact that you do not either. You are making sacrifices to be here. You’ve got the scripture open to check everything that you hear against the one true standard. And it’s not any person you can go talk to in this room. He is that one true standard and his word. And so I’m glad you brought that book, and I encourage you to open it. We will be getting back to Colossians in a moment, but if it’s okay, I just want to read from Romans 5 for a minute.

It’s a passage we didn’t get to include last night, and it relates to how the book of Colossians opens. So while you’re getting over there to Romans 5, so that we can begin with a short read, here’s basically what we’ve been talking about. Anytime you read Scripture, anywhere in the Scripture you are, you ought to begin by seeking to know more about God, about God the Father, about God the Spirit, and specifically about God the Son, because that is the means by which the Father redeems us. The one story of all scripture is that God wants to redeem you through Jesus Christ. So wherever we read, we’re always looking for him. And so we did some Old Testament stuff, and obviously the Gospels, we ought to be able to do that.

But what we’re looking at for these last three nights is even once you get to these epistles, these letters. I mean, think about it. They’re written to people who are already Christians. They already technically believe. They believe in Jesus as the Son of God. They’ve been baptized for the re forgiveness of their sins upon repentance, and they’ve been in the church a while. They’re kind of like you and me. And so when he opens these letters, he’s writing to Christians who’ve been in it for a while, and he keeps Paul and Peter. They begin the letters in the same way. Let’s make sure our eyes are set on Jesus. They start with recalling things about Christ. And so last night we looked at these things. In Colossians chapter 1.

Before he gets to doctrinal deviancy, which is what we’re going to talk about tonight in chapter 2. Before he gets to the daily behavior that is important, which is where we’re going to be tomorrow night in chapter 3, he says, first we need to unite on our hope. This is just a simple list of the things listed in chapter 1 that Jesus uniquely fulfills, not just for you, but for all of us, making us one. And principally we focused on the idea of hope. The more you know about the Lord, you more you know that he has filled you with joyful and confident expectation for every day of your life, every week, month, and year. And ultimately, 1 Peter 1, no matter what happens for the rest of your life here, how long or short it is, we’re going to heaven.

We are going to heaven. And there’s nothing that the world can do to stop it. In line with that hope thing, I wanted to just read Romans 5 1 through 5, because sometimes it’s tough here. Sometimes we go through difficult times, and keeping our minds focused on hope can be a challenge. So listen carefully. Romans 5, verse 1. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we exalt, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, we also exalt in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance, proven character, and proven character brings us right back around to hope.

Here’s why I brought you to this text. Hope does not disappoint. Should I make a list for you of everything that does disappoint? How much time do you have? Can we pull an all-nighter and just list everything that you cannot ultimately count on and that you hope maybe works out, but you have no real reason to believe that it will. But God and the promises of Jesus are a hope that does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Good news. I text Brent today. He’s gonna take on this Holy Spirit thing, and he’s gonna explain that. But there are so many beautiful passages about the Holy Spirit in us and the relationship that we have with Him and the way that He helps to produce, you know, love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control.

One final thing here before we get back to our text, just reading through this. Even through tribulation, there’s always this hope. Here’s the way it is for the Christian, because I don’t know that the non-Christian gets this. And I’m gonna push that a little further. I don’t know that your average churchgoer gets it. But people who are living with real hope, here’s how it works. You guys ready? Every morning when you get up, you know that God is with you. And that Jesus, the creator of the universe, is for you. And that any number of blessings can come from God at any moment, any day. If he allows you to continue, verse 2 and 3 and 4 in trials, then that is God working something that is profitable.

Even when it doesn’t change day by day, you may go months in some of the same struggles, and you go, you know what? Number one, every morning God’s mercies are new and anything can happen. And as long as the trials continue, I know that I am a part of God’s story and his plan, and we’re going to go to heaven anyway in the end. The world’s like, that’s convenient. So you’re saying whether you have a good day or a bad day, or things get better, or they trudge along for 20 years, you get to get up smiling every day, going, God’s got me and God’s got this, and I know where I’m going. Sounds pretty simple and convenient. Yeah, it’s kind of awesome. It’s kind of amazing.

But it requires real faith. I think there are churchgoers, maybe sitting in here tonight going, you know, I try. I don’t know. I try to feel that hope, but I feel like the world sometimes. I’m like, what in the world’s going on? You just you don’t need to be told to do better. You need to be shown Jesus more clearly. That’s the point. That’s that’s the point is that we find him. But listen, here’s where we get into our new study. Go back to Colossians 2. When we talk about how our hope is found in Christ and all that he has done, it must be in him. You’re gonna see that phrase all throughout Colossians chapter 2. If you got a pencil and you’re not afraid to use it, be ready to circle that phrase in Colossians chapter 2.

All of this hope is only available in Jesus. It is not available in a forfeit copy of Jesus. It is not available in a distorted view of Jesus. It is not available in some construct of Jesus that you create. It is only found in him and him alone. And so tonight we need to talk about doctrine. By doctrine, I mean the things that we believe to be true about Jesus. Because if what I believe to be true of Jesus is not the truth, then the hope is false. And all of it falls apart in the end. And that’s where he goes in Colossians 2. He says, look, we put our faith in him, but let’s make sure we know exactly what that means. We’re going to start here in the text in the middle here, just looking at some great things that are said.

As he starts Colossians 2, he’s keeping the same vibe going. He’s saying, let’s just remember that all of this is because of our Savior, and everything that’s good emanates from him, and all things must be connected to him. And I want to read that for you. Look with me in our text, just moving into chapter 2. We talked about being complete in Christ, chapter 1, verse 28. We get to chapter 2, and here’s how it opens. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love and attained to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ Himself.

This version adds the word himself. I think it shouldn’t be there. It should just be that is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I put Christ himself on the board. He’s saying, We share in this fulfillment of this great mystery. It is Christ himself. Every treasure, every piece of wisdom, every relevant knowledge is connected to him. Skip verse 4 and go with me to verse 5. For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I’m with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ. Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and I love this phrase, and overflowing with gratitude.

This is about who we are with our faith in Christ. Now I love that Brent’s been bringing that bring this up, so I’m going to mention it too. Look, fear will take you aways. But if any of you have children or grandchildren like I do, I have one, I’ve had for three days. So I’m not going to be, I’m not, I’m not an authority on that subject. But I’m getting there with the four kids. When your kids are little, they don’t know you very well. They don’t know a lot about what you do. So they obey you because why? They’re scared. We thump, we pick, we pinch, we whip, we inflict pain, and they react to that. Eventually, we want them to obey us, not just because they’re afraid of us, but because they know how much we love them.

And then as years go by and they grow up, we want them to treat us well because they really respect us and treasure us as important. And we want, and the fear kind of goes away. I’m still I’m still a little bit scared of my dad. He’s 70. But mostly it gets replaced with how grateful I am for the way that they raised me and loved me and put up with me and all those kinds of things. What I’m telling you here is the reason he starts with Christ is look, you first became a Christian because you didn’t want to go to hell, but I hope you’re not here tonight because you don’t want to go to you. That’s part of it, right? But it’s got to be replaced with something.

It is replaced with Christ Himself, the treasures he provides, the hope that’s overflowing, and I’m here out of gratitude because he deserves this. We need to speak about our worship in terms of Christ. Why are you here tonight? Jesus deserves my time. And I love him. And if this is something I can do to glorify him, I’m motivated to do so. Let’s read one more. Go to verse 9 and keep going. This is where you get a lot of those in him phrases. For in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. Verse 10. In him you’ve been made complete. He is the head over all rule and authority. And in him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with him through faith, in the working of God who raised him from the dead.

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions. Verse 14, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When he had disarmed verse 15 the rulers in authority, he made a public display of them, having triumphed over triumphed over them through him. So the language is just this is what we were talking about last night. All that we have in him and through him and with him is amazing. But it’s gotta be him, the true version. Why do I bring that up? I skip verse four. In the midst of all these beautiful things about what happens when you’re in a true relationship with Jesus, he says the following.

I say this. I say that the treasures are in Christ Himself, so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. This is what we call false doctrine or teaching or ideas. Distorted versions of Christ. The saddest thing I can say about the state of our religious nation is how many people think they know Christ when they just know a twisted version that’s been presented to them that is not Christ. Only He saves, and it gets missed. He said, look, things get twisted and you need to know how. And that’s what we’re going to talk about tonight. What does it mean when we miss Christ for things that are adjacent to him? Four categories tonight, four points, but they’re not him. We need to find out what they are.

Now we could list some really extreme things like atheism, like there’s no God or agnosticism. But what you’re going to find in chapter two is he’s not warning about missing the true Christ for like a disbelief in God. He’s concerned that you may miss the true Christ for some spiritual idea of Christ that is not him. We’re going to look at those. Anybody ever fired at a target? Anything? Gun, bow and arrow. In terms of left and right, can you only miss to the left? Can you also miss to the right? I think when it comes to religious distortion, we almost believe there’s only one wrong direction. You know, left is bad. If you miss Christ to the left, and we all know what that is, it’s not just the interstate, it’s like the whole thing, then you’re in big trouble.

True. If you miss the truth for a liberated version of the truth, that’s missing the mark. But guess what? Marks get missed in multiple directions. And so, while it can be missed over here, and I’m going to start over here so you guys can go, amen, people are weird. But once we’re done talking about this miss, we’re gonna go over here. You go, well, you can’t miss to the right. Everything on the right is right. Everything conservative is good, right? Conservative is always a win. If it is not Jesus, it is not good. It doesn’t matter how conservative it is. It doesn’t matter how safe it feels. Look, I’m already getting over there. I told you guys I was gonna leave you alone for now. If it’s not him, it’s not good, no matter how comfortable you are with it.

1. Philosophy and Human Reasoning

So we’ll get into that. Alright, you’re like, let’s just start there. No, trust me, you need to wait. Let me show you some misses. And oh, by the way, I did not want to come up with four things to come and present to you because my bias would be too big a part of it. We all have it. Instead, I just want Paul to do it in Colossians 2. He’s gonna give you four things. We’re gonna see if we can relate to them. Relate to them. Let’s start in verse 8. I’ll interpret at least what I think it looks like in today’s time. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy. This version says, philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

He said, Here is a swing and a miss. When our concept of God is the basis of or is based on philosophy and human reasoning. You know what all that means? It just means man’s logic and understanding. Smart men, wise men, studied men coming together going, you know, I’ve been thinking about this. And I think I know who Jesus really is. And I think I know what we all need to be doing. And men get together and they revel in that wisdom. And if it’s not of God, if it’s of men, then it’s not the gospel. Anyone ever see the old Disney movie Beauty and the Beast? The old one? The old one. Cartoon. When what’s his name? Gaston. Gaston said, Lefleur, I’m afraid I’ve been thinking.

A dangerous pastime I know. It is a dangerous pastime. When your concept of God is the product of your thinking. I’ve been thinking about this church thing. I’ve been thinking about this God thing. And I think I’ve figured it out. When we think our attempts at wisdom are the way you access the Lord, you have made yourself the Lord, and you are not. And that’s the problem with human reasoning. Smart people coming up with great conclusions. And this manifests in all kinds of weird religious ways today. But go with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians 1, there’s a challenge laid out by God. And the challenge is this go anywhere you want, any generation or country you want, and find me the wisest men you can, the ones who were the best thinkers and knew how to piece everything together and figure out all the conclusions, and let’s move down the stream of time a couple of generations, and you tell me where are those men?

They’re gone. Where are their ideas that were so novel and strong and finally fixing everything that’s broken, replaced with some other idea that some more smart men came up with? But you know what’s never changed? The word of the cross. Christ and Him crucified is simple. It’s not your idea, and you’re not supposed to figure it out. It was His idea, and there’s not much to figure out. He is the Christ who died for you to follow. And so that gets challenged in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 18. You know this text. For the word of the cross, just this simple word of Jesus on the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

For it is written, 1 Corinthians 1 19, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where’s the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God was well pleased through the, and this is sarcastic language, the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed, verse 22, Jews ask for a sign, Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. To Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness. These Gentiles were smarter than the message of the cross. They had figured out more things, they had found a better way.

They’re dead and gone. Their ways are buried, and the cross still stands. Because the foolishness of God, verse 25, is greater than any form of wisdom of man. Chapter 2, verse 2, he said, I’ll tell you where I’m at on this deal. I’m determined to know nothing among you, nothing among you, except Jesus Christ, Him crucified. Be a little careful as you grow in the faith and you start learning things and you start to believe in yourself and how good you are at figuring things out and ironing out the details that others don’t get and figuring out how to fill in the gaps and put the puzzle pieces together. Be careful because the gospel isn’t set up for your wisdom to figure out. In fact, most of the time you need to lay down that part of your brain that thinks you’ve got to figure it out.

And your ideas have some. I’m gonna hold you and then help you. Your ideas, they’re not great and they don’t matter. But I’m gonna tell you this. I love that, because I’m a dummy. I love it. I love the idea that I don’t have to figure out how to be a Christian. Jesus just showed me how to do it. I don’t have to puzzle piece together every detail and figure out exactly where all the lines are on everything. Jesus just told me. And his apostles just wrote about it. I don’t have to be wise. In fact, that’s his whole point in 1 Corinthians. It’s the fools among the nation and the poor people and the fishermen that are all following Jesus because of their humility. Number one on the list.

Be careful of behold, what was it? Paul said, Behold, I thought. And everything that followed was a mistake. I like that. You don’t have to think in a way that creates or fixes. We just have to submit to the Lord. Number one, philosophical reasoning. I’ll tell you this. Commentaries are good, like lowercase g good. magazines are not great. articles are okay. I was raised at the humble church of Christ. Anybody know where humble church of Christ is? We’re very humble. I don’t know, the name’s unfortunate, but that’s the name of the town. And Steve Fontenneau preached there. He still preaches there. He’s been there for 40 years. And all I remember when he was teaching me how to preach and teach is he’s like, For the foreseeable future, I don’t want you reading magazines and articles and some preacher’s thing here and some deal here.

And just read the word and read it and love the Lord in it and try to follow it and preach what’s in it. And it’s like the best advice. You can look at commentaries and I use those when I get high center when I’ve just, I’ve got to, you know, because the church wants us to get up and know stuff, Brent. Like they want us to get up and like tell them what hard stuff means, which is really weird. But in the end, I use it occasionally. But what I’m telling you is just be careful. Because when you start figuring things out that aren’t on the page, then you’ve left the page. We need to get back to the Lord. Now, here’s the second thing. Alright, so check it out.

2. Mystical Spiritualism

So you go, oh, yeah, it’s clearly wrong. It’s clearly wrong to just sort of think it out and come up with your own conclusion. You want to think, but come up with your own conclusions. But then he says this. Look in verse 18 and 19. Go back to Colossians 2. I’ll show you a couple things here. Back to Colossians 2. Colossians 2, verses 18 and 19. We’ll talk about this self-abasement thing in a minute, but look at verse 18. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stands on this version says, visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and 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.

Now we love verse 19. You should love verse 19. All we have to do is be connected to Christ, and everything’s gonna work out just fine. The church just has to represent the mind and will of Christ. He’s the one that provides the growth, he’s the one that tells you how to do it. You don’t have to be novel, and you don’t have to recreate. But he said, be careful, because those in verse 18 are adding other spiritual elements that are not of God. Things like things related to angels or visions or dreams or things like that. And so what we’re really talking about here is this second category. Which again, you’re going, yeah, these are really bad, and these are really getting crazy in the world, and they are.

But I use the term mystical spiritualism because he talks about like what angels are doing and the dreams that they’re having. And here’s what this sounds like today. It sounds like God told me. Or the Holy Spirit has placed this upon my heart. And then the next thing that comes out of your mouth is not from here. It’s from here, we say, but not from here. You know what the difference is on the left here? See the two things on the left? Okay, here’s the real key. You ready? They’re the same thing. Except in the first category, it’s hey, I’ve been thinking. Let’s do this instead of that. And the second one, it’s God told me. It’s still you, though. What we do is we take our own thinking and we attribute it to visions, dreams, feelings, ideas that are not of Christ.

And that just supercharges them. Because if people believe that it’s of God, they’ll do anything. And this text is warning against that. Look in Galatians chapter 1. There’s a warning there as well. Remember in Galatians chapter 1, where they start talking about that distorted gospel? That’s kind of what we’re talking about tonight. The gospel is simple and beautiful, and Christ comes and loves you and dies for you, and you just follow him wherever he goes. But he said they’ve come up with this distorted gospel. And we’ll talk more about what that is as we get to the end in a bit. But listen to what he says in verse 6. He says, Galatians 1 6, I’m amazed you’re so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another.

Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. He says, look, I don’t care if it’s me, an apostle, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed. As we have said before, and I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, he is to be accursed. Now you might come back later and argue, look, maybe God does communicate in some other ways that you don’t understand, Chris, and you can’t control all that, and you can’t take that away from people. Look, I’m not here to separate people from their emotional experiences. But what I’m here to tell you is they’re very largely emotional experiences sourced in your emotions.

And point one has established that’s not the safest place to be. That’s not where your best ideas come from. Your best ideas do not come from your own thinking. It is not in man to direct his own steps. Your best ideas come straight from the teachings and will of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what we have here is the need to compare everything. Even if an angel came down and floated up here and stood in front of you and told you something that is contrary to Scripture, he is to be accursed. No spiritual, mystical ideas allowed. So what do we do with that? Go to 2 Peter for a minute. Here’s what we do. Whatever we think is good, whatever we think we know or we think God is doing, we must check and balance that with the very first piece of instruction that I gave you when I got here the other day.

We need to be reading this book every single day. Every single day. It’s going to slap you. I mean, reach out and full swing, wake you up and praise God for it. Praise God for the way that the scripture has shaken me out of both of these categories on the left, and I have been victim of each. I think I’m pretty smart. I got a son like that. Where is he? You’re great. You’re great. But I think I can figure things out. And sometimes I think I’ve got a special line to God. And I don’t. We get equal connection to God, and we get this beautiful text to help us. Look with me in 2 Timothy. You know what Peter said. So many good things. But in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 16, he’s saying, I want you to listen to me.

But the reason is we did not, we the apostles, we did not follow cleverly devised tales. When we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We didn’t dream it up and we didn’t try to conflate it with God. But we actually were there, eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic God, verse 17, 2 Peter 1:17. This is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased. Peter said, I was there, y’all. I was right there. When God from heaven spoke to the Son on the mountain, I was there. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic God, as we said already, beloved Son, and we ourselves heard it, made from heaven, and we were with him.

Now watch this. So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place. Now you see the we, who’s the we? Who’s the we? The apostles and the prophets, the eyewitnesses. They were right there. They saw it happen. They received it from the Holy Spirit. We have that word, and you would do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. And then he goes on to say that no prophecy of scripture is man’s own interpretation. We need to be reading this to find the truth. Because this is the source of truth we’ve been given.

And any deviation from that is going to move you away from the truth. In fact, since we’re here doing sort of preachery stuff, I’ll give you something to look at. Look back in 2 Peter 1, the very beginning. I don’t know if you thought that God gave you everything pertaining to life and godliness. And I genuinely do not want to hurt your feelings, but I do not think God gave you everything pertaining to life and godliness. Let me show you what I mean. Verse 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us, Apostle verse 1, everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.

For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of it. It’s not important that you agree with me on this point, but you must admit that I’m correct on this. What he’s saying, this whole chapter, we read down here, what he’s saying is look, I know you’re searching for truth, and you’re looking for any connection to God, any idea he’s saying, but look, we, the apostles and prophets, were with him, and he gave us everything pertaining to life and godliness, and I’ve written it to you. That’s what he’s talking about. And this is why we need to be daily Bible students, so we don’t get caught up in the emotionalism of our own ideas.

3. Sectarian Legalism: We Decide

Alright. You guys want to quit? Sorry. These are misses. They’re dangerous. But the misses don’t always go only to the left. Let me show you what I’m talking about. Look with me back in our text. We’re just drawing it straight out of where he’s going with Colossians. I want you to go back with me to the book of Colossians, chapter 2. And this time we’re going to read verses 16 and 17. I think you’re going to identify this as some of the Judaizing teachers and the way that they were inflicting their rules of Judaism into the first century church. But listen to the language. Colossians chapter 2, verse 16.

By the way, he just said, Jesus disarmed, you know, God disarmed the rulers through Jesus. Verse 15. God disarmed the rulers through Jesus. Therefore, 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. Things that are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Do you remember this? Do you remember Acts 15? Okay. We have Gentile Christians now. That’s cool. We’re glad you’re here. We want you to be a part of it. You must be baptized, but we’ve decided you also must be circumcised. And we’ve decided that this is what needs to happen on your Saturdays. And we’ve decided that these are the dietary restrictions that you’re going to have to keep in place.

I know it’s not like what Peter said on Pentecost, but it’s always been here. And it is just as important to us. I mean, that was their point in Acts 15:1. You must be circumcised to be saved. Who said that? This group of people did. And they made it as important as the law itself. When you get to and I’ll just reference these, but when you get to Galatians, you know that distorted gospel, Galatians 1? All right, let’s go look. Let’s go look. Come on, go to Galatians 5. You know that distorted gospel? I’ve heard a lot of sermons on that distorted gospel before. That distorted gospel of chapter 1, where it’s twisted, verse 7, verse 8, and verse 9, and we’re always talking about this side.

We’re going, boy, that gospel gets twisted. People think that just the answer’s in their own mind or in the world or in the thinking of men. He wasn’t talking about this side of the chart. When he said distorted gospel, chapter 5 and verse 1, he was talking about for freedom, Christ has set you free. Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. What they were doing is taking under bondage those who had been freed by their laws. The distorted gospel, don’t get scared, by the way. I forgot to warn you. Okay, these two words are scary. If you’re just don’t run out of here. Are you ready?

What you see in Judaism is a form of two words combined. Sectarian legalism. Now you go, oh boy. Now, they are loaded words, and it kind of, it’s like just however you define it, dictates what’s going on and what people think about it. But let me tell you what sectarian means. Sectarian means strong adherence or devotion to a group. That’s sectarianism. Sectarianism, I am devoted to not Christ, not the gospel, a group of people and the decisions that they have made. Legalism doesn’t always have to come across as a negative term, but for my purposes tonight, my sermon, my terms, my definitions, legalism is when you begin inflicting laws, assigning them to God when God is not assigned them to you. When you are judging and labeling and condemning based on your conclusions.

Now, I’m going to make it even simpler than that, okay? If you quote me later, remember this. Sectarian legalism, I want you to look at that board and I’m going to ask you to imagine two different words that’ll make it work, okay? Where you see sectarianism, right beside it, all I want you to see is the word we. Who is we? I don’t know. The ominous we. We, a group of preachers, we, a group of elders, we, a group of churches, we a group of denomination. Like there’s a we, a powerful we. Sectarianism is we. Legalism, just see the word decide. That’s all we mean here. We decide. We decide what you do on your Saturday. We decide how important sectarianism is. We are speaking for God.

No one speaks for God except God. Men and groups and churches and no one else. And so that’s the warning here. The warning is when you come up with all these ideas that fit tradition, that make people feel comfortable, that’s the way we’ve always done it. And all of a sudden the way we’ve always done it is the way you’ve got to do it if you want to be a part of us. I don’t want to be a part of us. I want to be connected to Him. And if you’re interested in doing that with me, let’s see what we can do. But sometimes, even in church talk, we get too assigned to this idea. We see it in Catholicism and Mormonism and also places that have a sign that looks a lot like the one outside of this building.

Let me show you a little bit of what I’m talking about. Go to Matthew 15. Matthew 15, when Jesus was talking about, again, the Pharisees and their ways. But here’s one of the ways this shows up. One of the ways it shows up is when churches make decisions on how things have to be, that not only are not sourced in what Jesus taught, but actually cause you to neglect something Jesus taught. I mean, that’s got to be when the bells go off. You go, have we gone too far? Have we become a deciding thing? Are we judging beyond where we ought? A tale, is that right? I was homeschooled. A sign is a sign is when your rules about things are actually keeping you from doing the right things.

Here’s what I’m talking about. You know the story. Matthew chapter 15. In verse 1, the Pharisees always judging everybody. You know, why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands when they eat bread. That was their concept. That was their ideology. But they’d had it so long that it just became gospel, as things sometimes do, not the true gospel. And he answered and said to them, Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, honor your father and mother. Like he literally said it. Honor your father and mother. And to speak evil of father and mother means you’ll be put to death. But you say, can’t do it. Whoever says to his father or mother, Whatever I have that would help you, I’ve already given it to God.

He’s not to honor his father or his mother. And by this you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your traditions. Now, don’t come back tomorrow night unless you want to hear more on this, but some of what happens in a we decide thing is we decide what honors God, and we decide the way to connect to him, and we like this. We decided what to give God, and it ends up actually neglecting the will of God with the people around us. Maybe you judge someone, label someone, ostracize someone, reject someone because you’re trying to protect what we’ve decided is the most thing. Here’s a way, I’m not going to get too specific tonight. I mean, just blink twice if you want me to.

But when you think of local churches, the way I like to think about it is the Decker Prairie Church, is it a country club or a hospital? You guys ever been? When’s the last time you were at an old country club? At this point, old country clubs have five guys in their 80s playing poker around a table with like the chairs with the beads on it. You guys know what I’m talking about. And the walls are paneled and old and it’s shrunk and nobody goes there anymore, and the pool is turned green, and those guys are as proud as the day is long that place. Because they held their rules and they held their dress code and they held their ideologies and they watched those people walk out of there, and every time somebody walked out, they thought, good, we need to preserve this.

We don’t preserve this. Like Christ preserves his.

A way you’re uncomfortable with. Like, we’ll work on it. We’ll work through it. We want you here so that we can join in Christ together. Be careful. Be careful with the we decide mentality. Who are we? Now, every church has elders, local elders, and they make decisions. And some of those decisions are straight from Scripture. Boom. And some of those descriptions are derived from Scripture for the well-being of the people. Just make sure that it is honoring the real work that Christ wants us to do, which the last time I read had a lot to do with souls and helping people and showing unity and love God and love your neighbor. Sectarian legalism, be careful because it’s just as much a miss. I’m going to ask you guys in a minute.

Here’s the next one. But I’m going to ask you guys in a minute, I’ll go ahead and ask you now. I mean, we’re here. You’re staring at me. Which side is worse? Now let me rephrase. Delete. Reset. If you’re gonna miss, which way is better? There we go. That’s the way I wanted to ask it. If you’re gonna miss the mark, and it’s not just him and him first and building around it and reading scripture and just trying to be like him. If we’re gonna miss, which way? I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t baited you for the last five minutes, everybody in this room would be like, well, you don’t want to miss over here. This, we kind of we kind of do that. So we’re hoping that’s gonna be okay.

4. Extreme Conservatism and Self-Abasement

It’s not gonna be okay. If you miss Christ, you’ve missed Christ. Right? If your faith is built on anyone or anything else that is not sourced in him, it can be packaged as some spiritual experience, or it can be packaged as a church with a sign. It’s gotta be him. I want to finish. This will be really quick because it’s super extreme in the text, but I want you to see where Paul’s going in the letter. He’s adding to that idea with extreme conservatism. So as we close this section, go to Colossians chapter 2 again, and this time let’s get into verse 20. He said in verse 19, self-abasement. I don’t fully understand what’s going on there, except I think there was some sort of a Gnostic ideology that says that if you deny the flesh, then you’re righteous.

So, like the more you, not if I’m onto this, like the more you, like if you cut yourself and you’re hurting and bleeding, you really love God. Because you’re making these extreme sacrifices. If you starve yourself for a month, you’re super faithful. Because you abase your body. In other words, the harder you make it on yourself, the closer you are to God. False. The harder you make it on yourself, just the harder you make it on yourself. It’s actually not much different than what’s going on over here. In verse 20, he says, if, Colossians chapter 2, if you’ve died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why? As if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees? Now look up, don’t look down.

Don’t look down. Stop looking. If I just said, why do you submit yourself to decrees such as, you’d be like, yeah, the world’s like, go ahead and do this and go ahead and do that. That’s not where he’s going with this. He said, Why do you submit yourself to decrees such as do not handle, do not taste, do not touch? Which all refer to things destined to perish with use. In accordance with the commandments and teachings of men. We’re back into that category. These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom, sure, in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but they don’t help at all against the indulgences of the flesh. I don’t want to get into this too much detail.

You guys have been really patient tonight, but I’m just here to tell you that conservative is not always better. Saying no doesn’t make you more righteous. We don’t know, just know. That way we know we’re we’re safe. Look, if it’s something God wants you to do and you don’t do it, how safe is that? Nope, not gonna do that because we’re not. Look, if it’s something he wants you to do, conservatism is just as much a mistake as unauthorized activity. Maybe in some cases even more so. We need to be very careful with this. 1 Timothy 4 talks about it. Take a peek. 1 Timothy 4. This is where we connect it to things like Catholicism, and we do see this in the religious world. But there are these restrictions.

You know, men who, verse 3, forbade marriage, advocate abstaining from foods, which God created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude, for it is sanctified by means of the word of God in prayer. And so he talks about those ideas in verses 1. He says, that’s a doctrine of demon. A doctrine of demon is not just liberalism. A doctrine of demon is unauthorized conservatism. It’s restrictions, and yeah, I get conservative. I am a conservative. But I’m talking about when we begin to pass judgment. I’m talking about when the fact that I say no makes me more righteous than you, even if it’s not something God has clearly discussed.

A couple quick thoughts on this as we close. I spoke of elders earlier. You know, Romans 13 14 talks about not making provisions for the flesh. I think elders have a very tough job. I mean, they get paid really well, they get lots of vacation time, but it is a very hard job because elders have to make decisions that are most helpful for a church, even if it’s not like explicitly laid out in scriptures. And they have to represent a whole room full of people. It’s actually really hard to do. And they have to do that. And so sometimes they have to go, look, this isn’t precisely laid out in Scripture, but this is a decision we have made because we want you to trust us that it’s better for you.

What I want you to see from our text, Colossians 2, and what I want the leaders of every church to see is just saying no isn’t always your best answer. It’s not, it’s that’s not the your default shouldn’t be no. It should be getting back to scripture and doing the very best that we can because in our text in Colossians 2, in Colossians 2, it wasn’t, well, some decisions they made are actually helping. It said, look, it looks like it’s helping, but it’s actually not helping against fleshly indulgence at all. God is looking for transformation over restrictions. Now you may need to make restrictions in order to be transformed, but restricting is not the same thing as transforming. Unless you are transforming yourself into the image of Christ, because Christ has laid out that restriction.

Conclusion

These are very important things for God’s people. I’ll tell you a quick thing, then I’m gonna read this little article right here, and then we’ll be done. I read a little story one time, not too long ago, about this woman who it was just a little blog. I wish I had more information on it, but she was a social activist. Okay? Now I’m talking about like lived in San Francisco, rainbow clothes, social activists. And she was super passionate about it, and she fought for the rights of everyone to do whatever they wanted to do. She was kind of over here somewhere, like we’ve thought this out, and everybody and their ideas matter. And she was super full tilt that way. And then she left it, moved over towards the Bible belt, and became a Christian fundamentalist.

You guys know what that is? Go home, YouTube, a Christian fundamentalist. That’s like King James Version only. Men can’t have beards, like that kind of stuff. I’m serious. And they’re serious. Like, that’s a heaven hell thing for a Christian fundamentalist. She became one of those. Now, in your mind right now, you ought to be going like, what? And so after that, she left that. Praise God. She left that idea. That was ridiculous. She left that. So over here it was like, everything’s a yes. And over here, it’s everything’s a no. And she left and she came to just sort of a more basic understanding of faith, more like the people in the room. And she was being interviewed about that. And she said, you know, it might sound crazy, but she said, both of these are two sides of the same coin.

They’re not that far apart at all. Neither of them are Jesus. Both of them are extreme. And they take things far away from him to full tilted conclusions that do not have the backing of the Spirit. And so what I want you to see is look over here and go, what can I work on? But don’t look over here and go, these people are crazy. We’re not that much different than them when we miss in either direction. Because he’s in the middle and they’re both departures. Let me read this last thing here. Thank you for your patience tonight. Tomorrow night we’ll be in chapters three and four. If you’re going, man, but okay, my eyes are fixed on Jesus and I’m filled with hope. What do I need to go do?

Well, come back tomorrow night. We’ll talk chapters three and four are gonna tell you exactly what to do. Let me finish with this. This is an article called Three Congregations. I’m gonna finish with this read. It was written by a guy named Gardner Hall. Anybody know him, Gardner Hall? I know him a little bit, not very well, but I know he’s respected by he’s not, he’s not, he’s great, alright? He wrote an article and he said, All right, three congregations. Number one, the traditionalist congregation focuses on maintaining longstanding practices, considering them the quote, safe approach. When facing challenges, some ask, what have our churches always done? They take pride in their conservative identity. The church at Ephesus might be in this category, he writes, they were very careful to avoid false doctrine, but their service had evidently become a matter of deadening routine to the point of losing their first love.

They were like the Pharisees. Applied all these rules and forgot what they were even there to accomplish. I added that. Second congregation, the daring congregation. So you see where we are? Like the traditionalist congregation, the daring congregation prides itself on being non-traditional. It promotes new worship fads and trendy doctrines. Its members often ask, what do the up-to-date scholars say? Which is a lot like this, actually. As if recent scholarship represented a unified dogma. That’s an interesting line. Both daring and traditional congregations can be similarly fixed on tradition. One to follow it blindly, the other to rebel against it. Both congregations highlight the excesses of the other to justify their own out-of-focus methodology. I love how we do this. We always justify our extreme by telling you how bad the other extreme is.

I am not going to get political, but let’s keep reading. At least we’re not liberal like them, declares the members of the first. Well, we’re not Pharisaical like that other older congregation, declares those of the second. However, both miss the essence of what God wants for his flocks. They overlook the fact that there’s another healthy approach. Let me finish with that right here. How about this? Just let me run this by you, okay? Stay calm. How about a Christ focused congregation? You in? Relying the congregations of Smyrna and Philadelphia. They might appear poor, but are spiritually rich. Their focus isn’t so much on trends among brethren as it is on their Savior. They may seem to only have a little power and may not even be widely known.

However, because of their humility and perseverance and keeping God’s word, they are recognized in heaven. That’s all that matters anyway. Their main concern is not doing what some group of congregations or some movement has always done. Neither is it identifying themselves as non-traditional. I underline this. They simply want to imitate their master. A part of doing that is imitating faithful early disciples who are taught by Christ-inspired apostles and prophets. That helps them avoid imprudence. They don’t trust in themselves to be faultless, even though that is their desire. Their aim is to grow in grace and in knowledge of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You know, like the Bible says and stuff. Trusting in his mercy in those areas where growth may be lacking. I like that idea.

Let’s be Christians who are saved as a day is long. We’re triple wrapped in the mercies of God and overflowing with the grace of the Lord that’s being lavished upon us. And we’re also woefully imperfect. So you guys want to get to work? And you want to just see what Jesus is showing us and who he is? And you know what? Let’s start by just being more like him. How about that? And then we’ll see where it goes from there. Like that’s so simple and beautiful. And that’s the way the first century church exploded into growth and love. And so as we close, just let’s start with congregation and work itself backwards, whatever local church you’re a part of. Just be an influence in that church for this right here.

In whatever way that you can. But you know, you can’t really share with the church what’s not in you. So, by way of invitation, if it hasn’t been about the Lord in a long time, just the Lord. Not your brain, not the church you associate, just you and your love for if it’s not been about him in a long time. Will you make it about him tonight? Just about him. Why should you respond to the invitation? Answer that question starting with the word Jesus. Why should you ask for repentance and the help of the church? Answer it by starting with Jesus. If you can start that sentence and he is the reason, then you know exactly what to do. You can do it now as we stand and sing.