Alright, Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2. We're continuing our trek through the book of Colossians. One of my favorites. Because it tells us so much about Jesus. Colossians chapter 2. And this evening, we're going to read verses 13 through 23. Colossians 2, verse 13. Well, let's start with verse 16. I think I changed that on you. All right, verse 16. Hear the word of the Lord. 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. This is the word of God. Well, our text tonight addresses a disease. And I know you're tired of hearing about diseases, but this one is important for us to know about. This disease effects are more far-reaching even than the COVID-19 that we've been experiencing. In fact, they're even more devastating. And one of the interesting characteristics of this disease that we're going to talk about is that this virus is very selective in who it infects. Those who are most at risk in this disease are church people. Exclusively. It just affects us. And of these church people, it seems like it affects the ones most severely, the ones who have the strongest longings to obey the Bible. They are often the most affected. Those who desperately want to please God in their behavior. This disease that we're talking about tonight is extremely contagious. And again its effects are devastating. Churches are often divided over it. Lifetime relationships are severed because of it. And joy is nowhere to be found when it is present. Well by now you probably know the disease that I'm talking about. The disease is legalism. It's a huge issue in our subculture. Its tentacles reach most every person in our subculture through temptation. And most certainly every church to one degree or the other. Now it's insidious because it morphs and it changes in forms probably as often and as convincingly as Mystique in the X-Men and is really, really hard to see sometimes. Because of this deceptiveness it so often goes undiagnosed. It's been several years now, but I remember sitting in my office with a broken man who was a pastor of a really large church, really large compared to everything that I've known, probably three, 400 people, because he saw his church self-destructing in his eyes and before his eyes, and he could do nothing about it. And my heart just went out to my friend. What was happening? Well, there was a number in his congregation who felt that if those in the congregation that were not following a specific, what they called biblical diet, were sinning and should be church disciplined. This is a major church in a major city, and the church self-destructed. It no longer is a church. All because of legalism. It's evil. And I believe every church and every Christian needs to be aware of its ugly tentacles, not only in the church, but in our own heart. because we can be easily deceived. This evening, I simply want to give you a description and then the treatment of the disease of legalism. So first of all, the description of the disease. Let me suggest three distinctive elements of this disease. First of all, we find rules over relationships. rules over relationships. Legalism involves having a preoccupation with obeying rules and regulations, the do's and don'ts of the faith. A strong desire to obey the rules while neglecting our relationship with Jesus. It's putting those two together. We must always guard ourselves against desiring a list of do's and don'ts more than relationship. Have you ever found yourself saying, just give me a list. I don't want to think about it. I just want, give me a list and I'll check the boxes to see how I'm doing in the Christian faith. You see that's moving over into the legalism if it's not about relationship with Jesus. Again it's insidious because we know that God does desire for us to obey his commands. They are 10 commands not 10 suggestions. And just a cursory look at the Old Testament, you will see that Old Testament Israel faced severe consequences for disobeying and neglecting God's commands. The issue lies in why do we keep God's law? What is our motivation? Keeping God's law must never be an end in itself or to itself. A means by which we seek to make ourselves right with God. Let me give you the example just of Old Testament Israel and God's law and the Ten Commands, right? God gave his commandments on Mount Sinai. What was the context of that? Well, it was the context of grace and relationships. What had he already just done? He redeemed Israel out of Egypt. He redeemed them out of Egypt. He rescued them. He put his power on display for the whole world to see. He acted on behalf of his chosen people, the descendants of Abraham. Everyone in the ancient world knew that Israel was God's own people. And it was after this magnificent display of mercy and grace of rescue and in the context of covenant love, he gave them his law. He showed them what was important to him and what this special relationship with him required. You see, legalism is isolating the law of God from the God who gives the law. It's a separation of the two. The legalist seeks to obey the law of God devoid of personal relationship with that God. So rules over relationship. Now the second way that legalism can sneak in is letter over spirit. Letter over spirit. A characteristic of legalism is the emphasis on keeping the letter of the law without regard to the spirit of the law. The wooden, rigid adherence to the rules without consideration of why that law was given. The heart and the purpose of the law. I love a story that R.C. Sproul tells that best illustrates this, I think. He describes a man who is a stickler for following the speed limits. He would not break the law because of speed limits. He rigidly obeys that law and would not break it for any reason. Now that sounds pretty noble, right? keeping the law, it's doing what's right. But let's say he is on the interstate in the middle of the winter and there's ice on the road. Our man knows that the minimum speed limit on the interstate is 40 mile an hour. And so he pushes his car to the limit to reach 40 miles an hour because that's the law. It's ridiculous, isn't it? He's putting himself and everyone else in danger to keep the letter of the law. Why was the law put into place? It was to keep motorists safe. So you see, the letter of the law as opposed to the spirit of the law. The Pharisees in Jesus' day hated Jesus because he violated the Sabbath. Do you remember what he did that caused so much hatred? He healed a man and he did it multiple times. He healed on the Sabbath and they hated him for it because according to the letter of the law, you were not supposed to do anything like that. Do you see how they missed the reason behind the law? They did not see the spirit of the law that God provided a Sabbath for his people to rest to illustrate to his people that God was the one that provided for them and that one day there was coming a day when we would have a Sabbath rest in heaven. It wasn't about that at all for the Pharisees. It was celebrating the letter of the law. The letter over the spirit. Okay, so we have rules over relationship, letter over spirit, but the third characteristic of legalism is regulation over liberty. Regulation over liberty. When we establish our own regulations and treat them as if they were God's regulations, that's legalism. Okay? If we judge ourselves or judge others' spirituality based on our own self-established rules or regulations, then we miss the boat. I shared my personal example about my friend and his health-conscious congregation. Let me share another story written by Elizabeth Elliott. She tells in her book, The Liberty of Obedience, she tells about a man's quandary about seeking to follow Jesus. And he writes to a Christian school saying, I am in earnest about forsaking the world and following Christ. But I am puzzled about worldly things. What is it that I must forsake? In reply, they wrote, Colored clothes, for one thing. Get rid of everything in your wardrobe that is not white. Stop sleeping on a soft pillow. Sell your musical instruments and don't eat any more white bread. You cannot, if you are sincere about obeying Christ, take warm baths or shave your beard. To shave is to lie against Him who created us to attempt to improve on His work. Now how's that for a list? She comments, does that answer sound absurd? It is the answer given in the most celebrated Christian schools of the second century. All the way back then. putting together rules and regulations that were extra biblical. Then she asked the question, and this is where I'm going, is it possible that the rules that have been adopted by many 20th century Christians will sound as absurd to earnest followers of Christ a few years hence? And that plagues me. It makes me think, what are those things that I feel are so important? Are they indeed found in the Word of God? Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for this type of legalism. He told them, you teach human traditions as if they were the Word of God. My friends, we are prohibited from binding the conscience of another by our own rulemaking, judging others as to the reality of their spiritual maturity based on our own set of regulations and restrictions. That's what is happening with the Colossians here. They were in danger of embracing this legalism, which forbids what God has not forbidden and commands what he has not commanded. Listen, as I read verse 21 and following. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to these 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. You see, Christianity is not about setting up our own set of rules and then following them or trying to following them and then calling it righteousness as if it were the righteousness of God. It's not what it's about. Rules over relationship, letter over spirit, restriction over liberty. Now, the thread that binds all these things together is that there is an attempt to add our own effort to the finished work of Christ. to add my contribution to my own righteousness, to somehow enhance my standing with God through my effort, to trust in anything other than Jesus. And his finished work on the cross suggests that we are trusting in our own righteousness and our own goodness and our own righteousness. Oh, my friends, we must abandon the idea that it has anything to do with our own righteousness that gives us a right standing with God. The Colossians were being deceived into believing that their standing before God ultimately depended upon what they had achieved. It is possible. to begin our life in Christ, believing in him alone for their salvation, and then adding to that their own works, falling into the trap of imagining that it is up to them to finish what he had started. Legalism, you see, is always an expression of self-reliance and self-expression. of self-assertion and self-sufficiency. That's the description, the three-part description with the thread of our own righteousness running through it. So how do we treat this disease? How do we look at it in terms of our own selves? Well, let me give you three suggestions, and this is good for us and good for our church, right? Learn to be a good diagnostician of your soul. Learn to diagnose well. Asking yourself the question, am I pursuing a deeper, richer, fulfilling relationship with Jesus? Or am I predominantly trusting in my own morality or my own behavior for right standing with God? I can't do that for you, you can't do it for me. Am I pursuing Him and a relationship with Him more than I'm following the rules? Especially my own rules. Second question, am I quick to pass judgment on another based on my self-imposed restrictions? Does my inner dialogue go something like this? If they were as spiritual as me, they would act like me or do what I do. or believe what I believe. Does that go through your mind? It's legalism. Number two, second suggestion, is seek to obey all things he commands and not add to his commands. We are not given liberty to make up our own list of subculture taboos. We're just not given that liberty. Our own self-introduced do's and don'ts and then declare ourselves or somebody else righteous or sinful based on our own rules. If God does not speak to a subject in his word, then I am at liberty to determine my response, but I must also give liberty to others to allow them to determine for themselves what they do. And there's a long, lot of things, a long list of those type things. On any given subject, the rule of thumb that I try to follow and I encourage you to follow is to go as far as scripture goes and no further. Go as far as scripture goes and no further. We need to obey the commands of God. But we don't add to the commands of God because we go further than the commands of God. Do you see? Go as far as the word of God and no further. My third suggestion for you, recognize that my standing with God is not dependent on my righteousness. My standing with God is not dependent on my righteousness. Never has been, never will be. I've never been righteous. Ever. My redemption has never been about my righteousness. It's always been about Jesus' righteousness. Jesus' righteousness being imputed to me, being given to me, and then I be declared as righteous. As I've said every week since beginning this study, the letter to the Church of Colossae is about Jesus, his supremacy and his sufficiency. He's over all and he's sufficient for all. In this context, Paul tells them that they are right to long to grow to spiritual maturity. Every Christian wants that. to long to grow in their relationship with God, but the rules that these false teachers were telling them to obey, the dietary rules, the keeping of days, the worshiping of angels, the asceticism, treating the body harshly, even experiencing visions, weren't getting them where they wanted to go. In verse six of this chapter, do you remember what he said? As you have received him, so walk in him. When you came to him, you recognized that your hope was not found within yourself. It was not found about getting any better or certain ceremonies or your own effort in any way at all. It was found that if you trusted him by faith, You trusted him that that his death was adequate payment for your sin and somehow your unity with him and your identity with him, that his death was counted as your death. And then in like manner, when he rose from the dead, that his resurrection was a promise that you too, because of your unity and identity with him, would rise again one day. See, the essence of being a Christian, my friend, is union with Jesus. It's identity with Jesus and clinging to that union and clinging to that identity. That is what provides spiritual maturity. Adding ceremony or depriving your body, anything that promotes this self-made religion at best has no value and can be very harmful to yourself and to the body of Christ. Seeking to add anything to the finished work of Jesus is a very, very poor substitute indeed. Let's pray. Father, this is kind of a hard one to hear. It's not real positive. We see We see in ourselves the propensity to make it about rules. Lord, save us from that. We want to be people who are free, who love the liberty of grace that you have given to us, and who long to grow More like Jesus. Father, help us to seek spiritual maturity through being unified and identified with you. Seeking you in all things. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.