I'd like you to turn to Colossians. Is that what book we're in? Chapter 2, we're going to be looking at verses 18 through 23. Let me just read this short passage for you. 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 the human precepts and teaching. 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. The word of the Lord, brothers and sisters. I was on a worship team at a church one time, and we bought a rain stick. Anybody know what a rain stick is? Well, we brought it in. We're so proud of the rain stick. Look, it makes this really cool noise when you turn it upside down. And the pastor of the church came to me and said, we're not going to allow that into the service. I went, oh, I spent $30. Why not? He said, they're evil. I said, what? He said, they're evil. Look at it. It looked like a piece of wood, but it was made out of plastic. I said, well, what's so evil about it? He said, they're used in pagan worship. And I was like, well, OK, so we're going to use it in Christ's worship. Doesn't that help? No. And at first, as I walked away from that conversation, I thought, that guy, he's a lot more spiritual than I am. He recognized right away that this thing was evil, and I'm just naively out buying it and thinking that we can use it to worship God. And he knows that we can't do that. Because that sounded pretty good to me. It's evil. They use it in pagan worship. Why would we ever want to bring this into the church? I'm going to see if I can get my money back. I couldn't. Matter of fact, we still have that rain stick at home. That evil thing is in my closet. And at night, I think it glows or something. So ultimately, we found out different. I'll get on with that a little bit later on. But here's the deal. Here's what I want you to hold on to. Not everything that you hear, not everything that sounds godly, is. So hold on to that thought. Now we've got two churches that this letter's written to, Colossae and Laodicea. They've been praised, they've been encouraged by Paul, and it seems like they're doing a pretty decent job. But they're running into some tension, and all churches run into some tension. I know we never have any here at WBF, but other churches do. And the reason is there are folks within the church that are trying to impose some of the Jewish traditions, some of the Jewish regulations and practices on these two young churches. They're probably about 20 miles apart. Apparently, these folks are claiming that those traditions, those regulations, those practices are all essential to being saved. They're an important part of being saved. Now, what we need to understand about this, and I want to be very clear about this, these people that are holding to these traditions and practices are not evil people. They're not satanic. They're members of the church. As far as we can tell, they've made a profession of faith. They're engaging in the church of Jesus Christ. They're engaging in the spreading of the gospel and the building of God's kingdom. But they have some different viewpoints on things. They're not lost. They're fellow believers. Did you think that what the Jews have been doing for 2,000 years are essentials to the faith. And we all kind of fall into that, don't we? Believing that some of the things that we do are essential to our faith and that everybody should be doing them the way we do. That's exactly what they were doing. So what they failed to understand, that all those things, all of those practices, those ceremonies, those procedures, the cleansings and all that, that we found in the Old Testament were not the beginning and end of their faith. They didn't comprise the entire complexity of their faith. They pointed towards something more, something less physical, something more spiritual. They were physical manifestations of a spiritual promise. They were just shadows of what was to come. So Paul wants to warn them about this, and in last week's sermon, Paul began giving this warning. He'd gone through the encouragement and some of the essentials, and he warns of four dangers that any church can fall into. We would be making a mistake to hear about these dangers and thinking, well, that was then, this is now. We're far too sophisticated for this. So these churches can fall into any of these dangers when they start imposing more requirements upon salvation than are seen in the Scriptures. So last week we covered the first two. We covered Gnosticism, special knowledge available only to a privileged few. But their knowledge and claims, they don't really measure up with the full counsel of Scripture. So we have to be careful with that. We saw legalism, rules and regulations that go beyond what Scripture prescribes for salvation. And so Gnosticism makes a little too little of Scripture. And the other one makes a little too much of it, if you can make too much of Scripture. So, Gnosticism ignores large parts of Scripture. Legalism makes more of Scripture than it was intended to be. rules and regulations, guides and lists and that sort of thing. So this week we're going to take a look at the other two of the four dangers a church can fall into, mysticism in verses 18 through 19 and asceticism in verses 20 through 23. So this is the sufficiency of Christ part two. Let's take a look at mysticism. Paul says in verse 18, let no one disqualify you. And so Paul is going to lay out these types, and who he's talking to right here, those types that try to dominate the church. Now, we've all seen them before. They insist on getting their way. They insist that they are correct in these things, and they have to be followed. And they judge others based on their criteria, and it creates division in the church. Not only that, these people can be incredibly intimidating. They stand up at the church meetings at the town hall we're going to have in a couple of weeks, and they speak with loud voices and wave their hands. And everybody just kind of sits there and goes, OK, well, we've got to do what they're going to do. Their goal is to guide and steer and lead the church. And some of their tactics are, they range from being outright belligerent towards the leadership of the church, we've seen that before, to what I call whispers in the corners. They go, hey, did you hear what I just heard? Do you know what's going on? Boy, I heard this. And all of a sudden, there's turmoil, there's doubt, there's tension. Paul says, don't receive that. Don't receive their judgment and condemnation from these folks that are doing this. Don't let them determine who's right. Don't let them steer the church. Don't let them control you. In other words, don't let them get you riled up over things. And above all, don't let them tell you, and this is the real message here that Paul wants to lend, don't let them tell you that you're not safe. Don't let them tell you, because you're not doing this, you must not be saved. I had a sermon one time that a prominent member disagreed with. And he called me and said, can I buy you coffee? It might be the last coffee you and I ever have. And I didn't know whether to praise God or not. I said, well, sure, you can buy me coffee. And so I sit down with coffee, and I'm sitting across from him. He said, I don't agree with that point you had. And I went, but here's what the Scripture says. The Scripture clearly says that. He said, I don't agree with it. I said, OK. I don't know what to tell you. He said, my problem is this. I don't think you're saved. What? You don't think I'm saved because I agree with this part of Scripture? He goes, yeah. No Christian would believe that. And then I didn't know what to say. I'm like, well, I'm pretty confident I'm saved. I'm not sure about you, but I can feel the Spirit moving in me. I've seen a change in my life. I've embraced the gospel. I've tried to teach the gospel. And I said, but there's no way for you to know that because you don't know what's going on in my heart. And he goes, I think I do. So this is the type of people that Paul is saying, be careful when this stuff starts coming out. Be careful when they start telling you that you've got to be like them in order to be saved. Don't receive that judgment. It's kind of significant that the word for disqualify here has a warning attached to it. There's a caution to it. And the warning is not to lose the prize. Don't lose the prize. In other words, the dangers presented here with these four dangers run the risk of the church losing its focus on Jesus Christ, losing its focus on the gospel. getting sidelined by secondary issues. Look at what some of these folks are doing in these two churches. They are insisting on asceticism. Now, we'll get to that in just a little bit. Insisting on asceticism and worship of angels going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind. Now, there seems to be one guy that seems to be the middle of this, but really he's talking about a group as well. So this whole concept of worshiping angels, which we visited a little bit earlier, tells us a lot about this particular danger for the church. And the label for this is mysticism. Now, there's some mystery involved with what mysticism is, and I think that's really appropriate because we really can't nail this down very well. So how do we define mysticism? Webster says this, listen to me carefully. Number one, the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality reported by mystics. So pretty much what Wester says is mystics will tell you whether or not they're mystic, right? Number two, the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience, such as intuition or insight. So what that says is the mystic can't tell you why he's mystical. It's just that he is. And he's the only one who knows it. But here's number three, and this is the one I like. Vague speculation. A belief without a sound basis. That's what Paul's talking about here. In other words, mysticism is an elevated type of Gnosticism. Claims an intimate knowledge of oneness with divinity, oneness with the universe maybe, with the essence of the universe, or in some cases, oneness and an intimate knowledge with God himself, apart from the intimate knowledge that we might have. Now what does that have to do with the worship of angels? Well, it's kind of interesting. Jewish perception of angels, which was fairly accurate, was that they were messengers of God and sometimes they were messengers, sometimes they were helpers, sometimes they were warriors. Now, they were beings who were in the presence of God, in the throne room, and frequently sent with a message, sometimes to do battle, that sort of thing. Now that's accurate, but by the first century AD, for some people, this had morphed into a dependence upon angels. a dependence for messages and for protections, and people were calling on angels to ward off evil spirits like some kind of magic talisman. If I could just get an angel here, then I won't have to struggle with this. This was all done at the whim and the discretion of the one who was doing the calling. It was a hyper-spiritual type of experience with the supernatural realm. And the only one that could authenticate was the person who was experiencing it. So because of all that, angels were sometimes regarded as more important than Christ, certainly more active than Christ. They were something you could lay your hands upon. They were something that you could depend upon, something that you could see the impact in your life. Now we know that's all distorted, but this was reality to them. So some went so far as to claim that they were actually joining the angels in heaven as they worshiped God. So this operates on several different levels. It's a mystical experience. So all that came accompanied by claims of visions and a puffed up attitude about having visions. I don't have a problem with visions. You know, if you say you've had a vision from God, I'm good with that, as long as it doesn't contradict Scripture. But if you're making yourself more important by saying, I have these visions, I have these prophecies, I have these things that come directly from God, those visions start sounding a little bit to me like self-centeredness. How come I don't have them? And how do I know you're having them? You ever had somebody come up and go, well, I've got a word of the Lord for you? Sometimes it's valid, but only if I can verify it in Scripture. The Lord wants you to do this. Wish he would have told me. Somehow I'm not spiritual enough. Somehow I don't have enough faith that the Lord can talk directly to this person, but not to me. So we have to be careful with these things. We have to be careful we don't become victims of somebody else's arrogance. Now the problem is this, because most of us would recognize that, it's a mature congregation, you know your word. But some folks in these two churches believed in this kind of silliness. And they made claims that seemed more spiritual, that there were people who were able to tap into these mysterious spiritual realms at will. And they had tremendous influence in the church community, both of these churches. So Paul calls this dangerous. He says that these types are, in verse 19, 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. And the idea is the growth is from God, not from men. What Paul's saying is that those who claim a more spiritual life, a deeper walk in faith, those who pursue this elevated spiritual experience, more than they pursue a deeper relationship with Christ, Those who point to themselves more than they do to Jesus are not to be looked up to, not to be emulated, not to have an undue influence on the church. It's Christ himself. that holds the church together. He's the glue that unites us, not some unverifiable mystical experience, not some claim of greater spirituality or deeper faith that doesn't line up with Scripture, not one that elevates one member above another. There are not two levels of Christianity, brothers and sisters. There are not the haves and have-nots. When you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you get all of Him. You get all of the Holy Spirit. They're not part of the Holy Spirit waiting in the corner to come in and visit you. It may not feel that way. Amen? But that's what God says about this. So there are no people that are more elevated than the others. Paul says the things that these people are doing are not going to nourish the church, not going to edify it, not going to help it grow, won't keep it united. Only God can do that. And we have to keep our focus on Him. See, this is what happens when we overemphasize anything other than Christ and His Word, and make that the basis for our worship and our prayers, and make that the basis for our faith. It's called mysticism, and it's the third danger the church can fall into. Let's take a look at asceticism, which is really a lot more clear than mysticism. I don't have much to say about that. Okay, I will. Verse 20 says, if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world. There's that phrase again, the elemental spirits of the world. What are we talking about? Remember what we talked about, what it means. Basically, it's taking human-derived spiritual notions, man-made philosophies, and adapting them into the church. Oh, who would do that? They sound good, but they're not based on Scripture. In the first century, it comprised misguided practices like the veneration of angels, which does sound good. It makes sense in a way when you think about what angels did, and they're saying to themselves that angels are sent as messengers and helpers. Well, shouldn't we give them some kind of special status? I mean, God sent him here for us, right? I mean, we should recognize that in the kind of way we're honoring God if we honor the angels. And that's kind of the first step in taking your focus off things. And the problem with that philosophy, it doesn't really jive with Scripture. It's not what Scripture tells us, which tells us in several places that God will not share his glory with another. that God is to be honored, and glory and honor belong only to God, and God's children are not to revere any created being. We think because angels live in heaven, they weren't created, they're all created. God made them all. So it might surprise you to find out that those practices are not limited to ancient times. We see similar things in the church today. And let me just mention a couple and talk about it. We saw, you know, it was really popular in the early 2000s, the seeker-sensitive movement. You ever heard that one? The secret sensitive movement. The whole idea was if we could make the church more attractive to unsafe people, more people would come in, we could share the gospel with them, and it would grow. And the idea was that the people in the population are turned off by the traditionalism of the modern church, turned off by the liturgy and all of the rules and regulations. And if we could just make it attractive enough, then people will swarm into the church. And the methods that were used to do that were things like using contemporary music. Kelly and I were at a church service quite some time ago, and they began singing, knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door. And I'm like, what are we singing? And the pastor stopped for a second and he said, no, no, no, it's I'm not knocking on heaven's door. And for me, that made it worse. I don't understand what we're doing, okay? But this was an idea to bring people into the church with something they could recognize with. So contemporary music, light shows, smoke machines, we've seen them, sermonettes, movie clips, anything that smacked of being culturally popular, we're going to incorporate it in the church so the people will like us. And it worked. Oh my gosh, it worked. People came in droves. The problem was there were very few actual converts. And the churches that adopted those tactics found themselves on a slippery slope, always having to develop more and more radical ways to attract and keep people. Now, the movement, as movements like that do, lost some steam over the years, somewhere around the mid-2010s. But sadly, as with all church feds like that, some of its practices crept into the mainstream church and became commonplace. Churches that think that services should be a bit more entertaining rather than equipping or nourishing or informing. And the idea was that any manifestation of spirituality would be a good thing. If it could just make people feel good, they'll keep coming back. And the problem with that is the preaching of the Word of God frequently takes a back seat to the events that are going on around the church. Then we get life lessons, energetic music, and focus on fellowship more than holiness. Oh, I'm not being called a religion. I'm called a relationship. I'm sorry. The scripture defines religion. And yes, we are called a relationship. Amen? But the religion should spring from the relationship. I mean, either we're going to walk in her faith or we're not. So we have these catchphrases that people kind of hold on to. They become man-made rules and regulations. And Paul says those type of practices are not for the church. He says, why, as if you're still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations? Now, I like the NIV here because I think it's a little clearer. Why, as though you still belong to the world, do you submit to its rules? Why are you enslaved by those guidelines is what Paul's saying. And Paul's describing this fourth danger to the church, asceticism. These rules and regulations, kind of the opposite of mysticism, diametrically opposed. The practice of asceticism involves a lot of self-denial. Don't fall into these rules and regulations. He gives a brief overview on what that might look like in a church in verse 21. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. And to understand the full impact of this, we now understand that back in Paul's day, a lot of the ascetics avoided things like cutting their hair. They had very limited diets. They adhered to the parameters that we can find very clearly listed in Leviticus chapter 11, which meats and which fish they could eat. But not only did they avoid eating them, and not a bad thing. I mean, if you take a look at Leviticus 11, it's saying, stay away from the bottom feeders. Stay away from the people, the animals that eat dung and that sort of thing. You kind of go, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. But by the time we got to the first century, not only did they want to avoid eating them, they thought it was evil, that it was unclean to even touch these things, even be in the presence of them. They believed too much contact with the real world could make you unclean. And that flew in the face of what Jesus taught, didn't it? Who met with sinners, who went and had dinner with them, who sat with them, who in Matthew 15 said that it's not what's on the outside that makes you unclean, it's what's on the inside that makes you unclean. It's not what you put in your mouth that defiles you, it's what comes out of your mouth that defiles you. But Paul knows that men and women like rules. They like guidelines. And some rules, like those of asceticism, sound pretty good. And he says so much in verse 22. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion, just think about that one for a while, and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. So Paul calls all this self-made religion. It's stuff that we just made up. It sounds good. We kind of read some scripture. We're kind of applying it here, and this sounds like a fantastic idea, and people give a hearty amen, made up of man's rules, not God's, made up of what sounds right, but without a scriptural foundation. So last week, we looked at the two dangers, the first two dangers of the church, narcissism, Special knowledge not available to everybody. Legalism, rules and regulations that go beyond scripture. This week we saw mysticism, an overemphasis on a spiritual experience. This goes on in the church today, and we would be healthier if we would recognize it when we see it, understand what's happening, shows up in lofty claims made by modern-day self-proclaimed prophets, healers, We see it in other areas as well, because when you think about this, we see meditation techniques being taught by people that require mantras, visualization, chanting, repetition. We see the popularity of a thing called breath prayers. Have you ever heard about that? Breathe in Jesus, breathe out Jesus. Breathe in Jesus, breathe out Jesus. After a while, you feel a oneness with Jesus that you would not feel otherwise. I know some of you are going to go home and try it. Okay? We see books about going to heaven and coming back. We see theologies based on a word or a portion of a verse. We see people claiming things. Oh, you got to claim God's promises, do you? Like God's making this promise is not going to have any effect until I claim it. We see things like the baptism in the Spirit. We'll talk about that someday, but we need to think that this event that comes subsequent to salvation creates a two-level Christianity. Either we get all of the Holy Spirit or we don't. So here's the danger with mysticism. It creates the haves and have-nots. It bifurcates the church. And the end result of that is for the people who supposedly are the have-nots, they begin to doubt their salvation. They begin to doubt their faith. I don't speak in tongues. Maybe there's something wrong with me. Again, I have a problem with speaking in tongues, but it's not a prerequisite for salvation. Then we saw asceticism. And while mysticism is making too much out of spirituality, asceticism is making too much of self-denial and doing things to avoid the world and avoiding things into a religion. And it's totally made up and is apart from the Bible, just like any other man-based teaching. It embraces part of the Bible and ignores others. That's why we need to read our entire Bible. We have modern-day counterparts. You know, oh, the rain sticks a little too much like the world. It's evil. We don't want to bring it in here. I've seen worse. I looked at a few videos this week. I saw an Easter service at a church. It's a full-blown Easter service that had Batman and Robin as the primary figures and the Joker. And in the end, the Joker crucifies Batman. And Robin helps Batman get resurrected. And the crowd went, wow. I've seen a Shrek-themed worship service where the entire band...and I thought, this has got to be a joke. The entire band is dressed up like members of Shrek, saying, I'm a believer. Well, that's spiritual. So, you know, we look at them and go, wait a minute. I've seen pastors making a grand entrance. I've seen an empty stage, smoke machines, the drums are playing, the music's playing and everything. All of a sudden, there's an explosion, and standing there in the pulpit is the pastor. The crowd went wild. I mean, what's that service about? All of these things are designed. These aren't evil people. They're not people that are satanic, but they're designed to bring a manufactured air of spirituality to a service that is not grounded in the Word of God. I'm not saying our services are perfect. Please don't hear that. I'm just saying we have to be careful because you don't get to the point to where you're putting Batman and Robin up on the stage as part of your Easter pageant. You don't get out of there overnight. It happens gradually. That's what was happening to these churches here. If we're not careful, if we don't know our Bibles, all of that can sound good. All of that can look attractive, but the fact of the matter is not everything that sounds godly is. But here's the other side of that. Not everything that sounds evil is. Well, now I've got a dilemma. How do I know? How do I know which is which? The answer's in the Scriptures. The answer's in the Bible. You've got it in your hand. It's on your phone. It's on your tablet. It's sitting in the pews. You've got a favorite Bible at home. That's where the answers are. And if we're reading our Bibles, if we understand and practice the supremacy of Christ in all things, everything else is going to flow from that. It starts with a simple premise. I'm going to live the way this book tells me to live. I'm going to do what Christ tells me to do. And I'm going to be careful. I'm not doing more than what he tells me to do, but not be doing less either. And I'm going to be hyper careful. If anybody tells me I've got to do more, I don't have to do as much. We hear that. Oh, you don't have to do all those things. That's just legalism. Have you done this? Have you had this experience? Oh, just do this. Sit here on this beanbag chair and say, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Do that for a half an hour and watch what happens. My mouth gets dry. Those things sound good, but they're not in Scripture. And we would do well to keep the supremacy of Christ above all other things. When we know Christ, we will understand the simplicity of the gospel. And we will be able to avoid mysticism, gnosticism, legalism, and asceticism. So we're about to go downstairs and have lunch. For those of you who are visiting, you are welcome to join us. We've got plenty of food. I mean, there's a ton of food downstairs. I don't want to say anything about anybody's pumpkin chili, but there's other pumpkin stuff, too. Let me pray for that, and then we'll go and have lunch together, okay? Thank you for your patience. Father, we give you thanks. We give you thanks that the gospel is simple. We give you thanks for the simple phrase, the supremacy of Christ that is so complex that it would take us a lifetime, perhaps an eternity, to learn the full impact of it. But we pray, Father, that you would help us to practice it, even right now. Lord, it will be foremost in our minds as we lift up Your Word, Father, as we honor it the way we honor You, Father, the expression of Your will and Your heart for Your people. Help us to embrace it, Father. Help us to embrace the supremacy of Christ in all things, that we might walk. in a manner worthy of the high and holy calling that You have placed upon our shoulders. And even that, we confess, that we are unable to do without You, without the presence and power of Your Holy Spirit. So we would ask You, have Your way with us today. Father, bless the hands that have prepared the food downstairs. Bless the people that have decorated this room. Bless our fellowship. Bless our meal. In Jesus' name we pray, amen and amen. You're all welcome to come downstairs and have something to eat. I'll be standing right over here if you want to talk.