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Our speaker for this morning is Zach Perkins. Many of you know him, and some of you don't. So I'm sure he'll take just a moment to remind some of the newest ones and some of you older one of who he is and what he's been doing. But he is known to our church, and our pastor thinks of him highly. Our scripture reading for this morning comes from Colossians chapter 2, verses 6 through 8. Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith. Just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. This is the word of the Lord. Father, as we come before you this morning, we want to lift up Brother Zach as he comes and gives us your word. Father, we pray that you will fill his mouth. Father, that the Holy Spirit would give him the words that we need to hear, and that your word would accomplish its work, that it would be that two-edged sword that splits us apart, Father, and gets down to the root. And Father, that we're able to take it in, and Father, to change our life because of the word of God this morning. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Well, good morning. As Don just mentioned, some of you all know me very well. For those of you who don't know us, my wife, Rachel, and I, we used to be members here at the church about nine years ago. It's hard to believe it's been that long. You may see us pop into service here occasionally. We usually come back to town and visit family. We always make a stop here. And we also, just so you know, we moved to Missouri, so we're about two hours away over in Columbia, Missouri. Pastor McNutt, a few weeks ago, sent me a text and just asked if I'd be willing to come home and preach for him, which was a shock to me, because you know how Pastor McNutt, if you've known him for a long time, he likes to hold onto his pulpit. So it's a real honor to be able to be here and speak with you all. Well, this morning, as we just read our passage of scripture, we're gonna be looking in Colossians 2, verses 6 through 8. And just to give you an idea of where we started here, these verses in this chapter come at a turning point in this letter to the Colossian church. Up to this point, Paul has warmly greeted them and expressed his joy that they have continued to prove the work of God in their lives and the faith that they have in Christ. Even though Paul himself had not seen them face to face, you can get a sense that he had a fatherly love for them and was eager to do all that he could do to encourage them and to build them up in their faith in the Lord Jesus. And so starting in the middle of chapter one, Paul reminds them of this great salvation that they had received. They were no longer under the domain of darkness, but instead they had been transferred into the kingdom of Christ, having received the redemption and forgiveness of sins. And then in one of the most glorious summaries of the person of Christ in the Bible, Paul spent some time reminding them of who their Lord is. And actually, I'd just like to read some of these verses here from chapter one, starting in verse 15. This is about Christ. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth. visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. These are amazing truths about Jesus. As we get into Chapter two, we begin to see why Paul spent so much time talking about Jesus. And it's because there was a danger that was threatening to do damage to their precious faith in the Lord Jesus. Even though Paul had much to rejoice in regarding their faith in Christ, there was a fear that some might be persuaded by a different view of Christ and by teachings that contradicted the traditions that had been delivered to them through the apostles. So what is this issue that Paul is addressing? Well, the text doesn't explicitly state what the error was, but many commentators agree that Paul's addressing an early form of Gnosticism as well as some Jewish mysticism. And there's several clues for us in verse eight and the rest of chapter two. When we look at verse eight, it says that it was a deceptive philosophy that was threatening to take them captive. Interesting, this word here for philosophy in the Bible is the only place where this word is used in scripture. And the meaning is a little bit different than how we sometimes use this word philosophy. And this time that the letter was written, the word philosophy used here is used to refer to theories about God and about life, the meaning of life. So you could say it's more of a theosophy. But even though Gnosticism wasn't yet a fully formed heresy, the roots of that philosophy were already getting to show up in the early church. In verse nine, Paul says, for in him the fullness of deity dwells bodily. This is similar to what it said in chapter one, verse 19, that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Jesus. But here in verse nine of chapter two, Paul makes it clear that even though Jesus is God, he was also fully human, God and human in one body or one person. The reason he would need to make this distinction was likely to refute one of the heretical views from Gnosticism that taught that Jesus did not exist in human form. You may have heard of a view called Doseticism, which was a part of Gnostic view, that held that the physical world was bad from its inception, and that only the spiritual realm was good. They taught that Jesus is a spirit and does not have a human body, but that he only appeared to have a body. So they reasoned that if Jesus had a physical body, he would have to submit to evil matter, and they thought that this would somehow diminish his power. Gnosticism didn't become a fully formed set of beliefs until the first and second century, but many of the ideas had already started to infiltrate the church in the time that Paul wrote this letter. And Paul was well aware of the danger that these ideas posed to the Christian faith if they were taken captive by his teaching. So those who held to this view would deny the virgin birth, God becoming man. they would deny the physical resurrection of Jesus and substitutionary atonement. So these are bad stuff. As this chapter goes on, Paul begins to address another bad philosophy that was affecting the church, and that was a Jewish mysticism. From verse 16, we see that there were some similar elements of legalism that Paul had addressed at the churches in other letters. It says, 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. So evidently, there were some at that time who were observing different holidays and dietary restrictions in a legalistic way. And they were judging those who were not doing the same. But then in verse 18, he addresses an era of a slightly different flavor. It's asceticism. and angel worship. That verse goes on. It says, let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen inflated without cause by his fleshly mind. So asceticism is an extreme form of self-denial to the point that it usually causes bodily harm. Sometimes we could see that through restricting one's diet to a bare minimum of sustenance. or it could be through inflicting physical pain on oneself. You might wonder, why would anybody want to do that to themselves? And Paul addressed that down in verse 23. He said, these indeed have 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. So the idea was, if you were severe to your body, you could somehow stop the indulgences of your flesh. You could restrain your sinful desires. But as Paul pointed out in that verse, that's foolish, it doesn't work. What was it all about these bad teachings that made them attractive to people? Well, back in verse eight, we also see that these things were being promoted. destructive philosophies were according to human tradition and according to the elementary principles of the world and not according to Christ. This is the same way that heresies today work. They gain traction. Human tradition is a huge snare. In fact, Jesus is addressing this issue constantly with the self-righteous religious leaders in Jesus' day. On one occasion, you may remember that Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because they were nullifying God's law by following the traditions of the elders, which allowed them to give money to the temple instead of taking care of their elderly parents. Now, the tradition of the elders was referring to a set of oral teachings that had been passed down from generation to generation alongside the Holy Scripture. These writings started out as a helpful commentary on different passages and applications that people could take from Scripture. But sometime along the way, these writings began to be seen as more than just the writings of men. They became on the same standard as the Holy Scripture themselves. And these religious leaders, they value their tradition so much that they become blinded to the obvious contradictions that their writings had with the word of God. Another bad way that teaching appeals to people is through plausible worldly wisdom. The verse says, according to the elementary spirits of the world, the world system has its own set of values. And if we begin to adopt those ways of thinking, we may find ourselves falling for dangerous philosophies as well. So this is all bad stuff, right? Paul's warning these Colossians in verse eight, don't be taken captive by this. You need to be careful because there's ideas that may at first seem harmless, but they threaten to kidnap you away from your firm foundation in Christ. What about us today? Are there any philosophies that pose a threat to us today? You bet. You'd think that after 2000 years of church history, after all the heresies that have been refuted and shown to be false, that we'd be in a better position today than we were then. But it's just not the case. The church remains under constant attack from the enemy through destructive philosophies. There's a need to understand what makes a particular heresy bad or wrong. We need teachers, godly teachers who are willing to do the hard work of testing the myriad of philosophies that are springing up in our churches. Just the fact that Paul is spending this much time addressing this issue shows that there is a need to have people investigate and study and understand these things so that we can we can avoid falling into these errors. But what's really encouraging to me is that even the ordinary Christian who may not understand everything about any number of these heresies has been given all the tools that they need to avoid being taken captive. As you read through this letter, you'll see that the way Paul goes about preparing the Christians for refuting these errors isn't primarily teaching them about the errors. but rather, instead, he spends his time holding up Jesus Christ for them. The best protection the Christian has is through a close relationship with Jesus. So for the rest of our time, I want to focus on verses six and seven, where we'll see three aspects of our relationship with Christ that will provide protection for us against error. Let's read those verses again. Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. So these are, I'm gonna break these up into three different ideas that flow from the outline that you have in your bulletin there. So far, we've spent time looking at the negative command to reject bad philosophies from verse eight. But these verses address the problem with a positive command, focusing on what we should be doing instead. So, walking with Jesus. Walking with Jesus and being rooted and built up in Him. These are all word pictures that illustrate something about the way our relationship with Jesus should be if we want to maintain stability in our faith in the Lord. We're to do these things as an extension of something that we already have received. Did you notice at the beginning of that verse eight, it says, therefore, as you have received the Lord Jesus, so walk in him. It's because we've already received something. As Paul reminded us in chapter one, verse 13, God has done something amazing on our behalf. He's taken us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his son. Before anyone's saved, we're under the power and control of darkness is what the Bible teaches. We're not just blinded from understanding truth, but we're also darkened in our hearts toward God. Listen to what it says about our condition from Romans three, starting in verse 10, as it is written, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. The mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. It's a pretty bad picture, isn't it? This is the way our hearts are toward God before God saves us. We have no relationship with Him. In fact, we're His enemies. But praise God that He so loved the world, that He gave us His Son, and that while we were yet still sinners, Christ died for us. Rescuing sinful man from God's righteous judgment required God to send Jesus to bear God's judgment on our behalf. When a sinner's eyes are open to the true nature of their sin and in faith he clings to Christ as his only hope for salvation, God transforms his heart. He's no longer a hater of God, but he loves God and he desires to follow God. When God saves a sinner from the domain of darkness, there's a change in relationship that's happening. No longer are we enemies, we become God's children. joint heirs with Christ. And the best part of this is that we get to have a close fellowship with him. So if you've received the Lord Jesus yourself, these commands here in verses six and seven are not to be viewed as something that we have to work up in ourselves or something that we have to do to earn favor with God. We can do these things through the same grace that we needed when we first received Christ. So I want to look at this first phrase, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him. I'm going to go through these words individually. So walk. What does it mean to walk in the Lord? Well, we know what it means to walk with somebody, but here it's saying that we should walk in the Lord. This is speaking about the way we conduct ourselves in our relationship with Jesus. our conduct, the things that we do, the things that we think, things we say. Is it in step with Jesus? But it's also relational. Are we aware of his presence? Are we concerned about the things that he's concerned about? Do we spend time talking with Jesus? In our neighborhood back in Missouri, there's an older couple that likes to walk around our neighborhood. And it's always stood out to me that the wife is always about 10 feet ahead of her husband. And she's just charging along. Meanwhile, he's just back there trying to keep up. And every time I see them, I can't help but wonder whether this poor guy really wants to be on this walk or not. Because it seems like he's just being dragged along. There doesn't seem to be a lot of relationship happening in their walks. Now, to be fair, you're probably just out there trying to get some exercise. But I bring up this example because sometimes in our own relationships with Christ, we could be like that toward Jesus. We could be out of step with Him, and our relationship is not what it should be. Another aspect of walking is that it involves a little bit of work. It's an exercise. This is something that we need to keep at doing. We can't give up on. When we become Christians, we don't just stop following Jesus. It's not something that just happened to us back then and we're done with Jesus from that point on. No, it's something that we're continuing on with the rest of our lives. So walking with Jesus. Let's look at the next one. It says we need to be rooted in him. What purpose do roots serve for a tree? Well, they give the tree structural support, that's probably one big way, but they also give nutrients and water, right? If the roots underground are not in firm soil or the roots themselves are inadequate, it's going to cause serious problems for the structural integrity of the tree. It wouldn't take very much for a strong wind to blow and knock it down. As Christians, We've already been rooted in Christ. That's what happened to us at our conversion. We've been rooted in him. That means that, sorry, but according to this verse, we're to continue to be rooting ourselves in Jesus. That means that trusting him more and more, relying on the promises that he's made to us and deepening in our understanding of who he is. This provides stability, it provides protection for the believer, particularly whenever false teachings blow in, threaten to knock us over. If we're firmly rooted in Christ and we know Him and we know His words, we're not going to easily be fooled by error. As we're rooting ourselves in Christ, this verse goes on to say that we're also to be built up in Him. So roots go down into the ground. digging deeper, but a structure, something that you're building, is something that you're building up, building on top of, goes the opposite direction. Both of these ideas are kind of the same thing. When you put those two together, it just emphasizes the full depth of our relationship that we're to have in Christ. We're supposed to be going deeper and further out with Jesus. As we walk with him, we're rooted and built up in him. This puts us in a good place to be able to detect errors, to sniff out things that aren't right, so that we may reject those things that would undermine our faith in Christ. Some of you might remember a long time ago, I used to work as a teller for Scott Credit Union over in Highland. And during our orientation, we spent a lot of time learning about the different ways that people try to commit fraud with money. And one of the most interesting parts was when they showed us how to detect fake money. You might think that they'd put a bunch of fake money in front of us and we would study it and try to learn so we could recognize whenever we saw it the next time. But instead what they actually had us do is they had us spend a lot of time looking at the real thing. We handled it. We examined all the unique things about the different bills, all the security features. And by the time that we got done with the training, we had such a good knowledge and firsthand experience with the real thing that detecting fake money became pretty easy actually. Interestingly, I had to put that into practice when I was working at Chick-fil-A in the mall. We had somebody try to pass a $100 bill on me one time. And I mean, immediately, as soon as I saw this thing, I knew it wasn't real. It didn't have the same feel of money, and it didn't look like it. So my training paid off. But this is true for us as well, with our relationship with Christ. The better we know and experience Jesus, the better we're going to be able to spot those things that pose a threat to our faith in Christ. So moving on, we're gonna look at the next phrase here under point two, established in the faith just as you were taught. This phrase here highlights an important truth about the means by which we have received Christ. Notice what it says, established in the faith just as you were taught. We are saved through believing in the gospel when we receive Christ. But someone had to communicate that truth to us, right? Maybe you heard the gospel from a family member, or maybe it was a friend, or maybe it was a preacher or a Sunday school teacher. We all heard the gospel first from somebody. But where did they hear that message from? Well, ultimately, this message comes to us through the testimony of scripture. What we know about God, the life of Jesus, about our sin and our need for salvation, it's all been revealed to us in this book. During the time that Paul wrote this, they didn't have the New Testament like we did, but they had the Old Testament, and they had the teachings from the apostles who were tasked with establishing the church after Christ's ascension into heaven. In John's Gospel, chapter 16, Jesus told the disciples that the Holy Spirit would come after Jesus went to heaven, and he would disclose to them all the things that were to come. I'm just going to read this. It says, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. And we know Paul received his apostleship from Jesus at his conversion, when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. And so he had the authority given to him from Christ to teach with all authority as well. The Colossians here, they learned what they knew about Jesus from Epaphras. And Epaphras, he learned everything he knew from Paul himself. What Paul wants these Christians to hold on to here, though, is the teachings that they had received about Christ, these specific teachings. It's important. If they were going to be established in the faith, they needed to stay close to what they had been taught, to accept any other teaching that was different would be harmful to their faith. And it would be harmful to our faith as well if we don't hold on to the teachings that we have in Scripture. One tactic the enemy will try to use to trip us up is to sow doubt in our confidence in the Word of God. We see this happening all the way back in Genesis when Satan tempted Adam and Eve. Remember, God told Adam and Eve that they could eat of any tree or the fruit of any tree in the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right? But when Satan came to Eve, he cast doubt on the words of God and said, did God really say you cannot eat of any tree in the garden? Satan here was implying that God had lied, that God had spoke something that wasn't quite truthful. And then he misquotes what God actually said. He perverted what God had told her. So if we begin to doubt the complete truthfulness of God's word, we're on a short path to making a shipwreck of our faith. The Gnostic heresy and Jewish mysticism that we talked about earlier relied on casting doubt on the clear teaching about Jesus from the apostles. But if we stay close to what scripture says, we're not going to be easily fooled. The last point was about the importance of maintaining a close relationship with Jesus and protecting us from error. And this point, it's about the importance of knowing the Jesus of the Bible. There's only one Jesus and he's been revealed to us in this book. If we want to know him, we need to read and meditate on scripture. Well, lastly, I want to look at this final command that we see in verse seven. It says that we should be abounding in thanksgiving. What does it mean to abound? It means to have a whole lot of something. The NASB version uses the word overflowing, which gives kind of the same idea. Our thanksgiving, or you could say our gratitude, should be in great measure. overflowing. As Christians, we of all people have reason to be thankful. As Christians now living in the kingdom of God's son, we not only have received salvation from God's judgment, but even more than that, we've received a relationship with Jesus himself. Listen to what Paul says to the Colossians just a little bit back in chapter two. He says, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all those who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged. They knit together in love to reach all the riches of the fullness of assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. This is what Paul was struggling for. He wanted these Colossians to realize what they had in the person of Jesus, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Do we realize what we have in Jesus? We get to have Christ himself. And all this comes to us purely out of God's grace towards us. We're not only receiving, we're not only receiving not receiving the judgment that we do deserve, but we're also receiving everything that we do not deserve. So gratitude or thankfulness is an emotional response that flows out of our heart when we realize how blessed we really are. And it's directed toward God. And we're commanded here that our thankfulness should not be in small measure. We should be overfilled with it. This is the only place in Scripture that we're instructed this way. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 through 18 says, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. So this is God's will. And when we're in heaven, we're going to continue to be giving thanks. In Revelation 4, 9, it says, Whenever the The living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever. We're going to be giving thanks even when we're with God in heaven because of how amazing it is. Why is thankfulness to God so important? Well, first, it's because it gives God, because God deserves our praise and our thanksgiving. God created all things for His glory. And when we respond to God with thankfulness, it demonstrates that our hearts are recognizing His greatness. Unbelievers can be thankful for things, but they're not thankful to God. As it says in Romans 121, for although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. That's a mark of an unbeliever. We ought to be better than that. Another reason thankfulness is important is because it protects our hearts from being discontented with God. And discontentment will lead us into all kinds of errors. We hear more and more stories, sadly, of supposed Christians who have fallen away from the faith. And in many of these cases, it's common to hear that they were disillusioned by something, maybe a moral failure in someone they respected. or disappointment in some other relationship. But somewhere along the line, they began to question God himself and to turn against him as if he had somehow failed them. We all have disappointments in trials. And things happen to us that we aren't expecting. And we don't always live up to this command. Sometimes we lose our perspective and complain instead of giving thanks. But we shouldn't be content to go on in this way. We need to fight to hold on to the promises that God has for us. And we need to fight to remember and believe all that Christ has done on our behalf, that we may from the heart be able to glorify God with a thankful heart. So we've looked at the three areas of our relationship with Christ that protect us from falling into error. Walking in him, being rooted and built up in him, establishing the faith through the word of God, and overflowing thankfulness. Well, as we close for this morning, I just want to leave you with a question. How is your relationship with Lord Jesus? Are you walking with him? Are you trusting him and deepening in your relationship? Are you building your life upon his words? Do you know the Jesus of the Bible? Do you study the word? Are you abounding in thankfulness toward God? And really, when it all comes down to it, is Jesus the center of your life? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for what an amazing thing it is we have received through Christ, Thank you, Lord, that you didn't leave us in our sinful state without hope and only to face judgment. Lord, we thank you that you were pleased to send your son and that you did love the world. Lord, thank you for opening our eyes to see our need for a savior. Thank you, Lord, for giving us faith to believe on Christ and to cling to him as our only hope for salvation. Thank you for transforming us, giving us a new heart that no longer loves the things of this world and loves you. Lord, I pray that you would help us to think about the things that we've read this morning and help us to deepen in our love and our relationship with Christ. Lord, I pray that you would protect us from errors and the things that would cause us stumble in our faith in Christ, let me thank you that you've given us a firm foundation in the word and in Jesus Christ himself. We pray that you'd be ministering to our hearts and helping us to see any area that we're not applying these things and that you would give us grace to repent and to believe in Christ more. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.
So Walk In Him
Sermon ID | 2192320332217 |
Duration | 37:00 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday Service |
Bible Text | Colossians 2:6-8 |
Language | English |
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