Well, would you open your Bibles up to Colossians chapter number two. While you're turning there, I'll show you in my hand I'm holding gold. That's right. This is real fool's gold. And in fact, if you go by the table back there and sign up to help with VBS, you can see Notice the emphasis on see and not take. See this fool's gold. It's back there. My son one day came home from a birthday party. He had a little bag. I think it was about a year or two ago. And they had given him some gold. I think it was actually rocks spray-painted or whatever. And they told him that it really was gold. I mean, he came home. He was so excited that he actually had some gold. And, you know, when he came in the door and was so happy and held his gold bag and said, Dad, I have gold in here. Can you believe I'm rich? I'm rich. I didn't have the heart to tell him, son, that they deceived you. It's not really true. You know, just a fun little game. And, but then the next day he had this gold, this bag of gold, and he was holding it to his chest. And he was just, I'm everywhere. He's taking it. He wasn't gonna let this thing go. He didn't want to lose one of those pieces of gold, you know. So valuable to him. And then I had to break it to him. And it's just rocks spray-painted. That's what it is. Well, you know, people have been fooled through history with not that kind of gold, but this kind of gold right here. There was a man named Sir Martin, I don't know how to say his last name. I think it's Frobisher. Anyways, he was an explorer in the 1500s. And he went over to Canada and he found a bunch of this kind of fool's gold, which is pyrite. It looks like gold. So he went back to England and he said, I found gold. There's gold out there. And so everyone was so excited about that. Elizabeth I invested a lot of money and a lot of other people invested money for him to go over to Canada there, what is now Canada, and mine this gold. He brought back 200 tons of this gold. Fool's gold. When he came back, they found out that he was a fool. and they used it for pavement or something like that. Couldn't use it for what they thought they were going to. A lot of people were fooled. In fact, my son was tricked to thinking he had real gold, right? He had a fraud. Sir Martin and many investors were tricked to think they had found tons of real gold, but actually they were fooled. And that fraud, that deception, it looks so much like the real thing, doesn't it? I mean, that's kind of the point. That's how a fraud works, is that it looks so much like the real thing. But we have the real thing. We have the precious truth of Jesus. But Satan, he has deceptive frauds. He wants us to believe lies about who Jesus is and about what Jesus has done. And he propagates that false teaching. in this world, and yes, even in churches. So how can we tell the difference? How can we tell the difference between the fraud and the real thing? Well, we look at the truth, right? You must know the truth in order to know the fraud. And so let's look at the truth of God's word here this morning. In chapter one, Paul presents the truth of Jesus, who he is and what he's done. In chapter two, Paul presents the source of spiritual life. Now, there were false teachers within this church who were teaching people a different doctrine of Christ. And our text this morning is Colossians 2, 16 through 23. And Paul uses these verses here to tell and point out the lies that some of these false teachers were teaching about. And that was that they were teaching that spiritual life comes from your own self and through your own good works and not completely in the person of Jesus Christ and his work. And the theological battle here was, what is the source of spiritual life? I mean, where does one get righteousness? Yeah, Christ, but is it Christ plus yourself? Where does one get delight? How does one have power over sin? And Paul said, listen, it's through Jesus Christ alone. And some other people said, no, no, no. Righteousness comes through some religious ceremonies you do. And delight is found in experience and enlightenment. And religious rules can help you to overcome sin. And Paul says, no, those are lies of Satan. Look down in chapter 2, look at verse 4. You can see that Paul is warning against this. He says in verse four, now this I say, lest anyone should deceive you with pervasive words. So he's saying there's a deception out there. Look down in verse eight. He says, beware, lest anyone cheat you. And he goes on and saying there are people who are going to deceive you to to not follow Christ, but to follow something else. And so what's the truth? What's the lie? And so in Colossians chapter 2, 1 through 15, Paul presents the truth, and then the rest of the chapter he presents what the lies are. In spiritual life, the truth is this. Spiritual life and freedom from sin and for righteousness comes through the person and the work of Christ. Spiritual life and freedom come through the person and the work of Christ. I put a little diagram together for you up here, a little timeline of the work of Christ. Because I'm not teaching through the first 15 verses. But I think it's good for you to understand the truth of what Jesus has done for you at the cross, in you when you became a believer, through you as you live your life and walk daily with the Lord, and then after you die what he does upon you. First notice that spiritual life is sourced in Christ in you based upon what Christ has done for you. And the Christ for you is the atonement. It's the work of Christ where He came and He lived a perfect life. And He died and atoned for our sin. And then He gained victory over that sin and that death through His resurrection. And then His work in you was that moment of regeneration when you, by faith, you trusted in the Lord, you were born again. And many things happen at that moment. You're regenerated. You're born again. You're justified. These are Bible words. You're justified. You're declared righteous. You're reconciled to God. You're adopted into His family and other things. And another thing that happens within you is that you are united in Christ's work. You're united in Christ's work. And you hear that, or I should say you read that, when you see words like this, And this is speaking about the moment of our salvation when Christ, through His Spirit, applies His work and His person to our life. You can see that in Colossians 2, verse 12. It's also, it's called, this is called, I should say, our union with Christ. And it's also sometimes called our baptism into Christ. And it's not speaking of the baptism over there. It's speaking of the spiritual baptism when this Holy Spirit baptizes us into His death and into His burial and His resurrection. So you can see that in Colossians 2.12, when it says, "...buried with him in baptism." That's not water baptism. It's talking about the spirit baptism, when the work of Christ is applied to our life. And we see that in Colossians 1.27, where he says, "...it's Christ in you." In fact, go down to Colossians 2, 9. I'm just going to do a brief overview. I'm not preaching this whole passage again, but just so you can kind of have a flyover and understand this. Colossians 2, 9, it says, So Jesus is fully and completely God in human flesh. And verse 10 then says, that you receive this fullness, his person and his work. He uses actually the same word there when he says complete in verse 10 as the word fullness in verse 9. It's the same root word. And so in Colossians 2.10 he says, and now you are filled up. You are complete in him. who is the head of principality and power. What's interesting is this verse right here, it outlines the rest of this, or the next couple of verses in the chapter here. The first part of verse 10 speaks of the work of Christ applied in us, so His work applied in you at salvation. And the second part of this verse, when it says who is the head of principality and power, speaks of Christ's work done for you when He defeated Satan and sin on the cross. In fact, look down in verse number 11 through 13, I'm not going to read through that, but there it's talking about Christ's work applied in us. And so we are complete in Him. What does that mean? Well, there's five different verbs there that talk about that. We were circumcised, our salvation into the body, into Christ. We were circumcised with him. We were circumcised. We were buried with him. Sorry. We were raised with him and we were made alive and we were forgiven. And then in verses 14 and 15 explains how that's possible. Talks about the work Christ did for you at the cross. In verse 14. The debt of your sin was wiped away. In verse 15, Satan was defeated. So the penalty of sin is gone. The power that Satan had over you, the greatest weapon he has is sin. And the power that it has over you, and that was defeated at the cross. And then in chapter 3, we see what Christ does through us. And you say, Ben, why are you going over all this? Because you're going over my head. Well, I don't hopefully I'm not hopefully it's understandable to you, but I say that to say this I say all that to say this It's so important for you to understand this right here Because you can't understand the lies and really point out the lies until you know the truth. I And if you don't understand, you can't really apply chapter three, which is the passage everyone wants to get to, right? That's the practical passage. But you can't really apply chapter three of Christ through you if you don't first understand that Christ has applied his work in you in chapter two, which is based on the gospel, and that's that he did a work for you at the cross. I can remember a few years ago, I ran the addictions ministry we had over there in the ministration building. And after one of the addictions classes we had, a man came up, and he was late for the class, and he came in to talk to someone. And so I went outside. It was a cool autumn day, and I was standing outside talking to this man. And he began to tell me some of the struggles he was having, some of the sin struggles. And this man had concluded that he could not overcome sin. He said, I fought my whole life. I fought my whole life, pastor. And I just decided that it is what it is. This is who I am. And I spoke with him about the gospel and what Jesus had done for him and explained that Jesus had defeated sin. And this man decided though to, he came I think a couple of times, but he decided to walk away. And in the end, the sad story is this man walked away because really what he wanted to do is he said, I've tried my whole life to overcome my sin. And really what he wanted to do is he wanted to overcome his sin his way. And because I didn't agree and because the Bible didn't agree with his way, he decided to give up, walk away and remain in his sin. But see, this is a deception that Satan gives to people. And that is that sin and its power is dependent upon me and my person and my work. And the sad reality is that Satan is at work in our world and at work in our church. Though God, through Jesus, has defeated Satan, Satan has not yet been destroyed. And therefore he influences this world with his deceptions. And his greatest deception are the lies about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for us. And he deceives the world to believe his lies so they won't trust in his work on the cross. And even after a person is saved, think about this, even after a person is saved, Satan works to deceive, to diminish the believer's dependence on Christ's work in him. And I want you to think about this. And that is that Paul is writing to a church. He's writing to believers. He's warning them that they could be deceived. In other words, this isn't necessarily just for the people out there. These lies are for us in here. And the reality is that there may be individuals in here who are believing these lies of Satan. And Satan is deceiving you to diminish the work of Christ in your own life. And what I'm going to do right now, just a moment here, I'm going to pray. When I pray, would you do something with me? Would you pray as well? And I want everyone in here, honestly, in your heart to pray and ask God, God, maybe I'm deceived and I'm believing some of these lies. God, open my eyes that I might be able to see the truth. And you might say, well, I'm up here spiritually. I don't need that. No, everyone, if you will do that with me and let's pray. Father, I pray your spirit will open our eyes. I can't help but think, Father, there are people in here. Many of people may be in here that have been deceived by Satan. to think that Jesus isn't enough, that his work isn't sufficient enough. They need something else. They need their own way. God, I pray that your spear will open up the eyes of individuals in here. In fact, even more so, Father, if there's someone in here and Satan has blinded their eyes so they cannot see the glorious gospel of Christ, may you open their eyes so they can see they need Jesus. In Jesus' name, amen. Paul presents three lies people believe in regard to the source of spiritual life. The first lie is in the back of your paper there, and it says that it is the belief that religious customs make me righteous. It's the belief that religious customs can make me righteous. Look at verse 16. Verse 16 says, If you guys could click that for me, it's not clicking for some reason. Paul told the believers not to let anyone judge them in regard to their practice of religious customs. When you judge a person, you're evaluating that person's righteousness by a standard that you have set. I mean, think about it. When you're at a stoplight, right, and someone zooms through a red light, you know, they almost hit you. They're zooming through that red light. You know, your eyes kind of bug out and you grit your teeth and you judge them at that moment, right? bring in a stoplight. Can you believe they did that? And you are judging them based upon a standard set by the government. It's called a law that you're not allowed to run stoplights. And when you judge someone else, you are judging them by a set standard, no matter what you're judging them in. And it could be a standard set by God in His Word, right? It could be a standard that you're actually supposed to judge someone by. Think about it this way. Let's say someone is teaching doctrinal error. Someone gets up and says, Jesus was just a man. He wasn't really God. And so they break that standard, that doctrinal truth, by making a declaration that Jesus is not God. And we are to make a judgment about that person's belief and notice that person is wrong and in error. I mean, think about it. Isn't that what happened in the book of Colossians? I mean, it's kind of what Paul is doing. He's like making, he says, don't judge anyone. And that's a judgment in of itself, isn't it? So it's not that you never are to judge. It's what's the standard by which you are to judge someone. And Paul says, for instance, in here in the Colossians, well, you can judge someone according to their doctrine. You know, make sure that it's doctrinally correct. Or you also might make a judgment in regard to someone's moral standard. Paul does that in Colossians. You know, for instance, there might be a child that says, I don't need to follow my parents. I can do whatever I want to do. Well, Paul actually disagrees with you and so does the Lord in Colossians chapter three, where he says, children, obey your parents and the Lord, right? So there's a doctrinal standard and there's a moral standard and we do make judgments about that and that's okay. And actually we should do that. So the scriptures teach that there are times when you should not judge though. So when are those times? Well, I'm not going to go through the whole teaching on this because you can go back to the fall and you can listen to some of those messages on Romans chapter 14. But if you remember when we taught on Romans 14, what we taught was there are two really main categories in which you are to make judgments. Those are doctrinal issues and moral issues found in the scriptures. But what is Paul talking about here? Well, Paul is speaking of Jewish customs. And many of which are found in the Bible. And so they're not necessarily doctrinal or moral issues. They're other issues. They're religious issues in regard to Jewish customs. This passage in Colossians is very similar to Romans 14, though. Romans 14, eight times Paul uses the word judge and the same word that's found here in Colossians chapter 2. And remember in Romans 14, Paul taught that true Christians come to God by faith, right? We all come to God by faith. We should all come to God in Christ alone, by grace alone. True Christians walk in the grace of God on a daily basis. But how we apply our faith on a day-to-day basis, how we apply the scriptures, will differ, right? It depends a little bit on your background and also on your cultural setting in which you came from. And therefore, how I apply the scriptures might look different than how someone else might apply the scriptures. And we said, that's okay, right? We say that's okay. Does God say that's okay? He says, yes, receive those who apply the scriptures different than you. And in a multicultural and diverse generational setting like Calvary, we're going to have that, aren't we? We're going to have people who have weaker or stronger consciences in regard to issues that don't deal with doctrine or morality, but it's application of the scriptures. And as Christians, we should receive believers who apply the scriptures different than us. Now, that's hard, isn't it? But why should we do that? Well, he says here, why? Because we know that the application of biblical principles are not the means by which Christ gives us righteousness. How I apply the Scriptures and the principles in the Scriptures, those things do not give me righteousness before Christ. In other words, you should not judge a born-again Christian who has a different biblical application than you do, if that is not against doctrine or moral purity. What some people were doing in the Colossian church was similar to what happened in the Roman church. And that was some people were sitting in judgment upon other believers and saying, well, you need to follow our religious customs. I mean, they're found in the Old Testament. Look at the Bible. That was the Bible they had. They had the Old Testament. I mean, notice these customs they have. And they were saying, you should restrain from eating certain foods. And true Christians drink certain drinks and don't drink certain drinks. True Christians celebrate festivals and holidays in this way. You know, true Christians do this, true Christians don't do this. And notice, all these religious customs are in the Bible. And so, they seemingly are good things. Like, these are pretty good restrictions, you know? This is what Moses told us to do. This is how Daniel applied the Scriptures. Let's follow his example. But notice, Paul was not saying that you should not follow these customs. He wasn't saying that it's sinful or wrong for a person to observe one of these customs here, or to abstain from something. though there are other places where he says it's not necessary. But he's not saying that practicing those Old Testament restrictions or celebrations were sinful, but he was condemning the lie that some were perpetuating, which was this, a person must follow those religious customs to be righteous. And that's what the false teachers are teaching. Follow our religious customs if you want to be righteous before God. In other words, let's put it a little bit into modern terminology here, okay? It's kind of like this. If a person follows our Christian customs, how we do church or how we do the Christian life, and I'm not talking about faith in Christ alone, I'm not talking about doctrine or moral purity, but I'm just talking about application of the scriptures. If a person does this, if a person dresses this way to church, I mean, this is how godly people dress when they come to church. This is how godly women should dress. This is how godly men. If you dress this way, or if you listen to this style of music, you know, if you go up like this, not good. If you go down like this, not good. That's good not for all people. This is not good. If you cut your hair this way, or you don't cut your hair this way, then a person is right with God. So if you do it this way, then you're right with God. And therefore, I'm going to be judgmental and critical of you to help you be righteous with God like I am. And you can see the problem here is that this is actually, in some sense, teaching that righteousness is found in what I do, and even in good religious Baptist customs that we practice. But Paul says, no, even those customs in the Old Testament were just to point you to Christ. Look at verse 17. He says, those things are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. In other words, it's possible for a believer to cling to the Christian traditions and the church ceremonies and believe if they follow those that they're righteous before God. But Paul says, you're clinging to the wrong thing. Any religious custom or anything we do should point us to righteousness in Jesus. We cling to Jesus, the reality, not to the shadow. There was a lady that I sat down with once, and I was hearing her testimony. And she said she grew up in a Baptist church, and she was saved when she was a child, and she truly believed that she trusted in the Lord at that moment, and the grace of God, what God had done for her at the cross. But as she grew up, there were some things that were difficult that happened to her, some bad things that happened to her. And so she always tried to be good enough for the people in her church, and for her parents, and for God. When she came to church, she'd always think to herself, am I looking the right way for people in the church? Am I acting the way that some people think I'm a good person? Is God happy with me and what I'm doing? And it kind of consumed her and she kind of became obsessed with it and was obsessed with making sure everything in her life was just perfect so God would accept her and she'd be right before God and God would like her. Well, it started eating away at her. And she lost her joy, and she lost her, and she became very guilty in her heart. One day a lady sat down with her and did a Bible study with her. And a Bible study that dealt with many of the things that we just talked about, about the truth of Jesus, his work for us and in us. And she began to review again what Jesus had done for her through this Bible study. And the lady, through some verses, taught her that Jesus, he lived the perfect life. You can't. And that he is the only one that is acceptable to God. And that God nailed all of her sin on the cross when Jesus died. And she began to think about this. What does it mean that Jesus did this for me? What does it mean that he's applied this to me? So wait a second. If Jesus is righteous and he gives me his righteousness, I'm righteous? I'm righteous. You mean that God, I don't have to be good enough for God, even as a believer, that I can actually just believe that Jesus, I'm actually holy. I don't have to try to be holy enough for you. And I'm accepted by God. I don't have to try to do these things. God, you actually love me for who I am. And I can actually overcome my fear of man and the sins that I'm struggling with through Jesus Christ. And then she began to realize these things. There was a freedom that she found. The guilt was lifted in her life. And now she came to church and she celebrated the Lord. And she did what she did, not to try to earn acceptance from people and from God, but because she was rejoicing in what God had already done for her, what God was doing in her. And she embraced these truths and started living by grace, not just the grace that saved her, but the grace that every day that she could trust that Jesus had made her righteous, Jesus had made her complete, that Jesus had made her holy, forgiven her sins, and now she could live in the joy of that. You see, if you cling to religious customs and traditions and believe that those things will make you righteous before God, you're believing a lie from the pit of hell. The custom is not the means by which you're righteous. Coming to church here just because it snowed outside and you came to church doesn't mean you're more righteous than the person that's at home. It doesn't make you righteous. No, Jesus is the one who gives you his righteousness. He is the only one who lived a perfect righteous life. So does that mean we should all have stayed home this morning to watch TV? No, please. The imperative is not to condemn religious customs. Okay. It's not, let's do away from church. And some people say that I'm just going to stay home. Then all those people are hypocrites anyways. No, he's judging or he's telling people stop judging people and the righteousness based upon your religious standards. Religious ceremony and customs are only there to point you to Jesus and to trust in his righteousness alone. And therefore, any religious custom that we do, anything we do in our church, anything you do in your life, it should direct your heart to Jesus Christ alone and dependence upon him and celebration for the righteousness that he provides. And so the first lie was religious customs can make you righteous. The second lie, is religious enlightenment and experience can satisfy me. Verse 18 through verse 19 speak of this. All of us desire satisfaction, don't we? We drink to satisfy our thirst. We eat to satisfy our hunger. And God created our souls to satisfy Him, or be satisfied in Him. But we want to fill that satisfaction. We want to be satisfied. And we look for other things that are empty and things that are hollow. We look for satisfaction in things like money and the pursuit of self-centered relationships. And some religious people looked for enlightenment and experience to satisfy. Paul teaches that seeking delight in religious enlightenment and religious experience takes away from the true delight found in Christ. He says the pursuit of experience and enlightenment is false. It's full of fleshly pride. Look at verse 18. He says it's a delight in false humility. The idea here is that you put on an outward show of spirituality and you puff your chest up. You want everyone to know how good you really are, but you're really just full of pride and driven by the flesh. He goes on to say later on that they're vainly puffed up in their fleshly mind. And also he describes their pursuit as one that's pursuing a deeper spirituality gained through elevated knowledge. And you see that when he says in verse 18 that they delighted in the worship of angels. Now, this is not talking about that they actually worshipped angels. but that they were trying to gain a deeper and more enlightened knowledge into how angels worshipped. Probably the idea was something like this. We in spiritual eliteness are going to seek to understand how the angels worshipped. I mean, doesn't that sound good? If we could just peer into heaven and see what kind of language do they speak to God? How do they communicate to God? What kind of songs do they sing to God? I mean, doesn't that sound delightful? If we could fill this room with the holiness of the angels and sing like they do in heaven and really have that majestic sound in here. I mean, doesn't that sound good? Doesn't that sound spiritual? Wouldn't it be grand to have that majestic service in here and just so heavenly? And that sounds like it would satisfy your soul, doesn't it? I mean, if I could stand up here and tell you what the worship of angels was like, you might be, wow, that would be pretty cool. If I could give you a 30 minute teaching on how angels worship God, and then we could have a 10 minute worship time like the angels. Doesn't that sound so delightful? See how enticing it is? And Paul says, no. Religious enlightenment and religious experience do not truly satisfy. When the focus of one's delight is on the enlightenment or on the experience, then you are cheated of the true joy in Christ. I mean, look what he says in verse 18. He says, What's the reward? It's Jesus. He is the reward, verse 19 says, and not holding fast to the head. That is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the reward. Verse 19 goes on to say, from whom all the body nourished and knit together. Word, the body. by joints and ligaments grows with the increase that is from God. And the truth then is spiritual life is not found in religious enlightenment or experience, but we hold in faith to Christ as he causes us to grow. And yes, we experience Christ. Yes, we have the knowledge of Christ, but the joy is not found in that experience or that knowledge, but the joy is found in the person of Jesus Christ. Think about it this way. When you watch a good TV show or a movie, you don't say, oh boy, wasn't that TV, that Samsung, great? You know? I enjoyed that LG 65-inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV last night. Did you say that? No. You say, Some of you maybe say that when you're bragging. But you say, no, wasn't that a great show or a great movie? I really enjoyed watching Sheffy, Princess Bride, whatever you want to watch. And the TV was only the instrument by which you were able to enjoy the object of your delight, which was that movie or that show. And so we continue to learn and we celebrate Christ, but remember that satisfaction is not gained in knowing Christ, it's the knowledge of Christ, it's the information, or just a higher experience of celebrating Christ, but actually it is in Jesus Christ himself. He is the object of our joy and our delight. And I think sometimes in a church like this, people can start thinking to themselves, I'm just not experiencing the joy in church like I once had. And I think I'm gonna go somewhere else. Maybe another church has that joy I'm looking for, the satisfaction. On one side, people say, I want the church that was like the church I had growing up with that old time religion. I had the Southern accent there, you like that? where we went out on the good old sawdust trails. People came down the sawdust trail. You had the gospel songs. You had the old hymns of the faith. Remember that old hymns of the faith? And if I had that, then I would have that feeling come back to me, that delight I once had in church. The other hand, you have people that say, I need to get pumped up for the week. I need to fly high so I can fly all the way through the week, right? I need to get my feet a-movin' and my heart a-pumpin'. So I need that experience in my life. And if I had that, then I would have the true delight I need. Others are enticed to find a deeper life of enlightenment in Christianity. And so they go to churches that are false churches, like the LDS church or the Jehovah's Witness. And see, what draws people into churches like that is the perceived idea that, well, there's an enlightenment here. There's a system that kind of puts it together. But it's not based on the gospel. It's actually counter to the gospel. It's the fraud. And friends, our delight is not found in some religious tradition or contemporary innovation or new elite enlightenment. Our delight is found in Jesus Christ. Jesus is our delight. And so to know him is delightful. Why? Because he's delightful. To experience him in song or however we experience him is joyful. Why? Because he is our joy. He is our joy. Spiritual life comes through Christ, not through lies like thirdly. Religious rules can subdue my sin. Religious rules can subdue my sin. Look at verse 20. In verse 20, Paul the Apostle writes, Therefore, if you died with Christ, there's our union with Christ right there. That's the Spirit of God applying at our salvation the work and person of Jesus Christ to our life. So if this truly happened to you, if you're truly saved, if Jesus has truly applied through the Spirit of God his work and his person to your life, from the basic principles of the world, and this is talking about the power that sin and Satan had over you before your salvation. Before you receive Christ, you are a slave to sin. You are unable to walk in freedom and righteousness in Christ. So verse 20 goes on to say that if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why as though living in the world do you subject yourself to regulations? You can kind of hear like a higher pitch than that. The idea here is that before you were saved, the only thing you could do to subdue your sin was to give yourself a bunch of rules and regulations. You tried to subdue your sin by following maybe a religion or maybe your own rules or maybe just your own way of what you thought, this is how I could stop not being virtuous in this way. Benjamin Franklin was a founding father of our country. He was a philosopher. He was a writer. He did a lot of things, but he was also a deist. Which basically means that he believed in God, but he didn't believe in the gospel. He didn't believe that Jesus was the propitiation for his sins, that he atoned for his sins. And Ben Franklin spent a lot of effort trying to rid himself of sin. He had a booklet he carried around with him, a little journal, and it had in there a list of virtues that he desired to have in his life. And he would write in that journal when he thought, in his own self-righteousness, that he broke one of those virtues. And so he'd write that. And he did that for 50 years. 50 years. That's a long time for some people. And listen to this, what he says in his journal, or his autobiography. Ben Franklin writes in his autobiography, My faults in this journal vexed me so much and I made so little progress in such frequent relapses that I almost was ready to give up the attempt and content myself with a faulty character. And at the end of it all, this is what he observed. Isn't that sad? His rules and his self-imposed regulations could not subdue his flesh. Sadly, Ben Franklin, he died seeking spiritual life through rules. And he never gained that freedom that Christ could have provided for him. I mean, here's a man who is seemingly wise, right? But he believed the fool's lie. Because verse 23 goes on to say, These things, these rules and these regulations, indeed have an appearance of wisdom and self-imposed religion, false humility, neglect of the body. but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. Religious or moral rules and regulations may attempt to temper the flesh, but it cannot tame it. Going to be a monastery, going to be a nun, will not take away your sin nature. and will not make you more holy. You cannot restrain your sin by your own rules or by another religion. I was looking at a study this past week about one of the major problems that face our world, and that is pornography. In the religion of Islam, it's a sin actually to view pornography. I have a brother-in-law that's in a country and he's ministering to people like this. And so in society, out in the open, it's a bad thing to do. But you know, they were saying by Google Analytics, they were saying that of the top 10 countries in the world that had the highest views of porn, six of those were majority Muslim countries. And I don't say that to knock a religion, okay? I'm not saying that. Because they have five pillars of Islam. They pray. I mean, they have the whole call to prayer at five o'clock in the morning. How many of you got up at five o'clock this morning and prayed and are going to pray five times a day? They have a very religious and rigid rule set up in their religion. But it can't stop the flesh. It can't stop the sin. And see, we're the same way when we think that rules and regulations set up in our life will stop my sin. I want the power of sin to go away, so I'm going to set up all these rules in my life. I'm going to follow this religion. But there's only one person who wiped out the debt of sin. Only one person that has taken away the penalty of your sin. There's only one person who disarmed Satan and the greatest weapon that Satan has and that is sin. He's the one who disarmed principalities or Jesus is the one who disarmed principalities and powers. Jesus is the one who made a public spectacle of them and he triumphed over them on the cross. He defeated Satan. He defeated sin. And he alone is the one who can free you from sin to serve the Lord in righteousness. And again, as believers, this doesn't mean that we throw off all restrictions, okay? And Paul had times where he fasted. He actually took the Nazirite vow, right? Jesus had times where he fasted. But it does mean that we should not look to rules and restrictions to subdue our sin. Restrictions are only valuable to the degree that they help us to know what Jesus has done for us. to reckon what He has done for us in Christ in our hearts as salvation, and to yield on a daily basis in a greater way to Jesus Christ. It only helps us to the degree that it helps us to depend on Jesus more, to depend on Jesus more. Let me end with really a personal testimony. I believe that Satan is in our world. And even in our churches, trying to deceive us to diminish the work of Christ, what he's done for us, and what he has done in us, if we're Christians, at our salvation. I grew up in a pastor's home. I gave my testimony last Sunday night, so I'm not going to go through that whole thing again, but I grew up in a pastor's home. I have four other brothers and sisters. And comparing myself to the other four brothers and sisters in behavior, I was a lot better than all of them. Now, when I was younger, maybe, maybe I was like four or five. I probably got whipped the most. But when I was in my teenage years, I was the only one that didn't have the rebel years. You know what I'm talking about? Those teen rebel years when parents say, oh, they're always going to have it. I didn't have that, you know? And I was pretty proud of that. I would come to church and I'd sing in the church choir. I had my little coat I wore every Sunday with my tie. I had my comb over. It's a really good comb over, by the way. I miss that thing. If that thing gives you righteousness, I lost it a long time ago. But I had that. I mean, I actually had a mowing business that I ran. I would mow 15 different lawns. I worked very hard. And I would give that money to the Lord. I would tithe that. I was involved in youth programs and I would sit in the front of church. And I really thought that God saw all those things. And he thought, Ben, you're a pretty good person. And I thought he would look at those things and think, you know, Ben, that's pretty righteous of you. And I tried to be good enough for God. But you know, in my heart, I knew what I was really like. Because though on the outside and though I tried to portray that I was a spiritual person, a good person, I knew in the inside I was as wicked as they come. And I went to a camp one summer, and God was working in my heart, because I felt the guilt of sin upon me. I felt the power of sin over me, and all these things I had tried to do did not help temper any of that. And I can remember sitting in this service, and day after day, they preached the Bible. And then one time, a guy got up to give a testimony, and he basically said this. He said, I have been trying my whole life to be good enough for God, and I realized I've never trusted in what Jesus has done for me on the cross. For by grace you're saved through faith. It's not of yourself. It's a gift of God. Not by works, lest any man should boast. Right? It's what Jesus has done for us. And that moment, I remember gripping my chair. I can remember tears coming down my face. I remember realizing, Ben, you're the going to hell. Because you're trusting in your own self. and your own righteousness. And the Holy Spirit let me go. And I let go of that chair and I stood up and I walked out. I went to the back and a guy took me outside, opened God's word. And that day I trusted in Jesus Christ as my savior. I realized that Satan had deceived me in the work that Jesus had done for me. I thought it was Jesus, yes, and plus things I had to do. I didn't realize until that moment that it was really all Jesus. I had to repent of my sin and completely believe in Him. And then I began to grow spiritually, read my Bible and go to, you know, I was still going to church and had a different view on some things as far as I was now celebrating the Lord. But that deception began to creep back into my heart. I remember going to college and I went to a church up there and I started getting involved in everything. I was very involved at the college I was going to. I was very involved in my church. I went to Sunday school, Sunday morning. In fact, we had three services. I would go to two of them and teach in another one. That's pretty good, wasn't it? Okay, no. Nope, righteousness doesn't come through ceremony, people. We had a Sunday night, we had a Wednesday night, and I went to all of those in college, okay? Now, some people don't even like to do that if you go to Christian college. And I would come to the workdays at church, and I started really doing the same thing. And I believe God's grace was sufficient to save me from my sin, but on a daily basis, I started living, and Satan started deceiving me to think that really I was needing to be good enough for God again. that as a Christian, maybe God, my Father, wouldn't really like me so much if I didn't do all these things, and I didn't do them perfectly. And I was looking really for even the excitement of the ceremony and stuff. I remember standing in church and just thinking, man, you know, if I do it this way, maybe I'll have a good experience. And I felt this sadness kind of in my heart, like I'm missing something. What am I missing in my life? Well, I thought, you know, here's what you need. You know, if you're struggling with sin, Ben, still, and I had some deep struggles with sin, still, and I still do today, so don't think I've got over that, okay? People had some deep struggles with sin, and I felt a little sad in my life, and I felt like I still couldn't be good enough for God. I tried to make sure people around me thought I was good enough, and that didn't work, and I knew my heart really still couldn't attain And I thought, you know what I need to do? I need to be a counselor at camp. This will help me out, you know. I'll get away from it all. I'm going to go to the north woods of Wisconsin. There's nothing up there. We didn't have cell phones then. That's not even a problem. The computer, internet, barely even worked then. I think the only thing we really had was IMing. Remember that? Okay, probably not. Anyways, and I thought, you know, this will help me. I'll have a regimented life, and I'm going to learn in the first week of camp, I'm going to learn all these things about counseling, and this is totally going to help me, right? And so that week, certainly, sure enough, I was in that week, and I was learning all these things. Instead, I'm like, wow, this is really going to help me. I imagine myself going out into this lake called Reflection Lake, and going on a canoe, and having the sun shine down, and me just going up, asking in the glory of God, and just, wow, my sin goes away. I'm just still delighted in the Lord. You know, what a great experience I'm going to have. You know what? I went back to my cabin. We would be in our own cabins there ready for the next week. And I sat in there and I thought, I'm kind of sad still. There's something missing still. This experience isn't really working for me. I still don't feel like I'm good enough for God. I've tried and I'm not being good enough for God. I even tried this. I thought, you know, Ben, you know what you need to do? You need to notch it up a little bit. So I went one Saturday morning, I went out to the lake, and I got a rock, I got a big rock, a smooth rock, got a permanent marker, and I sat there on the end of that dock, and I just wrote every sin I could think of, like all my sins in my life, I'm writing them on there. And the ones I was really struggling with, I wrote them really big, and the other ones I wrote small, okay? It was a pretty big rock, by the way. And I did that in my own self-righteousness again. But anyways, I took that rock and I said, Lord, and I tried to, in some sense, not on purpose do a ceremony, but it was like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna give these to God. And as, you know, this sin is separated as far as the east is from the west, and my sin will go to the bottom of the sea or the lake. which is about 15 feet. And so I took my rock and I threw it out there. And I was like, yes, my sin is done. Yes, praise the Lord. I'm like, wow, that was really good. Pumped me up. Went back to my room and, oh, that week I still struggled with sin. I still felt an emptiness in my soul. And you know what? Something that happened to me. I can't remember what, really, what part in the summer. It was toward the beginning of the summer there. But after that happened, I went back to my dorm room. I had an all-day Saturday by myself. Everyone else was doing other stuff, and I got my Bible out. And that past semester, our church I went to was teaching through Romans. So I'd really been studying Romans chapter 6, which is really a parallel passage to what we talked about here today. And I got before the Lord, and I just started crying. And God, I'm not good enough for you. I've been trying. What's my problem? I'm just not happy. And I can't get over these sins. I've been trying, God. I've been trying my best, doing my best for you, Lord. What's going on? And as I cried and I prayed to God and I started reading Romans chapter six, you know what I realized? Ben, you're an idiot. You're right. You can't do that. You can't be good enough for God. Jesus is the righteous one. Yet you trusted him by grace at salvation for what he did for you, but you need to trust him right now for what Christ is doing in you, that he actually has made you righteous. You know what, Ben? Stop trying to be good enough for God. And I realized my joy is found in the Lord. It took actually a couple of weeks to realize this. I started reading through 2 Corinthians chapter, 2 Corinthians and studying that book. And wow, I found like, I was like super excited about what God was doing in my life through the word of God. And I found, wow, what am I, what am I rejoicing in? I'm rejoicing in Jesus. It's not about my experience or about my knowledge. It's about actually about the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what? I started to give myself to the Lord and really submit and yield myself to Him. And I found I started getting victory over my sin. And not just that, but actually God was using me, empowering me to tell people about Christ and to be able to teach people truth as well. You know what I found? That Jesus Christ was beginning to grow me and revolutionize my life. And I was, even as a Christian, tending to believe lies, that Christian customs can make me righteous, that religious enlightenment or experience can satisfy me, or religious rules can subdue. But no, Jesus is found in righteousness. He's the one that's righteous. He's the one that's made me righteous. Jesus is the one that I can be delighting in. He's the one that satisfies me. And Jesus is the one who helps me to overcome my sin. As I look across this room here, I can't help but wonder, That maybe there are people in here and you say, Ben, I've never trusted in the grace of God for what Jesus has done for me. I've never come to faith in Christ. And I've believed these lies my whole life about my sin. And maybe you're a believer in here and you say, you know what? Satan has been deceiving me in diminishing the work of Christ in my life right now. And you need to just cry out to the Lord. maybe not in the same way I did when I was at that camp, but you need to cry out to God and really confess to Him that you've been believing those lies, but then go to the truth of God's word, reckon it to be true and yield yourself to our Lord Jesus Christ. Will you bow your heads and close your eyes? In a moment, we're gonna have the piano play. I'm gonna invite you at that moment to in your seat right there, or if you want to come forward, you can do that. Remember, coming forward doesn't give you anything, okay? Because the light and righteousness is found in Jesus. I'm gonna invite you just to open your heart to God and to pour out your heart to Him. Father, Spirit of God, work in our church. Work in our hearts. And God, even as I think about these truths, These are things that we still struggle with as believers. I still struggle with as a believer to think, oh, if I do this right, God, you'll like me more. Or maybe if I do this, I will do my sin. But God, we just want to come to you. We seek our delight in you. We seek the power of Christ in you. And we seek our righteousness in you. So, God, we humble ourselves before you right now. In spirit of God, please work in this room. In Jesus name. Would you stand with me as the piano plays? If you, the Lord is working your heart, would you just sit where you're at and cry out to the Lord? You can keep your head bowed and your eyes closed if you'd like to. Or maybe you want to come forward and just talk to the Lord down here. If you're in here and you say, Pastor Ben, I have never trusted in Jesus. And you're like me when I was at that camp and I was holding on to that chair and the Holy Spirit was working. I was like, Ben, Ben, you're trusting in yourself and I need Jesus. If you're that person today, will you come to Christ this morning?