Some weeks ago, we began working our way through the book of Colossians, and we've actually kind of stepped away from it for several weeks now. But the Lord's directed our thoughts back here to the book of Colossians. The second chapter is where we'll be reading from today. If you have your Bibles and want to follow along, as always, I encourage you to do that. God's Word is such that it has an impact when we read it, when we think about it, And if a preacher can, at a minimum, bring to the attention of God's people something God has said in His Word, then it will be a time well spent. Whether he has much to say, eloquence, or ability, or entertaining, and any of those things that go along with what the world looks upon as good speaking, it really is set aside next to the importance of bringing before people what God has said. So we're going to read from Colossians again today in the second chapter. We covered the first three verses of this the last time we spoke in this book. Chapter 2, verse 2 and 3, Paul spoke of Christ being the one in whom all treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to be found. The one in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to be found. If you want to have knowledge, if you want to be wise, If you want to have understanding in life, if you want to know what life is all about, if you want to know the answers to all of the deep questions that man has been asking himself and one another since time began, if you want to know any of those answers, you are going to have to know Jesus Christ. He is wisdom. He is understanding. If you want to know these things today, you're going to have to know The world points us to many other places for wisdom and instruction. The world points us to people that are called experts in various fields of study, and I'm grateful that people apply themselves to learning, to discovery of the world that God has given to us. But there is one source of wisdom and instruction and understanding, and that source is God in Christ. Nothing apart from Him will lead you to any sort of understanding about life. If you're confused about life, it's because you're confused about Christ. If you are missing something in your life, it's because you're missing something of Christ. It is that specific in His Word. God does tell us this specifically, and He told us that in the first couple of verses here of these few verses of chapter two that we spoke on last time. But to find understanding and wisdom in life is to find Christ. To grow as a Christian is to grow in your understanding and awareness of Christ. It's not to go to church a thousand times in your life. It's not to tithe every time you walk into the doors. Those are good things. But Christian maturity, growth as a child of God, is defined in your growth of your understanding and your relationship with Jesus Christ, the person, the Son of God. Anything else, any other way, any other thing that you describe as growth, it's a delusion. It's a delusion. Because there's one way that the Bible talks about growth, and it's growing in Christ. It's one way that the Bible talks about having life, and that is to know Christ. We have these lies for a temporary time. When I was younger, and it's amazing how we begin to redefine old age. As a young boy, 30 was old. When I was 20, 40 was old. 30, 60 was old. Now that number keeps rising. We think life is just going to go on and on and on. And the psalmist says it this way, God, teach us to number our days so that we might apply our hearts to wisdom. Well, we just said that wisdom is Christ. Teach us to number our days, Lord, so that we might apply our hearts to Christ. We might apply our lives, our hearts, our desire would be this one singular thing, that Christ be glorified in my life. Nothing else. So Paul told us that in these first couple of verses. We want to move on today. And if I had a title, it's a bit of a lengthy one. I don't always even use the title. Most of the time I do. I usually try to be shorter. But I want you to be thinking about this as we walk through it. It's defending against delusion in the Christian life. Defending against delusion in the Christian life. I don't want to be guilty of being as one who simply points out all the problems with Christianity in our culture today. I've done that. I've been there and I don't want to do that today. I think there are problems that need to be identified. But I believe one of the most fundamental is that many, I'm afraid, are deluded. They're living in a sort of delusion, a delusional Christianity that is separate from Christ. It's a life, as the Pharisees might have lived, we might apply it that way or compare it to them, living a life of self-righteousness rather than a life that's made righteous in Christ and dependent upon Him. Paul says to them, beginning in verse 4, and we're just going to read through the 7th verse today. It's as far as I believe we can hope to get. He says to them, and this I say, what we just referenced, that Christ is all knowledge and all wisdom. Paul then goes on and says, And I say this, this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk ye in him. rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith as he had been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." The delusion of the Christian life, defending against this delusion. We want to start today, first of all, there is a delusion in enticing words, as the King James Translation puts it. I want to read the ESV version of this. I have, and have shared with you before, a great tool that I like to use that graphically demonstrates the difference between versions of the Bible. And as that difference gets bigger, the colors and the graph gets whiter on the page. And as they get more similar, they get narrower and the colors become very similar and the same. And so you can just at a glance see how different each verse is from one version to another. And that river was wide on this verse four. very different uses of English words that were used in translating this verse for. I think the King James has it right. I think the ESV has it right. I think the ASV has it right. The NASV, many of these have it right, but they use different words because the Greek is driving at a very specific and unique meaning. The ESV says it this way, I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. Read that again, Paul says, I say this, I say that Christ is wisdom, Christ is understanding so that for the purpose of that you may not be deluded. That you may understand that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. enticing words and plausible arguments. The original Greek is this. It's plausible, but false speech resulting from the use of well-constructed probable arguments. This is a philosophy of religion rather than a powerful religion in the person of Christ. Plausible arguments, things that might sound right, few if any, fail to come to Christ in salvation because they are convinced via an argument that does not make sense to them. Few, if any, in the Christian life fall away from their walk with the Lord based upon arguments that don't make sense to them. And Paul is saying, I am telling you this about Christ so that you might have a defense against these plausible arguments that are out there. Because most fall away from the Christian life. Most don't do that. Few fall away from the Christian life by means of thoughts or arguments or preaching or reasoning that does not seem on the surface to make sense. You ever found yourself a distance from God and you realized that it was because of decisions you made in your life that at the moment seem to make a lot of sense. I have to go this path. This is the only path that seems to make sense to me. So I have to go down this road, and this road is going to take me away from God's people. It's going to take me away from my ability to have time in my life to read God's Word and to pray. It's going to take me away, and these things seem to make sense. They're plausible arguments. Paul says, I am telling you this and reminding you who Christ is so that you will have a defense, so that you will not be beguiled with enticing words, so that you will not be deluded with probable, plausible arguments. There is a whole line of theological study that's called philosophical theology. And it rests, its ultimate reality is its man's ability to reason. It's a dangerous theology because our minds are fallen. Our hearts are fallen. Jeremiah said our hearts are desperately wicked. Who can even know them? The psalmist in 139 says, God, open my heart and demonstrate and display it to me because I don't really even know what's there. So you show me what wickedness is there. We get away from the very fundamental truth that life is Christ. Wisdom, understanding, meaning, purpose, everything. All these things that we long for. Joy, love, hope, peace, understanding. It's all Christ. It's Jesus Christ. He is the preeminent one, as we've studied. He is the central one in the eyes of the Father himself. Christ is all in all. When we get to heaven, it's not going to be us having a bunch of family reunions in our mansions across the hilltop. It's going to be all of us worshiping and honoring and praising joyfully the Son of God, the light of the city, the one who came and became our sacrifice, who promised and that in the Old Testament, all those people looked for and looked toward in that day that He hung on the cross. As we look back to that day, it's all Christ. Whether you're looking forward to Him, back to Him in time, in eternity, It doesn't really make any difference. It's all Christ. You find yourself a distance from him, though I bet you've fallen to a plausible argument. Makes a lot of sense in your mind. But when you come down to it, it's not a decision that was made with Christ as the true center of your life. Satan is a master at delusion by means of plausible arguments. He is a master at this. He will, in his deceptive, deceitful, hateful way, convince you that there is a way that you must live that somehow separates you from the one who is all-knowing, the one that life is all about, that is Christ. And there are many plausible arguments today that affect, I believe, us as Christians, particularly in this culture. Want to know one of them? God wants me to be happy, so whatever makes me happy, God must be okay with. It's a plausible argument. It sounds rational. I know that God wants me to be happy. He says so in His Word. So whatever makes me happy, God must be okay with. Indeed, if it makes me happy and it's in my life, God must have provided it. probable, plausible argument. The problem is it's misguided because the central thing is our happiness is wrapped up in what? I say this so that you'll not be deluded. Christ is all. Christ is our wisdom, our understanding. Life itself is Christ. And we have this plausible argument that Satan whispers in our ear and he's got many different men today with many different large organizations and lining their pockets and flying their jets across the country, telling people what they want to hear. God just wants you to be happy. And it's a plausible argument because the Word of God does say God longs for your happiness. But your happiness It's going to be completely tied. Your true and lasting eternal happiness is tied to your knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is. And you're giving your life for Him. And losing your life for Him is when you find it. But isn't that a plausible argument? God just wants me to be happy. So here's the plausible argument. Whatever makes me happy, God must be okay with. This one makes a lot of sense to us today because of the influence of our marketing culture. I saw a commercial the other day, said a car should be judged by one thing. And before I'd ever even saw the commercial, I knew what they were going to say. It says, how it makes you feel. Forget mileage, forget safety, forget all these other more practical things. The most important thing about a car, according to the people making the commercial, is how it makes you feel. And I believe we are all slaves to our emotions so much today. Life and the most important thing that we judge life by is how it makes us feel rather than what. I say this so that no one delude you. Christ is all wisdom. Christ is understanding. Christ is the all in all. How about another plausible argument? I was not saved by works, so works don't have anything to do with my Christian life. It's a plausible argument. It's wrong, but it sure sounds good. We read Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and we don't read verse 10. 2, 8, 9, that very famous set of Scriptures. We are saved by faith, not of ourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And we stop there. And we don't read verse 10, which says, we were saved unto good works. No, of course we were not saved because of our works. No man could ever merit the mercy and the grace of God, or it's not mercy and grace. Yet, Because we were not saved by works does not mean that works and life and a life obedient to God is not what the Christian life is. Plausible argument though, I wasn't saved by works and so works just doesn't have anything to do with my life. We could go on and on. My spouse is not the person God wants them to be, so God will understand if I divorce them. After all, I'm divorcing them so that I might find a godly husband or wife. Plausible arguments. Plausible arguments, they tend toward the delusion in the Christian life, and it often takes this shape. The end justifies the means. Plausible arguments, Satan wraps these things up and you believing that the end. Is worth the means, but the problem is when we say things like that, we are saying that in order to obey God's word, we have to do something contrary to God's word. And that doesn't make any sense. That's a plausible argument, but it's a false one. It's not true. It's a lie. And again, of course, when we say things like that, we see flaws in the thinking, right? Most go something like this, in order to get to this good end that God even talks about in his word, I have to take steps that maybe they don't exactly align with his word, but I'm going to have to do that in order to be obedient to his word. Does anybody see the logical flaw in that thinking? But Satan has for a long time, by the way, been working so that we don't think logically. We just listen to what we're told and the most important thing is how things make you feel. plausible arguments, you know, the persuasive power of these plausible arguments. Do you know what really gives them the strength that they have? Because when we when we identify them, if you put them on a whiteboard and you say, all right, you're telling me that in order to obey God, I have to disobey God, that all of a sudden makes a lot of sense. And we go, no, that can't be. But do you know why persuasive and plausible arguments know where their persuasive power really exists? We want them to be true. We want these plausible arguments that really drive us away from Christ. We want them to be true. We want it to be true that we can do what we want, that God only wants us happy in the way that we define that happiness. We want these arguments to be true, but wanting them to be true does not make them true. Wanting these things to be true does not make them true. One of the results, I believe, of the fall and our sinful condition is that we can make sense of sin. We can rationalize sin. When you really think about it, that doesn't make any sense in the world. That we have an ability to rationalize sin speaks not of our sanity, it speaks of our insanity. Because sin is what? It is rebellion against God. It's rebellion against the king. It is as if we think that we can get away with this somehow. I posted this on Facebook, but it just kept with me and I taught it. a couple of times now, but this idea of God's eternity and how He sees all of time equally vividly. Every detail of every day that has ever passed, God sees it every moment for all the billions of people that have lived He sees every second, every microsecond, every nanosecond. God sees it from beginning to end. He sees, as I said, the day that Israel was marching around Jericho and the walls fell. He sees the day that David killed Goliath. He sees the day that Moses was there helping and guiding the children across the Red Sea. He sees us now and He sees them all the same, equally in vivid understanding and complete precision. And He sees every day from now until the time that He says, Son, go back. I've had enough. It's time. He sees every day from the beginning to the end, from the first second that ticked off the clock to the last second that ticks off the clock. God sees it. And we justify rebellion against this God. It's insane. It speaks of our fallen nature, our sinful nature, our carnal mind. God, His greatness is beyond our ability to completely understand. His power is beyond anything we can possibly fathom. He simply spoke, light be and light was in the Hebrews, how it reads. It didn't didn't tax him to do this. We've spent a couple of summers now, a week or so in Montana and those mountains that are as magnificent as they can be in those rivers. And I think of the creating power of God and he was not taxed in the doing it. And we justify sin because of plausible arguments that seem to make sense, and many times they make sense because we want them to make sense, because we want to consume the decision on our own lives and in our own lives and do what we want to do. It's rebellion. It's rebellion. In the early days of the church, there were many challenges to the simplicity of the gospel of Christ. If you ever find yourself wondering or feeling as though it's going to be really complicated, I'm in a really complicated situation to follow God. If you ever feel like that, I'm going to propose to you that you've forgotten that this really isn't complicated. You may want it to be complicated because that gives you opportunity to do something in your life that says it was just really complicated. No, it's not. Give your life to Christ. That's it. It's not complicated. The psalmist says that His Word is able to make even the simple wise, because it's not complicated. He says, I'm not the author of confusion. You do not need a PhD from a seminary to know what I'm telling you. That's a wonderful thing to do if you've got the time and the ability and the resources to do it, to expand your knowledge of the Word of God. But that is not what you need. This Bible is clear, simple. God tells us that even children can know it. Or He wouldn't have told the Hebrews in Deuteronomy, to teach their children these things every day. So that means that children can understand it. And yes, children, you're on the hook to understand it. God has spoken it, and it's simple. In the early days of the church, there were these constant challenges to the simplicity of the gospel. These plausible arguments that ran contrary to the clear and easy, simple teaching of the Word of God. And it came from a couple of different directions, if we might put them into two categories. One was from the Jewish religion of the day. These religious traditions that man wanted to follow. Oh, you want to be saved? That's fine. Jesus is the Son of God? That's fine, but you've got to be circumcised. You've got to observe the law of Moses. You can't eat this kind of meat. You've got to go down this path of tradition, which was not at all what the apostles had been teaching. It's not what Christ taught. All of those things were things that were looking forward to him. And in his fulfillment of those things, they became unnecessary. But the Jewish circles, they struggled with this Jewish tradition they begin to add as a requirement to salvation. So that's one direction that a challenge to the simplicity of the gospel came. Another challenge came from what we might just call the pagan world, which really was wrapped up in a primary fundamental belief that is referred to as Gnosticism. You can't really know God. You can't really know him. The only way you know him is if you're one that has been especially enlightened. If you're one, you can't really know him apart from being a person who's just been especially enlightened your mind or, you know, some Eastern religious mindset, actually, this enlightenment that comes. But both of these lines of plausible argument are with us today. They're still with us today. This idea of tradition and And the Jewish mindset of, well, if you want to be a follower of Christ, then you have to obey these other additional rules. These are often dressed up as deep theology. Deep understanding of Scripture, when in reality, they're not. Or maybe there's the claim on the other side, again, of unique individual enlightenment. Paul warns the church of these dangers, these dangers that can deter, can distract, can prevent in the first place of you coming to Christ. And so he tells them what the defense is. Scripture never just identifies a problem without giving you the solution. Often in work situations, people have come to me with problems and that's that's necessary, but it's what's the solution? Scripture does not give just the problem, it tells us what the solution is and he gives it to us in verse six. This is the solution. This is the defense against these probable, plausible arguments. I shouldn't say probable, but plausible. These things that seem to make sense, but in the end they don't. This is the defense. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus, the Lord, in verse six, so walk ye in him. And you say, how is that the defense? Very simply stated again to restate what the scripture just said. So as you began as a Christian is how you continue as one. There's no nirvana to be found. There's no second enlightening to be found. There's maturity to be gained. Yes, but that maturity is found. How? The same way you found it in the first place. As you begin your Christian life is how you continue it. So how did you begin? Well, there's a hint here that we just read. You received Christ Jesus. What? The Lord. We often think that that's just a title and it is, but it's a title that means something. Christ Jesus, the Lord, when and if you got saved, you came before God and you confess that Jesus is your Lord. Yes, your savior. but also your Lord, your King, your Prince, the One that you follow is not simply... Listen carefully to this. I want you to listen carefully and I want you to hopefully understand what I'm trying to say. That day that you got saved, it was not merely about what you wanted from God. It was about your response to the commandment of God, which was repent and believe. It was not just about what you wanted from God. That's like going to a king and saying, I want this, and him giving it to you, and you not understanding that he's your king. It's about coming to him and saying, you are my king. It was not simply about this when you got saved, that you needed that or that you desired. It was about what God was commanding you to do, which was repent for your sin and have faith. Christ and that burden that you felt was because you had been called to that repentance and you had not yet done so. And that conviction and that guilt will remain with you until you do. You can quiet it. You can busy yourself with your life. You can keep your mind occupied with many different things to not think about this. But the truth is the same. When you dig down deep enough, it's there. And if you don't deal with it in time, You will deal with it in eternity, your guilt before God. A type of preaching won't fill a lot of houses today and a lot of church places, but it's just true. It's true what the Bible says. You never grow beyond this relationship with God, by the way. As you began, continue. As you began, walk that way. You never grow beyond this relationship with God and Christ. Your service as a member of a church for 50 years does not advance you beyond the position of being a servant to your Lord. It doesn't put you in some kind of place equal to no longer be commended by Him. Indeed, the longer you serve Him sincerely, you know what you discover? You don't discover the longer you serve God how much you're worth. You discover how much He is worth. You discover more and more reasons to get rid of more and more things in your life, more and more things crucified to your flesh. You discover more reason to humbly and willfully and joyfully submit more and more of your life to this King. You don't come to a place where God has served you for 50 years and now you owe me. That's not how you began and it's not how you continue. And this is not a harsh service that we're speaking of as Christians. Our Lord is. We come to know this. He's kind. He's compassionate. He's benevolent. He's loving. He's guiding. He's directing. And He chastises and corrects when we need to be chastised and correct. How many times as children were you corrected? And in the moment, maybe you didn't understand it. But as life continued to go behind you and you began to learn more and more and you look back and you think, I am so thankful for that correction. It was those times of correcting that guided, not those times of the absence of such. But this service to God is not a harsh service, by the way. And I think sometimes we need to protect ourselves against giving that idea, that impression to the world that being a Christian is somehow this great burden that doesn't bring joy. It ought to have a smile on our face when we're serving the Lord. When we're loving one another the way that God has called us to, this is something that should bring joy and lightness to our life and less complicated. Because why? We know the simplicity of life, which is what? Jesus is knowledge. Christ is wisdom. Christ is understanding. Christ is life. Everything is about Him. Nothing is about me. And all of a sudden, you are liberated from yourself. Liberated from the distraction of making life about you. This service to God is not a service that we are bound to by chains, bound to it because of the love that we have for Christ our Lord. Are you following God because you feel chained to him? Or are you following Him because you can't get enough of Him? This is, by the way, why you can't compel or force Christianity. We've got people of the Muslim faith trying to compel their faith. And I will tell you this, there have been people under the banner of Christianity through history that have tried to do the same thing. But you can't force this. You can't compel it. It must be offered from a joyful heart that fully and freely submits to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Sometimes I think God gives me sentences, and so this is probably not as profound to you as it was to me, but I'll just read it. No sword, no whip, no chain, no prison, and no army has ever made a true Christian out of anyone. When we came to Christ and we were saved, we realized that He was offering us the freedom and the freedom from sin and the deliverance from destruction that we could not gain on our own. And we freely confessed Him, Lord. We freely said, He is my Lord. And how do you grow in your Christian walk? Just like you began. I've been saved now, can't do the math quickly in my head, 32 years. The more I know of him, the more I desire to serve him. And when I start going down paths of plausible arguments that, yeah, you know what? We can't really give our whole life to Christ. That's kind of unreasonable. The scripture is just giving us poetic language there. No, no, it's not. Forsake yourself. Take up your cross. Follow the Lord. And how you continue in your life is how you began. Salvation changes the course of your life. Does it not? And so walk in Him, as the scripture says. As you began, so walk. Salvation changes the course of your life. Now, depending on how old you were, when you were saved, there may be a greater or a lesser outward observance of the change. But there was a change. Absolutely, positively, by the word of God, there's a change. And this change is we're walking to a different place. We are walking to the city, as Abraham put it, whose builder and maker is God. Regardless, you realize that your life was no longer your own. Inwardly, you knew that you had walking to do and that walking was after your Lord. Jesus Christ shared with you before the 100 most influential people in Western history, the Western civilization. And Jesus is number two. The author was asked, why is he number two? And he said, because the people that say they follow him don't do what he said. You realize he's your Lord, don't call him your Lord. And walk after someone else, be it you or some man. Walk after the Lord. That's how you continue this. That's the defense against plausible arguments, because plausible arguments, you know what they typically do? They typically make life easier for you. They're typically about making things easier for you, and we want them to be true, and so we listen to them. Walk as you began, and I say it a thousand times, say it again. entered into the promised land, they crossed a river on dry ground. When they left Egypt, they crossed a river on dry ground. It was a different river, but it was the same process. As you continue your Christian life is how you began it. And so then defenses get built in verse seven. You become rooted. built up in him. I pray, I want you to think about your own condition of heart right now. And I'm coming to a close today. But I want you to bear with me just a moment longer. I want you to think about your Christian life. I want you to think about your heart, your mind, your everyday walk with the Lord. And I want you to get an excitement perhaps, or I want you to get encouraged by the fact that this verse can be true about you. You can be rooted and built up in him, Christ, and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. There is a four pillar defense that we read in this seventh verse, and I'll not take long to talk about them. But first, you'll be rooted in Christ. rooted in him. What's that mean? It's the source of your strength, the source of your stability, the source of your growth in Christ is your being rooted in him. And the thing about roots, you can't see it. You can't see him. My father-in-law used to tell a story about a young boy, I believe it was, that drew a picture, and there was an IQ test, and he drew a picture of a tree, and they realized he was a very intelligent boy. Remember how old he was? He was very young. Because most children, when you tell them to draw a tree, what do they draw? They draw what you can see of a tree. They draw the trunk and the branches and the leaves. This boy drew an intricate root system under the tree. The thing about roots is you can't see them. But if you're rooted in Christ, if you're following Christ, if He is everything to you, you are going to establish roots in Him. that the storms of life can blow, the wind can blow, the storms can come, the rain can pound, and it won't matter because the source of your strength is Christ. The very foundation of your Christian walk is Christ. Not merely a religious way of life, Not merely a particular church, not merely some need to be identified by others as a Christian. None of that. That's not the roots, because I'm telling you, those things will not hold. Christ Himself holds you firm. He Himself is the root of your Christian life, or you have no Christian life. He is the source from which that trunk of the tree grows. He is the source from which those leaves then provide shelter to others around you. He is the root of everything. This root, this fourfold pillar, first one is you are rooted in Christ. The second one, you're built up in Him. And the idea of that original Greek is there's something that's built on top of something else. You are built on top of those roots. You cannot see the foundation. You cannot see my salvation that I experienced when I was 11 year old boy in Southwest Missouri. You can't see that. But I sure hope you can see some evidences that have grown beyond those roots. I hope you can look at my life and say, you know what? He's not perfect. And it wouldn't take you but one day to figure that out if you followed me around. But you see some evidence of the roots of Christ in my life. rooted up in him, but not just rooted in him, built up. Once you're rooted in Christ, you'll begin naturally to build up. It's just natural, right? You ever think of a little boy who wants to be taller and says, sir, make me taller. I want to be taller. I want to be taller. Is any taller? No, it's like a Christian wanting. I want to be more mature. I want to be more mature. And none of that talk or thought or doing anything makes you any more mature. What makes you more mature? Rooted in Christ, loving Christ, following Christ, just letting him guide your life, direct your life, and you're going to be built up in Him. That's the second pillar of this defense that will be built up against plausible arguments that will send you down the wrong path in your life. You'll be built up in Him. Third, you will be established in the faith. And the Greek word again is the idea of adding strength, becoming even stronger in your faith. As a moment ago, I'm 32 years. I've been saved. I wonder if I'm how much stronger I am in the faith. I hope some. But stronger in the faith. Rooted, built up, established. This is why, by the way, young people should heed and watch and thank God for older people in their life that are living a Christian walk, because those people are strong in the faith. They can give you right guidance. Our culture, by the way, we'll put a toe on our soapbox, it exalts youth and it just discards age and wisdom. We're more interested in what Justin Bieber has to say than what a man of God preaching behind a pulpit has to say. It's dangerous for our culture. You'll be established in this faith and then the last pillar, you'll be thankful. Thankfulness. Thankfulness is not merely something you should do. It's a defense in your Christian life. Thankfulness is. Because how many of those plausible arguments that would send us down the wrong path are at their root about something in our life that we think we need? Some sense of covetousness, envy, something we want. And that is the opposite of thankfulness. You'll be thankful. There's little that provides a more ready and effective defense against sin and rebellion against God than a heart of thankfulness to him. Thankfulness drives out covetousness, envy, strife, discontentment, all of which are ingredients Satan uses to tempt us to turn from God. All of those things. Thankfulness. Are you rooted in Christ? Are you being built up in him? Are you established and stronger in the faith today than you were yesterday? Perhaps more importantly, are you going to be tomorrow and six months from now and a year from now when people around you need your strength that's based in Christ? And this world needs people that are rooted and built up and established in Christ and thankful to him. Remember how Paul described those who were ungodly? He called them unthankful. A lack of thankfulness in your life is an ugly thing, and I'll raise my hand first. Too many times in my life I've not simply been thankful, even in the midst of trial, because James says we're to be thankful for those things, too. Count them precious. So check your defenses today. Check them. If I were to go around and I were to ask you, how are they? How's the shape of the pillars of defense in your life? Are you rooted in Christ? Is he truly indeed your Lord? If he is, and that's an if, But if he is, are you being built up in him daily? Are you striving to serve him again, not by chains, but by love? Are you being more and more established in this following of Christ? And the answer to those questions is, does the fourth pillar exist in your life? Are you thankful? Or is there always something else? Always something else. God, you know, when we're small, Lord, I'll serve you when I get out of high school. This peer pressure is too much. I just, I'll serve you when I get out of high school and I'm not worried about what people think about me. Then you get into college. Lord, I'm just too busy. Too much to do, too much responsibility. You begin to get overwhelmed by life. The very time that you should be most investing in your walk with the Lord is when you get so distracted with the things of life. I'll serve you, Lord, when I get that. Then, you know, Lord, I'll serve you when I get married. I'll serve you when the kids are out of the house. I'll serve you when I retire. Always a delay. Always a delay. We wake up one day and life is behind us. And I don't want to be discouraging today because God given us life today. Don't let yesterday prevent you from where you need to be today and tomorrow. But check your defenses. How are they? How is your spiritual wall around your heart? Remember the plausible arguments as we close, we spoke of before, God just wants me to be happy. So whatever makes me happy, he must be OK with. God just does these things for me, so I must be okay in His sight. But the defenses Paul speaks of here will help you identify those threats and defend against them. Think of how many false paths, and I'm going to close with these few things. Think of how many false paths you would have avoided in your life if you were truly rooted in Christ. Think of how many false paths you would have avoided in your life if you were continually being built up in Him. Think of how many false paths you would have avoided in your life if you were more and more established in Christ, seeing your life and the world the way He does. And think of the many false paths you would have avoided in your life if your thankfulness in Christ was where it ought to have been. Know the dangers, prepare the defenses, because the enemy has got plausible argument after plausible argument to talk you out of serving God in your life. And the end of that path is sorrow and pain and separation. I'm begging you to give your life to Christ, if you've not. And if you have, that you truly make him every day your Lord. Let's have a song.