No Alternative Routes- Colossians 2:16-23

everybody here this morning as we continue in our study of Colossians.

And congratulations to you guys because you made it through the circumcision sermon.

And you're here again.

So it is good to see you this morning.

And I might say a couple of things that offend some people this morning.

So just a reminder, my email is intern at georgiascreekbibus.org.

You can email me anything you want there.

But as we go to Colossians chapter two,

I was thinking about the fact that in America,

we're always looking for a shortcut.

Are we not?

If there is a cheaper, easier, faster way to do something, sign us up for it.

Because we're drawn to those kind of things.

I mean, this is the time of year where people start thinking about their summer

bodies and getting ready for summer.

And you know what you need to do to do that is you have to look at your diet,

have to look at the things you're eating, make sure you're exercising,

go into the gym.

That takes a lot of work and effort.

And so you have that route that you can take.

Or if someone says, or you could just take this pill and you'll lose all the

weight immediately, you're going to take the pill, right?

You want the shorter, faster, easier way.

I'm prone to this myself.

I like a good shortcut with certain things.

I remember I was looking into doing some doctoral work at some point.

And I was looking at different programs and I was trying to figure out which one

I might be interested in doing.

And most of them were going to be anywhere from three to six years to complete.

And there's going to be about $30,000.

So I was just researching, researching.

And I saw an ad for a school that I had never heard of.

And the ad said, get your PhD in under a year for $2,000.

I'm listening.

Okay?

You know?

So I start looking into this program and turns out it actually was a Christian

college in seminary that was offering a PhD program in one year.

There were just a couple of problems with it.

Number one, no one had ever heard of it.

And number two, it was completely unaccredited.

So I had a choice to make.

I could either go to a legitimate school and get a legitimate degree, or I could go

to some school that no one's ever heard of and basically get a fake degree.

But I would get to be Dr.

Alex Chapman within one year.

And you can see by your bulletin that I am not Dr.

Alex Chapman.

So I did not take that option.

But the point is that there is always a right way to do something.

And then there's an alternative way to do something.

There's a way that is right and good for us that is going to help us and develop us.

And there's always going to be an alternative that is very appealing.

And that's exactly what Paul is talking about in this passage.

He's warning the Colossians that they've got to make a choice between doing things.

God's way or doing things.

The world's way.

Having to take the right route to God or falling for one of these alternatives.

And this is incredibly important for us to consider in today's world because I have this

theory that the world is trying to turn the Christian faith into a Build-A-Bear workshop.

I don't know if you've ever been to Build-A-Bear before, but you walk in and you're faced

with all these choices, right?

You can pick any single bear you want and then the beauty of this place, is you can

design it however you want.

You can put on it, whatever you want to put on it, you can leave out the things you want

to leave out.

It's your bear, you design it however you want.

I feel like that's what people are trying to do with Christianity today.

It's your faith, design it however you want it.

You can include the things you want to include.

You can exclude the things you want to exclude.

You can do whatever you want.

If you want to come to church, if you don't want to go to church, if you want to read

your Bible, not read your Bible.

If you want to pray, not pray.

It's your faith.

Do with it what you will.

And that is dangerous.

And that is exactly what Paul is addressing here, because he's

going to tell us that none of these alternative routes can actually do

anything for you and your faith in God.

In fact, his whole point is the only way our faith can grow and be nourished is

by holding fast to Jesus.

The only way our faith can grow and be nourished is by holding fast to Jesus.

These other ways might be appealing.

These other ways might draw you for a time, but Paul wants you to know that

they can do nothing for you in your faith.

And so really the question that I think we should consider this morning is how

can we hold fast to Jesus in a world of alternate routes?

Alternate routes.

How can we hold fast to Jesus in a world of alternate routes?

And that's exactly the question Paul is addressing in this passage.

And basically what he's going to do is he's going to show us three dangerous

alternative routes other than Christ.

And the first dangerous alternative is that of legalism.

If you look at verses 16 through 17, it says, therefore, let no one pass

judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to festival or a

new moon or a Sabbath.

These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

So Paul is going to issue three commands in this passage and each command is

related to one of the dangerous alternatives.

And you see the first command here, let no one pass judgment on you.

Specifically, don't let people pass judgment on you with regard to food,

drink, new moons, Sabbaths.

And they make sense if you remember that some of the people who were trying

to corrupt the Colossian church were the Judaizers.

You might say, oh, pastor, who were the Judaizers?

Well, they were a group of Jewish people who were trying to enslave the

Christians to old Jewish principles and laws and regulations.

They were trying to enforce the observance of the old Jewish customs onto

Christians.

One of the main things they were trying to enforce was the observance of

Old Testament dietary laws.

Now you might wonder why they did that.

And you have to think back to the Old Testament.

One of the reasons that God gave the Israelites these dietary restrictions in

the first place was to make them distinct from the rest of the world.

Right?

Israel had to dress a certain way.

They had to look a certain way.

They had to eat certain food and not eat certain food.

It was a way to mark them as God's chosen people and make them distinct

from the rest of the world.

They are in the world, but they are not of the world.

That was one of the reasons for the dietary laws.

So God was basically saying to Israel, because you are my people whom I have

saved out of Egypt and rescued you and redeemed you and called you by name,

here's how I want you to live.

So because you're my people, go and live this way.

Right?

Here's the problem.

The Israelites reversed that saying from God and they changed the word

because to the word if.

So God says, because you're my people, go and live like this.

Then the Israelites started saying, if you want to be God's people,

go and do these things.

If you want to be saved, make sure you observe all of these laws and regulations.

And so the people started viewing the dietary laws as a way of

getting holy.

Basically, if you follow the dietary laws, it was a means by which you could

be made holy in God's sight and be in right standing with God.

You might think people didn't actually think this, but of course they did.

Jesus addressed it in Mark seven after he had talked to the Pharisees.

He's talking with his disciples and he said to them, then are you also

without understanding?

Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him?

Since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and his expel.

Thus he declared all foods clean.

So basically Jesus was addressing this issue, right?

The Pharisees said, make sure you're only eating according to the dietary

restrictions because then you'll be clean and holy before God.

And Jesus says, no, that's not how it works at all.

What matters is not what you eat.

What matters is your heart and food cannot corrupt your heart.

So whatever comes out from your mouth, that's proceeding from the heart.

And so Jesus was trying to get to the heart of the issue.

And so in order to get them to understand that the food they're eating has

no bearing on their standing with God, the Bible says he declared all food

clean, including bacon.

Church, praise the Lord.

We love Jesus.

So here's what you need to understand, right?

Dietary guidelines, they can be helpful.

And I think we all know this.

If you drink or if you eat junk food all the time, you're going to feel like junk, right?

So dietary guidelines can be helpful.

But Jesus is saying dietary guidelines cannot make you right with God.

Just because you eat clean doesn't mean you're actually clean in God's eyes.

And so Paul was saying, don't let people judge you because of these things

because they have no bearing on your standing with God.

Now, I'll be honest with you.

You're probably not going to get a lot of pushback in terms of dietary laws

that you follow today as a Christian.

But you know where you will get pushback.

Paul says, don't let people judge you based on food or drink.

This is one of those parts where I'm going to offend some people, I think.

Certain things you can say in church, certain things you can't say,

certain things make people tense up.

One of those things is alcohol.

Paul says, don't let people judge you based on food or drink.

You say alcohol in a church, people start getting real tense.

People start getting real tense.

There's a lot of tension around that topic today.

And we should say that the Bible is very clear that drunkenness is a sin.

The Bible is very clear that getting drunk is a sin.

The Bible is very clear that addiction of any kind is a sin.

If you are enslaved to anything other than Jesus, that is a sin,

whether it's alcohol or something else.

But there's not one place in the Bible that says drinking alcohol is a sin.

If that were the case, we'd have to have a very difficult conversation

about Jesus turning water into wine.

And Paul writing to Timothy to tell him to drink a little red wine

for his stomach problems.

So drunkenness is a sin, but drinking alcohol is not a sin.

But there are many Christians today who will judge and condemn other people

for their choice about alcohol.

We know alcohol. I mean, one for me personally.

We had a visitor, and I can say this because he's not here,

and he hasn't been here for years.

But we had a visitor who was visiting with this church for a couple of weeks.

He was coming on Wednesday nights, and I had a conversation with him.

He asked me after service one Wednesday.

He said, hey, what's your stance on alcohol?

And I said, well, personally, I don't drink alcohol.

That's a personal conviction of mine.

Also made a promise to my wife.

So I don't drink alcohol.

That's my stance.

But the Bible is not opposed to it. The Bible does not condemn it.

And he had a problem with that because he was a teetotaler.

And he believed that if any church believed it was OK to drink alcohol,

well, he was never coming to that church again.

And I said, OK, well, it was nice meeting you.

And pray you find a good church.

But it was something that he was so adamant about,

that he was willing to judge us and condemn us

for something that the Bible does not actually condemn.

So it's like the dietary restrictions.

Drinking alcohol is not a sin, but there should be some guidelines in place.

There should be some boundaries that you draw out for yourself.

But your conviction on this matter,

it shouldn't be enforced on another person, right?

Just because you choose not to drink alcohol

doesn't mean that you should judge other people who do.

This is exactly what leads to judgment, like Paul talks about here.

It's the same thing we see with festivals and new moons and even sabbaths

as Paul mentions here.

This is another one of those words where people get tense in church.

Alcohol, money, sabbaths.

We're going to hit two of the three today, but maybe money on another day.

Here's the thing about the sabbath.

There is not one place in the entire New Testament

that says that Sunday is the sabbath.

The sabbath was always sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.

There isn't a single place in the entire Bible

that refers to Sunday as the day of rest.

According to the Bible, Sunday is the Lord's day.

And actually, the Bible says in the book of Hebrews

that the sabbath was fulfilled in Christ.

And that sabbath rest is a way of life

that we can enter into at all times because of Jesus.

This is what the Bible says in Hebrews 4.

So then there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God.

For whoever has entered God's rest

has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest

so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

So the Bible is saying you can enter into the sabbath rest at all times.

You don't need to wait until Sunday or Saturday to enter into that rest

because the Bible is saying you have ceased from your works

as God ceased from his.

And so the sabbath was this spiritual idea.

There are guidelines, right?

Physically, guidelines, it's good to rest from your work.

I'm preaching to myself here because I don't rest.

So this is a sermon for me.

Guidelines, it's good to set aside time to rest.

It's good to let your body recover.

But spiritually speaking, the sabbath was about us

not having to strive to earn our salvation.

It was about not having to try to work to obtain God's favor.

The Bible says Jesus has already done it all.

And if you were in Christ, that rest is available to you at all times.

And so if you're being burdened by sin

or if you're being worn out by religious regulations,

the Bible says enter into that rest that is available to you in Christ.

But of course, people have a problem with this.

I've had many people get angry with me

because I do housework and yard work on Sundays.

Because they say it's the day of rest.

There are other Christians who believe you shouldn't go out into the public

to restaurants and stores on Sundays

because you're causing another person to work

on what they believe is the day of rest.

And so what we want to say to this is if that's your view, that's fine.

We disagree.

But that's okay.

You can have your view and I can have my view,

but you don't get to enforce your view on me

because it's your personal conviction.

Does that make sense, church?

You might say, well, pastor, aren't you just saying

everybody can believe whatever they want about any given topic?

No, not at all.

There are going to be certain topics that we are staunch on.

The virgin birth of Christ, salvation by grace alone, in Christ alone,

the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross, justification by faith alone,

the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the inerrancy,

infallibility and inspiration of Scripture,

the importance of the gathering of the church.

We are going to be staunch on these issues

and we're not going to allow deviation because they are necessary and essential.

Do we get that?

But on issues, now you can say amen, go ahead, I say amen all day.

But on issues regarding alcohol, sabbaths, new moons, festivals,

these things should all come as recommendations, not requirements.

These things have no bearing on our salvation and on our standing with God.

And so when Paul says not to let others pass judgment on you

with regard to these things,

what he's saying is a brother's personal conviction

should never be mistaken for the Father's command.

A brother's personal conviction should never be mistaken for the Father's command.

Everything that proceeds from the mouth of God we're going to listen to

and we're going to obey because God's commands are good and they are final. Amen?

But the words of our brothers and sisters in Christ,

we want to show them respect, we want to listen to them,

but we're going to take it as a recommendation,

not a requirement if it's on one of these tertiary matters.

This isn't even a secondary matter.

This is tertiary or whatever comes after tertiary.

Don't let people pass judgment on you with regard to these things

because the Bible says ultimately these things are a shadow,

but the substance is Christ.

The Bible is directing our gaze past these tertiary issues

to look at Jesus and see that He is the only one

who can put us in right standing with God,

not what we eat or what we drink or when we take Sabbath rest.

None of that has any bearing on us.

It is only Jesus.

He is the one who makes us holy.

He is the one who grows our faith.

He is the one who nourishes our faith.

We only are going to grow and be nourished by holding fast to Him.

You have to understand that the person who chooses to rest on Sundays

is no holier than those who choose to do a little work on Sundays.

Personally, I'm thankful for that

because I don't know if you all know this about me.

I work every Sunday.

Sunday is my busiest day of the week.

So if we're going to condemn people who work on Sundays,

we're going to have to move the service to a different day.

Okay?

So the person who works on Sunday,

he's no holier or the person who doesn't work on Sunday,

he's no holier than those who do a little work.

The person who chooses to abstain from alcohol completely,

he's no holier or in better standing with God

than those who choose to have a drink every now and then

because none of those things have any bearing on our salvation.

So Paul says, don't let people judge you on these matters

because ultimately it's only by holding fast to Christ

that you are in good standing with God.

But his second matter or second command here,

it's related to the dangerous alternative of mysticism.

Look at verses 18 and 19.

He says, let no one disqualify you

insisting on asceticism and worship of angels,

going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason

by his sensuous mind

and not holding fast to the head

from whom the whole body nourished and knit together

through its joints and ligaments,

grows with a growth that is from God.

So his command here, don't let people disqualify you.

Well, how would they disqualify you?

By insisting that you have to have

the same spiritual experiences that they have had.

And if you don't have those experiences,

well, then you're not actually a real Christian.

That's how they disqualify you.

It happens in a lot of different ways today.

People will say, oh, you've never spoken in tongues?

I guess you're not really a Christian then.

Or you've never heard the audible voice of God?

He's never audibly spoken to you?

Well, either you're not a Christian

or God must love me a little bit more.

Or you say, well, God's never appeared to you in a dream before.

I don't know why He wouldn't appear to you.

He appears to me all the time in dreams.

I wonder what that says about your salvation.

This is how people look down on you

and try to disqualify you

because you haven't had the same experiences

that they have had.

This is exactly what the false teachers

were doing in Colossae.

They were wanting the Colossian Christians

to get involved in mysticism, asceticism,

worship of angels and visions.

And they said that if you didn't take part in these things,

well, you weren't actually a Christian.

You weren't right with God.

But if you would take part in these things,

then not only would you be right with God,

you'd also be super holy.

This is how you become an elevated Christian.

In fact, if you look at your Bibles,

that phrase going on in detail about visions,

that was a technical phrase used at the time

to refer to someone who was being promoted

to the next stage in one of the mystery religions.

So when a person is taking part in these mystery religions,

he gets this experience, now they've promoted him.

He's a step above everyone else.

And he has more experiences, and now he's promoted again,

and he's a step above everyone else.

This is how you go from being a regular Christian

to a super Christian,

from being just kind of holy

to super holy.

You need the experiences.

And here's what we want to say to that.

Spiritual experiences are good,

and they can be good, and they can be helpful.

But we must never be dependent on them

for our standing with God.

And yet I think how many Christians

are there like that today?

How many Christians today are feeling empty

in their spiritual lives?

And they want more than anything for God

to breathe new breath into their spiritual life.

But instead of seeking God through His Word

and through prayer, what are they looking for?

They're looking for an experience.

They want to hear God speak to them.

How many Christians do you know who say this?

God, I'm going through this trial.

I'm going through this hard time.

I just want to hear you speak to me.

I want you to reveal yourself to me.

Do something.

Bring about a sign, a wonder, a miracle.

Anything.

Just let me know you love me

and that you care about me.

God, I want to hear from you.

Well, church, I mean, we've said this before.

If you want to hear from God,

we have this wonderful book that God has written.

And it is literally the words of God

recorded and preserved for us.

I'm always amazed, by the way,

of the amount of Christians who say

they want to hear from God

and have God tell them what to do

when they're not even obeying

what He's already said to do.

But that's a different sermon for a different day.

We'll get there.

But the point is, people are becoming dependent

on these spiritual experiences.

I can't truly believe that I'm in good standing with God

unless God does this, unless He speaks to me,

unless He gives me a sign.

And that's dangerous, church,

because experiences were never intended to do

what only Jesus can do.

Spiritual experiences are meant to point us to Jesus

and make much of Jesus.

And without Jesus, they're just empty.

I remember spending a bunch of...

my whole youth growing up, my whole teenage years.

I went to a bunch of youth camps,

and many of you probably did as well.

And for me, it was the same thing every single time.

We'd get together, we'd sing a bunch of powerful songs,

you'd get called up in the moment,

and then here'd come a preacher

with a really powerful, convicting message,

and every time I would feel convicted from God,

every single time.

And every single time I would say,

okay, this is it, this is the time.

I'm making a decision for Christ,

I'm getting committed, my whole life is changing.

Right here, right now, I'm going to live for Jesus,

because I'm called up in the moment,

I'm feeling the experience,

and then as soon as I got home, everything went away.

Why? Because I wasn't in the moment anymore.

I wasn't called up in the experience of it all.

And I desperately wanted to feel that again.

I mean, many of you know what it's like

to have that spiritual high

where you feel like, man, God has been in this place,

and you chase it, and you chase it, and you chase it.

And so that's what I kept doing throughout my entire youth,

chasing one spiritual high after another,

like a drug you're looking for his next high.

And I just wanted to feel that again.

And it wasn't until I was alone in my room,

reading my Bible,

that God finally revealed Himself to me,

and convicted me of my sins, and saved me.

It didn't come in the midst of a great spiritual experience.

It didn't come in the midst of some powerful sermon

or some amazing music.

It came sitting alone with my Bible,

reading the Word of God.

You see, church, I think this is the point Paul is making here.

We need to make sure we're not more focused

on seeking a spiritual experience

than we are on seeking Jesus.

We need to make sure we're not more focused

on seeking a spiritual experience

than we are on seeking Jesus.

The Bible warns us here

that an over-fascination with these things

tends to give us a big head

and makes us puffed up.

I've had all the experiences.

God's done this for me.

God has allowed me to hear His voice.

God has revealed Himself to me in a dream.

God's done this, God's done that.

And you start to think you're a little bit better

than other Christians who haven't had these experiences.

And if you'll pay careful attention

to people who get called up

in all of these experiences,

you're going to notice something.

The experience is typically not about Jesus,

it's about the person who had the experience.

And what tends to happen after that

is everybody looks to the person

who had the experience

rather than Jesus

for all the answers.

That's why one of the most popular categories

of Christian book and movie today

are the heaven tourism books and movies.

It's basically people who claim

that they have gone to heaven and come back.

Is there any way to verify this?

No, none whatsoever.

But I've noticed something interesting,

and maybe this is just because

I ruffle feathers occasionally,

if you ask any questions at all

about the people who claim to have these experiences,

Christians treat you like you're the heretic.

Well, who were you to question their experience?

That was their experience that God gave them.

You're in no position to try to say

that they didn't have that.

Okay, all right.

I'm just trying to ask some questions here.

I know there was a very popular book

written many years ago now

where a three-year-old boy claimed

that he died and went to heaven.

And he came back

and his father wrote a book

of all the things that he saw and experienced.

There was even a movie made about it.

And I might have problems with this in general,

which is a couple things to point out

that are worth questioning.

The biggest thing that concerned me,

besides the contents of the book,

was the fact that after the book came out

and after the movie came out,

this three-year-old boy,

who was probably five or seven at the time,

was paraded around on national television,

going on every talk show.

His father had people who were writing to him,

and they were asking a three-year-old boy

questions rather than looking to Jesus

for the answers.

So he goes on this talk show,

and the talk show host says,

you claim that you saw Jesus, you sat in his lap.

Can you tell us what Jesus is like?

You know, I'm thinking,

if you want to know what Jesus is like,

read the Bible.

Because the Bible is the revealed word of God,

and the Bible says that Jesus has been revealed

perfectly in his word.

So you don't need to talk to a three-year-old

who has a totally unsubstantiated claim

to ask him what Jesus is like, read your Bible.

But they're asking, what's Jesus like?

What's the Holy Spirit like?

What's the end going to be like when the end times comes?

And they were looking at him for these answers,

and I'm thinking, God has already answered

all of these things in Scripture.

It was one of my favorite theologians of all time.

He said, if new revelations agree with the word of God,

then they're not necessary.

And if new revelations contradict the word of God,

then they're wrong.

So you don't need new revelation.

You have the perfect word of God.

And so we need to be careful not to elevate these experiences

over the authority of God's word.

Do we see that, church?

We need to be very careful not to elevate the people

who have these experiences over Jesus.

And we need to make sure that we don't let people

try to disqualify our faith

just because we haven't experienced

the same things they've experienced.

And just because you haven't had the same experiences of others

does not make you any less a Christian than they are.

Because at the end of the day,

you don't need these spiritual experiences

to grow in your faith.

You don't need these spiritual experiences

to be nourished in your faith.

The Bible says you need to hold fast to Jesus,

and He will nourish your faith.

He will grow it.

And there's one final dangerous alternative here

related to asceticism.

If you look at verse 20,

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world,

why?

As if you were still alive in the world,

do you submit to regulations?

Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch,

referring to things that all perish as they are used,

according to human precepts and teachings.

These have indeed an appearance of wisdom

and promoting self-made religion and asceticism

and severity to the body.

But listen, church, they are of no value

in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

The ascetics were a group of people

who advocated for severe punishments to the body

in extreme self-denial

in order to bring about holiness by brute force.

Basically, they said,

if you did all these things, if you followed all these regulations,

if you disciplined yourself in this way,

then you were guaranteed to be holy

and in right standing with God.

Basically, do these things and the result is guaranteed.

And yet we know that it's not a guarantee, right?

Because how many people do you know in your life personally

who were raised in a very strict religious household,

whose parents brought them to church every single time

the doors were open,

whose parents enforced religious principles in their household,

who lived a very simplistic, minimalistic lifestyle

only for their child to walk away from the faith entirely

as they got older.

Too many to count, right?

We know people personally like that.

It's because those regulations cannot bring about the result

that you're hoping for.

They have the appearance of wisdom,

and I'm not saying these things are bad.

They might be good, but they can't actually address the issue

which is our heart.

So you can make a bunch of religious rules,

but you can't change a person's heart.

And just because you participate in these religious activities

doesn't mean that you're actually holy inwardly.

So Paul's point here is just because you act religious

doesn't mean you're actually righteous.

Just because you act religious

doesn't mean you're actually righteous.

Amen, church?

I think we all know this, right?

Because we like to come to church, we like to play church,

we like to get dressed up except for me,

and we put on our nice suits and jackets,

and we all like to come and we have the appearance

of being very religious.

Just because you wear the coats

and the dressings of religion

doesn't mean that you have a heart of righteousness before God.

You can change your behavior for sure,

and you can try to be the most moral person on earth,

but your behavior is not the ultimate issue.

Your heart is the issue,

and these religious rules can do nothing to address the heart.

You can think about it like this.

If someone were to come and tell me

that eating meat was a sin,

I'd been a lot of trouble.

Because Anna will tell you that I eat meat

like doctors say you should drink water.

Okay, so I'm constantly, I'm basically a carnivore.

So if someone were to come to me and say,

hey, eating meat is a sin,

I'd been a lot of trouble.

But if God says it's a sin, then I'm going to avoid it, right?

Here's my question to you.

Is my desire to eat meat going to magically go away

because someone told me it's a sin to eat meat?

No, right?

You can say, hey, it's a sin to eat meat,

so you're not allowed to touch it, handle it, taste it,

see it, smell it anymore. You can't do it.

These are your new rules.

Is my desire going to go away?

No, because a bunch of religious rules

cannot take away the desire that's in my heart.

That is something that only God can do.

And so I need God to come into my heart and change my heart.

I need God to come into my heart and give me new desires

that are in line with His will and His word.

I can't do that myself.

And submitting to a bunch of religious rules can't do that either.

So I want to say to all the parents this morning, listen to me,

it is good to bring your children to church

as often as humanly possible. That's good.

And it is good to raise your children in a Christian household.

It's good to enforce Christian principles and regulations

in your house. But don't ever think that just because you do those things,

the result you're hoping for is guaranteed.

A lot of parents fall into this habit and they say,

well, I'm doing all the right outward stuff,

so therefore God's just going to save my kid.

Parents, you need to pray for the salvation of your children.

Don't get comfortable just bringing them to church.

Don't get comfortable just sending them to Jordan

to Ashley or Vicki or bringing them in here and say,

let the preacher save them. I can't save anyone.

Don't get comfortable doing all the outward stuff

and neglect the thing that really matters.

Pray for the salvation of your children.

Pray that God would change their heart.

Pray that they would see the glory of Jesus.

Pray that they would desire to follow Jesus and serve Him

and give their lives for Jesus.

Religious regulations can't bring about the change we hope for.

It is only by holding fast to Jesus.

So if you want your faith to be nourished this morning,

if you want to grow in your faith,

then you need to hold fast to Jesus and not fall

for all of these appealing alternatives

because they cannot take you to God.

Legalism just leads to judgment

and over-fascination with spiritual experiences

leads to pride and submission to religious rules.

It gives the appearance of wisdom,

but it can't actually stop the indulgence of the flesh.

Jesus said in John 14.6,

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

And so if you want to come to the Father,

if you want to be in right standing with God

and have a heart that is pleasing to Him,

then hold fast to Jesus and Jesus alone.

Amen?