Walk In Him - Colossians 2:6-15 (Feb 21, 2016)

Alright, well, you can turn in your Bibles to uh Colossians.

Uh, we're gonna be in Colossians uh chapter two uh here today, and uh um love it.

Um I'm in uh I'm with you over now uh preaching live the next uh four weeks starting today.

So this week, and uh I don't cheer too early, I haven't even started yet.

But uh I'm here with you uh today and next week doing uh in back into our book of uh of Colossians, and then the following two weeks I'll be preaching uh some of uh Paul's series in the book of Philippians.

So looking forward to that and uh preaching much more often uh with you this year.

I'm excited for it.

I love that uh for sure.

So you guys in Colossians 2, uh, we're gonna be in verses uh six to 15 uh here this morning.

Now um the more that I think about it, the more I realize that there are really two different types of people in this world.

Okay, there are people who enjoy going for walks and people who do not.

Right?

I know you're like, huh?

Well, I think it's uh I think it's true.

And I'm and I'm I'm one of those people who actually in uh enjoys uh going on walks.

We've got a bunch of different trails around and behind our house, and and sometimes you know you just need to get the kids out of the out of the house and doing something, and so we go walking back there, whether the weather whether the weather is good uh or not.

Um and so we like to do that uh quite a bit around our town.

But I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm also the kind of person who just likes to go on solo walks, and I love to use that uh as a time of uh of prayer.

Um I just find it's uh, I don't know, really good, a good way for me to connect uh with the Lord doing that.

But hey, I know there are lots of people out there uh who find going on walks like just the biggest waste of life.

Right?

They can't handle it.

I was just talking to one guy uh a while ago who, you know, after a long busy day uh at work, he gets home and he's got some young kids as well, and his wife's always like, let's go on a walk.

And he's always just like, ugh, like kind of the worst uh thing in the world.

Now, I know some of you must be thinking, man, why is this guy talking about walks?

Like this has to be like the least cool intro to a message of all time.

And I don't know, you might be right about that.

Um, but I mention it because um the Bible often refers to our relationship with Jesus Christ as a walk.

Okay, it pictures it um as that.

And uh, what does it mean by that?

What does it mean by that?

Well, when I think about going on a walk, a couple of things come to mind.

The first thing that comes to mind is uh is journey.

Journey.

Uh when you go for a walk, uh you're you're you're on a journey towards something, right?

Towards a destination.

It might be, hey, we're walking to the library or we're just doing a loop and we're coming home, but you're on a journey towards uh something.

And our relationship with Christ is a journey too, right?

It absolutely uh is towards a greater Christ-likeness, and ultimately towards uh eternity uh with him.

Okay, eternity with him.

That's what we're moving towards.

Uh so I think journey.

I also think action.

Hey, going on a walk, it requires action on our part.

You can't just sit there and expect to be going on a walk.

No, you've got to actually uh move and go and and we're actually going somewhere and doing something.

Um same way, your walk with Christ requires action.

Okay, action on our part.

It requires willing obedience and that we put forth effort, right?

Jesus isn't just gonna do it all for you and you can just lay on the couch and uh and kick your feet up.

Okay, so journey action, I also think slow and steady.

Going on a walk is is kind of a slow and steady thing, uh kind of opposed to a sprint.

Okay, so it takes it takes time and uh growth in the Christian walk, it also takes time.

That's what that's the way that Jesus does it.

It actually takes a lifetime and sanctification or this process of becoming more like Jesus.

It doesn't happen overnight.

The Lord can accomplish an awful lot in a short amount of time, for sure.

But generally speaking, it's a lifelong process, this walk with uh with the Lord.

Okay, I also think about this when I think about going on a walk and it's with somebody, um, I think about being in step with them.

I think about being in step with them.

Uh sometimes when we go on a family walk, Ange has to remind me, hey, you're getting too far ahead.

Right?

You're you're walking on ahead of us, and and sometimes I fall into that.

Well, our walk with Christ is supposed to be in step with him, isn't it?

It's in step with him.

We're not charging ahead of him, we're not lagging way behind.

He's kind of trying to drag us, that kind of thing.

No, we're walking uh in step uh with Jesus Christ.

Um it's an intimate relationship, isn't it?

When you walk with someone, you're often getting to know them.

When Angie and I first started dating, we often went on a lot of walks because it was a really great way for us uh to get to know each other.

And it's the same idea uh with Jesus Christ.

We're getting to know him and and and learn who he is and learn to imitate him uh in all things.

Okay, well, what we're gonna see this morning in our passage is uh is what kind of things happen to us and in us and through us uh when we walk closely uh with Jesus Christ, when we walk with him or in him, as our text actually says.

Uh so if you're there, if you're in Colossians, why don't you stand right now?

Uh we're gonna read God's word.

Uh so join me as we do that, starting in verse 6, chapter 2.

It says, Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

And you who are once dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of death that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

Let's pray.

God, we come before you recognizing that we're on a walk, where Lord, we are on a journey with you, Lord, and each and every one of us here, whether we feel it or not, need you in that process.

Lord, I pray that for those who need it this morning, they would be humbled.

Lord, I pray for those who are discouraged and just feel beat up along the journey, Lord, that you would encourage them, that you would show them how great and how strong you are, that you are there, that you are you are moving them along step by step.

God, I pray that you would give us your spirit to help us understand your word here today and then to live it out.

Lord, help us.

I pray that we would bring much glory to you today.

We pray all this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

You can grab uh a seat there.

Okay, so here's the first thing if you're following along in your notes there.

It's uh it's that to walk in him means I'm growing stronger in my faith.

I am growing stronger in my faith.

Just take a look at the first verse there, verse six uh in our passage.

It says, Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus, the Lord.

Okay, stop right there for a sec.

Stop right there.

Okay, what the what the Apostle Paul is doing here, he's the guy that wrote this letter, is he's he's really building on what he's already said from chapter one all the way until this point.

And what what pat uh what the apostle Paul has been doing is really reminding people about who Jesus is.

We're gonna talk a little bit more about it later, but what's happened in this church is there's been some false teaching that's crept in and was starting to undo some of the great solid doctrinal teaching uh that Paul had already accomplished uh in this church.

And so he's reminding the people, he's like, this is who Jesus is.

Right, and you might remember chapter 1, verses 15 to 20.

He's talking about this is this is Jesus.

He is actually God, in him all things.

He might be preeminent.

You remember a verse like that?

He's teaching them, this is who uh Christ is.

Uh but what else uh is he saying here?

Well, he's reminding them of their salvation as well.

So he's unpacking the gospel for them and the truth of all of that.

And so he says here, therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, which you have, so walk in him.

So walk in him.

So essentially, Christ has saved you, so live like it.

You mean to live like it, walk in him.

So walk in him means to uh live in union with him, be be in an intimate relationship with him.

It's there's supposed to be some depth there uh with the savior where we're where we're close to him.

And we know him, we've we've learned, or we're learning his likes and his dislikes, the thing that the things that he's all about.

We imitate him.

We want to be like him in every single way, where we're learning to live and act uh like the savior.

We're closely united to him in every single way possible.

And so this is the command that Paul gives the Colossians and us as well in this first verse here as we look at it.

And it actually really reminds me of Psalm 73.28, which has been kind of my verse over the last uh year.

It's been a great reminder to me.

It says, but for me, it is good to be near God.

It is good to be near God.

The NAS says, the nearness of God is my good.

Right?

Don't don't put distance between you in the Lord.

Don't hold him at arm's length.

Draw close to him, and he will be uh drawing close to you.

Okay, this is the goal that we should be striving for, each one of us.

This is it.

Okay, this is the game plan that we're supposed to be uh following.

And uh here's one of the things that happens as we do that, as we engage in this, verse 7, it says that we're rooted and built up in him, established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Okay, so in other words, you want to sum all of that up, we grow stronger.

Okay, we grow stronger, we become, it says, rooted and built up uh in him.

Now I remember when I was like, I don't know, 20 years old or something like that.

I went on a like a weekend camping trip with a couple of buddies, and uh we spent like an entire afternoon on one of those days just like pushing over dead trees.

I I don't know why, but we loved it.

Like we thought it was amazing for some reason at age 20, um, young punks for sure.

Um but that's what we did.

And uh the reason we were able to do that is because the root systems in these trees were completely dead and uh and rotted.

Right?

And now think about it.

If if if we were trying to do that to like a big, strong oak tree that's been got its roots firmly planted, how well do you think that would go?

Yeah, not very.

Uh it wouldn't work well at all.

Well, listen, when you trust Christ as our Savior, the moment that you do that, you become rooted in Him.

You plant roots uh in your Savior, which is where uh strength is.

Okay, some translations say firmly rooted.

Firmly rooted.

Okay, you're you no longer have uh a weak foundation anymore.

A weak foundation where you're trusting in yourself or or in something else to save you or or to complete you or to bring you hope and peace and joy and meaning in your life anymore.

I'm not trusting in those things.

I've got my eggs in the Jesus basket, and that's where strength is found.

You trust Christ now.

Your roots are planted in him.

And as you grow in your walk, it says that you're built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught.

Okay, so think like a bodybuilder who's constantly constantly building their body up and getting stronger and stronger and bigger and bigger.

That's the idea here.

And so as you continue in just your day-to-day pursuit of Jesus Christ, you know, sitting under Bible teaching and learning some, you know, establishing some spiritual disciplines, like your own Bible reading, and and I want to I want to understand this more, and and other spiritual disciplines like prayer and maybe fasting, these things that can help us and strengthen us and grow us, what happens is that you become built up.

You become established in the faith.

In other words, strength, right?

You get you become stronger.

And I thought of a couple ways that we grow stronger.

I've got 10 of them for you.

You can write these down if you want.

This is by no means uh exhaustive, but what are some ways we grow stronger?

Well, here's one.

We grow stronger in knowledge and wisdom.

We grow stronger in knowledge and wisdom, which means you you you learn, you understand the scriptures more.

As you're walking in him, as you're abiding in him, you're holding fast to Jesus Christ, and you're reading scripture, in time, you'll be able to put the pieces together.

You know what it's like when you're when you're a brand new believer, you read different verses.

Maybe it's something that someone sends you, and you're like, that's amazing, but it's just a kind of a hodgepodge, and you've got verses here and over there, and how do these all fit together?

Well, as you grow, you're able to put it together and you understand, you understand how scripture works, but also you grow in wisdom.

You know what wisdom is?

Wisdom is knowledge applied.

Wisdom is knowledge applied.

So it's not just you're growing in in more facts and knowledge in your head, but you're you're you're you're learning how to actually put this to good use in your life.

And so wisdom starts to grow.

You grow stronger in that.

Second thing here, you grow in prayer.

You grow in prayer.

Now, I won't get people to raise their hands or anything like that right now, but how many of you find prayer to be a bit of a chore?

Right?

Prayer is a chore.

It's something that for most people, it doesn't come that naturally.

But as you grow and as you get stronger, it becomes one of those things that's like it's it's something that I enjoy doing and something that I realize I I have to do this.

I I need to tap into that power.

I need to tap into Jesus Christ.

You'll also grow in this, in confidence and stability.

Or you want to grow in confidence, not confidence in yourself, confidence in Jesus Christ.

And so all of those things that you have, like fear and anxiety and doubt, things that we we all wrestle with on some level.

Some people wrestle with that in a big way, others maybe uh not so much, but as you grow stronger, they don't grip your life like they used to.

They don't.

And when you have trials and you go through difficult times, difficulties, they don't send you into the ditch like they might have a couple of years ago.

No, they send you to the cross, to the foot of the cross, into greater prayer and holding on to Christ that much more.

You're growing stronger, greater faith.

How about this one?

Service.

You're gonna grow stronger in service.

You can't wait to bless others.

You can't wait to help.

You can't wait to serve.

It's not about like what's everyone doing for me.

It's like, no, I want to help other people out.

I want to I want to serve them.

And and when people start to grow and you see that them being built up in strength, you can celebrate those victories.

It's not just like, well, man, I want to grow too.

No, you're happy for them.

You're growing in your service.

You'll also grow in leadership.

You'll grow in leadership.

Maybe this will be in your home, learning to lead your wife or or lead your kids.

Maybe it'll be more leadership opportunities in the church or in your community.

People will start to look to you as that.

Your leadership will grow.

How about this one?

Joy.

Your joy will grow.

As you hold fast to Christ and you grow stronger, you'll see your joy uh ramp up.

Now, have you ever seen um longtime believers whose joy seems to go down?

You ever see that?

It means they're not growing more mature.

They're not growing stronger.

They're probably backing away, they're detaching from the Lord in some way.

They're holding him at arm's length, as I mentioned earlier.

And their joy is going down.

It's suffering as a result.

But if you're maturing and you're growing stronger, your joy will increase.

Here's one witness.

You're gonna get stronger in the area of witness and evangelism.

You're gonna care much less about what people think of you.

And I I don't I don't want to offend anybody.

No, you're gonna care more about their eternal state.

Do they know Jesus Christ as Lord?

You're gonna want to, you're gonna wanna share the victories, what the Lord has done in your life.

You're gonna want to explain to them who he is and what he has done for them.

You'll also grow stronger in humility.

You'll grow stronger in humility.

And this is something that's just a constant work, all of it really is.

But humility is uh for sure.

And you're gonna realize that the growth in my life is way more about what Christ is doing and who he is than anything that I've done.

And it's gonna be so much less about you and what you're doing, and more about Christ and more about others.

Your focus is gonna change in that way.

You're gonna grow stronger in maturity.

In maturity.

So all of these things are just gonna come together for you.

You're gonna be growing, you're gonna be solid, you're gonna be firm, your foundation is gonna be like a rock, you're gonna have Christ-like character, you're gonna be more consistent in your walk.

All of those things.

Then the tenth one, last one here.

Thanksgiving.

You're gonna grow stronger in thanksgiving.

I mentioned that because the text does.

Verse six, take a look.

It says abounding in thanksgiving.

I love that word abounding.

It's like overflowing.

You know, as you grow in your in your walk with the Lord, again, you're gonna realize it's all Him, right?

It's all Him.

He's doing this, and it's because of His grace, it's because of His immeasurable kindness in my life.

And Lord, thank you so much for what you have done, what you continue to do, how you answer prayers, even though it's not the way that I want sometimes, Lord, you are doing it to your glory.

Lord, thank you.

You're gonna abound in thanksgiving, it's just gonna spill out of you.

Now, one of the one of the beliefs that's crept into uh many churches and uh and maybe even into ours, um, I'm not too sure, and this is especially for men, uh, but it's this idea that that walking in Christ, intimacy with Christ, it's soft.

It's soft.

I I don't want any part of that.

I don't want I don't want to talk about intimacy.

Come on, I'm I'm a man, let's talk about other things.

Right?

Wrong.

Our world and and in many cases Christian men have bought into this belief that that solidarity and and going it alone is the key to real strength.

Right?

Have you bought into that?

Do you believe that on some level?

Jesus makes it real clear.

Abide in me.

Abide in me.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

Right?

You can do nothing.

It's from John 15.

Okay, so learn, listen, learn, learn to fight against this mentality that I don't need Jesus and I can keep him there on Sundays, and during the week I can do whatever.

I don't need to be talking to my spouse, I don't need to be talking uh to my kids about who Jesus is.

I don't need to be reading my Bible, I don't need to be pursuing him.

That's for, I don't know, that that's for women, that's for that's for somebody else, it's not for me.

Listen, men of this church, men of Harvest Newmarket, do not give in to that mentality.

Because real strength, real strength comes from walking in Christ.

It comes from uh intimacy with him.

Okay, here's the here's the second thing.

Second thing.

To walk in him means I'm learning to discern truth from error.

I'm learning.

Okay, take a look at verse 8 here.

Uh verse 8 says, and I can't stress enough how important this is in our culture uh today, but he says this.

He says, See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Now, I mentioned it briefly uh earlier, uh, but one of the main reasons that Paul writes this letter to the Colossians, and one of the main reasons he writes most of his letters in the New Testament, is that he's dealing with false teaching.

He's dealing with false ideas and concept that people were starting to infiltrate into the church and starting to get it off course and away from uh the truth of the gospel.

Knowing the truth, believing the truth, holding fast to the truth, all of it is so crucial to Paul.

And it should be crucial to us uh as well.

Because if we sacrifice truth and begin to allow error to reign, it just it just sets off this chain reaction of problems that leads to, for Christ's followers, leads to confusion and and sin and and pain, which ultimately what does it do?

It causes damage to our relationship with Christ and others.

Right?

It does that.

And it just undoes everything that Christ came to fix.

So understanding the truth and holding on to it is of utmost importance for us.

And Paul, he's been teaching this kind of bit by bit all the way through Colossians, and he's still not done with it.

We're gonna have another message a little bit later on where he talks more and more about this, like the entire message is gonna be about it.

But back in chapter 1, verse 23, he says, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

In chapter 2, verse 4, we looked at this last time.

He says, I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

Okay, okay, Paul knows that that it's that it's God and The gospel that teaches us ultimate truth.

And to waver from it even a little bit is to eventually at some point invite disaster.

He's adamant that this church and all Christians, us as well, know the truth, believe the truth, and grasp it.

Now you may be thinking, why?

Right?

Why does he care?

Why should we care?

What's the big deal with all of this?

Okay, well, think about it.

Okay, all of our sin, all of our sin deep down is the result of rejecting what's true and believing a lie instead.

All of our sin.

I'll give you just two quick examples.

We could talk all day about this, but two quick examples.

Sexual sin.

Hey, sexual sin.

Giving into sexual sin uh reveals that I believe the lie that in some way lust or some variation of that, whether that's pornography or adultery, giving into that lie, I believe that that will give me ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment that I desire.

Right?

That's what I believe.

Deep down in my heart, somewhere, that's what I believe.

It's a lie.

It's a lie.

Only Jesus satisfies us truly.

Only He fulfills us in a deep kind of way like that.

Here's another example here about unrighteous anger.

Unrighteous anger.

Giving into that can reveal that deep down I believe the lie that life should revolve around me.

Right?

Something didn't go my way, so I'm gonna snap.

Right?

I'm gonna lash out at the kids or at my spouse.

Or I'm gonna have road rage.

Right?

How dare people not worship me?

How dare the universe not work towards lifting me up as savior and as God?

Right?

You start to unpack it a little bit, and that's what it reveals.

Right?

At the end of the day, at the root of all sin is pride.

At the root of all sin is pride, and pride believes that I know what's best and God does not.

I know what's best.

Pride at the end of the day is you shaking your fist at the Lord, saying, My will, not yours.

That's what pride is.

Now, the Christian life, it's all about attacking that mindset.

Attacking it, starting identifying it where the lies that my heart, my mind believe, and then I act out upon them.

So identify those and then minister the truth of the gospel.

Minister truth to that.

And over time the Holy Spirit will work to transform your life.

Some of that change will happen quick.

A lot of it, though, is a walk, right?

It happens over time.

And that's why Paul says here, verse 8 again, he says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty the seat, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Yeah, that phrase takes you captive there, really important.

It literally means to kidnap or to carry off.

You know, like when uh when two armies would battle and one would defeat the other, they would come in and they would plunder all of the goods and carry it away.

That's what giving in to a lie does.

It carries you off, taking the spoils of war.

And he says, see to it.

I love that line, see to it that no one does this.

Don't let anyone do this.

Which means that it's each one of our responsibilities to make sure that we learn to reject the different lies that we're exposed to.

And these can come at us from all different angles.

And Paul gives us a few examples here.

You take a look at the verse again, verse 8.

Um, philosophy.

Which is, if I can sum it up, kind of the thinking and the opinions of our day.

You think there are any any opinions out there that might sway uh dissuade you?

Facebook posts.

Right?

Totally.

Like every like stay-at-home mom and you know, every you know, self-made theologian is writing what they think on Facebook.

Well, I think it should be more like this.

No, I think this is what's true.

Like people debating back and forth on all these posts.

Do you get swept away in that kind of stuff?

I'm not like ripping Facebook and completely, partially, but not completely.

Yeah, how about this one?

No, empty deceit.

He mentions that.

Empty deceit.

So just straight up deception.

You better believe there's wolves out there looking to deceive you, looking to trick you.

Right?

How many times do you receive spam emails about people trying to send you money for a bunch of dumb stuff, right?

There's people out there trying to do that kind of thing.

The other one he says there is human tradition.

Human tradition.

So this is really kind of any type of kind of man-made custom that elevates the idea that, you know, this is how we've always done it, and therefore we will always do it that way.

That mindset is more important than what's actually true or what's actually uh biblical.

Another false teaching Paul points out here is the elemental spirits of the world, and and this is a bit of a tricky phrase to uh pull apart here, but what it's likely referring to are just kind of probably the basic fundamentals of any religious practice.

And so for uh for the Christians in in the Church of Colise here, it would have been uh Judaism and the importance of the law, and you better be following the law in order to be uh in God's family and and and that kind of thing.

For us, it might be, I don't know, some kind of cult or pagan religion, um, which again at the end of the day, all of it is ultimately demonic in in origin, right?

If it's not from Jesus Christ, if it's not biblical, you better believe that God's enemy, Satan,'s got his hands in there and he's trying to warp our understanding, he's trying to drag us along into a bad place.

And so he's warning them.

These things are not according to Christ, as he says.

They're to be rejected.

Now it's interesting the timing of all of this, working through God's word, and I find this interesting how the Lord puts all this together, but um, I was uh I was I I read an article this week, and um it was on how um uh some women uh could find healing um through uh boudoir photography.

Okay, and it was about how uh women in certain um areas of uh jumping in front of the camera, certain um levels of undress could find healing if they've experienced any sexual abuse uh or any body shaming or anything like that.

Now that article alone by itself is um appalling.

Um but what made it more appalling is that this wasn't from like, you know, some kind of you know CNN lifestyle segment.

It was from Christianity today.

Right?

And it was saying that some Christian women might find healing.

Right?

You're gonna read these things.

I saw this in a link from Twitter and I clicked on it because I'm like, what is going on with this?

And it was it was shocking.

Are you gonna read, do you read those kinds of things and be like, hmm, sounds like a good idea?

Or do you read that and you're like, no, this is obviously, this is false.

Right?

And so that the danger is not from without always, it is, but it's also from within.

You should be able to read something in a Christian publication and and it and it be good, but it's not always.

It's really not.

These kinds of things uh are to be uh rejected.

They're to be rejected.

And Paul gives us the truth here, uh, verse 9.

Uh he says, For in him, okay, for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the rule uh the head of all rule and authority.

And so he's like, listen, none of those things are from God or are God or worthy of your trust or your worship.

He's like, Jesus is God.

Jesus is God.

He's filled you with everything that you need.

He's the one that completes you, he is the one that fills you with hope and meaning and peace.

Tap into him.

He's the only one that has the right to have any authority over your life.

It's all found in him.

Okay, so a question for you can you discern truth from error?

When you hear it?

Can you spot the lies when they bombard you?

When you, you know, you're you're watching TV and you see some televangelist come on and he's talking about how all Jesus wants is us to be happy, and and and and if you're sick, it's probably due to sin only and and all of those things.

Are you like, no?

Jesus wants me to glorify him.

I can do that whether I'm sick or healthy.

Jesus isn't about my happiness first and foremost, he's about my holiness.

Because you've read scripture and you understand what the truth is, and therefore you can spot the lies when you hear them.

When you hear the truth, okay, does your heart rejoice in that?

You're like, yes, that is life.

Not that, not this lie that I'm hearing, but the truth.

That fires you up.

Not the lie.

It's a learning process for sure.

It's something that we're all on a journey towards.

Right?

You're not gonna, again, you're not gonna have this kind of thing overnight, but it happens uh as you grow.

And it's but it's one that we absolutely need to engage in.

We need to engage in this battle of being able to discern from uh truth from error.

We need to get to the point where we master it so that we're not swept away.

And it's happening, folks, it's happening all over the place, especially as churches in North America and all over the world get further and further away from the truth of God's word.

And it's and it's like, well, let's put this aside.

We don't need that anymore.

Let's just talk about whatever charismatic pastor wants to talk about.

No, let's get back in front of God's word, let's get our noses uh in that.

When we walk in Christ, and as we grow in that relationship, we'll find ourselves being able to do just that.

Discerning truth uh from error.

Okay, last thing here, last thing.

Uh, to walk in him means I'm absorbing the magnitude of what Christ did.

You absorbing that?

And one of the challenges, one of the greatest challenges, I think, for believers uh today in our culture, in our day and age, and and in Canada, uh maybe specifically, is really growing or increasing our in our awe at what Jesus has done.

Do you find yourself growing in awe and wonder?

Wow, I can't believe the Lord has done this for me.

I can't believe how awesome He is.

It's a challenge, uh, isn't it?

It's pretty easy for us to kind of tune that out because you know, we've heard it a thousand times.

You know, I've heard, here he goes.

I can I can probably check my my watch or check my phone during this point as he'd start talking gospel here.

I've heard it a million times.

We tune it out.

It's easy also to kind of maintain this surfacey understanding of it.

Jesus died for me on the cross, yeah, I get it.

Right?

We don't dive into the implications of that.

How does that affect the way I live and the way that I think and the way that I act?

Do you have just a surfacey understanding?

Because all of that creates this sort of boredom that we have with the gospel.

And all of it really hinders our desire and our ability to absorb the awesome reality of what Jesus has done.

Okay, but notice here, I love this.

Notice how Paul, he's always reminding us of the truth of the gospel, all the way through his letters, each and every time.

He's done it already a whole bunch of times in this letter alone, and he's always stressing different aspects of it, and he's coming at it from different angles, so sometimes from over here, and other times from over here.

He's starting to give us kind of a rounded understanding, a full version of who Jesus is and what he's done.

Because he knows that it's the truth that sets us free.

He knows that.

It's the truth that our wandering hearts need to be reminded of time and time again.

I would argue, minute by minute, we need to be reminded of this.

Not just every Sunday, but we need to be reminded of this all the time.

All the time.

Just check out verse 11 again.

It says this in him you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

Now, we're we're not exactly sure of all the specifics of what this false teaching was that Paul was specifically dealing with here in Colossians, because he doesn't come out, come right out and say it.

He's not like, hey, they were talking about these ten things, and so I'm gonna pull those ten things apart.

But no, we can we can get a fairly good idea based on what he does emphasize.

It obviously had something to do with pagan philosophy and and Jewish legalism.

Right?

And in verse 11 here, um and the ritual of circumcision is where he gets into the legalism part.

Now, I'll kind of side note here.

I used to always have fun when um teaching uh junior highs and uh in youth up in Barrie, and uh verses on circumcision came up because um they would uh they'd always be looking at me with like kind of a weird look.

They had no idea what it was, and and I would always say to them uh two things, um, because I didn't want to explain it.

I would say, first of all, uh don't Google it.

Okay, like do not Google it at all.

That's a bad idea.

Second thing, what you need to do is you need to go home right now and ask your parents about what it is.

They would love to have that conversation with you like tonight, at like 10 o'clock.

And so what would what would always happen is like that Sunday, some parent would come up to me and be like, hey, thanks a lot.

Right?

And now you know why I'm no longer on staff and Barry.

Okay, but circumcision, our verses talk about it, and I'll assume we can be uh mature adults about this.

But um, okay, circumcision for the Jews, it was it was really always to be used symbolically.

Okay, it was used to be used symbolically to illustrate the desperate need that man had for the cleansing of his heart.

Okay, that that was the point of circumcision.

Now, for us today, like we don't think circumcision has nothing to do with any of our religious practices.

For the Jews back in the day, it was it was tied very, uh, very closely to it.

Uh, much like maybe how baptism would, we talk about baptism a lot.

Uh they talked about uh circumcision uh a lot.

And so for them though, always from the very beginning, even through the Old Testament, it was always only meant to be symbolic.

Okay, God was always concerned with the heart, above and beyond any physical ritual act, okay?

And even Moses, he said it in Deuteronomy 10, verse 16, Old Testament, he says, circumcise then your heart.

Deuteronomy 10:16

Circumcise then your heart and stiffen your neck no more.

Okay, here's the thing though.

The Jews often got pretty legalistic about that, okay?

And they started to use it and uh and approach circumcision as the thing that saved you.

Well, if I if I do this, now I'm in God's family.

It's it's something that I need to do to earn my salvation.

But Paul shows us here that the physical ritual of circumcision isn't what saves us from sin.

It's not necessary for Christians because we've been, verse 11 says, circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh.

Flesh also means um uh it also means sinful nature.

Okay, that's what he's talking about, by putting off the sinful nature by the circumcision of Christ.

And so what he means there is that when we trust Christ as Savior, he removes our sinful nature.

Okay, the verse, the verse uses the word flesh there.

It's used interchangeably.

And instead, what he's what he does is he gives us a new nature that's been created new in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And that's what it means by the circumcision of Christ.

It's not a physical thing, it's a spiritual thing, something that he has done in our hearts.

Okay, the bottom line: we've been made clean by what Jesus has done on the cross, not by anything that you and I can do.

Okay, that's the bottom line.

And he goes on here in verse 12.

It says, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith and the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

Okay, so like circumcision, baptism is symbolic.

It's symbolic, it's an outward expression of an inward reality.

That's what baptism uh is.

And so we here at our church, we practice uh baptism by full immersion, and it's to symbolize what Christ has done to save the person.

And so we do it.

So when we're we're we're immersing someone underneath the water, we're going full immersion, it's to symbolize, well, I've been buried with Christ.

I'm dead to my sin now.

And when I come up out of the water, I'm being raised to new life in Jesus Christ.

And the water symbolizes I've been washed clean.

Right?

I'm no my my sin is no longer held against me.

And so when we baptize, what we're doing is we're telling the world, hey, this is what Jesus Christ has done in me.

It's not to get saved, it's the first step we do after we get saved.

And so what's probably happening here is that the Colossians had been baptized very soon after, putting their faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.

And so Paul was trying to remind them of all of that and recap for them what that was all about.

Okay, keep going, verse 13 now.

He says, And you, okay, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of death that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

This is like maybe one of the biggest, like mic drop verses of all time.

Jesus is like, boom, that's what I did to Satan, and that's what I've done for you.

Now, why is Paul saying all of this?

Well, he's reminding them of the freedom that they already have in Jesus Christ.

He's like, he's like, you don't need this heresy.

You don't need this false teaching that promises you life and only brings pain and only brings death.

All you need, all any of us ever need is Jesus Christ.

Right?

That's it.

We find our completion in him and his finished work on the cross.

He's trying to help these people absorb the enormity of what Christ has done.

It's the same thing that he's done for you and I.

No effort, no effort on our part, whether it's kind of some outward act like circumcision was for the Jews, or no amount of moral living, you know, obeying the rules, trying to be a you know, quote unquote good person, or having a flawless church attendance record.

Okay, none of that is gonna earn us the salvation that we desperately need and deep down crave so badly.

Okay, Christ earned it for us.

He already accomplished all of it on the cross.

It says he made us alive, he forgives our trespasses, he cancels our record of debt.

The wrongs that you and I have have committed that cause us to die spiritually.

He's like, He's like, I'm picking up your tab.

I'm paying for all of it.

It's all getting nailed to the cross with me.

And listen, I know that there are some people here in the room you have not yet trusted in what Jesus has done for you on the cross.

Do you realize that he has paid for all of your sin?

He's already done it.

And what he wants to do is he wants to offer you salvation from all of that.

He doesn't want you trying to earn it by trying to be good or in or trying to find your hope and meaning in some other earthly man-made thing.

He's like, only I can satisfy you, only I can save you.

And I want to give that to you.

It's a gift of grace.

You don't have to try and earn it, you don't need to jump through a bunch of hoops or say even like all the right things.

At the end of the day, you just need to admit, you know what, Lord, I'm a sinner.

My sin is against you.

Would you forgive me and be my savior?

That is what it takes to be a Christian.

Nothing more, nothing less.

If you've got questions about this, please don't leave today without coming to somebody and asking those questions.

We would love to walk you through that.

Because knowing Jesus, I mean, there's there's literally nothing like it.

There's nothing like it.

The gospel is what sets us free.

Now, church, don't deviate from this truth.

Okay, don't do it.

Don't don't grow bored of it.

If you find yourself growing bored or you don't understand all the details behind it, and you never think about how I can inform the way you think and live, um, start praying.

Lord, help me to understand this.

Lord, open this up, open up my mind and my heart to loving you and loving truth and loving what you have done even more.

It's the greatest truth of all time.

You pray those kinds of things, he's gonna help you absorb it.

He's gonna start to allow that to permeate every every aspect of your being, from how you think about yourself when you put your makeup on in the morning, to how you process a painful childhood.

Again, it's not all gonna click at once.

There's gonna be some challenges with it.

You're still gonna have some struggles.

But again, that's why it's a walk.

Right?

And that's what we're talking about.

It's a walk.

This is the exact kind of thing that the Lord wants to do.

This is the gameplay.

This is how he does it.

So I want to encourage you to put one foot in front of the other.

If you are down here today, if you are discouraged, know that the Lord hears you.

He knows where you're at.

And he wants to give you that encouragement.

Keep walking forward.

Keep walking in me.

Keep praying for wisdom.

Keep coming to the word.

Keep getting people to pray for you.

Keep asking questions if you've got them.

Keep pursuing me.

I want an intimate relationship with you.

I'm gonna pray right now, and we're gonna pray that the Lord continues to do that in our hearts.

He continues to do that in our church.

So why don't you join me as we pray?

God, we thank you so much for being a God who, first of all, you have a game plan to rescue us.

Lord, you didn't have to do that.

Lord, you created us and we rebelled against you, and you could have easily squashed us because of that.

That's what we would have deserved.

Lord, we know that at the end of the day, our sin deserves death.

Our sin deserves eternity in hell.

But Lord, we thank you that you've engaged us with this incredible rescue plan by sending your Son Jesus Christ to take all of our sin on Himself.

Lord, I pray that we would learn day by day to absorb that truth and that reality.

Lord, I pray that it would change the way that we think.

I pray that it would change our relationships with people.

Lord, I pray that it would give us a greater heart and a greater love for your Son Jesus Christ.

Lord, the gospel is the truth that sets us free.

I pray that we would learn to walk in that.

Help us, Lord.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.