July 6, 2025 Rooted Week 10 Breaking Free from the Chains of Performance-Based Living (Col. 8-12)

Music.

So we started several weeks ago a series on rooted and looking at strongholds

and how strongholds can invade our lives.

And these strongholds are these belief systems that can kind of get in there

and what Ben was sharing, like get in there and mess with the roots of what

God actually wants to do in our lives.

And so we want to, as believers, we want to equip ourselves now that we can

fight like Jesus later. And what did Christ do?

He fought with Scripture.

In Colossians 2, so then just as you have received Christ Jesus,

continue to walk in him, being rooted, built up in him, established in the faith,

just as you were taught and overflowing with gratitude.

And today, we're going to dig a little bit deeper, and we're going to look at

some strongholds and lies that the evil one tries to get inside your head.

It doesn't matter whether you're a teenager who struggles with just insecurities,

or an adult who is struggling with parenting their kid,

or a senior folks who are toward the end, like in that last area of life and...

And you struggle with, you know, do I have a purpose anymore?

All these younger people just kind of passing me up. Do I really have a purpose?

Do I have, is there anything that God can do with my life?

And absolutely, that's a truth that God is going to show.

So let's go in scripture and let's go to Colossians chapter three,

if you would, excuse me, chapter two.

Before we go there, let's pray. Jesus, I thank you so much for today.

I thank you for your word. I thank you that you have brought us here together

today as believers or maybe someone who is still searching.

God, I pray that you would take your word and make it come alive.

Jesus, we ask for your Holy Spirit to help us drown out all the busyness,

all the noise that's in the world, all the chaos.

It's not any kind of chaos that you have developed or it's the evil one trying to distract believers,

whether it's the technology or the news or just family messiness jesus i pray

that today as we look at your word may we drown out all the mess all the noise

and that we would see your truth And God,

I pray that your Holy Spirit now would take your truth and apply it to us,

Jesus, help me to know you in a deeper way For my brothers and sisters,

I pray that you would cause your word to go deep And your fire to ignite within

them a flourishing relationship with you, Jesus In Christ's name we pray, amen.

So when you think of strongholds, these are positions that the enemies will

do, and they will put these fortresses and these strongholds.

And Paul used earlier when we looked at it, these ideas of strongholds that

the evil one will use to get us to think about and develop these lies.

And so today I want to look at a couple of lies here.

If I do, you fill in the blank, then God will finally approve me.

If I just wait to be in a good spot, then God will truly be pleased by me.

And there's a bunch of other lies that can go right along with that theme.

But the stronghold is that I want to kind of tackle today through scripture

is my worth before God is based on how I perform as a believer.

My worth is based on how I perform as a believer. this idea of performance-based Christianity.

I grew up in a very fundamental legalistic style world.

And Christianity was all about what you had to do or what was defined for you.

This is what Christianity looks like.

And you have to fit this mold. And it was all based on this idea of performance

i think in their minds they it wasn't coming from a a dark spot but it was just

this idea of man controlling because if you think about i was thinking about this week.

Control we all like control if you're honest with yourself you'll actually come

come clean and you're like yeah i struggle with control anybody else struggle control people you're a.

Because we do, we like control. And how does that look like in our everyday life?

And so that's what I want to do today as we go through scripture today.

And really wrap our minds around, what does God look at us? How does God look

at us? And we're going to be looking at this church in Colossae. Paul was not there.

The gospel was brought to the church at Colossae from Epaphroditus.

And so he took the gospel there, and they were a Gentile group of believers.

So they didn't have the Judaism that we had in Jerusalem and all these other areas.

But what was happening is there was this legalism that was coming from the Jews.

There was this legalism coming and this idea of this extra things coming from

their area, their belief systems, kind of like bringing in this false theology,

this false ideology, really idolatry into the church.

And so this is what Paul was challenging the church at Colossae saying, look, you know what?

I don't know you personally, but my burden is for you.

And I pray for you. And these guys who are with me, we pray for you every day

and we're burdened for you.

And he gets into what Christ is, who Christ is. So if you go to chapter two.

Verse six, so then just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him,

being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith,

just as you were taught and overflowing with gratitude.

Be careful, be careful, excuse me, that no one takes you captive through philosophy

and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world rather than Christ.

Think about this right here, verse 9.

For the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ.

And you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision, not with hands,

and putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ,

when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with

him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

And when you were dead in the trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

he made you alive with him and forgave all of your trespasses.

He didn't hold them back. He forgave all of them. He erased the certificate

of debt with its obligations that was against us and opposed to us.

And has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed the rulers, the authorities, and disgraced them publicly.

He triumphed over him. Jesus said, that's such great truth.

God, I pray now as we unpack this truth. God, I pray for your Holy Spirit.

In Christ's name we pray, amen.

So let's narrow in on verse eight.

Paul is saying here to the church at Colossae, there is this legalism that's

trying to come in or this performance-based Christianity that's trying to come

in and say, okay, if you are truly a believer, Ben, if you're truly a believer, you got to do this.

If you truly love God, you have to do this. And they begin to add things.

And sometimes I talk to folks that come and visit our church,

and some folks that come to our church, and they come in very heavy.

Life is heavy. They have trials going on in their life, and they come in,

and they look at everybody else, and they look to their left,

look to their right, and everyone kind of looks like they're okay,

and they're just floating along, doing well.

And the reality is that that's a false assumption, isn't it?

Because I've talked to many folks and all of us have crap going on in our life right now, right?

We have trials going on in our life right now that are real.

And we may come in and put on a face on a Sunday, but that's not genuine, right?

And so often we folks will, as new believers will come in and they're like,

oh, I have to make it look like I'm just going to fake it. I got to fake it.

No, that's false thinking. That's false teaching.

If you're struggling with something, then say it.

Don't hold it in because the reality is there are many folks that struggle.

I know our sister right here, Linda, is going through cancer and she's got a

lot of things on her mind right now.

And she has to go to God every day.

And some days are probably good. some days are

probably not so good right and that's

the reality that that is what it looks like to walk with christ it's

you're not always going to have your mess in order right it's not always going

to be look perfect but we want to go back to what does god say what does god

say about this idea of performance-based christianity so he is giving a warning

here through paul he's look,

be careful that no one takes you captive through this philosophy and these empty

deceit based on human tradition,

based on the elements of the world rather than Christ.

Because for the entire fullness of God, God's nature dwells bodily in Christ.

And you have been filled by him who is the head over every ruler and authority,

and you have been filled by him who is the head over every ruler and authority.

And verse, a different translation here, if you want to look at it.

Kind of impacts a little bit differently, brings it out a little more.

Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high sounding nonsense

that come from human thinking and from spiritual powers of this world rather than from Christ.

For in Christ lives all the fullness of God and human body.

So you are also complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over

the body and over every authority.

This idea, so Paul's warning his here, look,

don't be taken in by this wrong thinking that somehow you have to seek God's

approval based on these external things.

If you look a certain way, if you act a certain way, all of this is going to,

show that you truly love God.

And that's not what Paul is saying here. Paul is saying, yeah,

later on in the letter to the Colossians, he talks about what it looks like

to have Christ live in your life every day.

He talks to your wives, talks to wives, husbands, kids.

To bosses. He gets into the specifics of what it looks like to be a follower

of Christ, but it's not anything in addition.

God is not approved, you are not approved anymore by God by anything you can do.

There's zero things you can do to get the approval of God.

If that was the case, you're in trouble. You are in serious trouble,

right? It has nothing to do with what you can do.

So in verse nine, think about this.

For the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ.

The entirety of who God is. This is mind boggling in our little finite minds.

We will never truly comprehend it, but this is God now truly coming.

And he talks in chapter one about how Christ is the preeminent one.

He was there at creation.

Creation was made by and through him. He was all of it. He was all over it.

And we have here the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ.

And if you go, I don't have it on the screen up here, but if you find your Bible

on your app or on your physical Bible.

I'm going to get my dumb glasses on here. If you go to chapter 1,

this is so powerful, we can't just skip over it.

So Colossians chapter 1, Paul says, Once you are alienated and hostile in your minds,

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

as expressed or lived out by your evil actions,

but now he christ

now has reconciled you by his physical body

through his death to present you holy again

has nothing to do with you has everything to do with him faultless nothing to

do with you nothing you can do to approve to seek to get the approval of god

and blameless before him if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not.

Hmm excuse me okay sorry my app is glitching here i know that's not the word

that's used but somehow it's a glean for you that's cutting off part of the word.

Right okay,

and those who have not seen me in person i want their hearts to be encouraged,

hearts to be encouraged and joined together that they may also have their riches

and complete understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery.

And what is the mystery? It's Christ.

And in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Talks about how in generations past, God was holding this mystery. He didn't reveal it.

Christ, he did not reveal Christ until it was time.

But when he did, that's what's talked about here in verse 9,

the entire fullness, everything that God had planned out in advance,

he finally revealed it now.

He had this great reveal and it's Christ and Christ actually embodied everything

that God was and through Christ now, and you have been filled by him.

And this word here gives the idea of this complete, this complete filling,

this completeness that's not done by you.

You are made complete by god it has nothing to do with you has nothing to do with what you can do,

so he's telling he's telling the church at colossia look these guys are coming

in trying to tell you you have to do x y and z to get god's favor and i'm telling

you no god says that actually he kept this mystery he kept this mystery from

man for generations and then when it was his time when God decided,

this is when it's going to happen. I'm going to reveal Christ.

And when Christ died on the cross, he rents a veil for top to the bottom.

His blood then was poured out and his sacrifice now made the debt,

all the accounts of debt, all of that has been wiped away.

And it has nothing to do with you or me and how we perform for God.

It has nothing to do with how we perform.

That's the evil one trying to get in That's the evil one trying to wiggle his way in,

Christ's church. So this idea of performance-based Christianity is from the father of lies.

We, and one of the examples here, right, of our, that we struggle with,

the evil one, he did not want to submit, right?

One of the battles that we struggle with is this idea of submission.

I was talking to a newer believer yesterday, and he was talking about what life

looked like before Christ, what Christ looked like in his life after Christ working in him.

It was a complete change. And he had this lie that he thought of submission,

that submission was a bad thing.

I was talking to Zach a couple of weeks ago about the same thing.

We get this idea that submission is a bad thing.

And our desire to have this control is coming from the evil one because the

evil one did not want to relinquish control and submit to God.

But there's an amazing thing that happens when we actually live under the authority of God.

No longer it's on you. So you don't have to sit up at night worrying about your

kids, your grandkids and all the stuff.

You don't have to sit there and worry about all these things.

God wants you to live under his authority. That means you give everything to

him. You don't hold stuff back.

And then when it comes to applying God's word and his spirit to your entire

life, you don't hold back certain areas.

You have to let him in the door of your house. And you have to let him clean

every stinking corner from your thought life to the way you talk to your wife,

the way you talk to your kids,

the way you talk to your parents, the way you talk when no one else is around.

God wants to get in there and clean everything. And it has nothing to do with

me and me guilting you into being submissive to God.

The Holy Spirit has to do it. Because if I go away, your pastor goes away,

some other guy that mentors you goes away, what happens?

Oh, I can't have a relationship with God. No, you can have a relationship with God.

It has nothing to do with me. it has nothing to

do with your husband your wife your parents no it's the

holy spirit the holy spirit takes hold of your life whether you're five years

old or 25 or 85 the holy spirit begins to work in your life it starts to get

and starts to break away and showing you things and as you look at god's word you realize oh.

Wow, I'm really a sinner. I really have areas of my life and the evil will get

in there and get us discouraged or maybe bring back shame, but the Holy Spirit

brings back, no, no, no, no.

You, you have been made perfect. You have been complete.

You got all of God, all of it, all at once. And that's who he looks at, not at you.

So you can rely on Christ. That's why Paul says later, He said that you are

actually hidden in Christ.

So when God looks at you, he's not looking at you.

Otherwise you're in trouble, right? He is not looking at you.

He is looking at Christ. He is looking at his own fullness of who God is.

And when you start understanding that letting this kind of permeate your life,

what's going to happen is the Holy Spirit is going to start tearing things away.

And there's going to be cleaning taking place.

And there's going to be remodeling taking place. and walls are going to start coming down.

Strongholds are going to start breaking and you're going to see things today

or a year from now that you didn't even see today.

And that's part of us living in submission to God.

Because in one way, no, it's not performance-based Christianity,

but what is God's desire for us?

What is God's desire? In the marketing world.

I used to go and I would talk to clients and we would talk about their desired

outcomes I used to work with a lot of chick-fil-a's and and and I'd start talking

with them one of the first things we'd say is okay well like what is your desired

outcome like what do you want to do it what area of your business do you want

to grow and you get into this idea of like,

what are the outcomes you're wanting.

Was thinking about this when it comes to what does God want from us?

What is God's desire from us? It's not a performance that we can somehow earn

his approval, but at the same time, we are to be applying God's word to our life.

We are to be in God's word and looking at God's word and studying God's word

and not just studying it, not just talking about it, but actually applying God's truth.

So God's desire is for me to submit to Him and live under His authority in every,

every, every area of my life to the day I stop breathing, right?

In a nutshell, that's the Christian life.

God wants us to be living in submission to Him.

And at first you look at that and say, oh, it's horrible to submit.

I don't want to submit. I don't want to obey my parents. I don't want to obey.

We don't want to submit. But the reality is when you actually submit to the

authority of God and you submit to who he is, then God just starts to change things.

God begins to change things and he begins to take his word and wreak havoc in your life in a good way.

We desire often control in our life. I know I do.

Christine will tell you.

Or I have a hard time like delegating, or you want things done a certain way

and so you kind of just do it yourself.

And then you find that you start to apply that to your own life and there's

no freedom in that, is there?

When we're just trying to figure it out ourselves, God, I will reach out to

you if I need you, but right now I'm good.

Until God brings you to a trial where you can't look anywhere but up.

And the reality is that that's the evil one trying to

bring you back to his way of thinking that

you need control because when you

put your life in submission with him when you you release your

control of your life you say god i submit to you what happens is the holy spirit

starts to do something for those of you who are older in life and have seen

a lot of days how much control do you actually have none right who is who is

causing you to take that breath in right now.

And ain't the guy sitting next to you. And ain't the lady sitting next to you. It's not you.

It's God. God is causing those lungs to breathe. He's causing that heart to go.

And when God says it's time for that heart to stop, that's it. And you know what?

Instead of fearing about that day, we just got to come say, you know what,

God, you know what you're doing?

I trust in you. I have faith in you. So if my heart is going to stop tomorrow, Awesome.

Because I can just spend eternity with you. Why live in this fear of what's

to come when you have zero control of it anyway, right? You can't control any of it.

And that's this idea, the evil one constantly, where we want to have control.

And that's not where God wants us. God wants us in this submission and authority and who he is.

In a second, we're gonna pray. my heart's desire for us as believers is to recognize

this battle that's there,

Holy Spirit would start doing some battles within you and start pointing these

areas of, oh, yeah, you like control.

You like control here, here, here, here, and here. I say, okay, yes, yes, God, I do.

But please help me to submit to your authority.

Jesus, I thank you. I thank you for your truth. That before you, we are complete.

It has nothing to do with what I can do to please you. because you know that

I have failed many, many, many times.

But your grace has been there to forgive.

Your grace has been there to begin to work.

So Jesus, I thank you for your Holy Spirit by not leaving us alone.

Jesus, I pray for my sister or brother today that came in just overwhelmed with

life. And these are real trials, very difficult.

We're not diminishing those whatsoever. Jesus, but you don't want my brother

or sister to shoulder that alone.

So Jesus, I pray that you would reach out in a real way, just like you did this week with Jake.

Amazing that he is asking to have scripture be read over him.

It's absolutely amazing.

So Jesus, I pray that you would

begin to show up in our lives and

my brothers and sisters lives who are weighed down by the world or weighed down

just by life by trials real trials only you jesus can break through only you

your holy spirit can break through jesus i pray that you would do a work i pray that you would,

help us to come into that submission with you.

And that you would ignite a fire within us. For my brothers,

my brothers and you, Jesus, I pray as men that we would stop being stubborn.

And that we would stop thinking like we got it all figured out.

And just come to that submission of you and be in your word and surround ourselves

with your word and worship.

That we would show our kids that it's cool to worship.

It's the right thing to do worship. It's the manly thing to do,

to worship and to talk about you, that we would not be afraid to talk about

you and talk about your fingerprints on our lives.

Those that are our kids, our grandkids, those people around us would see you actually working.

So Jesus, help us not to keep what you are doing in our heart and our life to

ourselves, but that you would work that out of us and that we would get outside

of ourselves and talk about your work.

So Jesus, I pray for our men. I pray for my brothers that we as men of faith,

we would not back down, that we would be bold in our walk with you,

bold in battling the evil one,

identifying the enemy at every turn.

And Jesus, for my sisters, I can't understand women.

I've been surrounded by my entire life, but I know that they struggle with fear.

I know there's so many things, their minds are constantly going They have this

internal conversation constantly ping-ponging upside their head.

And Jesus, I pray that's how you made them. And that's great. That's awesome.

But God, I pray that you would help them.

Those thoughts that are ever turning around and thinking of this and that and

this and that, that you would help them come to your authority and that you would bring your truth.

So the truth that's ping-ponging around in their heads is not from the evil

one, Not of all the things they got to do, but all these truths about you.

Jesus, I pray for my sisters as they battle with that or fear or all the other

areas, the control things, everything that men struggle with just a little bit differently.

God, I pray for my sisters that they would let you in to clean house in every

area, in every area of their life.

And Jesus said they would know that they are loved by you.

Not based on anything that they've done but they're loved by you they don't

have to do anything more to be loved by you Jesus I pray that they would understand

that and not just understand but actually believe it that my sisters are loved by you,

you call them pure before you because of Christ.

So Jesus I pray that they would understand what the fullness of you is their

completeness and the union that they have with you.

And Jesus, I pray for my younger brothers and sisters today,

or maybe some that are struggling or searching.

Say, oh, the adults, they talk about God, but I don't know about me.

I'm not sure if I really believe. It's kind of hokey and it's what boomers do

and whatever else, whatever lie the evil one throws in their face.

Jesus, I pray that you would make yourself real in these young people's lives,

that you would show yourself real, that you are king, you are Lord, even in their world.

Jesus, we thank you for them. We thank you for their lives. As Ben prayed earlier,

that what they represent to your kingdom.

So Jesus, I pray that they would get on a fire for you and maybe even challenge

the older folks what it looks like to be on a fire for you.

So Jesus, we thank you for your church. We thank you how you change us.

We thank you how you work.

God, I pray that you'd continue to do so in our lives.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

In just a minute, we'll sing one more song. I wanted to share a couple things.

I wrote it out in my hand because I always forget things, and I can't even read my writing. Holy cow.

Oh, for Pete's sake. Oh, I know. Okay.

One was we started a podcast in the last week or so. we went back like about April.

And some of the messages are just messages from Sunday, but then we also are

doing some interviews with believers.

And our first one was with Ben.

And so I'll post something on Facebook and send a text message out.

And Ben, I was able to sit down with Ben and interview him and just learn more

about his life and learn more of his story.

And I think you'll find it really encouraging just to hear what God has done

in his life and is continually doing in his life.

And then the other thing is, one of the areas that God's been working on me

with this whole control thing.

That as a church, we don't want to, I have in my head, I have this internal

conversation in my head, like, oh, I don't want folks that come to church just

to think we're all about money, or we're all about, you know, that kind of thing.

And the reality is God's been working on me in our giving.

That's the challenge I thought a couple weeks ago, or for several weeks.

But our giving is a direct reflection of what our relationship with God.

And no, I have no idea what anyone gives and I never will.

But I do know that our body here is very grateful and God is doing some things

and God is doing some things in the all year round on our Wednesday nights.

And so we're going to be creating a new partnership thing called Kingdom Builders Partnerships.

And what I would ask for you, I know you guys are going back to your homes and

whatnot. there's three areas. One is prayer.

We have seen God do some amazing things this year and it's incredible and it's

all of God has nothing to do with any of us.

And so we would like to encourage more folks to continue and then also to join us as prayer partners.

And secondly, if God leads you to help give and support what we're doing here

on our outreach, we're going to create an outreach fund for getting the gospel out to our area.

I've had some people confront me and they're like, we don't know if there's

a need unless you say something.

And I hate talking about money, as Dusty knows, so I never talk about money.

But the reality is we believe that God has some opportunities here for us.

And if God leads you to give toward our outreach fund, that's between you and

God, and we would be so grateful, and I know God would be grateful.

As Dusty challenged, like none of these possessions that we have actually belong to us.

And then the third area that we would love to have is just using some of your

talents that God has given you.

I know Holly needs help for our VBS. We need help with watching some of our kids mowing lawn.

We have some projects around here, installing some doors, changing light bulbs, that kind of stuff.

Or if you see something around here that you think would be better,

then tell us we love it so if god has gifted you a certain way we would love to see,

you use your talents for christ's kingdom here dusty would you close in prayer sir,

let's bow our heads father josh josh spoke there that the christian life is

submission to you and it sounds like slavery does it sounds like we're servants

it it sounds like a burden god the burden is me and I need to be free from me.

The best thing I can do is forget about myself and my ways and my efforts and

submit to what you want me to do.

God, I ask that you would make that real to people today.

Submission to you is freedom itself. It makes me more, more myself than I ever

was when I did it my own way. Yeah.

Thank you for your son who paid for our freedom. Make a real to us today.

Help us to remember as we go from here this week that we submit to you in your

name. Amen. Amen. Have a great week.

Music.