Living Up To The Name (Seventh Sunday After Pentecost, July 24, 2022)

LIVING UP TO THE NAME

Text: Colossians 2:6 – 19

Colossians 2:6-19? As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, ?(7)? rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. ? (8)? See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. ?(9)? For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, ?(10)? and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. ?(11)? In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; ?(12)? when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. ?(13)? And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, ?(14)? erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. ?(15)? He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. ?(16)? Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. ?(17)? These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. ?(18)? Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, ?(19)? and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

The present means nothing and the future is gloomy if Christ is not in us. There is a peace that we have only in our relationship with Jesus Christ that we do not have and will not have apart from Jesus. Billy Sunday once said, “Going to church doesn’t make anybody a Christian any more than taking a wheelbarrow into a garage makes them an automobile”. (Michael Hogdon. ed. 1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. 1994, p. 36). Paul reminds us that we are to be rooted and built up in Christ so that we live up to the name of what it means to be a Christian within and influential in our witness of Christ to others on the outside.

Today we will explore assurance, pardon and pilgrimage.

ASSURANCE

Who doesn’t want assurance?

1) Religious concept: We normally think of assurance as a religious concept. There is not a soul alive who does not want assurance---the certainty of confidence of our salvation in Jesus Christ. The peace that comes from being saved. Who does not want the hope of full assurance till the end (Hebrews 6:11)?

2) Prime Meridian: English astronomer John Flamsteed made it his life’s mission (see McHenry below) to learn how to navigate by the heavens with a chart of 2935 stars (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Flamsteed . His work is called the Prime Meridian [which] “… is a fixed position by which our knowledge of time and place can be understood [geographically]. The Bible is like that with us. Scripture is our prime meridian. It is the fixed position, given by God himself, through which we can understand who we are, where we are, and where we must go from here” [spiritually]. (Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshoff. eds. 1001 Illsutrations that Connect. [Original Source: — Kenton C. Anderson, Choosing to Preach (Zondervan, 2006) ] Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2002). . God wants us to have the “fixed position” of spiritual assurance of salvation that gives us the peace of Christ because we belong to Christ who died for us on the cross! When we truly have that peace we truly will know “where we must go from here”. We must go and share the Gospel!

3) Leaning upon God: Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. (6) In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths (NRSV).

What could interfere with our assurance?

1) Captivity warning: Paul was warning them not to be fooled by the idea that you could add things to the Christian faith. In Colossians 2:8 Paul warned about adding philosophy, empty deceit and human traditions that detracted from the truth of the Gospel.

2) Syncretism: Syncretism is a term that describes what Paul was talking about in Colossians 2:8. In the context of the text for today, syncretism is the fusion or combination of religious beliefs or practices. (a paraphrase of the definition given by The Merriam -Webster Dictionary). 1 Corinthians 8:6 says “yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (NRSV).