"Christ is All You Need"
Colossians 2:6-23
Have you ever wondered if God really loves you?
Author and speaker Brennan Manning has a pretty cool story about how he got the name "Brennan."
While growing up, his best friend was a guy named Ray.
The two of them did everything together: bought a car together as teenagers, double-dated, went to school together.
They even enlisted in the Army together, went to boot camp together and fought on the frontlines together.
One night while sitting in a foxhole, Brennan was talking about the old days in Brooklyn while Ray listening and ate a candy bar.
Suddenly a live grenade came into the foxhole.
Ray looked at Brennan, smiled, dropped his candy bar and threw himself on the live grenade.
It exploded, killing Ray, but Brennan's life was spared.
When Brennan became a priest he had to take on the name of a saint.
So, he thought of his friend, Ray Brennan.
So he took the name "Brennan."
Years later Brennan went to visit Ray's mother in Brooklyn.
They sat up one night talking when Brennan asked her, "Do you think Ray loved me?"
Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in front of Brennan's face and shouted, "What more could he have done for you?"
Brennan said that at that moment he experienced an epiphany.
He imagined himself standing in front of the Cross of Jesus wondering, "Does God really love me?"
And Jesus' mother Mary pointing to her Son, saying, "What more could He have done for you?"
In our Scripture Lesson for this morning, Paul is writing to a young Christian Church in Colossae.
At the time of Paul's writing Colossae was a leading city in Asia Minor which is now present-day Turkey.
Most of the people who were part of this church were Gentiles.
That means that they were non-Jews.
They had never been Jews.
They had been pagans, and they were surrounded by pagans who believed in many gods and the worship of angels, and so forth.
Also, there were some folks who were Jews who had become Christ-followers who believed that a person had to become a Jew before they could become a Christian.
In other words, just accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior wasn't enough.
You also had to follow the Jewish laws, holiness codes, traditions, festivals, Sabbath days, and it goes on and on...
...in order for God to accept and love you.
That is why Paul talks here about circumcision.
These Jewish Christians, or Judaizers, as they were called, said that Christians needed to be circumcised, which of course, was the initiation rite for males into Judaism.
And all this was causing this young church to go into a tailspin.
When they had accepted Christ, they had believed that Christ was all they needed.
They had believed that they were being saved by grace through faith--that there was nothing else they could do to add to their salvation, or to make God love and accept them more.
But these false teachers, these Judaizers were telling them differently.
It was causing them to doubt their salvation and God's love for them in Jesus Christ.
Again, have you ever wondered, "Does God really love me?"
"Am I saved?"
"I don't feel good enough"?!!!
"There must be more that I must do to measure up."?
A number of years ago I came upon an older woman who attended the same Bible study I did, and we got into a pretty heavy conversation about God and heaven and so forth.
I was quite surprised when this woman said to me, "Heaven is going to be a wonderful place, but I won't be there."
"What?," I said.
"Jesus died for you. Jesus loves you. You believe that Jesus is Lord do you not?"
She admitted that she did, but this wonderful human being had been so "beat up" by the world, her self-esteem had been so shattered...
...that she just couldn't believe that anyone could really love her...including God.
She had been molested by her father when she was a child, and then she had been abused in her relationships as an adult.
She had been told by words and actions so many times that she just didn't measure up...that she just wasn't good enough to be loved.
So she could not imagine herself in heaven, only hell.
Would not Paul say to her what he writes to the Christians in Colossae: "See to it that nobody enslaves you with...foolish deception, which conform to...the way the world thinks.
All the fullness of deity lives in Christ's body.
And you have been filled by him, who is the head of every ruler and authority."?
The word for "enslaves" used here can also be translated as "takes you captive."
And the word is very close to the Greek word used for "synagogue."
And so, when we look at the warning that Paul gives the Colossians he's basically saying to them, "See to it that no one lures you or enslaves you to the synagogue."
And why would Paul say that?
Because these Judaizers had told the new converts that in becoming Christians they had only gotten half of what they needed.
What they needed to do now to complete the experience, was to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses--in other words--to become Jews.
And so Paul is writing, "Don't get drawn into their teaching; it'll be a form of captivity or enslavement for you."
"It will, in fact, drag you down to the level where you were before you knew Christ."
"All the fullness of deity lives in Christ's body.
And you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
You were also circumcised by him.
This wasn't done by human hands--the whole body was removed through this circumcision by Christ."
In other words, you have died with Christ, and in verse 13 he says, "God made you alive with Christ and forgave all the things you had done wrong..."
He goes on, "He destroyed the record of debt we owed, with its requirements that worked against us.
He cancelled it by nailing it to the cross...
...so don't let anyone judge you...
...don't let anyone who wants to practice harsh self-denial and worship angels rob you of the prize...
...If you died with Christ to the way the world thinks and acts, why do you submit to rules and regulations as though you were living in the world?
'Don't handle!' 'Don't taste!' Don't touch!'"
Paul calls this a "self-made religion."
One of the most appealing things about Judaism in the pagan world of the first century was its high moral code.
It made heavy demands, and often when people are sick and tired of the murky and immoral world of paganism they are glad to embrace a way of life which offers clear, bright, clean lines.
"Don't handle this, don't taste that, don't touch this."
The very detailed regulations and the strict discipline it would take to try and follow them might make people think that they must really be making advances in their moral and spiritual lives.
"Well," says Paul, "It may feel like that, but it's an illusion.
Go that way and the street will soon come to a dead end.
A religion that focuses on the details of things you're allowed, or not allowed to touch or eat--he obviously has the Jewish food regulations in mind--is dealing with perishables.
God deals with eternity--with the BIG picture.
Trying to follow a bunch of rules and regulations won't make you holy.
It won't make God love you more.
It won't save you.
It will really only frustrate you and make you feel more and more unworthy.
The only way to really change is to allow the love of Jesus Christ to transform you!!!
You need to die and be raised.
You need to give yourself 100 percent over to the One Who loves You and died for you.
Jesus is all you need!!!
God loves you; live into that reality.
That is what it's about."
Can you sense the sigh of relief that the Colossians must have experienced when they were reassured that they were already complete in Christ and didn't need anything else, just more of what they already had?
Have you ever felt pressured by yourself or others to "add" to your Christian experience?
Do you know the same sigh of relief yourself?
Pastor Tim Keller is quoted as saying, "Here's the Gospel: you're more sinful than you ever dared believe; you're more loved than you ever dared hope."
And once we realize how much God loves us, no matter where we are in life...
...no matter what we have done...
...no matter how sinful...
...no matter how far we fall short...
...that is when we learn to really love God in return.
And when we love God in return, we begin to change.
Because when we love God, we love others, and our love for and desires for the dark side of things, the evil things, the twisted things, the things that hurt others become truly repulsive...
...and when that begins to happen, an excitement takes over our lives...
...a transformation is occurring...
...and we know God is alive and well, and we are part of God's Kingdom, and God loves us!!!
And we don't want anything to get in the way of that!!!
In Galatians 5:6 Paul writes, "The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love."
And in 1 John 4:7-11 we are told: "Dear friends, let's love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God.
The person who doesn't love does not know God, because God is love.
This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him.
This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice to deal with our sins."
Brennan Manning had a life-long friend who jumped on a grenade to save his life.
And even after that occurred, Brennan asked, "Do you think my friend loved me?"
God came into this world, took our sins on the Cross, shed His blood and died the death we deserve so that through faith in Him we might have eternal life.
And even after that, we sometimes ask: "Does God really love me?"
Paul tells the Church in Colossae, and Paul tells you and Paul tells me, "See to it that no one enslaves you with...foolish deception...
...When you were dead because of the things you had done wrong...God made you alive with Christ and forgave all the things you had done wrong.
He destroyed the record of debt we owed...
...he cancelled it by nailing it to the cross."
Someone once said, "I know that it sounds so simplistic, but Christianity is about Jesus!
We forget that!"
"So live in Christ Jesus the Lord in the same way as you received him.
Be rooted and built up in him, be established in the faith, and overflow with thanksgiving..."
Praise God, Praise God, Praise God!!!
Amen.
