Welcome and thank you for worshipping with us this morning on this Memorial Day weekend.
Keep Colossians 2 open before you, will you? It’s good to see many of you for the first time in months! And we are grateful for those of you continuing to worship with us online as well.
Please text the word “guest” to this number on the screens if you would like for someone to pray with you..
Happy Memorial Day to everyone! Many of you know of someone who died during their service in the military. For some, this was your very children. Today, we express a small token of the rightful appreciation due to these men and women.
Let’s pray:
Father in Heaven,
We come before your throne on this day to remember the courage of people who stood against evil in foreign and domestic places. The uniform of our military is a reminder of the justice found in you, holy God. I pray your healing presence is with father and mothers, uncles and aunts, and sisters and brothers who have lost their family members in service to such great ideas of religious freedom. You never intended anyone to be forced into conversion for faith to you and you certainly desire everyone to have the right to know you in all nations. Father, may you bless us with the courage to stand against religious tyranny anywhere and everywhere. Will you give us brave men and women to boldly push back against evil dictators who seek to prevent people from have access to you and your word.
In Jesus Name, Amen.
Today, the title of the message is, “How Do I Get Right and Stay Right with God.” What American is in bad need of right now are people who are right with God. American needs men and women of deep biblical convictions.
Today’s Scripture (Passage Read Before Sermon)
“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 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, 19 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.
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— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 1:16-23).
Everyone adopts a set of ethics, a system of right and wrong. You own your own set of right and wrongs. Everyone adopts their own set of ethics. For Winston Churchill, it was Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In 1941 Churchill wrote: “The more closely we follow the Sermon on the Mount, the more likely we are to succeed in our endeavors.” Churchill thought the famous sermon was the last word in ethics.
What’s your favorite vice? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus touches on red-hot anger, lust that leads to adultery, divorce, lying, revenge, and hatred. What’s that one vice that you turn back so often? The Puritans would call this your besetting sin. Hold that one vexing vice in front of you for the next few moments, will you?
Let me show you three people to avoid and in the end, one person to be. Evaluate which of these three you tried in the past and how they failed you.
1. Pedro, the Pharisee
You’ve probably known a jerk for Jesus at some point in your life. “Someone who thought they were advancing the cause of the kingdom when in reality they were simply embarrassing the King.”
The Pharisees made up extra rules and treated their rules as if they came from God’s mouth. Jesus told these group these damning words: “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men” (Mark 7:8). On this Memorial Day, America needs people who have convictions but they need to be biblical convictions. Go back into Colossians 2 with me.
1.1 Therefore
Look with me at verse 16: “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” (Colossians 2:16).
Whenever you see the word “Therefore” in your Bibles, you need to under what it is there for? All of this connected back to Christ’s victory on the cross: “by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:14-15).
The “Therefore” in verse 16 points us to a better understand of what happened on the cross. Jesus did more than forgive your sins on the cross. He disarmed rulers. He triumphed over evil. He canceled debt. He removed legal demands.
1.2 Food
Paul’s warning included two areas: diet and days. As some of you know, the Old Testament categorized certain foods as clean and unclean (Leviticus 11:2–20). Jesus says it’s your heart that makes you unclean not what goes in your mouth (Mark 7:19). Faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection attacks your insides where the problem is – not the outside.
Back to food, Peter had a heavenly vision on a rooftop where God told him to enjoy all kinds of meat (Acts 10:15). Did someone say, “Bacon”?
This is still a big deal to this day. I remember a trip I had taken years ago to India where I had a chance to interact with Muslim man. The first question he asked me was, “You do not eat pork do you?” I was stunned. Of all the things we could possibly discuss that were eternally important, he choose to begin an interfaith discussion with pork?
1.3 Special Days
The Jews had their special feast days (Leviticus 25) and their “New Moon” celebrations (Numbers 10:10) and their Sabbaths (Exodus 20:9–11; 31:14-16).
It refers to the three great yearly feasts: the Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. This is a big issue for the New Testament church as you’ll see this addressed in Acts, Romans, and 1 Corinthians. So, a group inside the church of Colossae was trying to coerce people into keeping certain day and only eating certain food.
“These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:17).
The Bible says that these food restrictions and days to celebrate were a temporary thing. Now, a shadow is less significant that the object that causes the shadow. A shadow doesn’t last as long as the real thing. No one wants the shadow over the real thing.
The regulations of Judaism were designed only for a specific period of time. At one time, God people consisted of nearly one racial and cultural people. But this is simply out of date now because God’s people are becoming a world-wide family.
Avoid Pedro, the Pharisee.
Look carefully at the words of verse 16 with me, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” (Colossians 2:16). We need to resist false teaching that allows people to judge one another based on extra requirements from God’s Word. Any food or drink that causes you to lose brain function, needs to be avoided. This is wise for your life because so many people have thrown their lives away because of drugs and alcohol. Keep in mind that what Paul has in mind here has to do with kinds of meat that might be off-limits due to their Jewish heritage. Or in the letter to the Corinthians, meat offered to idols. Neither are a big deal to us, but we need to also be wise in how we
We have to be careful to not throw the “baby out with the bathwater” here. Yes, you need to avoid the extra rules of the Pharisees but you must continue to obey Moses’ commandments. Christians have a moral standard in the commandments of Moses from Mount Sinai (Exodus 20). I challenge and encourage you to adopt strong moral principles for your life. There should be some things you should NOT watch. There should be some clothes you do NOT wear. There is some websites you do NOT visit. There should be music you do NOT listen to. And there should be places you do NOT go.
Again, Pharisees love extra rules and you don’t have to be religious to be a Pharisee. Get this: some years ago in England Heidi met her future mother-in-law, Carolyn. Soon afterward Carolyn sent withering email to the future bride. Let me read you some excerpts:
“It is high time someone explained to you about good manners. Yours are obvious by their absence and I feel sorry for you. Unfortunately for Freddie, he has fallen in love with you and Freddie being Freddie, I gather it is not easy to reason with him or yet encourage him to consider how he might be able to help you. … Your behaviour on your visit to Devon during April was staggering in its uncouthness and lack of grace. Unfortunately, this was not the first example of bad manners I have experienced from you. If you want to be accepted by the wider Bourne family I suggest you take some guidance from experts with utmost haste…
Please, for your own good, for Freddie's sake and for your future involvement with the Bourne family, do something as soon as possible.
Here are a few examples of your lack of manners:
When you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat - unless you are positively allergic to something.
You do not remark that you do not have enough food.
You do not start before everyone else.
You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.
When a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early - you fall in line with house norms.
You should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter.
You should have hand-written a card to me. You have never written to thank me when you have stayed …
You regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why…
I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved over the years for their daughters' marriages.)
If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes.
Much of what this future mother in law said was good advice but perhaps Heidi needs to step her game a little. But, you might think that her three marriages, a previous live-in stint with a much older gentleman, and an out-of-wedlock child (what she described as a “colorful past”) that the tabloids quickly exposed would have given her pause before she hit the send button. Pharisees always love a condescending attitude.
“Jesus said to them, ‘Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees’” (Matthew 16:16).
What was “the leaven of the Pharisees,” you ask? They claimed to believe the Bible. They were often quoting Scripture, but they were dead spiritually. They had a head full of Scripture, but they had a heart full of sin. They had laws, but they didn’t have life. Oh, they were careful, all right. They would dot every i and cross every t, but they couldn’t spell the word love. Quoting from the heretics that came in after the church was started, look carefully at their words, “‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’” (Colossians 2:21).
It is living by rules that are outward rather than righteousness that is inward. Avoid Pedro, the Pharisee.
1. Pedro, the Pharisee
2. Self-Righteous Sammy
Not only must you avoid Pedro, the Pharisee but you want to run from Self-Righteous Sammy. Self-Righteous Sammy will always tell you how good he is. Willpower will make you a good person on the outside but it will also make you a prideful person. Good people who are good because of self-reliance are self-righteous.
This is another form of legalism. Think of these first two ways to get right as two forms of legalism. Now, the New Testament does not use the word “legalism.” Legalism means keeping biblical standards of conduct by our own power in order to earn God’s favor.
Look at the end of verse 23 with me: “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:23). Self-righteousness doesn’t offer us any real stopping power to stop our ugly selves.
It’s an attempt to be ethical in YOUR power, YOUR OWN strength. Again, you can stop a lot of sin in your life by willpower but there’s always one sin you will always defeat you – it’s pride! The truth is: you cannot be good without God’s help. You cannot be good without God’s help. Moral behavior that does NOT grow out of faith in Christ is legalism. A Legalist is a self-reliant moral person. When you’re good on your power, the Bible says you’ll best the most moral person in hell one day.
2.2 Holy Spirit
You see, the Spirit comes dwells you embrace Christ by faith (Romans 8:9). You’ll need more power than just willpower in your life. You’ll need God’s power, God’s Spirit.
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
This is a prediction centuries before Christ of what the Holy Spirit does when He comes into your life. A heart transplant takes place. He removes the fossilized heart, your rebellious nature. The new heart is God’s Spirit inside you.
God’s commands are not burdensome. God’s commands are beneficial. With the power of the Holy Spirit, they’re not that hard to keep. God gives us both the will and the power to obey.
2.3 Mitochondria
Live me see if we can attack this a different way so you’ll remember this long past this sermon.
If you remember your basic biology class from high school, we learned that your cell’s power station was what? Do you remember? Mitochondria! Mitochondria are the cell's power stations; they transform the energy stored in nutrients for use by cells. Your cell has lots of things inside of it including a Golgi apparatus, nucleus and the cell membrane. But the Mitochondria is the cell’s powerhouse. So crucial is Mitochondria to the cell that they even trigger a cell’s death. Illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, and tumors can be traced back to dysfunctions in the power plant of the cell, Mitochondria. As Mitochondria powers the human cell, the Holy Spirit powers you. If you want to be free from crippling addictions, don’t be self-righteous Sammy.
Instead, be powered by the Spirit to grow in goodness. When your goodness is powered by the Holy Spirit, you grow in humility. When your goodness is powered by you (willpower), you grow in arrogant pride.
Many of you who are listening to me have smoked your first marijuana joint this past week. You don’t have to become addicted. That’s enough! Friend, repent in the name of Jesus right now. Some of you have slept with an unmarried man or woman for the first time this week – that’s enough! Turn around right now! Come back home to your Father now. One of you has gotten drunk for the first time this weekend. That’s enough! Turn around now. God has sent me to tell you, “Turn around right now by the power of His Holy Spirit.”
Listen to me: “If your religion hasn’t changed your life, you’d better change your religion, because Jesus will make a bad man good and a good man better.”
Remember, self-righteousness doesn’t have real stopping power.
1. Pedro, the Pharisee
2. Self-Righteous Sammy
3. Liberal Larry
Let me introduce you to the third kind of person you want to avoid: “Jesus said to them, ‘Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees’” (Matthew 16:16). If the Pharisee stands for the one who makes extra rules to follow, the Sadducee stands for the leaven of liberalism.
The devil is very crafty. On the one side, if he can’t make you a legalist, he’ll try and get you with liberalism.
While, the Pharisees were the fundamentalists, the Sadducees were the liberals. Neither one of them had the true Spirit of God in their hearts. The Sadducees said, “We don’t believe in angels, we don’t believe in spirits, and we sure don’t believe in the Resurrection” (Acts 23:6-10). They were the sophisticated crowd.
“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” (Colossians 2:19).
You must continually hold onto Jesus as the truth. Today’s liberals believe there is no ONE Truth. “We all can get along because there is no one truth.”
This is a denial of the gospel itself. Avoid Liberal Larry, Self-Righteous Sammy, and Pharisee Pedro.
Jesus Fulfills ALL. “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:17). When Christ came, he fulfilled them all! The real thing has come in Jesus Christ (Luke 24:47). Christ in you is the only way you can be free of your crippling addictions in life.
