Above All: A Study in Colossians
Col 2:18-23
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
Cubbie Dog
When I first moved to Illinois, a friend offered to take me to a Cubs game. I explained that I’m not really a baseball fan. He said, “It’s not just baseball, it's Wrigley Field.” After experiencing a game at Wrigley, I understood what he was talking about.
Before the game, we went across the street and got “cubbie dogs.” I made the mistake of asking where the ketchup was. I thought my friend was going to have a stroke.
Here is the official way to top a cubbie dog: Place each hot dog in a bun and top with the following: 2 tomato wedges, 1 Tbsp. onion, 1 Tbsp. yellow mustard, 1 Tbsp. relish, a couple peppers, one dill pickle spear and a dash of celery salt.
I just wanted ketchup. That’s what goes on a hot dog. I didn’t want a pickle spear. I didn’t want lobster. Just ketchup.
Sometimes we make things that should be very simple way too complicated.
At camp, I was in the boy’s cabin for nightly devos. One of the boys started talking about the fact that he was scared he was good enough to get into heaven. One of the other boys responded, “You’re not! That’s why Jesus died for you!”
The Gospel is simple - Jesus plus nothing equals everything! But many people try to add to this formula and end up with a different Gospel altogether.
Turn with me to Colossians 2:16.
Prayer.
Review
Last month, we began the study of these verses by looking at v. 16-17.
“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” (v. 16-17)
Paul first addresses the danger of legalism. He states emphatically that we are not to let anyone judge us, particularly in the areas of our diet and days of worship.
Why ? Because these dietary rules and religious days were just a shadow of things to come. They were not the real thing. The real thing, the substance, is found only in Christ.
The writer of Hebrews says it this way:
“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves.” (Hebrews 10:1)
Legalism looks inward to the self. Did I do enough? Did I do more than you? But it’s not about what we do, but what Jesus has done. We are complete in Christ.
Legalism focus on the faults of others. These people are finger pointers, sin sniffers (Skip Heitzig), fault finders.
Legalism is contagious. It spreads like a virus.
Legalism makes us narrow and divisive. Everyone has to look like me. God never calls us to uniformity. He calls us to unity in the midst of diversity. Concert
Legalism is joyless and leads to anger and arrogance.
Buck Parson has shared these wise words:
“The ironic thing about legalism is that it doesn't make us want to work harder, it makes us want to give up.”
Legalism produces a shallow faith that is obsessed with secondary matters.
Chuck Swindoll has written:
“Nothing will keep a Christian more immature than keeping a list.”
Paul then turns to the second danger - mysticism.
Mysticism
“Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. (v. 18-19)
The Colossian Christians were not to let these false teachers steal their joy by imposing external rules on their faith.
They were also to be on their guard for those who would want to disqualify them from the prize.
The word disqualify is the word picture of an umpire throwing a player out of the game. [Think red card in soccer]
They are not be be taken captive, or allow others to judge them, or allow others to set themselves up as judge and jury over their spiritual journeys.
The false teachers are taking advantage of something that was already happening in the Lycus Valley. People there would often times call on angels for protection, for success in business, for or the destruction of their enemies.
These false teachers were imposing or insisting on the worship of angels. They had a false humility that said, “We are too humble to approach God so we worship His intermediaries - angels.”
But in Hebrews 1-2, the writer clearly portrays Jesus as over the angelic beings and Paul tells Timothy:
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.” (I Tim 2:5-6)
That’s why we don’t venerate Mary or pray to saints.
We are to worship only Christ.
“He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Him.” (John 14:6)
Let me stop here and teach a little about angels. Angels are created beings. They are nether male or female although they sometimes manifest themselves in those forms.
“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2)
Angels and humans are two different things - apples and oranges. When we die, we do not “get our wings,” we do not become angels. If fact, even angels would consider that an insult to humans.
There are good angels and bad angels, called demons, whose main goal is to distract, desensitize, and destroy.
Angels aren’t little fat babies with harps. They are warriors that, if we could see them, would tempt us to worship them.
In fact, archeologists have found multiple chapels dedicated to the arch angel Michael.
This was really about mysticism. Warren Wiersbe defined mysticism as “the belief that a person can have an immediate experience with the spiritual world, completely apart from the Word of God or the Holy Spirit.”
These false teachers were telling the Colossian Christians that they needed to have the same visions and experiences about these angels that they had in order to be a mature Christian.
These people were holding court and going into great detail what what they had seen.
You haven’t heard the voice of God? I did yesterday. He spoke to me while I was in a trance.
They might hear this and start feeling like there was something wrong with them. They are just trying to make through the day spiritually. They feel like the spiritual “have nots.”
So they start chasing these experiences. They want to the miracles, the visions, the spiritual goosebumps.
Some churches teach the practice of grave soaking. You visit the grave of a holy man or woman and lay on their grave to “soak up their anointing.”
Sometimes those spiritual goosebumps come and when they do it’s amazing.
I was in a worship service one time when the Spirit of God so present that I found myself face down on the floor weeping.
We took a group of 15 students to New York City (Queens) for a mission trip. On the last night during worship, several of the students disappeared and returned with basins and pitchers of water.
They proceeded to take off the adult leader’s shoes and wash our feet. I called Maxine crying so hard she thought someone had died. It was one of the most amazing Holy Spirit moments I’ve ever experienced.
But that’s not what our whole spiritual journey is about.
Nearly thirty years ago, I fell in love with my little redheaded girl. What I learned was those romantic feelings we had in the beginning would not get us to thirty years.
It’s a long obedience in the same direction that will get you to 30 and beyond.
Paul is saying that they don’t need to chase spiritual goosebumps. They are complete in Christ! They have “been qualified to share in the inheritance with His holy people in the kingdom of light.” (1:12)
These teachers were puffed up with idle notions by the unspiritual minds.
Jeremiah says this is nothing new:
“I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’ How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds?” (Jeremiah 23:25-26)
But Paul apparently had a vision of heaven but it didn’t puff him up but humbled him to his knees:
“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.” (2 Cor 12:2-4)
These teachers had lost connection with the head, Christ. This seems to say that these teachers were from outside the Colossian Church community.
As the body stays focused on Christ and Christ alone, the church grows in its love for each other and the community around it.
I love how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this verse:
“They’re completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.” (Col 2:19, The Message)
Point to Ponder: If you never have another spiritual goosebump in your life , would it be enough that Jesus died for you?
Asceticism
"Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” (v. 20-23)
Paul brings it all back to our being “in Christ,” “since you died with Christ and to the world which He conquered why would you submit to, literally “to put yourself under” its rules?
F.F. Bruce wrote:
“It would be preposterous indeed for those who had reaped the benefit of Christ’s victory to put themselves voluntarily under the control of the powers which he had conquered.”
The false teachers believed that the body was bad and the soul was good so one way you could get close to God was by punishing the body.
If the body was bad, then why did God choose to have His Son incarnated into a human body? The Gnostics would say that He didn’t. Jesus didn’t have a real human body. It was more like a ghost.
Within one hundred years of the letter to the Colossians, the monastic movement would spring up and totally ignore everything that Paul wrote.
There were monks that lived in holes for years, others went naked and lived in thorn bushes. There was a group that were called the grazers who lived on top of a hill and ate grass like cattle. One famous “holy man” lived on top of a pillar for 40 years.
Diogenes lived in a barrel and walked around nearly naked. When he saw a child drinking water from a well with his hands, he smashed his own cup, realizing that he had been carrying around a possession he didn’t need.
This is asceticism. Wiersbe write: “An ascetic practices rigorous self-denial and even self-mortification in order to become more spiritual.”
This might have had an appearance of wisdom with self-imposed worship, false humility, and the harsh treatment of the body but, in the end, it had no ability to change a person’s heart. It was all external.
Martin Luther entered the monastery not because he wanted to but because he had made a vow that if God rescued him from a thunderstorm he would devote the rest of his life to God.
He felt tremendous guilt for his sins so he would starve himself, sleep naked outside when it was freezing, and beat himself bloody.
He traveled to Rome and went up the steps at the basilica on his knees kissing each step and saying the “correct prayers” but it didn’t seem to help.
By studying the book of Romans and Galatians he learned that the “just shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17). It was not about what he could do, it was about what Christ has DONE!
That lead to Martin’s freedom and fullness and launched what we now know as the Reformation.
Paul says all of this external religion may impress others but it doesn’t impress God and it is impotent in “restraining sensual indulgence.”
Take the men that I have worked with that have found themselves addicted to internet pornography.
What if told them, “The key to winning this battle is to have more self control. Don’t even look at your computer. Better yet, don’t look at woman, even your wife. When you are feeling tempted, put on your blindfold and tie your hands behind your back and say the Lord’s prayer three times.”
If they did all of this, they might come off as looking pretty spiritual. But it would do absolutely nothing to deal with the real temptations.
Self control is a fruit of the Spirit, not the result of white knuckling. What they need to do it stop trying and start trusting God to help them through the battle. It’s not about their eyes, hands, or any other part of their body. It’s all about their hearts.
Freedom and fullness is found in having your heart changed by Jesus.
John and Charles Wesley started what became known as the “Holy Club” at Oxford in 1729 with a group of like minded zealous students.
They prayed together, examined their lives, studied their Bible in the Greek, took food to poor families, visited prisoners, and taught orphans to read. They took communion often and fasted on Wednesday and Friday until 3:00 pm.
Many years later, John would be the founder of the Methodist Church and Charles would write some of the greatest hymns ever.
Later John would be on a ship headed to the New World with a group of Moravian Christians. A violent storm came up and broke the mast of the ship. While others on the boat freaked out, the Moravians prayed and sang hymns. It was watching them that convince John that he wasn’t born again and marked his conversion to Christianity.
The Holy club was just a group of religious students doing religious things but their hearts had not yet been captured by God’s amazing grace.
Point to Ponder: Are you a born again Christian or do you just how know to play church?
Communion
That’s why this table is so important. It’s nothing something that we do to earn brownie points with God, or earn more grace. We come to this table to celebrate our fullness, freedom, and the fact that we are complete in Christ!
