We’re in the series on Reaching Your Full Potential for God.
Last week we covered the pre-requisites to reaching your full potential for God. The Bible laid the groundwork in Colossians chapter one for your advancement in Christ. Reaching your full potential in God is so vitally important because it reaches out and touches every other area of your life. Your relationships, your finances, your emotions, your hopes and dreams for life.
This week we’re going to talk about what to do after you’ve laid the foundation in Christ. One thing the Bible makes crystal clear in the Colossian church letter is that Christ is the foundation to a life of spiritual potential!
I want to give you one example of why this is such a vital issue by reading some excerpts from an article by Lee Strobel called, "How to Respond to the Davinci Code."
"Dan Brown’s red-hot, page-turner The Da Vinci Code has become a runaway best seller with 40 million copies in print and will debut as a major motion picture on May 19. What’s most intriguing, though, is not merely the astronomical sales figures – it’s the effect the story is having on popular culture. By cleverly mixing fact with fiction, Brown has created a raging controversy over how many of the novel’s claims are rooted in reality."
"USA Today said the book consists of ’historical fact with a contemporary storyline.’ Charles Taylor of the popular Web site Salon.com said: ’The most amazing thing about this novel is that it’s based on fact.’ Brown even begins his book under the heading ’FACT,’ telling his readers: ’All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.’"
"However, the book’s assertions are so outrageous that they have spawned a mini-industry of books debunking them. Among the claims: Jesus was never considered to be the Son of God until he was deified in AD 325 by the Roman Emperor Constantine for his own nefarious purposes; Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, who bore his child; Jesus wanted Mary Magdalene to lead his church, but she was forced out by power-hungry men and demonized as a prostitute; and the four Gospels in the Bible are essentially fabrications designed to seal this masculine power-grab for the rest of history."
"Amazingly, some readers are being convinced that this fiction is really fact. A survey by Decima Research, Inc., showed that one out of three Canadians who have read the book now believes there are descendants of Jesus walking among us today. And according to pollster George Barna, 53 percent of Americans who’ve read the book said it had been helpful in their ’personal spiritual growth and understanding.’"
"On the surface, this looks like a serious challenge to Christianity. But it’s also an incredible opportunity. What if churches and individual Christians took advantage of the hoopla surrounding the forthcoming movie to reach out to their friends, colleagues, and neighbors with the real story about Jesus?"
In Colossians chapter two Paul reveals vital information on the real story about Jesus and why the truth about Jesus is so essential to know.
Keep in mind that Paul is writing from Rome to a church he had never been to before. Why would he do that? Why did the great apostle and missionary go to the trouble of writing the Colossians when he was imprisoned in Rome? He answers that question in Colossians chapter two.
Colossians 2:4 (CEV) I tell you these things to keep you from being fooled by fancy talk.
5 Even though I am not with you, I keep thinking about you. I am glad to know that you are living as you should and that your faith in Christ is strong.
Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write his letters to the churches "to keep you from being fooled." Circle that phrase in verse 4. That’s one of several great purposes for the Bible – to keep you from being fooled.
The catch is - you must follow the precepts set forth in God’s Word if you want to make your faith foolproof. You must be "living as you should." Circle that phrase in verse 5.
These two ideas, "keep you from being fooled" and "living as you should" are intricately tied together.
Part of the life of the Christ follower is in learning the other part is in living.
To keep from being fooled by the counterfeit religions and philosophies all around you there are some important courses of action you must take. Paul outlines them in Colossians chapter two. As we cover these courses of action today ask yourself how you are doing in each of these areas.
First of all, if you want a faith that’s foolproof you must…
1. Maintain consistent communion with Christ.
Colossians 2:6 (CEV) You have accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord. Now keep on following him.
7 Plant your roots in Christ and let him be the foundation for your life. Be strong in your faith, just as you were taught. And be grateful.
Paul talked about this some in chapter one of the Colossian letter. It’s not enough to obtain your ticket to heaven - you must want more out of your spiritual life than just escaping judgment. It’s great to know you have eternal life. It’s great to know you’re going to heaven when you die. But what are you doing to maintain that friendship with Christ until you get to heaven?
You’ve got to be firmly rooted in Him. Christ must be the supply of your spiritual nourishment just like roots are to plants.
Some of you will start planting a garden or perhaps some flowers in the yard this spring. You won’t be planting a plant in one spot one week and moving it to another spot another week and so on and so on. The plant is going to have to get its roots down so it can receive nourishment.
Your nourishment for foolproofing your faith comes from Christ and your consistent friendship with Him. The more consistent your communion with Christ the more spiritual strength you’ll have and the less likely you will be fooled by false teaching.
Christ has already done His part and keeps doing His part to maintain friendship with you but friendship is a two-way street.
Ever have someone you wanted to befriend and you called him and called him and invited them to do things with you and tried to start conversations with them and they never or seldom reciprocated? That’s a difficult friendship to maintain. Don’t make it difficult for Christ to maintain a friendship with you.
The second course of action for foolproofing your faith:
2. Watch out for smoke and mirrors.
Colossians 2:8 (CEV) Don’t let anyone fool you by using senseless arguments. These arguments may sound wise, but they are only human teachings. They come from the powers of this world and not from Christ.
9 God lives fully in Christ.
10 And you are fully grown because you belong to Christ, who is over every power and authority.
The devil and his promoters are illusionists. Like any good magician they have tricks whereby they can make the imaginary seem real and the real seem imaginary. They can make things disappear and reappear without our knowing what their secret was. But we do know there is a trick behind the magic. This is the devil’s primary mode of operation. And it is the fundamental tool of all false teachers.
Satan is especially interested in muddying the waters about Christ. That’s why Paul talked about the centrality of Christ in Colossians chapter one as we covered last time. That’s why he said in verse 9 of chapter two "God lives fully in Christ."
If you get your ideas about Christ mixed up then everything is going to be off balance.
Paul was trying to help the Christ followers at Colossae from being fooled by an early form of the teaching later called Gnosticism. We won’t delve too deeply into what the Gnostics believed but their basic error was concerning Christ. They taught that all matter was evil, and since Jesus was human, they concluded he had to contain some evil – therefore Jesus couldn’t be God to them.
Their argument only made sense if you swallowed their presuppositions. Once again, that’s the reason Paul laid the foundation in chapter one and continues to emphasize it here. If you start off with error you will wind up with more error. Don’t be fooled by those today who start off with their own ideas as the foundation.
The third course of action you must take for making your faith foolproof is given begining in verse 11.
3. Live in the light - not in the shadows!
a. Live in the light of forgiveness!
The false teachers at Colossae were insinuating that faith in the work that Christ did on the cross was not enough to forgive sins. Either you also had to keep Old Testament ceremonial laws or you had to observe man-made traditions in addition to your faith in Christ, or both, in order to be forgiven.
The Bible takes a clear stand on Christ’s work being the finished product for your salvation.
Colossians 2:11 (CEV) Christ has also taken away your selfish desires, just as circumcision removes flesh from the body.
12 And when you were baptized, it was the same as being buried with Christ. Then you were raised to life because you had faith in the power of God, who raised Christ from death.
13 You were dead, because you were sinful and were not God’s people. But God let Christ make you alive, when he forgave all our sins.
14 God wiped out the charges that were against us for disobeying the Law of Moses. He took them away and nailed them to the cross.
Steve Brown tells of a doctor in a mining town where many patients simply couldn’t pay their bills. When they couldn’t pay, the doctor wrote, "Cancelled" beside their debts in his books.
Years later – after the physician died – his widow tried to collect on all those debts by taking the former patients to court. The judge ruled, "If your husband said that their debt is cancelled, it is cancelled and can never be claimed again." (Key Life, Easter 2005)
Because of your faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross, God has marked your sin debt "Cancelled" and it will never be held against you again!
b. Live in the light of the power of the cross!
15 There Christ defeated all powers and forces. He let the whole world see them being led away as prisoners when he celebrated his victory.
16 Don’t let anyone tell you what you must eat or drink. Don’t let them say that you must celebrate the New Moon festival, the Sabbath, or any other festival.
17 These things are only a shadow of what was to come. But Christ is real!
The cross of Christ not only has power to forgive the sins of the past, it also has power to enable you to live effectively in the present!
You don’t need mystical experiences and fake spirituality! If and when you practice self-denial don’t think for one minute that you are made right with God by it.
18 Don’t be cheated by people who make a show of acting humble (apparently the false teachers at Colossae were proud of their humility) and who worship angels. They brag about seeing visions. But it is all nonsense, because their minds are filled with selfish desires.
19 They are no longer part of Christ, who is the head of the whole body. Christ gives the body its strength, and he uses its joints and muscles to hold it together, as it grows by the power of God.
20 You died with Christ. Now the forces of the universe don’t have any power over you. Why do you live as if you had to obey such rules as,
21 "Don’t handle this. Don’t taste that. Don’t touch this."?
22 After these things are used, they are no longer good for anything. So why be bothered with the rules that humans have made up?
23 Obeying these rules may seem to be the smart thing to do. They appear to make you love God more and to be very humble and to have control over your body. But they don’t really have any power over our desires.
All attempts to reach God in human strength fail. The only thing that works is God reaching man!
No man-made formulas, no "secret knowledge," no rules-keeping, and no false spirituality can bridge the gap between God and man. All of man’s attempts to save himself are useless because they are meant to draw attention to man. God deserves the credit for establishing the only sufficient plan for our salvation.
According to the reasoning of man, if I have a bigger rulebook than you I foolishly consider myself more spiritual. Paul says in verse 23 that rules don’t really have any power over our desires.
The true passion for serving God and others is love, not rules. (1 Corinthians 13) Paul is not saying here that law doesn’t have its place. He’s saying that it’s place is not to make us right with God.
Look to the light of the cross for the power to be right and to live right.
