True Spirituality Series
No Shortcuts to Glory
Colossians 2:6-23
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
I start with some assumptions today. Number one: every one of you wants to know and experience the reality of God in your life. You don’t just want to talk a good faith. You want to live it. Number two: you want to go to heaven. While your eternal destiny may seem a long way off most of the time, you truly want what the Bible describes and Jesus offers. Number three: you also want to overcome the temptations and moral struggles that life seems to bring your way. No one, at least no one in this room, plans to fail spiritually and morally.
I am convinced that these three facts are true for everyone in this room. If not, you probably wouldn’t be here. There could be some exceptions. A few might be here because your wife or a parent or boy friend insists that you come to church. I have noticed a few heel marks in the asphalt left from when someone has been drug across the street and into church. For most of you, no one makes you show up. You are here because you want to be. You want the spiritual strength, encouragement, and hope that you find at church.
I think one other fact is probably true for many of us. We tend to approach spiritual matters like most people do their health. They are constantly looking for a secret short cut. People imagine a pill that allows them to eat all they want and still lose weight. Folk buy into one diet plan after another, each offering the promise of permanent weight loss the easy way. Or they purchase one exercise contraption after another because the newest one promises an easier way to a healthier you. Of course, within six months most of them end as high priced clothes racks. Within a year, they are the bargain at the all town garage sale. A lot of folk even jump at those TV adds offering the nifty little contraption that you fasten around your waist and plug into the wall. You turn it on and it gives your muscles a total body workout while you watch TV from the comfort of your recliner. You don’t even have to put down the remote control. What could be better! Of course, we know the reality!
Spiritually, many of us yearn for a magic pill or a secret formula that would guarantee the health of our soul, power over temptation, and one mountain top religious experience after another. Discouragement and doubt would disappear forever—if we could only figure out the secret. Just like with the promise of easy diet or painless exercise, there are a lot of voices out there promising a shortcut to spirituality.
If a recent cover story in Newsweek (Aug. 2005) is true (and I have no doubt it is) a lot of Americans are looking for just such a spiritual experiences. The article claimed that the interest in religion may be flat or declining, “but "spirituality," the impulse to seek communion with the Divine, is thriving.” Millions, the article claimed, are trying anything that promises a low cost, low maintenance spiritual experience.
I’ll wager some of us in the room have wished we could find the spiritual secret. Consider Jan. She loves the Lord. She is active in her church. She works hard at trying to do what’s right. But she still struggles. She wonders if she is doing everything she should. One day a middle-aged couple carrying brief cases knocks on her door to offer some free religious literature. They tell her that their books and classes will provide answers to all the questions she has. Their church knows the secret that no other religious group knows. Jan is skeptical, but she is also curious.
John sometimes wonders if there isn’t something missing. In fact, even his Sunday School class at his church has had several debates recently along those lines. Some in the class have discovered the writings of a popular Bible teacher who promotes fasting and a special kind of prayer as spiritual warfare. They insist that no one can really be spiritual without it.
Bill is a young Christian who still struggles with some of his old temptations. He began to wonder if he would ever be free of the old yearnings. Then he met a girl in one of his classes at college. She invited him to a Bible study. Before the evening was over, the whole group had formed a circle around Bill and was praying that he would be “baptized with the Holy Spirit.” When that happens, they assured him, he would have a miraculous spiritual experience and all his spiritual struggles would be over. Without this experience, he could never be truly spiritual.
Ever hear such ideas? Ever wonder if there just might be a secret out there? Ever wish for a short cut that could make all of your spiritual dreams and hopes come true? If you have, you’re not the first. You’ll probably not be the last. In fact, that’s exactly what our text is all about.
We are at the beginning of a several sermon series I am calling “True Spirituality: Finding the Life You’ve Always Wanted.” Next week, we are going to begin working our way step by step through a list of action-plans that can lead to a stronger, healthier soul. Think of this as diet and exercise for your spiritual life. Remember what the Bible says, “Train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (1 Tim 4:7-8). Different names have been used for these plans through the years. But they are the proven plan that can help you develop a stronger, healthy soul.
This is easier said than done. If good intentions and resolutions were enough, we’d all be skinny, rich, and spiritual dynamos. It takes effort, determination, and lots of mutual encouragement to succeed in any of these areas. It also requires a bit of sales resistance toward those who would try to convince us that they have a no sweat secret to a prosperous body, pocket-book, or soul.
The second chapter of Colossians is all about developing a resistance to those selling secret formulas for the spiritual life. Today I want to walk through the major part of this chapter. We won’t spend a lot of time looking at the details. I just want to be your tour guide. I will point out the highpoints. I will help map out the rest of the chapter. I hope to plant a seed that will grow into a desire for you to go home and re-read this passage and ponder the principles outlined here. This is important stuff for anyone who wants to train themselves for godliness.
Let’s begin at the end of the previous chapter. Context always matters when reading the Bible. A key word in this whole discussion comes up early on. 1:25—“I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—26the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory”
The passage introduces that idea of a mystery. Think of that hidden spiritual secret that so many people are looking for. Here’s the key. It used to be a secret but not now. The secret’s out. Christ in you, the hope of glory! When Christ is preached, believed in, and his principles put into practice, that’s when people can discover the life they’ve always wanted. “We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.”
Note how in the opening verses of the chapter repeats this same principle. “My purpose is that they (believers he hasn’t yet met personally) may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
The rest of the chapter warns about believing everything we hear. The Lord doesn’t want us to become suckers for every spiritual snake-oil salesmen who comes down the pike promising a secret formula for a problem-free spiritual life. Note verse 4. “I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.”
In so many words, the text says, “If you didn’t hear it when you first came to Christ or you don’t find it in your Bible, don’t believe it.” Not every new idea is a good idea. Sometimes it is good to be old fashioned. This is especially true about spiritual matters. Listen to verse 6: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
Beginning with verse 8 the chapter outlines some of the most common spiritual short cuts that we are likely to encounter, then or now. Remember there is very little that is new under the sun. The devil is not very creative. He simply keeps trying to sell the same old, same old in a slightly different package.
Some say spirituality is all about special rituals and ceremonies. You don’t have to believe them. You just need to do them and the “gods” will bless you. That’s part of what the passage is talking about when it warns in verse 8, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” That phrase translated “basic principles of this world” was often used to describe the rituals and practices that are at the heart of most pagan religions. Most religious cults offer secret rituals that claim to offer a short cut to spiritual power. The truth is these short cuts are just dead ends.
Some say the right rituals lead to true spirituality. Others say, “No, you can only be truly spiritual by observing the right laws.” Legalism says keeping the rules obligates God to bless you. Listen to verse 16, “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.” Note how the passage comes back to this theme in verse 20. 20Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23Such 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.”
Some think the secret of spiritual power is discovering a secret ritual. Others point to obeying the right rules. Still others will tell you that you will never be truly spiritual unless you hear voices, see visions, or encounter some special ecstatic, emotionally charged experience. Our text says otherwise. Consider verse 18. “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. 19He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.” Mysticism is not the secret to spirituality. It is too is a dead end.
The secret to spirituality is not found in some bizarre new teaching or way out practice. It is found where it all begins—in simple faith in Jesus Christ, the one who died for us on the cross, arose from the dead, and is coming again to take us home. “You have been given fullness in Christ” verse 10 says.
Russell Conwell’s classic story illustrates this truth. Conwell founded Temple University and served as its president for thirty-eight years. He is perhaps most famous for one speech that he delivered over six thousands times in his lifetime, often by request.. Conwell based his message, Acres of Diamonds on a story he first heard from a Persian guide years before. Ali Hafed, a prosperous Persian farmer, was happy and contented until a visiting priest told him a vision of a fabulous field of diamonds. Ali Hafed couldn’t get the picture out of his mind. So he sold his farm, took his wealth, and set out to find the legendary field of diamonds. He searched the world over. Finally penniless and weary from his fruitless search Ali Hafed died far from home, old and disillusioned. Not long afterward, according to the legend, the acres of fabulous diamonds for which Ali Hafed searched were found on the very farm that he had once owned. Cronwell summarized the tale this way: "Your diamonds are not in far-away mountains or in distant seas; they are in your own back yard."
The spiritual life you have always wanted is found in Jesus Christ and him alone!
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College of the Bible, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
