The Most Dangerous Lies Sound Reasonable | Colossians 2:1–15

False teaching rarely announces itself. It comes in fine-sounding arguments — reasonable, spiritually dressed, and just plausible enough to lower your guard. In Colossians 2:1–15, Paul warns a church he has never visited about teachings that will take them captive — and his answer is not a detailed refutation. It's Christ. In this sermon, Pastor Cam examines Paul's warning, the marks of dangerous teaching, and why everything you need is already yours in Jesus.

Transcript

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This morning we're gonna be in Colossians 1, 1, uh 2, 1 through 15, as Zach just read to us. Imagine, similar to many of you maybe remember when the movie Castaway came out. Imagine a man shipwrecked on an island by himself. He's scavenging for food. He makes himself a makeshift shelter out of branches and leaves he has cut down. He's rationing coconuts and rainwater for himself. He's fishing on the shore to get food. He etches an SOS signal on the shore of the island as a plea for help. He's living in this shelter, and then one morning he decides to venture further into the island and he stumbles on it. A village filled with people with modern medicine, food, supplies, and resources. Everything he needed was there the entire time. All he needed to do is simply venture a little bit further in and then avail himself of all the benefits that were already there at his hands in abundance. That to an extent is what I believe Paul is addressing in the church and Colossi here in Colossians chapter 2. Paul is describing these Colossian believers similar to you and I, those who are in Christ, who have the fullness of God revealed in Christ, indwelling them, and yet maybe being tempted to try to supplement Christ with something else. If we are in Christ like these Colossian Christians, then according to Paul, according to the New Testament, we have everything we need. But false teaching, false teachers are working to convince these believers that they need something more. That yes, it's good that you have Jesus, but you need Jesus plus something better that makes your faith full. So the main thing I want us to look at in these 15 verses this morning is this. If you are in Christ this morning, in Christ you have everything you need. So therefore, don't be fooled into thinking you need to look elsewhere. If you are in Christ, you have everything you need pertaining to life and godliness, if I can quote Peter. So don't be fooled into looking elsewhere to supplement your faith. The Apostle Paul writes with urgency to, as you can see in the opening verses there, and he's made this clear elsewhere in chapter one. He's writing to a group of Christians he has never met. He doesn't know these people personally, but he loves them. He loves them because he knows that they're his brothers and sisters in Christ. But he c he came to know them through Epaphras, who likely came under uh Paul's ministry, heard the gospel, came to faith, and was sent back to his hometown of Colossi, Colossae to preach the gospel and plant a church. So Paul doesn't know these Christians, but he clearly has love for them. He's writing to them out of love for Epaphras, and he's encouraging them. He's laboring for laboring on their behalf, but he's also warning them. And today he wants us to heed that same warning. So I've been bringing up since we started this book. There's this what some call the Colossian heresy, this false teaching that was infiltrating the church and introducing these Christians to some form of belief system that was, you know, it was Christ adjacent. It gave a wink, a nod to Jesus and the gospel, but it was also trying to add to it. And here in chapter two is when Paul starts addressing this heresy head on. But let's look at the first couple of verses here and focus on this. As I said earlier, you Christian have everything you need in Christ Jesus. Let's just start with the first two verses where Paul says, For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea and for all who have not seen me in person. I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery, Christ. In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I love Paul's language. He agonizes for churches he has never visited. Think about that. Like Paul is in a prison cell writing to a group of Christians he's never met, and yet he makes it very clear I am, I am laboring for you guys. I desire to minister to you. I am struggling for you because I want to see you finish your race well. He is, his goal for them is not primarily theological correctness, though that is important. It's that their hearts would be encouraged. It's that they as a faith family, their hearts will be knit together in love. And as a result, they will be brought to the full assurance that comes from knowing the Christ who saved them in the first place. I love Paul's heart here. I think it's very instructional for us as believers to pay attention to a lot of Paul's prayers in the New Testament, but also how he talks about the other churches that he ministers to. Paul is clearly concerned with the health of the whole church, the whole body of Christ, not just one particular local church. He wants to see the kingdom of God advancing and healthy, not just one particular local congregation he might be a part of or that he was responsible for through planting. That should be similar to us. We should always, as a church family, love first and foremost our own for church family who we've covenanted with to live out our Christian life. But we should have big hearts for other gospel preaching churches all over our city, our county, our state, and the world because we want to see people know and love Jesus and we want to see the kingdom of God advance. So when we hear of persecution in other places, that should that should break our hearts because we recognize those are our brothers and sisters who we will spend eternity with. We should pray for them. When we hear about other local churches that might be declining and struggling, that should burden our hearts because those brothers and sisters are struggling and we should want to see them flourish in their walk with Christ. When we see churches or Christians or part of churches succumbing to false teaching like Paul, we should say, I am struggling for you because I want to see you finish your race well. We, this is why here in our pastoral prayer, we often love to pray for other local churches in our city or in some other place, because we are convinced that God isn't just working right here at Redeemer Church, but he is advancing his gospel across the nations. And we want to celebrate that. But notice Paul's emphasis in verse 3. He wants their hearts to be knitted in love. But then in verse 3 he says, In him, referring to Christ, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Paul is saying Jesus Christ is the treasury. Paul does not say Jesus has wisdom or Jesus points us toward wisdom, though those are true statements. He says all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him. You want to be wise, you want to be knowledgeable, build your Christology because in Christ are hidden not a fraction of wisdom and knowledge, not a quarter of wisdom and knowledge, all of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him. And that hidden in him is not meaning like you know, God is like on a spiritual scavenger hunt, you know, with you, or he's like, he's trying to hide his wisdom. Like, no, he God makes it very clear, it's him, my son who I sent, know him. Let's let's let's just be clear here the difference in how we as Americans think of wisdom and knowledge and how Paul would have thought of it when he's using these phrases. So wisdom in Paul's day would have been more of applied truth, if I could put it that way. Knowing how to live rightly before God based on God's revealed will and his word. And knowledge is grasping or understanding God and man according to scripture. This is theology. This is the information, the data stored in your head from your understanding of interpreting scripture, which then flows out through wisdom, which is apply truth or practical theology. So that's when the connection happens, where what you believe in your head grips your heart and shapes your volition, what you do in your walk with the Lord. And both, according to Paul, find their source and their fullness in Christ alone. If you remember when we went through Ephesians, what did Paul say essentially in all of chapter one? He he just unpacks the gospel and all these rich blessings you have by way of your union with Christ. But in verse three of Ephesians 1, he says, Blessed we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. So Paul often uses this fullness language, and I'm convinced, and I think I'm right. So Paul never gets into the weeds of what exactly is this Colossian heresy. Like he's there's some speculate what they think it is. We don't know, because Paul doesn't spend time saying this is exactly the teaching, this is specifically what they're teaching. We have some hints, but he tends to, in Colossians, he uses this like fullness and wholeness language, which seems to give us some contextual clues of whatever it was. It seems like these false teachers were trying to convince these Christians hey, if you want true fullness, if you want true wholeness, if you want your faith to be complete, you need to supplement that gospel and Jesus stuff with this. And we'll get into that in a second. So I believe when he uses a lot of this fullness and and you know, um wholeness language, he's it's he's almost like counteracting what they might be hearing from these false teachers. But in Ephesians, Paul makes it clear listen, every spiritual blessing that you need, God has already given you in Christ Jesus. You are lacking nothing. So he goes on to encourage them to walk then in the one whom you have received. Jump down to verses uh five through seven. I'm sorry, let's let's start, verse four. He says, I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable. For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are, and the strength of your faith in Christ. So then, just as you received, you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, being rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude. Now, I love how number one, in verse four, he is making it clear, I don't want you to be deceived, but notice his word choice here, with arguments that sound reasonable. Isn't that interesting? Most false teaching, friends, sounds reasonable. That's why people succumb to it. Because they say, you know, that, yeah, that sounds that sounds right. That sounds Christian, right? I'm gonna put a pen in that for a second. But Paul is making it clear, no, notice the word in verse six, received. Paul is not introducing to them a new Jesus. He's saying, no, no, no, no. The Jesus that Apaphras preached to you, that you came to faith under, that Jesus, keep walking in him. He's essentially saying, stay the Course. The Jesus that you are noticeable, the language is past tense. You have received verse six, Christ Jesus as Lord. So therefore, continue to walk in him. Don't stray from the path that you already have been on. You already have all the uh spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. You already are baptized in the Christ, raised with Christ, united with Christ. Therefore, don't waver to the left or to the right, stay in the right lane. Keep walking in him. Don't try to quote unquote upgrade your faith. Don't supplement it, don't edit it. Walk in the faith you have received. Which in him saying that is him doing, he's trying to remind him of theology here. He's saying the gospel is content you received. With that gospel came a Jesus whom you received with that gospel. Not just any Jesus, but the Jesus. I had a conversation yesterday with my kids. We were at the zoo and we saw a group of Jehovah's Witnesses offering free Christian literature. And we had a good conversation about, well, we have to talk about what makes someone a Christian. Because when we say Jesus, we're saying something different than when they say Jesus, which does not make them Christians, because if you get Jesus wrong, you get the gospel wrong, which means you have no gospel at all. But but by them using the same terminology, Jesus, Christian sin, it sounds, as Paul says here, uh, arguments that sound reasonable. We got to be careful. This is why Paul is giving them this warning. Stay walking in the gospel and the Jesus you have already received. And let's just be very practical here, guys. Like I'm a very simple man. So if I go to a new restaurant and I try something and I like it, the next 10 times I go there, I'm likely gonna order the exact same thing. It worked. Why, why, why go off the track, right? It's almost like Paul is saying the same thing. You heard the gospel through Epaphras, you came to faith, Jesus saved your soul. It worked. So why would you entertain something else? Stick with what works, continue to walk in that. And notice too, I I this is something that's just been on my heart the past couple of years. I'm not particularly sure why, but I've been really interested in just studying like a biblical understanding of authority and influence and how we should leverage that for God's goodness, especially us men who are husbands and fathers and so on and so forth. But Paul is certainly leveraging his influence here as an apostle. Paul, and in a positive sense, but he he's leveraging his apostleship, his love for these saints, his love for Epaphras to encourage them to do right, to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. And I think that's completely appropriate because can you imagine being a new convert in Colossae, and you know of the apostle Paul, you know his missionary endeavors, and you get a letter from Paul addressed to your particular church in a particular context you guys are currently wrestling through that's causing some pain and some heartache and confusion? Wouldn't you receive that letter with just a little more weight, knowing, like, whoa, like an apostle wrote to us, we better perk up and and listen. It would make you really start considering, like, should we be entertaining these people who are teaching us these things? When Paul, who we love and respect, who's in prison and he's trying to minister to us from a jail cell, like, shouldn't we consider what he's saying? That is a good uh uh stewardship of authority and influence. So for those of us in the room, all of us have a measure of influence, whether you're a parent, a mentor to somebody else, a friend, whatever it may be, we should seek to leverage our influence to do good to others, to glorify God. Use your influence deliberately. Because think about it, just like a parent, you would hope that as by the grace of God, you seek to disciple your children well, if they find themselves in a moment of temptation, if they're with a different peer group and they're tempted to do something that you know would disarm the Lord, that yes, you want them to first think, well, this would displease my God. But maybe what helps them get there is also realizing, well, this will displease my mom or dad who I love and who love me. Or a friend, you know, a mentor you look up to and respect, where you know, like, man, if I did this, like what would so-and-so say? And that could be enough to dissuade you from making an unwise or even sinful decision. So I believe that is somewhat what Paul is doing. He is leveraging his apostleship to say, brothers and sisters, why would you sway from the gospel that has already worked in saving your soul? He wants to encourage them to remain rooted in the Christ who has already saved them. In verse 7, he says, being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith. Notice past tense, just as you were taught and overflowing with gratitude. Here's a good verse to write down. I I love this illustration of being rooted in Jeremiah 17, verse 8, where Jeremiah says, He will be like a tree planted by water. It sends its roots out toward a stream, it doesn't fear when heat comes, and its foliage remains green. It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit. Going deep in your knowledge of Jesus Christ and the gospel does that to you. You will be rooted, not wavering, not weak. You will be like a tree planted by water, constantly receiving sustenance from Jesus Himself. You will not fear when heat and drought comes because you are connected to the source, Christ Jesus. And Paul is saying, if you detach yourself from Christ, you are exposing yourself to danger. You are no longer rooted by the stream, you are now opening yourself up voluntarily to danger. So Paul has just told them that they have everything they need in Christ, but now he sharpens the warning. These are voices in the church trying to convince them otherwise, and he addresses this in verse 8. He says, Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world rather than Christ. The warning here, Paul gives his brothers and sisters, don't be taken captive. Don't be taken captive. Let me just give a a quick word here on philosophy. Don't don't read that word philosophy and think the world of academia like we do today. In the first century, that word meant more of any organized system of thought. So philosophy in Paul's day would have been more considered like a worldview system, any system that explained uh the world, humanity, while we're here, the cosmos, humanity, all of it was kind of like this all-encompassing organized system of thought. And that's how they thought of philosophy. So Paul is saying whatever the system is, if Christ is not the foundation of that system, walk away from it. Whatever philosophy of man that might captivate you into uh changing how you understand the world, your place in it, why you exist, what your purpose is, whatever it may be, religion, the gods, so to speak, whatever it is, if Christ is not the foundation, then walk away from it. Don't let it take you captive. He's giving a strong warning. He's he's being pastoral. Be careful. And even that language of captive in the Greek, that word is signaling like if an invading country came in and took people captive. That's what he's saying. Like, don't let it happen, which implies, friends, that they had an active role and not letting it happen, right? No one just trips and falls and becomes a heretic, an apostate. These are things that they voluntarily open themselves up to. And Paul says, be careful, be on your guard, guard your life and doctrine, know the truth so you can spot error. But notice he gives us some contextual clues of what was some of the makeup of whatever this heresy was. He says, Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world rather than Christ. So there's a few things we can learn here. First, this is rooted in human tradition, not scripture. And if we know how Jesus feels about that, just go read the gospels where he rebukes the Pharisees for trying to make the people uh obey human tradition over scripture, and he they he rebuked them for that. If I've already if I've learned anything as a pastor over the last couple of years, it's certainly that tradition is very powerful. Tradition is not inherently bad. There are many great Christian traditions. We're doing one right now. It is a tradition to gather as churches on Sunday morning because this is the day that Jesus rose from the dead. That is a good tradition. But I have seen tradition become law. I have seen people who take something good and make it a barameter for determining if someone is a Christian or not, even though you can't find any support for that in scripture. That is similar to what's happening here. Human tradition was being blended with religion to convince these Colossian Christians in a different gospel. But second, he warns that it's built on elemental forces. Now, this might sound a little strange to us, but this is systems and frameworks that substitute something else for Christ. And if you really want to geek out and get into To some of the contextual clues here in the Greek, it seems that Paul is even implying that there's some demonic influence behind some of these systems, which I would fully agree with. Think about it. If you were, I'm strange, I sometimes play this game, but if you were Satan, how would you seek to influence masses of people across the globe to believe that they're actually Christians when they're really not? He would probably take the real gospel and just customize it a little bit. Right? Don't forget when Satan tried to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, number one, Jesus' main response to him was to quote the Bible. But if you go back and read that text, Satan quoted the Bible too. But he just used it out of context. So he knows what he's doing. But third, this false teaching he says is not according to Christ. And for any Christian, especially these Colossians, that right there should end the conversation. If someone is coming to them, I don't care how godly externally they may appear, if whatever they are teaching does not accord with the Christ that they had received through the ministry of Epaphras, well then the whole thing should shut down right then and there. Paul doesn't say that these teachings are crude or obviously wrong. He says they're persuasive. Don't forget that. In verse 4, he says, I'm saying this so that no one will deceive you. So that word deception deceive means something, right? It's not like in your face, like it just walks to the church doors and says, Hey, I'm a heretic trying to send you to hell. No, it says I'm saying this so that you will not, uh so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable. That is dangerous. He is warning, friends, the danger can be fine-sounding arguments. Let me just give a few examples that I believe we face here in modern American churches. We might not be struggling with the particular heresy that these Colossian Christians were facing, but here's a few that at least I can think of that have deceived many Christians today. Some would term this first one as moralistic therapeutic deism. I know that's a mouthful. This is the the teaching that you know what, God just wants you to be a person who is happy. God just wants you to be a good person and he wants you to be happy. That is what God wants. Is God against his children being happy? Absolutely not. But again, plausible arguments. This sounds humble and kind, but it actually guts the cross because it flips the gospel or Christianity rather on its head and it makes the faith all about you and your personal happiness rather than you serving a holy God who purchased you through his son. So then your Christianity becomes more of, no, no, no. They would still say, Yes, Jesus, yes, gospel, yes, church, justification, all that stuff. But remember, God just wants you to do your best and be a good person. Anyone should be happy. So if something doesn't make you happy, well, it's probably not God's will, so then just remove it from your life. And it sounds biblical, they'll even quote some verses, but it's not the gospel. Or probably the most familiar one in the room would be the prosperity gospel. That God wants you to be healthy, wealthy, and thriving. It quotes scripture, it uses various texts of scripture, but it interprets them incorrectly, it takes them out of context, and it turns Jesus into a means to your own personal ends. It creates this Christianity in which, hey, God, I've created a plan for my life. And it entails me being very wealthy, never getting sick, never suffering in any capacity. So here you go, God, make this happen. That also flips Christianity upside down and makes real the Christian, the Christianity we live out all about us rather than about Christ. And I'm gonna give one more here. You know, I don't mind stepping on toes. But I think one of the most dangerous forms of teaching, popular teaching out there is just how psychologized we are as a culture today, to where everything's trauma, everything's abuse, everyone's a victim of something, there's no category of personal responsibility. But here's here's my concern. So we as Christians who believe this book, which tells us about man, a theology of man, how God changes us, sanctification, a doctrine of sin, a doctrine of the gospel, a doctrine of Christ, a doctrine of the church. But if someone in a church sometimes is wrestling with life issues, suffering, depression, a broken marriage, whatever it may be, they go outside the church to get help from a secular counselor who is depraved, who, according to Romans 1, has a depraved mind. They have no theology of God, of sin, of the gospel, of repentance, of the church, of God's holiness. And yet a Christian is asking an unbeliever who has a depraved mind to help them with issues of the soul. That is another form of teaching that I have seen cause a lot of havoc in the lives of Christians who say they believe this book, but they're receiving counsel that actually contradicts this book. Where this book might say, hey, what you're doing is sinful. That person is saying, oh no, you're just a product of your environment. Or on a not that everything is a sin issue, or on the other side of that, hey, you know what? Man, what you're suffering from is, you know, it's just life. Here's your label. Now here's how you can cope for the rest of your life with that label. It's like, well, the Bible has this whole category called sanctification that actually gives people hope and help in Jesus that you're not, as Zayn just prayed, your identity is not in some mental health diagnosis. Because God's spirit indwells you, you actually can change, and God promises to aid you in changing. So let's talk about how we can help you do that. All right, that's a biblical counselor in me. I'm off my soapbox. But notice, though, with this false teaching that's creeping into the church, Paul does something very strategic that if you're not really paying attention, you might miss it. He doesn't write a refutation against the false teaching, does he? He doesn't spend a bunch of time saying, let's let's just break down this heresy with a fine-toothed comb and I'm gonna poke holes in it. Instead, he's reminding them of the foundational truth that they've already believed in. He'd rather that they know Christ deeply than know the heresy thoroughly. And that's his point. I love how Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, 1 through 5, he describes his own preaching ministry. He says, When I came to you, brothers and sisters, announcing the mystery of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not be based on human wisdom, but on God's power. Now, notice this. The Colossians are wrestling with false teaching creeping in, and Paul says, I'm gonna spend my time reminding you of the real thing instead of focusing on mastering the fake thing. Because if you know the real thing, then you'll easily spot the counterfeit when you hear it, and you'll be able to remain one fact, what remain steadfast. So for Paul, his whole ministry was one thing: Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's it. Know that well enough, and the counterfeit doesn't stand a chance. I think this is something as Christians, we tend to miss out on. We live in the internet age, and which is easy for us to, and this is a good thing. This is a gift of God's grace to us. All of us in this room have access to great theological education just by the internet, of all the resources you could avail yourself of. But a question I'm always asking a lot of people is how deep is your Bible? What I mean by that is, how deep is your knowledge of what the scriptures actually teach? Because what I see sometimes is Christians who believe things convictionally because they're borrowing theology from someone else. Well, I really respect this author. Well, I really respect this ministry, and I know they're pretty solid, and so they teach this, and so that's what I believe. But that's borrowing theology and convictions from someone else that you haven't built yourself from your understanding of scripture. We don't want to borrow theology because that will break under pressure and it will be exposed. You should be able to say, I believe this because I can open my Bible and I can persuasively show you why I believe that Jesus was truly the Son of God, why I believe that Jesus resurrected. It teaches it right here, why I believe that we will one day be glorified, or whatever you want to bring up, can you open your Bible and persuasively show why you believe what you believe? Because there are some who say, Well, I believe this because, you know, I just that's what I feel God would do. That just seems to line up. It's like, well, okay, so your theology is just based on what you feel then. But if you can't trace it back to teachings in scripture, a text, a verse, then that is uh faulty ground. So I'm not trying to step on toes here. I'm just saying that is what Paul is doing. He's saying, I'm not gonna spend all my time getting into the wheeze of what this heresy is. I'm just gonna remind y'all of the basic elementary principles of the gospel and the Christian faith and who Jesus was, because if you get that right, then you will easily spot something off when you hear it. So when someone comes in and says, Yes, I believe in Jesus too, he was the brother of Lucifer, you would say, Hold up. That is not what the Bible teaches. Why don't you open your Bible and let's have a conversation? Or when these uh these uh heretics are coming in and say, Yes, Jesus, gospel, absolutely, but you also have to keep these traditions to stay in God's favor. You can say, Whoa, hold on, that goes against the doctrine of justification. The deeper your Bible goes, the deeper you're able to stand firm, as that Jeremiah passage I read earlier. Uh you don't have to turn here, but I love Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 1, 22 through 25. He kind of speaks to this a little bit. He says, For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. A stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. Paul is saying the world's best philosophical system cannot compete with a crucified Savior. He's saying if you want to be truly wise, know Christ and Him crucified. Even though to the world it's foolishness, they'll think you're a fool for believing it. He says, that's fine. Just know you have the corner on truth. So for all the kids in the room, all the adults in the room, if you are in Christ and you believe in the Jesus of Scripture, you are far wiser than any PhD in any major university who proclaims to be an atheist. Because they don't have the truth. They don't know Jesus Christ in him crucified. This is why Paul says, because God's foolishness, and this is just phraseology, it's not like God actually has foolishness, right? But he's saying, because God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. That's why one of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 73, where the psalmist is just spiritually depressed. He's looking around at the world and he's like, God, here I am. I'm striving to obey you and to serve you, and life is hard. And yet I look around, all these people, I mean, they're defaming your name, they're living in sin, they can care less about holiness and they're thriving. They're living their best life now, they're wealthy, they got the second home, they can take the vacation. And then he has a perspective shift when he goes and worships with the people of God, and he's like, But then I realize I know God and God knows me. My eternal reward is with him, and theirs is eternal wrath. So that brother was far wiser than all those people that he was having this spiritual depression and discouragement about. We need to remind ourselves of this sometimes, friend. We need to remind each other of this sometimes. It's like, no, no, no, the world, we will never make sense to the world. So if anyone in here is tempted to like, I'm trying to have one foot in the world because like I want people to like me and all that, it's you're just gonna stress yourself out. We make no sense to the world. We believe that God put on flesh and died for people who were his enemies and asked for nothing in return. That makes no sense to the world. We believe that we received all these eternal blessings and we did absolutely nothing to earn it. We believe that there is no such thing as a good person, that everyone is a sinner that deserves God's eternal wrath. The world will never accept you. They will think you are foolish. And we look at them and say, You are right. That is why I needed saving. But according to Paul, God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. And only a Christian can read that and amen that, knowing exactly what Paul means. Because in God's quote-unquote foolishness and weakness came the gospel of Jesus Christ that saved our souls. So Paul's warning any teaching system whose foundation is not Christ crucified is built on sand. It's false. Some of you might be familiar with this, but before you know modern GPS navigation systems, there was a method called dead reckoning, if you're familiar with that. Dead reckoning. This is when you would start from a known point and then track every mile from there. Now, the danger though is if you got one degree wrong at the starting point, that would mean hundreds of miles off by the end of your journey. And the terrifying part, you know, you feel like on the journey, you feel like you're on the right track the whole time. But if you had a faulty start, there's no way you're hitting that end destination. To an extent, that is almost what Paul is warning these Colossians with. You can have the right starting point, the gospel in Jesus, but if but if you get that starting point wrong, if you're off just a little bit, you can run your whole quote unquote Christian race thinking you're on the right track and completely miss the mark. This is important, friends. This is why you know we use this phrase around here. We want to encourage everyone to grow in gospel fluency. We don't want you to think the gospel is just basic content you have to ascribe to to enter into the faith and then you move on to bigger and better things. We want to make sure you know the full gospel and all of its implications because it shapes every aspect of your life. Now, the warning that Paul has given doesn't just tell them what to avoid. He gives them a reason to be unshakable in what Christ actually has done on their on their behalf. But just to encourage you guys, stand firm as Paul is encouraging these Colossians in what you have already received. We are no different than these Christians, okay? Please don't ever read the Bible and be self-righteous and think, well, yeah, if I was in Colossi, I never would have, you know. Yes, you would. Because look at look at us today, right? Are we not tempted, even in our era sometimes, to say, you know what? Yeah, like I love Jesus, I love the gospel, but like, man, like I want something a little more though. Isn't there something else out there that I could supplement and add to my faith? Is this is there some experience I could have, or is there some like we're we feel like this pull of like I just I'm enticed by something else that I could add to my faith, to supplement it. But friends, when we do that, we're saying to Jesus, this wasn't enough. You know, kind of like, why is there a new addition of a car every single year? Or it's like, doesn't last year's just work just fine? It's like just make it cheaper and just keep making it. We can't supplement to our faith because as soon as we do, we actually take away from it. But Paul now encourages them in the gospel that holds them together. If you look down at verse nine through 15, he says, Now for the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by him who is the head over every ruler and authority. You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the uncircumcision of Christ, in the circumcision of Christ, when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. He erased the certificate of death, debt with its obligations that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly. And now he's like, hey, I want to remind you guys, union with Christ, the gospel. What is your salvation? What are all these rich benefits? He starts with the fullness of God, for in him, Christ, the whole fullness of deity, dwells bodily. This is Paul's ultimate answer to every system that sidelines Jesus Christ. Any false teaching that tries to muddy the waters of the gospel, he says, friends, you have Jesus. And according to the gospel, the fullness of God Almighty resides in him, and he resides in you. So, knucklehead, why would you want anything else? You have the fullness of God and the person of Jesus Christ indwelling in you who has saved you. There is nothing more you could ever have. So, why would you entertain anything that says you could? If you have Jesus, brothers and sisters this morning, you have the fullness of God. There is no more of God you can receive. There's no less that you could be taken away. The fullness of God is yours right now. That is the prize of the gospel. Not that just we have our sins forgiven, we escaped hell. It's that we get God. We are reconciled back to the Father through the crosswork of Jesus Christ. This is Paul's ultimate answer to this. Nothing is missing. That's why, you know, sometimes me and Zany have these conversations, even with songs, like we can be nitpicky about, you know, like Holy Spirit be in this place. He's already here. He's omnipresent. We can't, we don't need to ask him to fill this room. He's he's he's already here. He's full, right? We have the fullness of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ. So, Christian, you are not lacking in any spiritual resources as you sit here in this church this morning. The question is, do you believe that though? You are lacking in nothing. God is not a stingy God, he lavishes his children with the abundance of his blessings for each of us. He doesn't pick favors, he doesn't say, Well, I'm gonna give this one some more blessings and favor than I'm gonna give this one. No, go read Ephesians chapter one. But notice how Paul in verse 10 is appealing to logic in verse 10. He's it's like he's saying, if the fullness of God dwells in Christ, who dwells in you, and you're united to Christ, why on earth would you be captivated by a belief system that doesn't even find its foundation in that Christ who indwells you? Its foundation is in human tradition or the elemental aspects of the world or whatever it may be. If the foundation is not Jesus, there's no foundation at all. Now notice what union with Christ actually looks like. In verses 11 through 14, he's just, I mean, he's just like breaking out on bragging on Jesus here. He talks about their spiritual circumcision in verse 11, not the cutting of flesh like the Old Testament, but the putting off of the sinful nature, a work of Christ and the Holy Spirit, not our own effort. We are circumcised spiritually, we now have been set apart. That's why you have that language of we are saints, we are set apart ones who belong to God. But he says in verse 12, we were buried and raised with Christ. This is the grammar of the Christian life. You have died with Christ, you were buried with him in baptism and raised through faith, through uh the resurrection of Christ, and you were now dead to sin and alive to Christ. Go read Romans chapter six or look up the sermon we preached on Romans 6, where we talked about union with Christ and baptism. But in verse 3, he says you are, or verse 13, I'm sorry, he says you are made alive together with him, which means at one point you were dead spiritually, you were dead in your trespasses, to be specific, and he, Jesus, made you alive, and you did absolutely nothing to contribute to that. You were acted upon by the power of the Spirit. But here's my favorite. Paul's really bragging now in verse 14. Actually, let's read verse 14 real quick. Verse 14, he says, He, Jesus, erased the certificate of debt. If it's obligations that was against us and opposed to us and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. Ooh, this is good. Now he's not, you know, he's not saying Jesus made a promise that he maybe could have or couldn't have kept to erase your debt. You know, he wasn't Joe Biden, right? So I'm gonna get these student loans for y'all, and everybody was all hopeful, right? No, no, no, no, no, no. In the ancient world, when a debt was paid in full, the written record of what was owed was nailed to a post so that everyone could publicly see the words to uh to telesty. You know that word, don't you? Paid in full. It was a public declaration, meaning this man or woman owes nothing. And the person who has the authority to make that declaration put the sign on the post to tell the community it is paid in full. Paul is deliberately using that image. He's saying that is what Jesus did for his church. Every charge that was against you, every violation of God's law, every punishment that you deserved, every failure, every sin was a written record that God kept, and he was going to justly judge you and pour out his wrath on you for all eternity. But Christ stood in your place, took the penalty, and he said on the cross, to telesty, it is finished. The debt is not deferred, it is finished. It is not forgiven on credit or signed over to somebody else who has to pay it. Well, in one sense, yes, Jesus paid it on your behalf, but the debt is completely gone. I love the song we sang earlier. Death is dead. That is dope. Because of Jesus, death is dead. And because of that, what does what does Paul say in verse 15? What does Jesus do? He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly. He triumphed over them in him. Let me just modernize that for you. Jesus declared victory on the cross and flexed on all his enemies. He showed them they had no power over him. Jesus did not just forgive you, he publicly disarmed and defeated every form of authority that stood against you. Because don't forget, when when Paul is defining or articulating the debt, he says it's not just any debt. He says he erased verse 14 the certificate of debt with its obligations that was against us and opposed to us. But through Christ's death and resurrection, all of that is dealt with. There is no longer a sin debt that is opposed to you that you owe because Jesus took it on your behalf. And he's the one who gets the victory parade. So just to backtrack, this is why any other form of gospel, any other form of quote unquote Christianity, any form of teaching that somehow takes the glory off of Jesus and puts the gaze somewhere else is faulty. If it puts the gaze on you, where life is all about me being happy, me being wealthy, well, now you get all the glory. Not Jesus who dealt with the record of debt that was opposed to you. Now, in light of all this bragging Paul is doing, how should we live in light of what he's saying? Let me submit to you two passages, 2 Corinthians 5, 14 through 15. Notice how Paul talks here. For the love of Christ compels us. Since we have reached this conclusion that one died for all, and therefore all died, and he died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. He gets all the glory. Or Galatians 2 20, how Paul described his own Christian life. I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That is how a Christian talks. The gospel is not a supplement to your life, it is the ground under your feet. So, in conclusion, brothers and sisters, the warning to these Christians in Colossae, the warning to us today is do not trade your Jesus and his gospel for anything, no matter how reasonable it sounds. Christ is not one treasure among many. He is where wisdom lives, where forgiveness is found, and where victory was won. So why would you trade that for anything else? It's not even logical. If you are here this morning and you have been surviving spiritually on scraps, on traditionalism, on moralism, self-help spirituality, a Christianity with no cross, I just want you to hear: no one in this room is going to make it to heaven based on any type of tradition. No one's going to make it to heaven because you faithfully attended this church every week, or because you serve, or because you read your Bible every morning. Those are all byproducts of being redeemed, but they are not the means of salvation. We are saved through the crosswork of Jesus Christ. So hear the good news. Well, let's start with the bad news. Everyone in this room, whether you're in Christ or not, were born a sinner. You owed a sin debt to God that you could never even remotely come close to paying in this lifetime. That record was opposed to you, actively leading you to God's judgment. But the offer of salvation is that that record of debt can be canceled, but not by you, but by Christ working on your behalf by dying and resurrecting on the third day. And here's the craziest aspect of our salvation. We receive salvation simply by believing that Jesus did what he said he did, and by confessing our sins and dropping our righteousness at the foot of Jesus and saying, I have no righteousness of my own, I plead for yours. And Jesus finds glory and delight in redeeming sinners like us and reconciling us back to his Father. If you're in Christ this morning, you need to walk out of here believing one thing. You right now, presently have everything you need in Christ Jesus. You need nothing more. If you have your Savior, that is all you need. That doesn't mean a happy life, whatever that means. Doesn't guarantee wealth and prosperity. Well, it does actually. It does. There, I do believe in the prosperity gospel. Depends on how you're defining wealth and prosperity. We are the richest people on the planet because Jesus Christ knows our name. And we will spend eternity with him, and we will one day look him in his eyes, and he will say, Well done, good and faithful servant. No bank account could ever compete with that. Amen. Let's pray.