Colossians 2 - According to Christ

There are many ways we can view the world, many ideas or philosophies we are pulled toward but Colossians 2 tells us we need to test them all according to Christ. 

                                   
 If you would like to give online click here https://secure.myvanco.com/YHPM

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

History and they were into history and into politics. So when they decided to get married, Bill booked their honeymoon stay in the infamous Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. They were got the best room they could afford, and when they arrived, they were building that had such great history. In fact, they actually got this actual room where the secret recordings had been named. Bill Betty was as far as uh speaker settled in, and all of a sudden the baby stopped building with great, big, concerned look on her face. She goes, What if this room is still closed? Oh, we can't be as big a little too many years. Sure, everybody's really new by now. But at Betty's insistence, they began searching out the room. They checked behind every picture, under the counter, behind the furniture, in the lamps, by the wires, by the telephone, everywhere they can think of. Bill woman then at Betty's insistence started lifting up the carpeting. And as he lifted up the carpeting, rolled it back a little ways, found something strange in the floor. It was a metal disc, held in place with four screws, and a wire running between it. Aha, Bill said. Got to it quickly, pulled out his multi-tools, started up screwing the screws, cut the wires, and then he started removing the metal disc and the four screws and got as much of the wire out as they possibly could. Then he goes, I think we're safe now. The next day, Bill Bay got over the end out of sightseeing. Hotel manager asked him to come inside the library and started asking just how was your room?

unknown 1:44

It was fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

How was the student? It was fine. How was your stay last night? And one day goes, Well, it was fine. Did you have any problems? It was fine. After asking lots of questions, you finally asked, Why are you asking me all these questions? Hotel manager said, Well, the room under your room, they complained about the chandelier called it. Do we always understand everything? Not all understanding. Sometimes it's easy to laugh at the limited knowledge of some, you might mistakenly assume one thing from a situation. It must be an electronic bug, it couldn't be the support for a chandelier. But have you fallen with a wrong assumption? I know I have. Paul, as he wrote to the Christians at Colossae, he wrote to correct them from a problem of Paul for some things that weren't really biblically sound. Things that weren't exactly according to Christ. Today we can dig into Colossians and we're looking about looking up and keeping our eyes focused above. I'm going to look at this passage about according to Christ. What is in this passage? But first, let's start with prayer. Lord, I do thank you for your scriptures. I thank you, Lord, especially for the scriptures that I can read them every day because I need to be reminded of things that I've read before, things I've forgotten. Lord, help me make sure that everything I say is according to Christ. Because it's nothing, it's just my words. Help us, Lord, do what's right in your eyes in Jesus' name. Amen. Let me begin by reading this passage I have, Colossians chapter 2, verses 8 through 15. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in him you have been made complete, and he is the header of all rule and authority. And in him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in the removal of the body and the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with him through faith and the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forbidden us all our transgressions, having cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities and made public display of them, having triumphed over them through him, through Jesus. So Paul starts out this posting of scripture, warning the Christians and philosophy, not everything is according to Christ. Starting in verse 8, he says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to intuition, according to elementary principles of the world rather than Christ. So right away, Paul warns us at least four things here that are not necessarily according to Christ. Beware of philosophy. Greek word here is what the Greek word that we get our philosophy from. Literally means sophistry. And Sabbath is a tree in that aspect. The Jewish people, the unsound, were misleading by clever, plausible, subtle arguments, the reasoning of the Jewish soughtness. You know, they're philosophers. It has to do with their own knowledge and their own wisdom that they have been able to deduce. Examples of this might be, remember in the scriptures, where the Sadducees came to Jesus and were saying, hey, we have a situation. There were seven brothers who got married. The first one got married to a woman, he died before they had any kids. The second one married and then died without any kids. Third of them, all of them. All seven brothers got married to her, none of them had any children. So in the resurrection, whose wife is she going to be? They looked at that with their own clever philosophy and all idea. They figured out that was proof there couldn't be a resurrection in the dead, because you would have a huge problem trying to figure out whose wife this one woman would be. That's philosophy. And even today, Jesus proved it to be wrong. He talked about that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, and God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, therefore he is the God of the living. He will have the resurrection. But today we face this argument in other knowledgeable people, philosophers and scientists, but someone that won't argue that this and say creation could not be six, 24-hour days. Some will argue Adam and these sons. How could they have found any wives? Some argue against the miracles of Jesus, some argue against the worldwide flail, some argue against the resurrection of Jesus. And the list goes on and on. The people with unsound and misleading, but very clever, plausible, and subtle arguments. But when people start trying to use these to disprove the Bible, examine them and don't let them fool you. For instance, if you drive up to the Grand Canyon in the Grand Canyon State, and you view up there, they got all these signs and they got all these poor strangers, and they're going around telling you that the Grand Canyon is the result of the Colorado River flowing for billions of years down through solid rock to create the Grand Canyon, then ask them, so why isn't it just as deep out of the north of it, upstream or just as deep downstream? Did it only flow to this little section and nowhere else along the Colorado River? How did this happen? When they tell you that the world is billions of years old and that mankind has existed on this earth for a minimum of 4 million years, that's what the population rate was during those 4 million years. Because if you take just one half the slowest rated population growth ever recorded in the last 600 years, and you start with just two people at taking that population rate, it takes less than 20,000 years to get to the world's population of today. What happens if you try to go back 60,000 years? There's millions of people for every square inch of land on this world. If you try to go back a million years over the war, it's absolutely impossible. And yet they use their philosophy and arguments of men. Try to read the Bible wrong. Paul says, watch out for it. Beware, it's not according to Christ.

unknown 8:14

Listen to it. Paul warns you, the philosophy Christians, use their burdens. Don't let anybody take you captive with their philosophies.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

They're unsound, misleading, but clever, plausible, subtle arguments. Because they're lies. And beware of the philosophies. He goes on, beware empty deceptions. Here the Greek data phrase empty, vain, worthless deceptions, or delusions. When I think about it, I eat it really think all the way back to Genesis chapter 3. Satan and Adam and Eve. And remember how Satan tries to tell Eve, oh, don't worry about it. The only reason God doesn't want you eat of that food is because you're going to become like God. Flies, flies, flies. I still hear people today spreading empty deceptions, empty delusions. People try to say, oh, you don't need to follow Jesus to get to heaven. Everybody's going to get to heaven. Just follow your own path, do what you feels good. Everything goes to heaven. No, it doesn't. I hear people say that we need to just find what is right for ourselves. And don't try to push Christianity on anyone. Well, to the point they're right. We're not really supposed to push Christianity, but we should try to compel them to know the truth. Let them know what the Word of God says, because the Bible is the truth, and the Bible tells us only one faith in the Father, and that's through Jesus Christ. There's lots of way in men that they lead to them. And maybe that's why Paul kept on with his warnings and warning them over and over. Beware of the tradition of men. The Bible tells us twice, at least, that there is a way that seems right for a man, but the other way thereof is death. Many people call that what they believe is right, what they believe is wrong. And some people will just sit there and they'll just laugh at them because what they're arguing about is kind of stupid. Like for instance, I've had friends who said, oh, the only good deal you can ever drive is a forward. I've had other friends that the only good vehicle you can ever drive is a shell. And they will argue till they die, probably, arguing that aspect. And they speaking of eternity. Who cares? We need to be aware of it. Later on, all of them go on in this very chapter, dealing with details about it, starting in verse 16 down to 23, about do not handle, do not chase, do not touch, you know. And he gives a whole list of man-made traditional ideas, matters that have the appearance of wisdom and self-made religion, of self-abasement, severe treatment of the body, but no value, as the scripture says, no value against the question of the indulgence. There made all kinds of laws regarding this, what you can do, the outward actions, and leave the inward heart to do whatever it wants to do. Manly, self-made religion are things that you need to watch out for. Beware of them. There have been many of them over the centuries. There still are lots of them. Beware of them, Paul warned them also, beware of the elementary principles of the world. This phrase is stated in a lot of different ways. You read King James after the rudiments of the world. Isn't that a good one? Everybody knows of the rudiments, right? New King James according to the basic principles of the world, RSV according to the elementary spirits of the universe. New Lincoln translation says from the evil powers of this world, and there's a lot of other versions that speak about truth notions of this world and all this stuff. And although there's a discrepancy about whether or not this is about the basic principles or the basic spirits and powers of this world, the idea still comes across about warning us about people who emphasize things that really don't matter for all eternity. And I think about it, I think about some people who go absolutely overboard emphasizing Mother Earth. Oh, yeah, Mother is a pretty smart thing to do to talk about, but seriously, if all ever you get to it, into the environment, I still remember, and I don't think I'm ever going to forget it. As long as I live. I want to make sure that you sign my petition to Dan Lobby. And I'm looking at him and going like, what's your petition written on? What happened to your paper? Cut down a tree. Started asking him all kinds of questions. Where do you live? How do you eat your house? We get a fireplace. Wood? What would he get to? Cut down a tree. Oh, we went through a whole bunch of things and finally by the time we got done, I was asking him so many questions. He finally goes, You don't want to sign my condition. You don't buy that on the dead. But some people are still heavy on the mother earth, they think they're like, oh no, you can't walk, you can't do this, you can't do this, and they forget all about God the Father, who has given us this world to use, not abuse it, but to use it for our life. And Paul says, don't let them take you captive. Put your brain back on, turn it on, and think. Follow the things that are according to Christ, not the things according to men. Not everything is according to Christ. And all these other things he talks about are according to man's ideas. Beware of only view's according to Christ. Especially verse 8. So starting in verse 9, he writes about several things that are according to Christ. The first thing, verse 9, in Christ dwelt the fullness of deity in bodily form. According to historians, the church of the first century, the time that Paul was writing this, had to deal with lots of philosophies of men that taught that all flesh was evil, and therefore there could not be a spirit, could not be God in flesh, because all flesh is evil. And you can't have good spirit in evil flesh. Therefore, Jesus could not be God in flesh. Today there was no way a good God could be in evil flesh, and therefore the doctrine of Christianity and those their ideas have to be wise. Even today there's people who try to deny Jesus as being God in flesh. There's denominations that claim to be Christian denominations, but deny Jesus as being God in flesh. Some have either written their own Bibles or try to rewrite the passages that point out Jesus being God in the flesh. But it's very clear in the scriptures that all the goals of deity dwelt within Jesus. And Paul states this: he was God in flesh. There is no contradiction to it because it is not our fleshly body that is sinful, it is what we choose to do in this fleshly body that is sinful. Or what we choose to refuse to do. And Jesus, even though he was born a human being, he was not born a sinner. He was pure as thoughtless, just like we are. Oh, I know there are people who go back to Psalm 51, verse 5, who talks about how David points out that he was born in sin, he was born in iniquity. But I honestly believe that could be very descriptive of David and when he got conceived and when he was born. Because if you remember right, when Samuel comes in and tells uh Jesse to go get your sons and bring them in, because one of them could be anointed as king, he brings in seven but leaves David.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Does he all seven sons? You don't have another son?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Yeah. That's a why. I don't know. Jesus himself taught that children are innocent. How did the king of heaven walks with such a peace little world? It's not our flesh and evil, it's what we choose to do evil. And that is how Jesus could be born fleshly, live for 33 years, and still be sinless. It's when we choose to sin. That's when we have problems. Jesus chose not to sin. We only have we choose to sin. In fact, very early in our life. In fact, most of us, if we are honest, we will have to admit that we broke commandment number five of the Ten Commandments to honor your father and mother. How many of us have ever disobeyed our parents? Those of you who can't admit that, we probably never met your parents. You know, I think most of us disobey our parents. But the scriptures reveal that Jesus Christ had all the fruits of deity dwelling in him in bodily form. He was perfect and sinless despite being in the flesh. According to Christ, he was God in flesh. According to Christ, in Christ we are made complete. Verse 10 states, in him you have been made complete, and he is the head over all rule and authority. Without Christ we lack many things. Probably the biggest one that I always think of is we lack salvation because the scripture tells us, Acts chapter 4, verse 12, there is salvation in no one else. There is no other name under heaven, it's been divided among men by which we must be saved. We need Jesus. We can't be what God intended for us to be, his children for eternity in heaven unless we go through Jesus. And she asked her, Can you get to heaven by being good enough?

SPEAKER_01 18:31

And all the other, no! Can you get to heaven simply by keeping them to your parents? And all the other of them said, no! Can you get to heaven because you were leaving to your parents? And they said together, no!

SPEAKER_00 18:47

She was told, man, they had caught on to the lesson. It's not about keeping the letter of the law. She goes, No, what do you have to do in order to go to heaven?

SPEAKER_01 18:56

You have to be dead first.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yet without Christ, we are not complete, you can't go to heaven. Have we come under that? You know, Paul even pointed out another aspect of Christ thinking is complete. He pointed out Christ is the head. Or the body. Think about it. A body without a head is dead, headless, not complete. We need the head. Without Christ, we're headless, and that's incomplete. A human body without a sin doesn't last long. But Christ is our head, thus in Christ, we, the body of Christ, but sure, we are made complete. That's according to Christ. That's how Christ designed us. That's how God designed us. We're not complete by understanding all the philosophy of men or their empty deceptions or their traditions or their elementary principles of this world. But it's according to Christ that we are completed with Christ as our head. And Paul pointed out that according to Christ, in him, in Christ we are circumcised. Verse 11, in him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. Paul wasn't concerned about the Jewish practice of circumcision, removing the part of the foreskin of the Jews to be the people of God's covenant. Paul was concerned about a better circumcision that wasn't done with human hands and eyes, but rather we are buried in Christ in baptism. And I know there's a lot of people who accuse me of being just a one-verse preacher emphasizing baptism, but the truth is I do emphasize baptism because there's so many Bible passages that point out it's important. In fact, in this passage, and when we're looking at according to Christ, let's look at the purpose of baptism according to Christ in this passage. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, writes here for at least six different purposes for baptism, starting in verse 11. We are told that there's a removal of the body of flesh. That's very close to what Paul worded when he wrote to the Christians in Romans, Romans chapter 6, 3 through 6. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in unness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away, the role of the body of flesh, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. We were baptized with new will with the removing of the body of flesh into sin. Way, way, way back many, many years, when I was in elementary school, my parents decided to splurge, they took us to A restaurant and my dad had lobster. And after we got a done eating, my sister who was a year older than me, therefore, she was also elementary age. She thought that lobster tarp is looked cool. And she asked if she could take it home. And she bought it home. And she put it in a box, a shoebox, on top of a radiator. Oh, yeah, you knew that in just a few days, the whole house leaked, not just one room, but the whole house was leaky. We searched it out all in the noses down to that dead carpets of the lobster. Guess what happened to it? It went to the trash. It was dumb. Why would we ever want a dead carcass in your house? Why would we ever want to come to Christ without the dead on the flesh? Instead, we want to be baptized and bury that in the waters of baptism. In fact, that's what Paul said. One of the purpose of baptism according to Christ is a burial with Christ in baptism. In fact, verse 12 here, have to be buried with him in baptism. Again, this fits exactly what Paul wrote to the Romans in Romans chapter 6. This Romans wrote Romans. In baptism, we were buried with Christ, coming to death to holds up a sin, buried that body of sin, to rise up as a new creature in Christ Jesus. And that's what he continues on. He gives what another purpose is, it's the resurrection with Christ through faith in the working of God. Here is in many other passages of scripture, like Acts chapter 2, verse 38, Acts chapter 8, verse 37, we see a huge connection with faith and baptism. A person must have faith that when they are being baptized, that they are uniting with Christ in a burial of the old man of sin to rise up as a new creature in Christ. And without faith, then the working of God when we raise us up, all we're doing in baptism is just getting well. We need to have faith. But baptism joins us together with faith in the working of God to do things according to Christ. It's not man's work. But the working of God is who raised up Jesus Christ and therefore promises to raise us up if we unite ourselves with Christ in baptism. Our death, burial, and resurrection that has faith combined with it. And according to the scriptures, thus according to Christ, baptism is removal of the body of flesh, man is sinned to be buried with Christ in baptism, to rise up with Christ through faith in the working of God, and as Paul kept writing here in verse 13, is of making us alive together with Christ. All these different words in Romans 6, when he wrote about this, was the same conclusion. If we have been raised up with Christ, then let us walk with Christ in newness of life. In baptism, we have put to death the old man of sin and death, to write up the new little creatures in Christ, alive and dead with him.

unknown 25:12

Christ does this for us, though, when we submit to him in baptism.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

And then Paul continued writing in verse 13, having forgiven us all our transgressions, or one of these six purposes is the giving and forgiveness of all of our sins. That's exactly the same message that Peter preached, Acts chapter 2, verse 38-39. Repent and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus for Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God should call himself. If we want to be forgiven of our sins, we need to be baptized. Yeah, I know 1 John chapter 1, verse 9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But that was written to Christians. Those who already had the one baptism were commanded to have now, Peter in Acts chapter 2, verse 38-39 was preaching to non-Christians. People who have never been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And he, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, said, You need to be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Just as the Apostle Paul wrote here in Colossians, a baptism is for the forgiveness of sins. And in my book, I trust God's word. Amen. The last prayer that Paul gave for baptism in this passage was the canceling out of the certificate of death. When Christ died on the cross for us, his death canceled out our certificate of death, that old law system. And when we unite with Christ's death by being buried in the waters of baptism, we are uniting with the one who set us free from the Old Testament law system. So we can live under the new covenant of grace. And that is fantastic. That is wow. And to reject this baptism and to reject the canceling of our certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us leaves us condemned by the old law system. We never could live it perfectly. We kept sinning. But praise God through Christ, we can be forgiven. We've had our debt paid in full by Christ. Will we accept what Christ has done for us? Will we do things according to Christ? Will we trust in Christ? Lord, I thank you for this passage and I ask, Lord, that you help us to submit to everything according to Christ. Forgive us for the times where we try to do things just our own way. Let us surrender to you and do things according to Christ. I thank you, Lord, that you are an amazing, awesome God. Help us for the faithful to do and everything we do, Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen.