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Text: Col 2:16-19
Theme: Christ is enough, more than enough
Doctrine: sufficiency of Christ
Image: Jesus paying our fine
Need: syncretism
Message: you will not be disqualified because Christ has paid your debt
*Preached*
2nd CRC Fremont, MI –Oct 22, 2006
Coopersville CRC – Nov 12, 2006
Kellogsville CRC-- Feb 4, 2007
*Protection from Disqualification*
Colossians 2:16-19
*Intro*
A couple of years ago as I was scanning through the hockey news, I came across this headline.
“Hockey Player suspended for Mooning Fans”.
Dan Sullivan of the Reading Royals, a junior hockey club in Wheeling, West Virginia, was suspended for 12 games and fined an undisclosed amount of money.
This is not the first time this kid got into trouble, he was already suspended indefinitely for previous actions and was sitting in the stands watching the team playing.
Apparently the game was pretty close and people in the crowd were heckling him.
He began to argue with the other fans in the stands.
Things most likely would have come to blows if the hecklers had been closer to Dan, so instead of starting a fight, he dropped his pants and let his moon shine for all to see.
A spokesman for the club said that Dan would most likely not play for them again.
His own actions had disqualified him from membership in the team.
*Page 1*
Paul, writing to the Colossians, tells them not to let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify them.
Now, hold on a second.
Paul tells the Colossians not to let people disqualify them?
But how can that be?
How could someone possibly disqualify someone else from the prize prepared for them by Christ?
Can someone who is a follower of Christ be disqualified from the life of faith like Dan Sullivan was disqualified from playing hockey?
What about the persistence of the saints?
Well, from what we can tell, the Colossian church was under heavy attack from outside influences.
They were in danger of being disqualified because they were in danger of losing their faith.
It appears as though there were people all around them telling them they needed to do something else in order to worship God.
Some of this comes as no surprise.
There was a strong Jewish presence in the Lycus valley, where the city of Colossae was located, and it seems the church in Colossae is predominately gentile.
As we well know, the Jewish community was not that well disposed to the Christian church in the early years of its formation.
Paul was chased out on many towns by the Jewish community because they felt like he was attacking their religion.
Here, the tables have turned; the Jewish community is attacking the young church in Colossae and judging them for not following the traditions of the Israelites.
You can picture a member of the Colossian church early on a Sabbath day strolling down the road to gather with her fellow Christians.
Passing by her Jewish neighbour she pauses for a moment to tie her sandal.
As she stands up her neighbour's family is leaving their home and walking toward their synagogue.
She falls in step with them and starts to talk with the wife of the family.
They begin to talk about their faith and she finds out that Jesus was actually a Jew.
The wife says, “Yes, he was a Jew, but he did not submit to the proper authorities of the temple.
He did not follow the true faith, and rebelled against our leaders.
A small band of people were convinced to follow him and have fallen away from the true faith.
I mean, you Christians do not even observe the religious festivals which Jesus himself did.
If you want to follow God, you have to follow his commandments.
At the very least you have to eat only clean foods, and observe the Sabbath.
I think you should come to the synagogue with us and find out how to really follow God.”
She politely declines, but the things she heard continue to ring in her head.
When she meets up with her community she raises the question to the others, “Why are we not following the religious festivals that we are supposed to?”
It seems that there were still people who thought that they should judge others by what they ate or drank, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.
They were telling the Colossians that they had to do something other than believe in Christ.
They had to follow the laws and traditions of the Jews if they wanted to worship God appropriately.
They had been deceived and were following an imposter, a fraud, someone who had been executed for blasphemy.
They claimed that they had the authority of God and the Christians did not.
After all, they were receiving visions of God's glory in heaven.
Surely that was proof that God was on their side, wasn't it?
They were bragging about the visions that they had.
They were puffing themselves up and considering themselves better than the Colossians.
Paul is telling the Colossians that they have to be careful not to be led astray by the teachings of these people, and to become disconnected from Christ.
He says that they had to be careful not to be disqualified by the things these people say.
They had to be careful not to chase the shadows of the things that were to come, but to follow the reality found in Christ.
*Page 2*
We have to be careful not to chase the shadows of this world.
We have to be careful to avoid things which appear to be wise, but have no value.
We have to be careful not to become disconnected from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
There are people today who question our faith when we do not do the same things they do, who tell us that Jesus is not enough.
It is fine to trust in God, but what really counts is what we do in this life.
This kind of stuff does not just happen in books either.
Listening to contemporary Christian culture you get the feeling that you have to buy the blessed prayer shawl for your prayers to be heard.
You have to place the latest prayer rug on the floor in exactly the right spot in your house.
You have to have the confidence to ask for what you want, and to continue to ask for it until you get it.
You have to pray the prayer of Jabez.
You have to have enough faith that God will provide for you and then you will be healthy, wealthy and wise.
You have to worship in a certain way.
You have to say the right kinds of things to God.
You have to sing out of the right songbook.
You have to follow the advice of Rick Warren in the /Purpose Driven Life/ or his new book /God's Power to Change Your Life/.
You have to make a certain amount of money.
You have to drive the right kind of vehicle.
You have to look a certain way, and buy certain types of clothes.
You have to listen to the right kind of music.
You have to have the right kind of political views.
I am sure that you can list many other things our culture tells us we need instead of, or in addition to Christ.
This kind of attitude can be very harmful to a person's faith.
This summer Carol came into the unit I worked on in Pine Rest after a very serious attempt at suicide.
She and her husband had been going through some financial difficulties and people were telling her that she should just have enough faith and everything would be alright.
If they truly loved God, and believed in Jesus, then he would bless them with good finances.
If they prayed the prayer of Jabez hard enough, or if she attended enough Bible studies, or went to church often enough, or volunteered enough, they would not have any problems.
When things took a turn for the worse and they had to sell their business, it was more than she could take.
She felt abandoned by God.
So she tried to take her own life.
She took a lethal overdose of her medication when she knew that her husband was going to be gone for the weekend.
Seven hours after she had taken the pills, her husband came home because the conference had adjourned early.
He found her lying unconscious on their bed with an empty bottle of pills next to her head.
He brought her quickly to the hospital and they revived her.
However, she had the pills in her system for so long that the doctors thought she may have some long term mental impairment.
Talking to me she continually expressed a worry that she was not saved.
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