Sermon Tone Analysis

*Intro*

Ever had or known a bully growing up?

How many of you were the bully?

Wikipedia defines bullying as “the act of intentionally causing harm to others, through verbal harassment, physical assault, or other more subtle methods of coercion such as manipulation.”[1]

No one likes a bully.

Growing up in New York City, around 4th or 5th grade, I had a bully in my elementary school.

He would always pick on me and take my toys (don’t know why I was bringing toys to school anyway).

He was taller than me and always tried to intimidate me, mocking me, making me feel really low and weak.

He thought he was a big, bad, tough guy who always needed to get his way.

Finally I got tired of the guy.

I had a good African-American friend Ian who was tall and bigger than her was and I just started hanging around him a lot.

One day when this bully came around to taunt me, Ian would come along and say something like, “Hey stop messing with him.

Leave him alone.

You mess with him, you mess with me.”

You know what?

He never bullied me after that!

Thank God for Ian!

Today I want to talk about spiritual bullies in the church.

They might not be out to beat you up physically or take your money, but there are people in the church (I mean the church of Jesus Christ worldwide not necessarily EFC) who set themselves up to intimidate Christians, manipulating and in order to make themselves appear better than you.

I hope no one is like that here at EFC.

Perhaps someone of you have experienced this and can relate.

These people huff and puff and want to blow your house down.

And if you start to believe their lies, it will be the end of you!

We need to watch out for them or if you are one of them, you need to watch out as well!

We have been on the defensive here in chapter 2. Paul has on war paint.

All chapter, he has been sounding the alarm of the lies, scams and deceit of false teachers at the church at Colossae.

He’s been saying Jesus Christ is sufficient.

In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col.

2:3) and you are complete in Him (Col.

2:10).

Over and over again, the apostle has been saying no need to go after something you already have.

We are going to finish this chapter today looking at three bullies with three approaches to intimidate you in your walk with Christ.

One bully says things like, “why are you wearing that to church?

And true believers don’t eat that or drink this or watch that or do that!

You must not be spiritual.”

Another bully says, “Did you ever get the second blessing?

Last week Jesus came into my room and bam!

I fell over and now I got the secret power and I have the goose bumps to prove it.

Has that happened to you? No? Loser!”

The third bully comes along and looks at you and says, “If you are going to be spiritual, you are going to need to deprive yourself of pleasure.

Do you have sin in your life?

Lock yourself in your room and tell yourself you are garbage.

Suffer man!

The more you suffer, the better chance you have with God accepting you.”

The false teachers were like these kinds of bullies in the church.

Since we started this chapter, we have seen only a little bit of what they were actually teaching.

Paul had called it empty philosophy a scam (Col.

2:8).

We know whatever it was, they had shrunk the Lord Jesus into nothing more than a mere angel and thus, insignificant and insufficient for them.

But in our last portion of the Supremacy Defended today, we are going to get a little bit more detail about what they were actually teaching.

Paul is out to warn this flock that these wolves are all bark and no bite.

So here are three spiritual bullies…three big names…and our response to them.

First:

*I.

**The Bully of Legalism: Don’t judge me!

(Col.

2:16-17)*

The first bully is wearing a black robe.

He is a judge.

How did he become the judge?

Self-appointed!

And he is a judge of legalism.

Legalism is measuring your spirituality based on your ability to follow man-made rules.

It is the religion of human achievement.

This bully lifts up his gavel and says, “God will accept you if you put your faith in Jesus and if you do these certain things.”

By the way, I know people to whom everything God commands in His Word is legalism.

“Hey bro, don’t murder!...what?

Don’t be legalistic man!” Obeying what God commands in Scripture is not legalism, but obedience.

Legalism is the Bible something you think Christians should be doing.

So Paul starts with “therefore.”

In light of the fact that you have a complete relationship, transformation, forgiveness and victory in Jesus Christ, and if you are complete in Him, then he says here, “Let no one pass judgment on you.”

NIV says, “Do not let anyone judge you” and NAS says “No one is to act as your judge.”

In other words, don’t let someone appoint themselves as arbitrator of your spiritual life.

Don’t let anyone make a spiritual judgment on you based on what you do or don’t do.

The false teachers according to verse 16 were judging them based on Jewish ceremonial laws.

They were judged on two things.

The first was:

a)    Their diet

The Colossian Christians must have had great pressure to conform.

They were Gentiles and probably had no clue as to Jewish tradition, formalities or ceremonies.

Notice what they were judged on: “Questions of food and drink….”They

were judged on their diet.

We talked about even circumcision last week and how they were preaching that as well in order to get favor with God.

So these people went around pointing fingers, bullying the Christians at Colossae.

They would say, “Why are you eating that or drinking that?

It is forbidden in the Old Testament.”

Now in the Old Testament, God had laws about His people’s diet (Lev.

10:9, Num.

6:3).

He did not set them up to deprive the people of it, but because He wanted His people to be different and set apart.

By virtue of this diet He subscribed, they could not intermingle with their idol worshipping neighbors.

Certain animals these nations worshipped and so God commanded that they not even eat it or associate with it.

But in the New Testament, the dietary laws were abolished.

Jesus says in Mark 7:14-23 that it is not what goes into a man that defiles him (in other words, what he ate), but what comes out of his heart.

Acts 10, Peter, who was struggling with associating with Gentiles or not, was on the rooftop and had a vision where the Lord told him it is not about what you eat anymore.

Rom.

14:17: “The kingdom of Heaven is not about eating or drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

But these bullies walked around judging people of their diet.

b)   Their days

They also judged them according to their observance of days: “festivals, new moon and Sabbaths.”

In other words, “You are not spiritual because you don’t go to Passover, Pentecost, Feast of Tabernacles, or any of the festivals listed in Leviticus 23 or to the sacrifice made on the new Moon once a month according to Num. 28:11.

And to make it worse, it so clear in Ex 20 that the Sabbath Day, Saturday, is to be kept holy and you don’t go to Sabbath that day either.”

The Jews had lots of holidays to mark what God had done in their history.

We have holidays like that too, like Christmas and Easter.