Stand Firm, Strong and Resolute 09-11-2022
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Last week, ended with an emphasis on being rooted in Christ so you can stand firm
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
But is that all we need to do as Christians, get grounded?
I think you know it’s not.
Lets read on in Colossians chapter 2: 8-15
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Taken Captive
Taken Captive
This advice to be careful where and how we walk out our Christian lives, wasn’t a warning to lukewarm Christians, but to those rooted and grounded in Christ.
This advise was given to those who could stand firm, if they perceived the danger they were in
In the New Living Translation is say Col 2:8
Don’t let anyone capture you …NLT
Beware lest any man spoil you … KJV
The meaning of the Greek word is associated with booty, so don’t let anyone make you their booty.
Do you remember the story of Lot’s capture when the four kings in the area of Sodom were defeated and fled?
Lot and all his goods were part of the booty carried off.
Until Abraham came and rescued them.
Paul wants the Colossians to be careful, to be on their guard against deceptive philosophies.
If my atheistic dad,
who reminded me of Spock,
someone you knew loved you but couldn’t express.
If he could be snared by a cult,
then a lot of Christians can be too.
Paul gives this same kind of warning to Timothy
20 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge,
So Paul is even concerned that a great church leader like Timothy could be influence by these non-Christian ideas.
The Message version expresses verse 8 this way
8 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that’s not the way of Christ.
These verse tell me that being sucked into some cult or some other way of thinking, some other way of trying to get saved is a real danger.
illus: A young man was going to study and work under a marine biologist.
The first day the professor gave him a fish to look at and tell him about it.
The next day, when asked, he said it was a fish.
The young man wanted to get on with some real research, and the professor gave him back the fish to study some more.
At the end of the second day, the very board student said it was a fish.
But at the end of the third day, the student had much more to say about the fish.
the shape of the scales and their colors
what it had been eating
it’s weight, it’s gender and money other things.
And he could distinguish that fist from other fish in the lab, because he knew it well.
An FBI agent was asked how he was so good at identifying counterfeit money, did he study, the ways the counterfeiters make their money,
their methods and materials.
Like my fish story, his answer was he studied real money very carefully.
That’s how he was so good at spotting fake money.
Being rooted in God’s word, will help us identify and reject unbiblical thoughts.
Paul named two areas of concern
First,
Col 8:2 . . . hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition . . .(NIV)
The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Col 2:8.
And second
elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
After traditions of men
After rudiments of the world
Not after Christ
Elemental spirits
1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
In Paul's day,
many of these heresies,
many of these add on’s to faith
would have been putting themselves under Jewish laws,
Jewish customs, and Jewish celebrations
oh and also, Jewish circumcision.
There were philosophers that said, the body is evil and not being saved so
sin all you want!
Others authoritative speakers, go to the other extreme,
depriving the body, of it’s physical needs
to somehow be holy enough for heaven.
I read about a large grassy area in central or south America where
native children do not run and play in the fields.
Nobody every runs and plays like that
because you might smash a spirit’s little house accidently and bring down judgement:
on yourself,
your family and
your village.
What kind of traditions,
what kind of superstitions do people follow today that are not biblical?
Try before you buy in the context of marriage is one
what others can you think of?
Being in Christ
Being in Christ
How did verse 8 end?
rather than on Christ
Some people,
throughly rooted in Christ and
wondered away to trusting in
traditions of men and
spirits, elemental forces.
Rather than on Christ.
Christ Fullness
Christ Fullness
Let us read on
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,
Jesus wasn’t just a good man!
Jesus did not just have some nice teachings.
ALL the fullness of God lives in Him Bodily
God the Father
God the Son
God the Holy Spirit
and if we are in Christ, than God is in us.
He is our head, our lord.
10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.
I don’t know how we can have the fulness of God in us, and yet need to grow, need to go through a sanctifying process
making us more like Christ but Paul says
In Christ you have been brought to fullness.
From our first taking root in Christ
we are saved but there is abiding
there is watching out of
deceptive ideas that would lead us astray
and our job
your job and my job is
To Stay alert and avoid those snares, those traps.
Circumcision, Christ’s way
Circumcision, Christ’s way
11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ,
When you were baptised
if you were baptized,
did you say goodbye to your sins.
This verse is the first of two images of Christ work in our hearts
The first being circumcised hearts and the second being baptized in water
12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
As a sinner you were dead to any kind of relationship with God, but
when Christ comes into your heart, you are raised to new life in him.
If you really meant it, if you had faith and believed.
I like baptism by immersion because it follows this imagery of death to sin, leaving the old life in the grave and being raised to new life in Christ.
What happens if you’re baptised without faith,
you go into the water a dry sinner
and come out a wet one, not ready for a new life in Christ.
Listen to verse 13, how it wraps up these two images of having an uncircumcised heart and being dead in your sins,
then God makes us alive in Christ, listen to the words
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,
From heavens point of view, we all start out as dead sinners, and are hearts are prone to sin. but with God’s power, we can be raised from the dead to new life in Christ.
Our slavery to sin and wilful desires can be cut off as in circumcision of the heart and
we can be made alive by God.
Amen? Amen!
God promised to circumcise our hearts a long time before the New Testament was being written.
Lets read Deuteronomy 30:6
6 The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
that was written by Moses.
The New Testament talks about this in other places too.
29 No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.
So circumcision of the heart was not just something Paul came up with.
What more could God do for us,
I mean after changing our heart and helping us to put away our evil desires by cutting them off
14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
He takes our death sentence
He take our warrant
He takes our Court of Heaven order and
nails it to the cross, so the records is gone
it’s blotted out and you and I are free men and women
guilt free before God
if we have faith and have made him our Lord and Savior.
The last verse that completes this section is 15
15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
The witness of a charged life is humiliating to devil and His crew. It reminds them of their final loss in Revelations.
Remember how verse 8 begain with being careful not to be taken captives, or as some versions put it, not to be spoiled.
Listen to verse 15 from the king James Version
15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
A changed life,
A clean heart that satan once ruled over
is a joy to heaven and an embarrassment to the devil.
Chuck Swindal says in one of his books something like
Once you know Gods will
Stand firm
Stand Strong
Stand Resolute
Even if other think you are wrong.
Let’s Pray