AVOIDING SUBSITUTES FOR A CHRIST-SHAPED LIFE COLOSSIANS 2:6-23

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1 AVOIDING SUBSITUTES FOR A CHRIST-SHAPED LIFE COLOSSIANS 2:6-23 A man was waiting to get the result of his annual physical exam at his doctor s office. Finally, the doctor came back into the examination room and said, There s no reason why you can t live a completely normal life as long as you don t try to enjoy it. Some Christians have the same attitude towards living a Christ-shaped life. Yes, sure, it s possible as long as you don t try to enjoy it. And so their lives are dominated by negative attitudes, long faces, and joyless defeat. Well, I m trying as hard as I can to live for the Lord and, thank God, I m not enjoying it a bit! How many of you believe that a truly Christ-shaped life is the most enjoyable kind of life this side of Heaven? I m not suggesting every part of life is enjoyable. But a Christ-shaped life ought to be the most positive, the most wonderful and the most enjoyable life any person can ever live. But sometimes it just isn t. Why not? There are things that threaten a truly Christshaped life. There are things that threaten a truly Christ-shaped church. When you read one of Paul s letters in the New Testament, it s a little like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. From the comments made by the person you can hear on one end of the phone, you can pretty well piece together what the person on the other end of the connection is saying. We re in the midst of Paul s letter to a new group of Christians a new church in the small city of Colossae located in what s now southern Turkey. As you listen closely to what Paul writes, you begin to understand that these new followers of Jesus were dealing with two primary threats to living a Christ-shaped life. Let s call them substitutes today spiritual substitutes for the real thing. Ironically, these two substitutes still exist today and they have the power to rob you of a life of joy in Christ and to rob this church of its effectiveness in sharing and living out a joyful ministry. Let s read the passage just now and then discuss those two substitutes to a truly Christ-shaped life: 2:6-23. The first substitute for a Christshaped life that I see in these verses is THE SUBSTITUTE OF SUPER-SPIRITUALITY How was that showing up at Colossae? A philosophical system called Gnosticism was just getting started in the middle years of the 1 st century based on the Greek word gnosis which means knowledge. Among other things, it taught that you found fulfillment in life by getting knowledge about certain important things. Some so-called Christians there in Colossae were deeply affected by this secular philosophy and were trying to add it to the message about Jesus. Yes, Jesus was great and what He did was wonderful they said - but you also needed to obtain a body of secretive, mysterious and spiritual knowledge about God if you wanted the whole package. Access to this knowledge came through secret passwords, mysterious initiation rites and being exposed to higher knowledge. Sometimes you obtained this higher knowledge through impressive sounding visions and ecstatic experiences. 1

2 Apparently, this was coupled with a strong emphasis on astrology and the supernatural. Most people in the ancient world believed that your whole life was fixed by the movement of planets and stars and that a multitude of spiritual beings controlled the universe. Just because they put their trust in Jesus for salvation didn t mean that they automatically understood that some of their old beliefs had to be abandoned. Belief was strong in good and evil spirits and the ability of these spirits to dominate your daily life. Some even believed that Jesus was a kind of super angel who only appeared to be human. As a result, God s Good News was getting an extreme makeover, to say the least. Simple trust in Jesus as the one and only mediator between you and God was not enough. Simple trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus to save you was not enough. Simple walking by faith day by day in obedience to the Holy Spirit was not enough. Salvation became a matter of getting special knowledge about this spirit world between you and God and having ecstatic experiences. You became acceptable to God by, in a sense, becoming super spiritual in a weird sort of way. Is super-spirituality still a substitute for a truly Christ-shaped life today? Indeed, it is. Here s one characteristic of super-spirituality: it emphasizes the sensational over the ordinary. Now, you will have sensational moments in your journey through life as a follower of Jesus, but a lot of Christ-shaped living is pretty ordinary. You should have some mountain top spiritual experiences in life, but a lot of life is lived down in the valley of the ordinary and everyday. It s easy to focus on some sensational aspect of spirituality and make that the main thing. Like what? I ve known Christians who have done this with spiritual warfare. There are demons here, demons there, demons everywhere! I went to a Bible college and one fellow student tried to cast a demon out of a pop machine because it failed to give him his change back! Other folk are into learning how to command angels to do this and that for you. Well, does the Bible teach that angels and demons exist? Of course! Does it refer to spiritual warfare? Certainly! It s kind of sensational, but it s not the main thing. Jesus is the main thing. I ve also known followers of Christ who get all wrapped up in prophecy, studies of the end times and they create all sorts of sensational, fantastic scenarios about the future. Who s the Anti-Christ going to be? Is the United Nations a tool of some kind of world-wide Satanic conspiracy? Are there more earthquakes and famines now than 1000 years ago? Does the Bible predict events in the future? Sure. Will Jesus Christ be ultimately victorious at the end of history as we know it? Absolutely. Biblical prophecy is interesting - kind of sensational and spectacular. But it s not the main thing. Jesus is the main thing. Here s another characteristic of super-spirituality: it emphasizes the supernatural over the practical. God is always being expected and asked to do the supernatural every waking moment. If you re not experiencing supernatural healing from some physical ailment, or supernatural deliverance from some bad habit or supernatural provision for some financial need, you start to get the 2

3 feeling there is something woefully deficient about your spiritual life. Just living a quietly obedient life before God in the power of the Holy Spirit isn t valued much by super-spiritualists. Just observing the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life practical things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal 5:22-23 NLT) is not as valued as the supernatural. Does the Bible teach that God can heal you supernaturally? Of course. Can He supernaturally deliver you from some kind of spiritual stronghold? Sure. Has God been known to provide for people financially in miraculous ways? Certainly. We worship and serve a God who is supernatural in every way, but that s not the main thing. Jesus is the main thing. Another characteristic of any and every substitute for a Christ-shaped life but especially super-spirituality is this: it emphasizes Jesus plus something else rather than simply Jesus. Many of you know that I grew up in the Pentecostal tradition. Pentecostal or Charismatic Christians are true, wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ. The rest of the Body of Christ has so much to learn from them. So why did I decide to leave that tradition and end up being a Baptist? And it s not because Baptists have it all together! The distinctive teaching of many Pentecostal or Charismatic leaders is that every Christian should have a second spiritual experience following your conversion to Jesus. This experience is often called the baptism in the Holy Spirit and some teach (not all, but some) that the evidence you ve had this experience is the ability to speak in tongues. Now, is speaking in tongues a biblical practice? Absolutely. Should you expect to have spiritual experiences after conversion that propel you somehow into a deeper relationship with God? Of course, you should. But growing up, I got the distinct impression that trusting in Jesus was just not enough spiritually. You needed something in addition to Christ. Jesus, simply, was not enough. It had to be Jesus plus something else. And along with that came a distinction perhaps unintentional, but inevitable - between the spiritually elite (those who spoke in tongues) and the spiritual ordinary (those who didn t speak in tongues). You had the spiritual haves and have nots. Watch out when you start to smell spiritual elitism in any way, shape of form. It s usually evidence of super-spirituality. It s a sign that someone is trying to offer a substitute for a truly Christ-shaped life. Speaking in tongues and wonderful spiritual experiences are, by all means, part of the Christian life, but they re not the main thing. Jesus is the main thing. And that was Paul s main argument here. Keep the main thing the main thing. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ. (Col 1:9-10 NIV) Let s move on to another substitute to a Christ-shaped life that threatened the faith of the Colossians: THE SUBSITUTE OF LEGALISM How was legalism showing up among these new believers in Colossae? Many of the first Christ-followers were ethnic Jews. Devout Jews back in that day and time followed strict religious rules and practices as the expression of their faith. 3

4 They practiced circumcision as the identifying mark of belonging to God s people. They kept kosher dietary laws regarding the food they ate. They observed the Sabbath weekly and other religious festivals throughout the year. When they became Christians, some of them had a struggle figuring out where their Judaism ended and their Christianity began. Then something astounding happened that really stirred this pot of confusion. Non-Jews the Bible word for them is Gentiles started accepting Christ as Lord and Savior in droves. Some Jewish Christians believed and taught that to be truly and fully Christian, these Gentile believers needed to get circumcised, needed to start following kosher dietary standards and needed to start observing Jewish holy days. So, what was the message that got sent? Jesus is not enough. Simple faith in the sufficiency of Jesus is not enough. Simple faith in what He did at the cross and empty tomb is not enough to make you acceptable to God. You had to follow certain rules, certain traditions and certain practices. That s legalism. Legalism is any reliance upon human rules and human traditions to make yourself pleasing to God. Irony of ironies, it was Paul who God prepared to explain that the Good News wasn t, on the one hand, a matter of do s and don ts. Nor was it, on the other hand, a matter of being Jewish. You ll recall that before he became a follower of Christ, Paul was a Pharisee. The Pharisees were a sect within Judaism that were hyper-legalists. They loved rules! They made up rules just for the fun of it! Plus, they were passionate about being Jewish. What really mattered from their perspective was Jewish tradition, Jewish history and Jewish dominance. Everyone else on the planet was pretty much scum. As a result, a relationship with God from the Pharisee perspective became a matter of keeping rules and regulations that reinforced one s Jewish identity. Jesus blasted them regularly. Once, when the Pharisees got all upset because Jesus disciples failed to cleanse their hands ceremonially, Jesus said, You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God. For you ignore God s law and substitute your own tradition. (Mark 7:5-8 NLT) I suggest that the substitute of legalism can show up in at least three ways. First, legalism is when a religious tradition takes the place of a living relationship with Christ. You re just going through the motions. Sometimes you don t even remember why you re doing what you re doing. It s like the bride who was cooking a ham for her husband. Before baking the ham, she cut off both ends. He asked her why and she said, I don t know. Mom always did it that way. He got curious and asked his mother-in-law about this novel practice. She replied, Well, I don t know why. I just remember my mother did it like that. Finally, this young man contacted his bride s grandmother and asked her why she cut off both ends of the ham before baking. Well, it s quite simple, she explained. My baking pan is too small for a full size ham, so I cut off the ends so it will fit! 4

5 Now some religious traditions are very good ones. For example, partaking of the Lord s Supper is a tradition that Jesus Himself instituted. We observe it here on a monthly basis. But have you ever gone through an observance of the Lord s Supper and your mind and heart were somewhere else entirely? It meant little or nothing to you. Or, you can use tradition to either refuse to change and grow spiritually or to keep your distance from other Christians. Believe it or not, there are Christians who pretty much believe that you must worship God with 19 th century hymns, a pipe organ and a choir while other Christians pretty much believe that you must worship God with 21 st century choruses, guitars and drums and a praise band. Can t you have a personal preference? Of course you can! But don t allow your preference to be an excuse to lose your joy, to refuse to grow or to in some way distance yourself from others in the Body of Christ. Another expression of legalism is when you decide what s acceptable behavior to God on the basis of human authority instead of the Bible. Christians have struggled with this issue for 2000 years! About 150 years after Paul wrote this letter, a church leader by the name of Tertullian, began teaching that good Christians could not go to the theater. Why? Because it had its origins in pagan worship. He taught that dancing was sinful. Why? Because it might inflame sexual passion. He taught that the use of cosmetics was sinful. Why? Because if God meant for you to smell like a flower, He would have given you a crop on your head! Tertullian was a well meaning Christian, but he had fallen into legalism. There s nothing in the Bible that forbids Christians from going to the theater, or dancing or wearing cosmetics. Much later on came the Puritans in our own country a wonderful, godly group of people that have been much misunderstood. But, it s true, along the way some of them became legalistic, too. They put restrictions on certain clothing styles, on playing cards, on religious art, on using musical instruments in worship, and on celebrating Christmas. You can easily find sincere Christians today debating whether certain activities are pleasing to God or not. Far be it from me to ever suggest that anyone do something that offends his or her conscience. The problem is when you want to make your personal rules for your life the rules for everyone else s life. Someone will say, But, Rick, you can go too far in the world s direction. Indeed, we can! Most certainly, God doesn t want any of us to get conformed to the attitudes, values, lifestyle or mindset of the world. So, how can you know if something is just a human standard or not? The Bible. I ve come to the conclusion that God knows exactly what sin is and He has no problem identifying and warning us against it. For example, the Bible says, When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. (Gal 5:19-21 NLT) God has not left much mystery as to what He considers sinful. He doesn t need my help! 5

6 The problem is that sometimes Christian aren t content with God s list of unacceptable behavior. It s as if they say, You know, God, you left a few things off Your list that I think You should add. That s legalism taking a human standard of behavior however worthy or well-intentioned and then making it a moral or spiritual absolute for every other child of God to live by. If you re not sure something you re doing is sinful or not, read and study the Bible. If the Bible calls it a sin, stop doing it. If the Bible is quiet on the subject, you re free to come to your own conviction on the matter. You are not free to force your conviction on your brother or sister in Christ. That s legalism. It implies that simply trusting Jesus and walking in obedience to Him each day is just not good enough to be right with God. Paul says here to resist that kind of spiritual enslavement. Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!? (Col 2:20-21 NIV) A third expression of legalism is when you put your trust in good things to win favor with God instead of trusting in His grace. Reading and studying the Bible tithing a consistent prayer life sharing your faith with people who aren t followers of Jesus serving the Lord in some way inside our outside the walls of the church: all good and wonderful expressions of your walk with God. But the devil can get in there and twist up your motivation. He can whisper, If you don t keep doing thus and so, God won t love you as much. Instead of all those good practices being a way to show your love and gratitude to God, they become a duty and a burden. You begin to act as if you must continue those practices to somehow earn or deserve God s love and favor. That s legalism. No, my friend, read God s Word, pray, share your faith, tithe and serve the Lord simply and only because you love Jesus so much and you just want to express your thanks. Two of the most overlooked verses in the Bible might well be found right here in the passage we re considering today: So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. (Col 2:6-7 NIV) Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him. Do you remember the attitude of your heart and mind when you reached out and by faith received Jesus as your Lord and Savior? You were repentant. That s where both the super-spiritualist and the legalist go wrong. They don t continue to be repentant. They begin to believe the lie that God owes them His grace, blessings and eternal life because of all the things they re doing that seem so sacrificial and spiritual. When you start to think God owes you anything, you ve become a super-spiritualist or a legalist. You received Jesus with a repentant heart and mind. God didn t owe you a thing. You were just so thrilled and blessed to get in on His grace. So continue to live like that every day. You were humble when you received Christ. That s where the super-spiritualist and the legalist go wrong yet again. They think their experiences with God or their morality make them better than other people and holier and more deserving 6

7 than other Christians. They like the feeling of being spiritually elite. They become proud. They don t continue to be humble. But you received Jesus with humility Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner - so continue to have a humble heart. You will always and forever be a sinner saved by grace. You started out the Christian life knowing that. So continue to live like that every day. You were filled with faith in Christ alone when you received Him as Savior and Lord. That s where the super-spiritualist and the legalist go wrong. They say, Well, I needed God s grace to get started, but I m pretty spiritual now. I m pretty holy and righteous now. God should be real impressed with me. They don t continue to relate to Christ by faith in Him alone. But you received Jesus by faith in Him alone, so continue to put all your faith in Him. Each day you and I can truly say, Lord, I ve got nothing that will impress You to love me, accept me or save me. I can only put my trust in what Jesus did for me on the cross. You took that ultimate IOU my sin, my debt and you nailed it to the cross so that the whole universe could see that it was paid in full by Your Son s blood. You started out the Christian life having faith in Christ alone. Continue that way. As a young woman, Charlotte Elliott was dissatisfied with her relationship with God. No matter what she heard at church or how often she heard it, she just couldn t seem to understand how to get right with God. One day an old preacher visited her home. He had a kind of gruff manner about him. In the course of the conversation, he said in a rather direct, rough way, Charlotte, when are you going to come to Jesus? Charlotte was a bit taken by surprise by his question and replied, Oh, I don t know how. The old preacher said, You don t know how? Why, Charlotte, you just come as you are. Later in the evening when Charlotte went to her room, those words kept turning over in her mind. She knelt by her bed and as best as she knew how, she put her faith in Jesus Christ with repentance and humility. And out of that experience, Charlotte Elliott wrote a hymn that reflects that life transforming decision: Just as I am, without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me. And that thou bidst me come to Thee; Oh, Lamb of God, I come, I come. That hymn has come to be closely identified with the kind of attitude a person should have who is coming to Jesus for salvation for the first time. But, it s equally a good song for those of us who have been following Jesus for many years now. It s easy to drift into super-spirituality or become a legalist. How we need to avoid every substitute to a truly Christ-shaped life! Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him. Repentance. Humility. Faith. It s the only way to start the Christian life. It s the only way to continue to live it. 7