Moments in the life of a Pastor

Colossians 2:4-15

⁴ I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. ⁵ For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. 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. 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.

1. CUTTING Vs 11

Circumcision is an outward sign of belonging to God. But what’s the use of an outward sign if nothing is happening inside? If I buy a tin of value dog food, take off the label and cunningly replace it with one saying “Cream of chicken soup” then the label is pointless. Circumcision was designed to be a badge, marking out a people who were to be dedicated to God but what point is there in a label if it doesn’t describe what’s on the inside. The Old Testament prophets spoke about Uncircumcised lips (Exodus 6:12), Uncircumcised hearts (Leviticus 26:41) and Uncircumcised ears (Jeremiah 6:10). In other words, people who had an external mark on their body declaring their commitment to God, but people whose lips were not committed to God – gossip, foul language and deceitful words; people whose hearts were not committed, and people whose ears were not committed because their ears were closed to Him. For us today circumcision of the body is irrelevant; but circumcision of the heart is completely relevant. It involves open heart surgery so that we will have an open heart to God and to His Will. It is ‘the circumcision done by Christ’ the cutting away of your sinful nature and for us there is an external sign. It is not done with a knife, but it is done with water, and that sign is Baptism. If you love Jesus and you desire to have an open heart to him have you been baptized? In baptism we are immersed or dipped into water to represent being ‘buried with [Jesus]’, and we are ‘raised with [him] through [our] faith in the power of God’ (2:12). Cutting away the sin should lighten our load, but its not just about the cutting away its about the commitment. 

• CANCELED Vs 13-15

When Jesus died on the cross, was buried and rose from the grave He did two things:

1. He destroyed the debt of sin defeating “The wages of sin is death.” Rom. 3:23

Gathering the Guilt puts a burden on our backs, most of us are ladened down in our walk not light.

2. He disarmed the dominion of Satan (15)

We win with Christ when we walk in His victory. Today Christians walk around defeated, we live like the war was lost. You and I share in Christ’s victory over sin, death and the devil. We ought to walk as conquerors in victory. Is your head lifted up? Are you walking in victory?

CONCLUSION

How deep is your relationship with the Lord? How stable and strong are you in the faith? 

Colossians 2:4-15

⁴ I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. ⁵ For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. 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. 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^[c] 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.

• CAREFULL vs 4 & 8

What could be wrong with philosophy since it simply means “the love of wisdom”? 

1. DEAD – Empty, hollow. Many of the philosophies we hear of today when compared with the reality of human existence are far off the mark because they are empty.

• DECEPTIVE – It may sound good but it is nonsense designed to lead people astray. 

• DEPEND – On “human thinking”. They arise out of the thinking of men, find a foothold in society, and then are passed along from generation to generation so as to appear popular and widely supported. Tradition based on human logic becomes dangerous and hardly anyone dares question them because it seems like everybody believes them. One obvious example today is the theory of evolution. 

• DEPEND on “the spiritual powers of this world.” No man-made religion can lead to truth, for truth can only be found in Christ. If you start with nothing but an empty and hollow philosophy you will only fill people with more emptiness. Today many people are walking carelessly and the result is that they are filling their lives with emptiness. By contrast, Colossian 2:2 reminds us that because we know Christ, we have “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” Problem in Colosse was that some were seeking to harmonize the Christian faith with the current philosophies. They were seeking to conform Christ to the current trend. Trends come and go but truth is foundational. When you put these three verses together Paul is saying that a grounded, growing and grateful believer will not be led astray and spiritually kidnapped. 

• COMPLETE Vs 9-10 

A baby is born complete, you don’t need to add more DNA after the child is born. The baby grows from what is already programmed into it. The baby grows from inside out as do we in Christ. When we don’t recognize our completeness in Christ we start to add things. But Its not Jesus and or plus, we lean only on the Lord. Today we try to lean on other things and we become dependent on them so Jesus has to strip away our walking sticks. Why do we lean on sticks when we have the Savior? Are you walking complete in Christ or are you leaning on other things?