Colossians 2 this morning. Colossians 2.
Several years ago, we were just minding our own business around the church when an RV pulled onto the church grounds. We weren’t expecting anyone. We didn’t have any company coming. It was a total surprise. I was a little bit disappointed when the extreme home makeover guy didn’t step out of the RV. Instead it was a missionary candidate I had never heard or or heard from, and they were just dropping in, hoping to preach in the church.
We ended up spending a few days with these “strangers unaware.” They were fine people. Certainly nice enough. They had been missionaries early in eastern Europe and were headed to the big island of Hawaii to start a church.
Me, being the socially awkward guy I am sometimes asked them about that. Why Hawaii? Their answer floored me. They said that in all of Hawaii, there are no biblical baptist churches.
Now, that really floored me. You see, I know at least two pastors who live in Hawaii and pastor independent baptist churches. They are both good men. So me, being the socially awkward guy I am sometimes said as much. “No way, there are several good churches in Hawaii. I know the pastor.”
And that opened up Pandora's box. They went on and on about their positions on baptist succession and how your church had to have a pedigree that you could trace all the way back to John the Baptist to be a real church and at some point, I’m going to be honest, I checked out of the conversation - it just got too weird for me.
How many of you know a Christian who is absolutely obsessed with some weird doctrinal position? Or maybe some practical position that they have taken?
Believe me - they’re out there - almost as out there as the positions they take. I’ve had so many conversations with Christians who were absolutely obsessed with some out their position.
Sometimes it’s some doctrinal heresy. Like the people who believe that we have to worship on Saturday, or the evangelicals that say we have to keep the law and live like jews.
Sometimes it’s other things, like political conspiracy theories. I once took a visitor out to eat and he spent out entire lunch conversation trying to tell me the first lady at the time was a dude. That's not a theological problem - it's just impossible to prove, and it's a weird thing to be obsessed about.
Why is it that so many professing Christians get hung up in nonsense? Why do so many walking the straight and narrow end up on weird little detours?
Would it surprise you if I told you that answering that question that was Paul's main reason for writing Colossians?
The book of Colossians is a book written to address a problem. The whole book addresses this problem, chapter 1 lays a foundation, and Paul really gets to it in our text today - which is chapter 2 verse 8 through the rest of the chapter. Let's go ahead and read it together.
[!bible] Colossians 2:8-23 - KJV 8. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. 9. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 10. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: 11. In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 12. Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. 13. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. 16. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: 17. Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. 18. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19. And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. 20. Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 21. (Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22. Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? 23. Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
Look again at verse 8 - Beware lest any many spoil you. Verse 16 - Let no man therefore judge you Verse 18 - Let no man beguile you.
Paul wrote this little letter to the church at Collosse because he heard that they were being spoiled, judged and beguiled by men.
Men were in the church who were starting to send people down these theological detours and it was important enough to Paul to write about it warn them not to go down that road. The Holy Spirit guided the writing, and that warning turned into what we now know as the book of Colossians.
Basically, the whole message of this chapter is this:
Anything that causes us to turn our eyes off Christ is a dangerous distraction.
When I first got my Tahoe, the first time I was driving it, I thought it had messaging seats. The seat kept on buzzing me randomly. When I took it back to dealer, I asked him "how do I turn off the messaging seats" - that brought a laugh.
Those aren't messaging seats, the car buzzes you when you aren't driving in the middle of the road. In a car that big, it's extra important to focus on a point in the middle of the road where you are headed, so you can keep it straight.
When you start looking around, you start wandering and your car might run off the road.
Jesus is our destination. As we run the race of life, we are supposed to be:
[!bible] Hebrews 12:2 - KJV 2. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Christians have one thing we are supposed to be keeping our eyes on - and that is Jesus - and when we turn our eyes off of Jesus and look at anything else - we are in trouble.
When Peter was walking on water towards Jesus, so long as He was looking at Jesus - he was fine, but as soon as he got his eyes off of Christ and onto the storm he was in trouble.
Anything that causes us to turn our eyes off Christ is a dangerous distraction.
That is what I believe is the main point Paul was trying to make in Colossians and the main point of this chapter.
But because that isn't a sermon, let me break down this chapter into four points this morning.
Look at verse 8 again:
[!bible] Colossians 2:8 - KJV 8. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
That word "spoil" their is interesting. You probably read that and think of spoiled milk. If you do you are reading it wrong.
The right way to read it is to think of spoils of war. In ancient times, part of a soldier's pay is that whatever they conquered they split up and took as spoils of war. So if you sacked a town, you just took all the people's stuff. It became your spoils.
What Paul is warning here is that you can become the spoils of other people. You can take your eyes off of Christ and become captured by men. By men's tradition and men's philosophies.
It's easy to see this in the extremes. Remember Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre. He got hundreds of people to believe in him so much that they followed him to South America, and then purposely drank laced cool aid in a kind of mass suicide.
That's about as extreme as it gets. It's easy to look at something like that or David Karesh in the late 80s and think - those people were captured, they were spoils for those wicked men.
But you don't have to be following a deranged lunatic to be spoiled - anybody who gets you to take your eyes off of Christ and turn it towards some philosophy or doctrine or tradition can spoil you and steer you the wrong way.
Vain philosophy could be a religious doctrine. You could decide to go really deep into eschatology - the study of the end times, or into church history, or into any number of hundreds of things that aren't bad in themselves, but become bad when they become your focus and your emphasis.
Vain philosophy can be a political philosophy. Maybe you spend all your time watching cable news or listening to talk radio or some political podcast. That's a dangerous distraction.
Vain philosophy can be tradition. It can be the way you've always done things. If your focus is on "well this is the way we've always done things" then your focus is not on Christ.
Vain philosophy could just be philosophy. I mean, when Paul wrote this, he was in a greek culture where stoicism and Epicureanism were followed by many people. He could have been referencing that. It's interesting that those things are seeing a resurgence today because of the internet. If you focus on a philosophy, you aren't focusing on Christ.
Anything that causes us to turn our eyes off Christ is a dangerous distraction.
Christ should be our focus, not vain philosophies and traditions.
A second point...
Look at verse 18:
[!bible] Colossians 2:18 - KJV 18. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Apparently, in the church of Colosse, there were people who were encouraging angel worship. They were getting people really into angels and the spiritual realm.
Now, the spiritual realm is real. Angels are real. Demons are real. There really is spiritual warfare going on all around us.
But here is the thing: we can't see it. We aren't supposed to see it.
The only thing we learn about it that is true is what we see in the scripture and it is never the focus of the scripture - the focus of the scripture is always Christ.
Whenever people get too focused on the spiritual realm, whenever they start talking about angels and demons and all of that - well you can be sure of one thing - they are making it up. They are "intruding into those things which he hath not seen."
Many of the cults supposedly offer special revelation on the topics of angels and demons, the mormons revere an angel named Maroney that supposedly gave them special revelation, the Jehovah's witnesses teach that the last days started in 1914 when God cast the angels and demons down to earth. Cults love to talk about angels and demons.
But where are they getting that? They are making it up. They are intruding into things they can't see. Angels and demons are not supposed to be our focus, the spiritual realm is not supposed to be our focus - Christ is our focus.
Anything that causes us to turn our eyes off Christ is a dangerous distraction.
But there is a third thing Paul points out here, and he spends considerable time on it.
Look at verse 16:
[!bible] Colossians 2:16 - KJV 16. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
So apparently, there was judging going on, and the judging had to do in part with how people celebrated the sabbath and holidays.
Look again at verses 20-22. Paul continues this theme:
[!bible] Colossians 2:20-22 - KJV 20. Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 21. (Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22. Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
What is this about? Well, apparently one of the dangerous distractions in this particular church was religious rules - which Paul here calls "ordinances."
The greek word is funny - it is "dogmatizo" - dogmatic decrees.
What's Paul talking about here? Well, one of the consistent dangers in religion is to focus on the rules. To make up religious rules and make those rules our focus.
So the third point is...
I want you to understand something - Christianity is a moral religion. We do have moral boundaries. As a Christian, your devotion to Christ should determine what you wear and what you eat and drink and how you spend your time and what you do with your body. The Bible teaches about all of those things.
As you study the Bible and apply the Bible to your life and your family - you are going to come up with some personal rules. If you don't - you aren't really applying the Bible.
I'll give you a for instance, my girls have rules for the clothes they wear. There were several times this week when either Amanda or I had to say to our daughters "that's a bit short" or "that's a bit tight" - you need to go change.
That comes out of an application of scripture. That comes out of what the Bible teaches in many different places. There is nothing wrong with that.
I'm not going to watch pornography. I'm not going to watch things that even smack of pornography. We block that stuff on all of our devices - my wife has access to my computer history - that's a rule.
There is nothing at all wrong with having rules. Did I make that clear enough? I'll say it again - there is nothing at all wrong with having rules. You should have rules for your life and your family as you apply the scripture.
But - and here is the key point - there is something very wrong with letting rules become a point of emphasis in your life.
I think the history of the pharisees is a good warning for us. They started as a revival movement around the time when the jews came back from captivity. They started out of the revivals of Ezra and Nehemiah. They were people who said "God's law is going to be our law and we are going to follow it."
Is there anything wrong with that? No! That's commendable. That's great.
But what happened over time is their rules, their personal applications of scripture, became their emphasis, it became their focus. It became more and more convoluted. Before long, the original intent of the rules wasn't what mattered - the rules themselves were what mattered - which is why they tried to persecute Jesus for healing people on the sabbath day.
Here is what happens with rules. They begin with "I'm doing this to honor God" but very quickly they can become "We are doing this because we are better than everyone else." Very quickly the rules can become what matters to us and our focus can be on the rules, on the ordinances of men, and not on Christ.
I've seen this happen personally. I've been in a church where slowly, the emphasis got to be so much on the rules that every sermon was about how you need to have this rule or that rule. Every conversation you overheard between ladies in the lobby was "look at what she was wearing."
Do you know what it did? It killed a great church. It turned off a lot of Christians. And the worst thing it did was it was a distraction from what we should have been focusing on - it was a distraction from Christ.
Listen, hear this - do you know that there are over a billion people in this world who dress modestly. They have some serious rules about modesty. They also don't drink. They memorize their scriptures. They pray several times a day, every day. A billion people - they are called muslims.
Rules aren't the answer. Rules cannot be the emphasis. We need to keep our focus on Christ.
So...
Anything that causes us to turn our eyes off Christ is a dangerous distraction.
Anything that causes us to turn our eyes off Christ is a dangerous distraction.
Now, let me quickly give you my last point:
Let's read verses 9-15 again, in light of what we have seen in the rest of this passage:
[!bible] Colossians 2:9-15 - KJV 9. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 10. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: 11. In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 12. Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. 13. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
I don't have time to go into everything this says in detail, but let's just catalog this real quick:
First, Christ is the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
When we focus on Christ - we learn about who God is. He is Immanuel, He is God with us. He is the word made flesh. And in Christ we can learn all about God.
Second, in Christ we are complete.
Christ is the all in one vitamin for the Christian life. We find everything we need for faith and godliness in our focus on Christ.
Third, in Christ, we are reborn.
Our old man died with Christ and we have a new life in Christ. All of our sins have been forgiven in Christ, and we have been given new life in Christ.
Fourth, Christ has blotted out the ordinances.
Christ took the laws of the Old Testament and the religious rules of men and nailed them to the cross.
Tell that to your weird Irish American Christian friend who thinks he has to wear a jewish tassels and keep the sabbath. No, Christ nailed that junk to the cross. He has blotted out the ordinances.
Finally, Christ has defeated demons.
He spoiled principalities and powers. (That's spiritual wickedness.) And made a show of them.
So we don't have to worry about that stuff anymore.
What do we have to do? We have to follow Christ. We have to focus on Christ.
So I hope I made this clear enough today:
Anything that causes us to turn our eyes off Christ is a dangerous distraction.
Philosophies, traditions, spiritualism, angels, religious rules - anything else that becomes our emphasis is dangerous - we have to focus on Christ.
So, two questions:
First, have you trusted Christ? None of this matters if you have not trusted Christ as your Savior. You have to look to Him in faith first, you have to be born again.
Has that happened for you yet? It happened to me when I was 14. I was in church. I wasn't doing anything particularly bad. But I realized I was a sinner who couldn't save himself and I turned my eyes on Christ. Have you trusted Christ?
We would love to help you get that settled.
That's the first question, but what about you Christian? Have you taken your eyes off of Christ? Have you let your Christianity be about something other than Christ?
Anything that causes us to turn our eyes off Christ is a dangerous distraction. So let's focus on Him.