This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Ignite the Light Ministry's radio and podcast. It is our mission to help listeners develop a deeper relationship with Jesus by sharing what the Bible says and what it means. We aim to encourage and equip you to serve others, share the gospel, and reflect Christ in every aspect of your life. I'm Pastor Wyatt Cudd.
Thank you for tuning in. This week we're going to be focusing on Colossians 2, 6 through 15.
Now, we've already read through verses 6 and 7, but I feel like I have to touch on it again, so we're going to start at. Verse 6.
So, if you got your Bibles, go ahead and turn there. Also got it on the screen.
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord. Continue to live your lives in Him. rooted and built up. In heaven. strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness.
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. For in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.
In him you are 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 price. 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.
When you were dead in your sin, And in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them. triumphing over them.
Buy the cross.
So let's do a quick recap. of what the tensions that this church was dealing with at the time.
So the church of Colossae at this time was caught in the middle of a brewing Gnostic heresy. not from outside the church per se, but it was kind of bubbling up within the church. And Epaphorus was concerned.
So Paul addresses this.
Now we don't have a full picture of exactly what this heresy looked like. Which I think is a good thing, lest in our arrogance we believe we outgrow the book of Colossians. No, see, God provided just the right amount of details, so this epistle will always be relevant to us having a right understanding.
So Gnosticism Uh goes something like this. God and the spiritual things are good, but matter and the created things are evil. Jesus is just one of the many manifestations of God, kind of like an angel. He's lower than God. Ultimately Oh.
Ultimately, not divine. And then there's this secret higher knowledge that has to be worked out and attained beyond scripture. At the same time, this Gnosticism embraced a spirit of Jewish legalism. Salvation is not enough. You have to do works.
You have to work out your salvation. This was the Gnostic heresy they were dealing with.
So, uh verse six to seven I wanted to do this one, go over this one again because it's where Paul pivots from informing us about Jesus to pushing us to pre-form. Let's see here.
Okay. Did that help? No. No. That did not help.
Okay, can you hear me? Yes. Cool, all right.
So since we had a little disruption, I'm going to start from the very, very top. Just kidding. Uh So verse 6 to 7, this is where Paul pivots from informing us about Jesus to pushing us to pre-form. And then he goes back to informing us. Verse 6 to 7 is the main point of application from this section.
Now, typically I will preach a passage and then give how to apply it at the end. But today we're doing it in reverse. We're starting with the application. As long as y'all promise not to like leave early, you know.
Now we got it, let's go, we got the ending, you know. But in light of the revelation of Jesus, we are continuing to live our lives in Him. rooted and built up in him. If the church were a tree, we would all be the branches, and Christ is the base. He is the trunk of the tree.
If a branch is cut removed from the trunk, it will wither and produce no fruit. We can be connected to Jesus every day. through prayer and through the word of God. In turn, it will produce fruit and increase our faith and increase. Our thankfulness.
Be intentional with your relationship. with Jesus each day. practicing obedience and staying rooted in Christ. It's nothing special, it's nothing fancy, and for all the complex problems we may face, God makes the solution quite plain and simple. Pray with me.
Spend time with me. Be with me. Rest in my love. Come to me. Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you Rest.
Jesus holds everything in his hands. And the only thing left for us to do is delight in him. Rest in him and follow. As he waits. Continue to live your lives in Him, verse 7, rooted and built up in Him.
strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness. And as I've smushed this down into three words, Paul is saying. Cling to Christ. Cling to Christ. This is what he is encouraging us.
to do. And we will continue to revisit this idea. Verse 8, it says, See to it that no one takes you captive. through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition, and the elemental spiritual forces rather than on Christ.
So here Paul is describing this current danger the church is facing. Hollow deceptive philosophy. And Paul says these philosophies depend on human tradition and elemental spiritual forces. And these dangers are still current. We have hollow, deceptive philosophies not from God that are still.
floating about in our world. The prosperity gospel She's a great example. Your best life now. Oh That's a deceptive philosophy. Certainly gets people through the door.
But only because If you treat God like a genie who will provide for your every whim, That appeals to human selfishness and sin nature. Like shocker, you got people through the door, you have people in the pews, but. Have they been transformed? Another of these deceptive philosophies I've seen is in some of these books I've read about nonprofits trying to help third world countries. It kind of goes something like this.
If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. But if you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime. We know this saying, and essentially, it would argue. That if you ever give a man a fish, instead of teaching him to fish, it would actively hurt this person by creating a dependency.
Now, him and his community are dependent on you providing fish.
So don't ever give somebody a fish, you teach them. To fish. And it sounds great on paper. You know, now we can all, we all know how to fish, we can all get our own fish. But it's a little detached.
Because it tends to work as an excuse for capable Christians to feel good about not providing immediate relief to a need. And then also not developing somebody who needs it most. It tends to work as an excuse. When you're in a third world country, You may be approached by a starving child. asking for food.
You may be approached by a woman. Whose foot is rotting from untreated Diabetes, asking for medicine. You may have a mother of 14. begging you to adopt her youngest one-year-old, so he can have a better life away from his abusive father. is relief.
going to harm these people. Frankly, The demand for relief we saw in Uganda these past three weeks far outweighed our ability to supply. Relief is so necessary. It is a stepping stone to developing people, not a hindrance. Immediate love is an open door to the gospel.
Not a bear. Sure long-term development is best, but immediate relief And immediate love to an immediate need is an open door. Not a barrier.
So these are some examples of deceptive philosophies today that I've seen. But Paul also mentions the elemental spiritual forces. There are certainly spiritual forces not from God that delight in wrecking your day. And they don't have to sleep. They spread through the TV, through your phone, by word of mouth.
and through our own hearts. Because our hearts are idle-making machines. If we put down one idol, we will simply pick up another idol if we are not replacing it with Christ. We can't simply flip a switch and be free from the enemy. See the spiritual forces, these the principalities and powers They're all over.
and they're on the hunt. Looking for weaknesses. and they know exactly how to tempt you.
So what do we do? Let me go back to verse six and seven. We must continue to cling to Christ. We cling to Christ and through Him We are not deceived. We cannot be taken captive.
Because moving to verse 9. In Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. and in Christ you have been brought to fulness. And he is the head. over every power and authority.
This goes back to chapter 1, verse 15 of Colossians. Christ has brought us to fullness, Christ is supreme over everything. Do not believe the lie that we need something more because Christ makes us. Full. Christ is the fullness, and this is contrasted sharply with the hollowness of deceptive philosophies.
The early Gnosticism saw Jesus as just another manifestation. Of God, and that they might have looked to other angels for insight. But verses 9 to 15, Paul is clarifying: no, Christ isn't just a prominent figure, he's the preeminent one. He's above everything. He's not just an angelic being.
He is the fullness of God. You cannot look any higher to the heavens. than by looking in the face of Christ. John 1.1 says, In the beginning was the word, And the word was with God. And the word was God.
John 1.14. and the word became flesh. Man. I can use a snack right now. I miss breakfast, you know.
I love me a good old bag of chips. I don't know about you guys. Let me just tell you something. Not all chips are made equal. Lay's potato chips.
Ooh! They're delicious. The salt and vinegar ones. Cream of the crop, best potato chip you ever put in your mouth. There's a problem.
When you open that bag of chips, It's like 80% air. You know, it's false advertising. I paid for the whole bag. I want the whole bag. You open it up, what happened to my chips?
There's like three in here, you know. Uh but you know what type of chips is the real deal? Pringles. Oh Pringles.
Now they may be a heavily processed Frankenstein looking chip where everyone just looks exactly the same. But let me tell you something, church. Every square inch of that tube is packed. full of salty deliciousness and honesty. Every square inch.
There is no wasted space with Pringles. You aren't being sold empty air with Pringles. Not like those airheads down at the Lays Institute or wherever they are. The entire can is full. And it's the same thing with Jesus.
These other worldviews, pleasures, traditions that the world would sell us. They promise a lot, but they're just empty air and promising packaging. But Jesus is all. The fullness of God. He is endless love, boundless compassion, infinite power.
All the fullness of God is in him. and through him we have been brought into fullness. What more do we need? Do not be deceived by well-packaged emptiness. It is Christ.
and Christ alone that will make you whole. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christ alone. Not Christ and Christ and money.
Christ and politics. Christ and the American Dream. It is Christ alone. Cling to Christ. Cling to Christ for your fullness.
of joy.
So next, Paul is going to use two metaphors to describe our relationship with the flesh and how Christ has changed our relationship. with the flesh. The first is circumcision. Our new relationship with the flesh, and then there is baptism, how Christ has changed that relationship. Guess which one we're going to do first?
Verse 11. In him you are 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. Part of the cultural influence pressing on the Colossians.
Was this Jewish Legalism. To be saved, you have to be circumcised. But Paul is referring to something more than just Skin deep. Using circumcision as a sort of graphic analogy meant to grab your attention to describe this new spiritual reality. Before Christ, we were ruled by the flesh.
We were enveloped by it, overcome by it, controlled by it. Verse 13 says, You were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision. of your flesh. But now that we are in Christ, The connection to the flesh has been Severed. We are no longer slaves to sin.
We can still be tempted, yes. But we are no longer slaves to it. It does not rule us. Sin and Satan's rule has been cut off and cast aside forever. And for this legalistic understanding of circumcision, Paul says in Romans 2.28, A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly.
Nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly. And circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by written code. And I would likewise add this. A Christian is not only one outwardly.
Because they go to church. Because they own a Bible. because their family is Christian. A Christian is a Christian who is one inwardly. One who knows Christ at a heart level.
and who does the right thing regardless of the culture they're surrounded in. whether it's the culture out there or the culture here. The circumcision of the heart Is of infinite importance to our salvation, but it's not a work we do, it's a work Christ does. Oh yes. Cling to Christ.
Cling to Christ for the freedom and separation from sin that binds and enslaves. Verse 12, Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith and the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Now, Paul says in Galatians 2:20, I've been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but it's Christ who lives. And me. Paul is pointing in this section to Christ's life, death, and resurrection as this sort of parable to how we are saved. We die to ourselves, our old selves. And not only die, but it is nailed to the cross with Jesus.
And to become Christian, it's as simple as putting your faith in Jesus. But by this action, our sin is nailed to the cross, is crucified. with Christ. This is a profound Image and baptism, this metaphor of baptism puts this image. on display.
I like what Alastair McGrath says about baptism. He says baptism is the grave of the old man. and the birth of the new. As he sinks beneath the baptismal waters, The believer buries his corrupt affections in past sins. And as he emerges from there, he rises regenerate.
Quicken to new hopes and to new life. Thus, baptism is an image of our participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Verse 13. When you were dead in your sins in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive in Christ. And He forgives all our sins.
Christ has made us alive. Without him, we are dead in our sins. It is a sobering realization when you're a kid and you have your first brush with death or realization, oh. This doesn't go on forever. I remember mine.
And it wasn't anything like, you know, spectacular, like spectacularly tragic or anything like that. I had this little pet hamster. When I was like in kindergarten. And to be honest, my mom was taking care of this hamster. Like, his name was Squeaks, but my mom pretty much took care of him.
Well, there came a day when she went on a business trip, and my dad and I were left to take care of this little hamster. And so we just kept putting food in the cage as long as the bowl was empty. But that hamster would fill his cheeks up and like store the food under his wheel. And it got to the point where that wheel wouldn't turn. And so you have no exercise, an infinite amount of food, and a hamster.
When you add all those things together, You get a really fat hamster.
So my mom comes home and is like, What have you done to this hamster? And so we put it on a diet. I mean, we get it we get him in like this little ball that he can roll around on the kitchen floor, but We've never done this before, so we stick him in that ball and we just forgot about him for like four hours. And that poor hamster, he just, his heart couldn't take it. It'd be like going from like putting on 50 pounds and then immediately trying to run a marathon.
And this hamster, each day's heart just gave out. He just couldn't deal with it. Um But it was traumatizing. It was traumatizing for me. Like, this is my hamster.
And he's like, he's gone. And, like, if he's gone, it means I'm going to go at some point. But, like, that was my little realization. Things don't go on forever. I'm done.
The point is that we learned that everything and everyone dies. And it's a sobering realization. But what's even more sobering is when you realize Not everyone truly lives. Without Christ, we are dead men and women. Walking around, just doing the best we can to distract ourselves from the utter pointlessness of everything.
But in Christ Oh. It's like colors are more vibrant, hugs feel warmer, the air smells fresher. Even water tastes colder and somehow more wet. Each moment is a treasure with Christ. Because there's purpose.
And it crackles in you like this blazing fire. There's life after death with Christ. There's people out there who don't know Him. They don't know the reason for the fire in me. They don't know the reason for my hope.
And they don't know the reason for this joy that I feel. And they don't know the source of unconditional love. And I have to tell them. What a wife. There's no greater joy than sharing Jesus and watching that light flick on in someone's eyes for like the first time.
They get it. We are alive. In Christ. And alive we are indeed. Cling to Christ.
Claim to Christ for life. and purpose. But before we are made alive in Christ, We are dead in our sins. But now that we are alive in Christ, we are dead to our sins. Our relationship with sin was slowly killing us, but now we say to sin, You are dead to me.
I don't want anything to do with you. I am dead to you, and I will have nothing to do with you. But when we die as sinned, People, spiritual things will come by to check. C Are you really dead? In fact, it's my belief that new believers will be attacked the hardest.
Or, if a believer has a stronghold of sin in their lives that then they give to God, Something's going to come by and check is this territory really gone? It's because the spirit realm is real, and the enemies of God hate losing territory. They will fight you for it. The new self is still tempted and susceptible to sin, but we are no longer slaves to it. Before Christ, we could not choose to stop drinking the poison of sin, but now we see it for what it is.
We can still be tempted. Hey there. I hope this sermon has enriched your day. If you like this message, I want to personally invite you to join us for Sunday worship. We have two locations in Virginia, Trinity Methodist Church in Concord and Mount Comfort Methodist Church in Appomattox.
Come join us Sunday morning at 9.45 and we will help you get connected. As always, I'm Pastor Wyatt Cudd. Thank you for tuning in.
