Walking in Christ

If you have your Bibles, please turn to the book of Colossians chapter 2, and we're going to be looking at verses 6 through 15.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him the wholefulness of the Deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised Him from the dead, and you who were dead in your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this He set aside, nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed the rulers and authorities, and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we look at the text tonight, I just pray that your name is honored, that you are glorified. Father, teach us tonight from your Word. May the Holy Spirit move on us.

Keep my lips from Aaron. Lord, let your Word be spoken. And it's in Christ Jesus that I pray. Amen. Paul is writing to the church at Colossae from prison, most likely in Rome, and he is responding to reports of heretical teachings that the church is experiencing.

This morning, Eugene made the reference that there's two ditches, and Paul is writing to the Colossians because they're finding themselves in one of those ditches, and he is writing to call them back to where they should be. You know, we have a tendency, you and I, I think, at least I do now, I'm in my 50s, I wax nostalgically. I think about the good old days.

If we could just go back, remember when it was so much better. I had a friend at work one day and we were talking about the church, and he started waxing that way, explaining how he longed for the day of the early church where they met in homes, where the apostles' teachings were right in front of them, where we read in Acts that they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostle, the breaking of the bread and prayers, and how wouldn't that be so much greater. And I started to think about that because it is so different than what we are as a corporate church, a large body.

In some instances, over a thousand members, probably 30 people know each other, and I'm thinking, maybe he has a point. But as I look at scripture, what I find is the epistle writings to those early churches are addressing the same issues that we have happening in our churches today. If you look at Galatians, Colossians, Corinthians, Thessalonica, all those letters are being written to churches who are 7, 10, 15 years old under direct apostolic teaching, and they are struggling with correct doctrine, with correct faith.

It doesn't matter that they met in a home or in a smaller church in a town. The Colossians' town, Colossae, at one time was a strong economic town, but because of Laodicea and other towns around it, it lost its prominence and it became a smaller town. A town with the church that wasn't even founded by the apostle who wrote to it, but founded by Epaphras, who heard Paul, came to the gospel in Ephesus, and went to his hometown and preached and brought to life those who were Christ's.

But we long, don't we? We remember the good of the old days, and we long for it, but we see that even in the early church, they struggle. To the Colossian people, Paul has been given reports and we're not exactly sure what ditches they were heading towards, but it seemed like there was, as you read the letter, some Gnostic or mystery teachings that are going on. There are some legalistic teachings that may be going on. And Paul, right before this, has just hammered home the preeminence of Christ to the church at Colossae. As we look today, we want to remember, not to long for, because the history of us, the history of the church, is one that tends to flock towards the ditch.

Why is that? Because of that sin that still clings to us. Man in the church environment still has a determination at times that they allow sin to influence the way they look.

Think of this. In the New Testament, several times, from Pharisees to lawyers to a rich fool, men have walked up to Jesus and say, what must I do to be saved? They want something of themselves to be able to bring themselves right with God.

Do we fall into that same trap at times? You know, there are different research groups that go out and ask evangelical Christians questions, and they rate the level of our orthodoxy based off those questions. I used to always like to follow them because I thought they gave us great insight into the church. But in 2018, the Pew Group, they did actually two surveys, one in 2016, where they asked the question in a way in which, if it was asked, it was asking if a heretical teaching was correct or not. And what they found is that several of the people in the church had trouble identifying that it was a heretical teaching because of the way it was worded. They asked a question like, do you believe that the great and worthy Jesus Christ is God's first created being of the universe? And because it was asked in that method, evangelicals answered that question 63% affirmative. In 2018, they switched the wording of the questions and they asked the orthodox question and asked if they agreed with it.

So they would ask, do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and a member of the Trinity and 91% answer affirmative. So when we start to talk about what's facing the church, a lot of times we're getting reports from outside when we can just look in the church itself and see the issues that are struggled with, denomination to denomination, cultural influences that are seeping in, and what is really neat is that the same things that the church at Colossae is struggling with, Paul identifies and corrects and it's useful to us today. When he corrects the Colossians, he also corrects Grace Church. He also points and teaches us where we are to be. So as we look at this text tonight, I ask that you bear with me because one of the things that we do is we say statements like this. Because God has made us alive together with Christ, we must walk in Him. That is a great statement.

It comes right out of this text. Because of God making us alive through what Christ did, we must walk in Him. But we sitting in the pews need to know what it means to walk in Him. This morning Eugene took a very difficult text for us because we declare by faith alone. And Eugene took James chapter 2 where it says it's not by faith alone, but by works. And he took the time and he explained to us how it is written, what it is written about, how it goes together, and tonight we're looking at something very similar. Paul in his correction to the Colossians is very clear in verse 6. He says, therefore as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.

He doesn't stop there. And many times we stop because we have our little sound bite or our little bullet or our little trinket to take along with us and to try to live out. Paul is going to go on and explain to the Colossians and to us how we are to walk in Christ.

I'm going to ask that we look at three points tonight and those three points follow right after. Paul tells us that we must be rooted and build up in Him. So in order to walk in Him, we must be rooted in Him and we must be built up in Him.

And the third point will be we must be established in the faith, just as it was taught to them. Looking at this first point, what does it mean to be rooted in Christ? If I were to ask, what is a root?

We all know that. A root is from a plant, drives itself hopefully deeply in the ground, and from that root, that whatever is attached, vine, tree, whatever, receives its nutrition, its nourishment, it receives its protection, and it receives its strength. When I moved to North Carolina back in 2006, I think it was either that spring or the spring of 2007, there was a tremendous rainstorm that came through. And that rainstorm dropped hail, the winds were high, and trees down, we had our office on King's Drive, and if you go down King's Drive, it's just there's big trees lining the whole way down, and probably four or five of those trees just toppled right over.

Not split, but actually just ripped up from the ground and rolled over. I was driving down the road, we were stopped by a tree cutting crew, and I asked them, why would a tree that large be knocked over even in the storm that we had? And he said, do you see that root ball that came up?

Do you see how thin it is? It had a lot of roots, but they all stayed surface level, and as that ground saturated and got wet, when the wind blew, it was able to lift it, push it far enough in the canopy that it was able to lift itself up out of the dirt because the roots did not penetrate down in to hold it firm. Paul tells us that we are to be rooted, deeply planted into Christ. What does that mean? Well, Paul gives us an explanation. He says, first of all in verse 6, that we are to be rooted by looking to that faith that we received in verse 6. Then he tells us in verse 8, to be rooted is to reject false teaching about Christ and about the Gospel.

He says it this way, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world. How are we immune to this, especially in today's time? With network news, cable news, with social media, with Instagram, we have a flow of factual and non-factual constantly bombarding us. You and I live in a time where there is more known facts available to us on a simple device that fits in our pocket than we have had at any time in our life, but there are also misinformation facts placed out there that can change and move our minds. I rue these because I used to be able to sit at a table at dinner and I could be right all the time because nobody else knew, and I knew that if I used a percentage it was even more.

If I said 74% did this, everybody's like, oh wow, he knows. Now they look it up and say, Jay, you're wrong. I was the misinformation back then. Now we don't even know the sources that hit us with misinformation, whether it be of church matters or world matters or local matters. Last night my wife was concerned because our son was out with his friends at the cookout in Concord and an alert came across that shots were fired.

And so she got on the phone with Ethan, she called, and he said, no, it's cars backfiring because there's a bunch of kids with those resistor mufflers on. Again, we have to understand we are not different than the church at Colossae. We are constantly being inundated by issues. We have men come into churches who preach a gospel that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

They're on our airwaves. They tell us that we can hold God hostage. If we give of our money and plant a seed, God is required to give back to us. They teach us that if we have just enough faith, then sickness and persecution will avoid us because God must protect us. And they teach things very close to what the scripture says, but they change it slightly. So as we sit and look, what is it that we are to be rooted in? Paul doesn't just leave it that we are not taking captive, but then he tells us the opposite of what is to captivate us, which is going to be seen in our third point. But look at verses 9 through 15. Paul does not leave them grasp at what they are to be rooted in. They are to be rooted in the full working of Jesus Christ.

That he came as a man, that he lived a perfect life, that he gave himself over to die in our place, and that God raised him from the dead to authenticate to show that he was truly the Son of God. That's the gospel that was delivered at Colossae. That's the gospel that is delivered at Grace Church. That is the truth that we are to be rooted in. Jesus tells us how to be rooted. If you turn to John chapter 15, the first 12 verses, Jesus says this, I am the true vine and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit.

Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

Key words there as Jesus is explaining how we're rooted in him. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. When the Gospel is preached, when you come to Grace Church and you hear that you are a sinner separated from God with no hope in and of yourself to be right, when the Holy Spirit moves and uses that word and regenerates a heart, you become, as the Scripture tells us, a new creation. We are different. Why are we different? We're different because we see when the Holy Spirit does that work one clear thing. I in myself have no way of being right with God outside of Christ. That is what the Holy Spirit enables us to understand. There isn't an amount of prayer. There isn't an amount of Bible reading.

There isn't an amount of giving to the poor. There is nothing that I can do that makes me right because my sin is so vile and evil and wicked against a holy and right God. And it is only by Jesus Christ and His work that I can have salvation.

Why did I go through that? That last part, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. As we look at what Jesus taught us here and think back to what Eugene was saying this morning about faith and obedience, what is the obedience that you and I are called to as Christians? It is to obey the commands of Christ. When Christ was approached and asked, what are the greatest commandments? He didn't abolish any of them. He said what?

Eugene referenced it this morning. He stated the Shema. Deuteronomy 6-5, right? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

It says later. Those are the two commands that Jesus in the New Testament, when asked, when tested, reaffirms. And what those two commands sum up is the whole of the moral law, the Ten Commandments. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and all your might is Commandments 1-4. To have no other gods before you, no graven images, do not profane His name, and to keep the Sabbath holy. And then, to love your neighbor as yourself is Commandments 5-10.

To not kill, to not steal, to not commit adultery, to not covet, to not bear false witness. These commands are wrapped up in the two commands that we are to follow, and we follow them because of love. It is through loving one another.

Well, how, Jay, is it possible? How, Jesus, is it possible to love these people around me when they are so horrible? That's where the New Creation part comes in. When we understand that we were that vile, and Christ looked upon us, and even in our vileness loved us to the point of applying His blood to my sin, there is no one who stands around us that is not worth our love and our call to serve, minister, and share the Gospel with them. John, or James, from his writings said, if a man stood in front of you with cold, without a coat, without money, and you said, go hope it's good with you, what good is that? But it is not a social justice or a social Gospel, we're looking at it just clothing the poor and feeding the hungry, though we should do that. But we are to look on those who despise us with love because they are outside of Christ and what they face is the condemnation of a holy, right, and just God. You and I are to be rooted in the man and God who saved us.

He was the one who looked on black, disgusting, vile individuals and said from the cross, forgive them father for they know not what they do. That is what you and I have been changed into by His work. That is what we are called to do, to love others. Moving to the next that Paul shares with the church, we must be built up in Him. If we would flip over to 1 Peter chapter 2, Peter says this, so put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good, as you come to Him a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen as precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Whenever we are changed by the working of the Holy Spirit, we are brought into relationship that not only justifies us but it sanctifies us. The Holy Spirit will continue to build us, to conform us, to shape us as we are in the vine, rooted in Him. The Father will prune us, the Holy Spirit will take and conform us more and more into that image of Jesus Christ, building us as a holy temple where He dwells in us. Paul, when he was writing about sexual sin, I think it was to the church at Corinth, says don't you realize that when you indulge in this that you bring Christ into it.

You bring God Himself into your sin because you are being made a dwelling place of the most high God. He goes on in his corrections to other churches saying don't you realize that you are not your own but you were bought with a price. We need to as Christians start living as men and women or young men and young women or children who have heard and have been changed. We need to start living the life as the Gospel has taught us to live, of wanting and desiring to be like Christ Jesus. I deal with sin, you deal with sin, you may have a besetting sin and we should daily drop to our knees and confess. We should ask God to deliver us so that we no longer harm the image, the honor of Christ Jesus. Our desire should be to be more and more like Him, praying that the Holy Spirit continue this sanctification which in a real neat way has already been accomplished also. If Jesus returns at this moment, our justification, our sanctification and finally our glorification are all completed in Christ Jesus.

But as we live this life, God works in His people to make them more and more in the image of His Son. When we try to think about being built up, that simply means built upon or on a solid foundation. I was watching Catastrophes of Engineering and they showed a bridge, I believe it was over in Ireland. A train had to go across every day, the bridge itself carried the train over a body of water and when they built the pilings, they built the pilings down onto what they believed was bedrock but they put no protection so as the sea came in and out, they just battered the piers and here they weren't on bedrock, they were on a false bedrock and as that tide moved it shifted. And one day the train cleared and right after it cleared because of the weight, the whole bridge collapsed.

And they said that there were over 300 on the train and the engineers said how important it was for when you do a project like that, that you drill down to ensure that you are on bedrock. Paul gives us the bedrock that we rest on in verses 13 and 14 of Colossians 2. He said, And you who were dead in your trespasses and sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. This bedrock ties to the third point of being established in our faith.

I want to read that one more time and just take note. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, that's all of us, God made alive together with him and how did he do it? Having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us.

Not that we were trying to build one or we might possibly have a record of debt against us someday. There was a record of debt against Jay. It was caused because of the sin that was in Jay. It was caused because of the sin that Jay committed.

And it had a legal demand to it. Those who are sinners and unrepentant, there is a demand, there is a judgment, there is a finality that is coming that they will be separated from God outside of Christ. They will be sent to hell for eternity because that is the wage of sin. This he set aside, nailing it to a cross. When we read that, it sounds like he took our sin and he nailed it to the cross. So we think abstractly of this pile of sin, but we need to understand what was nailed to the cross. Scripture tells us that Jesus became sin for us. It's not like Jesus was hanging there and around him our sins were added. Jesus, we talk about this double imputation where we are imputed righteousness, but we actually had our sin imputed onto him. He became that vile, dark, disgusting sin that filled us to the point that God the Father turned and Christ cried out, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? When we talk about being established in the faith, that bedrock statement is our faith. It's the only thing that you and I have that Christ willingly, the God-man, truly God, truly man, became my sin, your sin.

He took it all upon himself, reflected it to the point that God the Father judged it and turned from him. That is how much God loves you. That is how much Jesus loves you. And so when Jesus says that we are to follow his command and his command is that we are to love one another, which then becomes our way of having works through our faith, that is what we understand to be the command we are to live. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our strength, and all our might.

Why? Because Jesus loved us, he died for us, and he gave us eternal life. Our work through this faith comes out of thanksgiving and gratitude. Paul says it in verse 7, Rooted up and built in him and established in faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. When we realize what Christ did, when we realize what Christ does, when we realize that Christ won, he is ours and he is in us, it should drive us to thanksgiving and worship.

It should drive us to doxology. My Lord and my God. Thomas had no other words that he could say. Unfortunately in our churches, we like to preach that it's okay if you struggle with certain things, just as long as you think that you want to be right with Jesus, you'll be fine. That is not what salvation is. We are a people who, left to ourselves, would want to be saved in our sin.

Jesus, give me a free ticket and allow me to sin. But that's not what regeneration is. Regeneration is when we become a new creation, we look on our sin with sickness and disgust at ourselves. Paul, probably the greatest theologian that we can ever point to, the greatest lover of God as we see him in his missionary journeys and his writings, writes, I, Paul, the chief of sinners. Because he sees himself continually, if it's not for Christ, I am doomed.

Isaiah, woe unto me, I am a man undone, just taken apart in front of a holy and right God. That is the faith that we are to be established in. You know, two weeks ago, Steve McCullough preached and he ended by saying that he wished that every day, Galatians 2.20 believers would just open and read. And I want to read that to you because this is the faith we are to be established in. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Last week, Rick Harper preached and he preached on adoption. And these words he used from Romans chapter 8 verses 12 through 17. So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Paul, when he wrote the Colossian church, he is addressing error that they are dealing with.

They are heading towards ditches. And Paul is driving home what I would want to drive home to us as believers. We are to look to Christ, be rooted in, build up in, and established in that faith that he provides. You know, science teaches us that a man blindfolded cannot walk a straight line. When I went to learn how to ride a motorcycle street bike, I did a lot of dirt bike riding, but back in like right around 2001, I went and learned how to ride a motorcycle on a street. And when they taught us, they taught us when you come up to a curve, look through the curve. Don't look in front of you, look through the curve. The bike will go where you're looking. The bike always goes where you're looking.

I didn't believe them. I got on their practice bike, I got into a curve, and I was struggling to get around it. I had to stop halfway through because I was going to hit the guard rail. A guy came and said, just turn your head and look through the curve.

Next time I did it, I looked through the curve and the bike went right through it. I said, why does that happen? He said, because you always go where your eyes are looking. You always go where your eyes are looking. When we leave here tonight, where do our eyes start to look? Does it look to the world?

Does it look to politics? Our eyes need to be fixed on Christ. Every moment of every day we need to fix ourselves on Jesus Christ and His atoning work. We need to fix ourselves on the love of God. How much God loved us that He came and did this act, because He had no reason to do it. Our eyes need to be fixed on the Word of God.

We need to be rooted, built up, and established. And God has provided that through the scripture that we may be those things. In Jesus' name, thanks be to God. He doesn't leave us here grasping. He gives us the instructions how we are to live a life that will honor Christ and honor God and the Holy Spirit.

Let's pray. Father, we just praise you tonight for your Word. As we come before you tonight, Lord, I thank you for teaching that drives home to us how we are to live as Christians.

You have made us a different people by the work of your Son. You have justified us. You have sanctified us and continue to sanctify us. And Lord, when you come in your glory, we will be fully glorified.

And not because of any doing of our own. Lord, let us praise your name. Let us worship you for who and what you are and what you have accomplished, the great deeds that you do. Lord, we praise you and we thank you. And it's in Christ Jesus' name we pray. Amen.