Putting a pause on the colossian series till after Easter.
So today we'll put a pause on that.
In March, will have a series that's going to do deal with
Jesus money and your heart. And we're going to explore some
of the affections of our heart with the stuff of Earth with
Jesus, and then we'll be right up to Easter.
It's incredible Easter is April 9th and so we'll be moving along
towards that. But I'm looking forward
attention to this idea of do, not let anyone judge you.
And then the second idea is do not let anyone judge you by what
you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious Festival, a new
moon celebration, or a Sabbath day.
These are a shadow of the things that were to come the reality.
However, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who Delights
in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify.
You such a person also goes into great detail about what they
have seen. They are puffed up with idle
Notions by their unspiritual mind.
They have lost connection with the head from whom the whole
body supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews
grows as God. Causes it to grow since you died
with Christ to the elemental, spiritual forces of this world.
Why as though you still belong to the world, do you submit to
its rules? Do not handle, do not taste, do
not touch these rules which have to do with things that are all
destined to perish with use are based on merely human commands
and teachings such regulations and deed.
He'd have an appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed
worship their false humility and their harsh treatment of the
body. But they lack any value in
sustained. Restraining sensual Indulgence,
Now we need to remember that the Apostle Paul has a vision of
people in Christ and then responding to him and that the
work and power of God in their life is actually producing a
life worthy of God. Do you remember the prayer and
Colossians one that we have been praying?
Some of you have continued in that, you've let me know.
You know, that prayer thing that you created from the scripture,
I'm still praying it and it's such a fantastic prayer that
Paul had been praying that they would live a life worthy of the
Lord and please him in every way bearing fruit in every good work
growing in the knowledge of God being strengthened with all
power. So that they have endurance and
patience and then, giving joyful thanks a life that flows with
Thanksgiving. He says, this is should be what
happens to a person. Who is in Christ that being in
Christ, actually yields Andres produces this kind of effect in
our lives. Now I think that for many of us,
there's three kinds of searches that that helped us get taken up
by those who judge, Defraud. And bind us up with the rules of
the world. The first is that we really have
a search for acceptance. We want to be accepted.
We want to be acceptable. The second is that we truly do
look for experiences. Our generation is very much
about go and have an experience, go to university, so that you
have an experience, learn something and make a career, a
life for yourself, right? But we also enter into worship
sometimes even as people of faith in Christ.
Looking, for an experience with God.
That's good. But it also creates a little
danger zone for us and the third thing is that we're having a
search for goodness we're having a search for what is a morally
acceptable person and our generation and are setting in
the academy and in our workplaces is often creating a
vision of what a morally acceptable person is.
And we're looking for that as well because it flips right back
around to the other thing that a morally acceptable person is
accepted. In some kind of setting.
I mean, it's Jesus says, there's honor even among Thieves.
That there's a way of life and living that becomes accepted,
and celebrated. And so, the first one, there in
verse 14, Paul says, do not let anyone judge you.
Now, that word judge it's most often Affiliated closely with
the idea of condemnation. Don't let anyone condemn you.
And notice what he says, don't let anyone condemn you in regard
to what you eat or drink or with regard to a religious Festival,
a new moon celebration, or a Sabbath day.
He's saying, look, you followers of Jesus are going to experience
the pointing finger. Go ahead.
Try it point the finger a pointed at me.
Don't condemn anyone else. The pointing finger Paul saying
listen you're going to experience the pointing finger
of Judgment of condemnation where someone looks at you and
says, well why aren't you doing that?
I mean, Jesus experienced this why would we expect anything
else? Jesus experienced it?
Because people pointed at him and said, well, you're a glutton
And you hang out with Sinners. Why aren't you like John the
Baptist? You know, John was was more of
an s-1, who retreated? Who got away from it, all who
was always fasting. And so but people also critiqued
John pointed the finger at John and said, look at him, he's so
harsh on himself and look at what he's doing.
It's our fear of judgment that pushes us away from the call of
Jesus in our lives. That when Jesus calls us to
something, we're worried about the Applause and acceptance of
others rather than the Applause of Heaven and the acceptance
that's been settled in Christ. And Paul is aware of this that
they're surrounded in a setting with all kinds of religious
festivals and experiences and stories.
And that's the interesting thing about religious festivals is
that they're often associated with story.
The Sabbath is associated with the creation story, these
festivals of New Moon and new year were established with some
sense of God's hand in creation and some kind of story.
It's alasdair mcteer, who's a philosopher, an anglophone
philosopher whose well known for his work after virtue.
And he says, I cannot answer the question.
What ought I to do? Unless I first answer the
question of which story am I apart?
I'll read it again. Its proper English.
He was very very grammatically. Correct here.
Catch it. I cannot answer the question.
What ought I to do? Unless I first answer the
question of which story am I a part of What story are you a
part of? Religious rites and rituals and
stories are meant to connect you with a story that you're to be a
part of. my friend, who, Became a follower of Jesus and then
returned to Taiwan and faced the reality of her father's death.
And all of the ritual practices that were associated with his
death of one, who was not a Christian, created a
confrontation for her. What story am I a part of?
What story am I living? And my participation in these
rituals. creates a conflict and a place of judgment and the
pointing finger because I know I'm not part of that story.
For some of you you're like I have no idea about that.
My family is completely irreligious.
They just point the finger anyway, right.
Because now I'm the one who actually finds meaning in
Christmas or meaning in lit, for some of you or meaning in
Easter, or meaning in Pentecost, I find meaning in the Sabbath
and having a Sabbath rest that others do not.
Don't let the fear of condemnation, keep you from the
calling of the Lord. The second word there was
defraud or disqualified, I think the NIV calls it disqualified,
doesn't it verse 13? 18.
Thank you. Do not let anyone who Delights
in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify.
You such a person goes into great detail about what they
have seen. They are puffed up with idle
Notions by their unspiritual mind.
This word here of disqualified is very closely related to the
idea of to defraud someone to cheat someone.
And so, in a sense Paula saying, don't let someone else's
spiritual experience and their great vision and dream and sense
of what they have had cheat you out of your own calling with
Jesus. Don't let the pursuit of
spiritual experience. TQ out of knowing and connecting
to Jesus Christ himself. The Angels were not made to be
worshipped, but apparently, there were some kind of folk
religion or folk setting here, that uplifted, the work of
angels such that they were worshiping them.
Now, most of you don't have friends who worship angels,
Right. So this this is a hard bridge to
cross, but we do have those who say in your pursuit of spiritual
experience. If you haven't had this, you're
missing out. And so we can become susceptible
at times to being cheated. From actually having a gospel
shaped life. In our pursuit of spiritual
experience. So we just have to be careful
with it. Do you know, we read the passage
from Acts chapter 10. We're both Cornelius.
And Peter had had a spiritual experience.
They had had a vision. And in the vision they were
given instructions. So they followed through with
them, they even invited others into it.
It was their spiritual experience and it created an
intersection in their lives. And then there was a spiritual
experience that the Spirit came and they spoke in tongues and it
became a sign to Peter and his friends that they had to receive
them that God was not playing favorites.
But now, there is nothing that goes on to say that every
follower and believer of Jesus must also speak in tongues, or
you're missing out on really having Christ in your life.
Be careful of that of where the experiential experiences of
others have been treated. Now as a tap that they can turn
on and off for you. When they do that, they will
cheat you. Defraud you from your true
inheritance in Christ. And that is a faith in him and
his completed work We can talk further about it but the third
thing here is that they were in search of goodness, Holiness and
godliness. In fact, Paul was in search of
that as well but he was not in search of it as something that
they needed to do to get God's favor.
He was in search of it as a outflowing and a response of
knowing him that may seem very All, but it is a very subtle
difference. Notice what he says in verse 20.
He says, since you died with Christ to the elemental,
spiritual forces of the world. Why is, though you still belong
to the world? Do you submit to its rules?
Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch these rules which have
to do with things that are all destined to perish with use are
based on merely human commands. Teachings, such regulations.
Indeed have an appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed
worship their false humility and their harsh treatment of the
body. But they lack any value in
restraining sensual Indulgence. The question before them was,
how do you actually become a good person and live a good
life? And the story that we're a part
of? In Christ says, there is one
good person who has lived a good life and he has lived it for us.
And now his life is in US Christ in you the hope of glory.
How is this life in, you going to become an outward expression,
will it become an outward expression by Developing a list
of rules for your life. Do not touch, do not eat, do not
handle. See No Evil Hear.
No evil speak. No evil.
Is it a rule based life? That brings you into the
fullness of Jesus. We're not sure are we, we're not
sure, we're not sure. Because sometimes we think, oh,
I just that person just needs some more rules in their life.
But maybe they need more of the Redeemer in their life.
Maybe we need, I need more of the Redeemer in my life, not
more rules in my life, but here's the strange thing about
rules is that when you live your life by the - rules, do you know
what they make? You focus on Don't eat that
chocolate cake. Do you know?
My mom would make a cake, and I had the most beautiful chocolate
icing and it's a flat cake. So wonderful.
It's like this giant iced brownie.
Oh my goodness. She would make it and she said
No don't touch that cake. But what did I want to do?
Touch that cake. I mean, Paul even later riding
about the losses, the loss, stirred up in us, what we
wanted. And became for us a goad.
A provocateur. Of the desires that were here in
US. But it was by its tutorship,
that we actually became aware that we actually are sinners and
are in need of a true and genuine Grace that we needed a
savior. But the holy life of Jesus is
not going to be provoked and brought about in our life with a
list of don'ts and should haves and eat two years.
It's actually going to be generated in our life.
By gazing on Jesus. This is chapter 3 and then
because of the response of gazing on the love of Jesus, we
put off the old nature and put on the new but that's for the
next seven. The order matters.
The order matters here and it is possible to get caught up in a
life of church, such that we begin to be bound up with rules
rather than released and freed by grace.
This is the invitation of Jesus. He is not inviting you to a
self-designed. Religiosity, ourself Divine
religiosity. Always says do something.
Do something. Do something to get God to like,
you more do something to get God to love you more.
Do something to make yourself acceptable to God.
But it's Our Redeemer who says it's done.
It's done. It's finished.
And that's the invitation is to come to Jesus who's done it.
To have a gospel shaped. Life means that we come down
into the reality of Who We Are. And we invite him into it and
say, forgive me. Forgive me, Lord.
And then trust that he will provide the lift.
It Is by spiritual disciplines sometimes that we align our
heart with that movement of coming down into the reality of
life in this body. And then, lifting our eyes up to
Jesus. Who died on a cross was buried
for us but was raised again. So that we might have new life.
This is the movement of Christ. If there is to be any religion
in Christianity, it is this we keep looking to Jesus so that
the life of Jesus can be poured out in our lives.
That means we actually die to ourselves.
Paul says, since you have been buried since you died with
Christ since you died with Christ, you'll now live with
Christ. This is the move that we make.
We come down to reality. This is why sometimes we talk
about kneeling kneeling, is one of those acts of worship to just
come down and say, oh, I'm before you, I worship you.
I align my life with you. I humbly receive anything that
you would give me do you know, humility is a really important
move in our lives, the danger sometimes for us as Christians
is, we're like the thief who stole a car and then lectured
the parent. Do you know this story?
It happened in Oregon in 2021. There was a mother who pulled up
to a store and she just jumped out of the store out of the car
in a hurry and ran into the store to make a purchase in the
meantime, a thief saw her car, and it was running, and he
thought no one was in it. So he got in and drove away.
He drove away with her four-year-old child in the back
seat. Yeah, she came out, he wasn't
there, her child was gone, the car was gone.
The thief recognized at some point.
There is someone in this car with me and turned around and
came back and found the mother standing on the sidewalk.
And he rolled down the window and began to lecture her about
being such a terrible parent. You're such a terrible parent.
Why did you leave the car running and leave your child in
the car? I want you to get your child out
of the car and then proceeded to continue to lecture about how to
be a better parent. And then drove away with the
car. Friends, we are in danger of
this kind of thing that Paul says that in Christian
Fellowship, instead of lifting up the greatness and Glory of
Christ in our own lives and coming down and being humble
about how. We also need a lesson, not just
in parenting, but personhood. We're like the thief, lecturing
someone who made a mistake in a moment.
Instead of the thief, who was next to Jesus on a cross and
said, oh, Jesus today. Remember me?
Let's pray together. Heavenly Father.
We know that lectures just aren't going to change our
lives. Typically we pray for more of
your grace, in our life. if we pray that as we come now to the
Lord's Supper, That you would remind us that you came down.
And that you took up flesh so that you might accomplish for
us. But we could never do for
ourselves that you would find the remedy for sin that you
would find the Redemption from the powers of death and of
Darkness. And that you would set us free.
Although Jesus would you give us a sense of honesty is a
fellowship with you that we would not lose connection to
you. But instead, we would be
connected to you our head, our Lord, the one who is Lord of all
your gave his life for us. So as we come to this fur, we
pray that you would give us humility and honesty.
The confidence of being accepted by you, the confidence of your
goodness in our lives and trust that.
In that mix, you will bring about an experience of
forgiveness and of Grace. And we ask this in your name.
Amen. But stand together and those
helping with the Lord,