Colossians 2:16-23
Announcements:
- Directory Rough Draft
Introduction:
*Acknowledge and thank parents, dote on parents a bit*
Before we look into Colossians 2:16-23 this morning, I want to mention briefly that, like I said at the beginning of my last sermon, the Christian walk is rarely as simple as just one thing. Or just three. Or one special secret.
And so with that in mind, I do want to mention that while the text yesterday and today talk about Jesus Christ and faith in Him as the means by which you are built up, and move forward, and are nourished, and grow. I am sure that Paul would not disagree with me when I say that a believer’s relationship to the Holy Spirit in their life is also vitally important.
Just before Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night before Jesus’ crucifixion, He said to His disciples: *Read John 16:12-15*
The primary ministry of the Holy Spirit is one of communication between you and God. He is also our Comforter, which I would say also has to do with communication. As a believer whenever a truth from God comes into your mind and heart, it is because the Holy Spirit has spoken it to you. See it here? He declares to you the things of Jesus. And all that the Father has is Jesus’ so the truth is coming to you like a chain Father -> Son -> Holy Spirit. And all communication up to the Father goes back up the same.
And that happens whether you realize it or not. Sometimes, when you are praying, and you don’t know how to pray correctly, the Holy Spirit is actively interceding for you. Filling in and directing your prayer in ways you are unable to. This says, by the way, that the Holy Spirit is not just some abstract force but an actual person with a mind and will. And so it is a relationship, not like the force in Star Wars.
That prompting that says “you need to do this, this is right and will please God” that is the Holy Spirit guiding you into truth. And that prompting that says “this is sin, don’t do this” that is the Holy Spirit guiding you into truth. Because the Holy Spirit, the Bible says, is not doing this on His own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak. Therefore, if you ignore the Holy Spirit you are by extension ignoring Jesus. And if you ignore Jesus, you are by extension ignoring God the Father.
So, in truth, a very important part of what it means to have a faith-filled relationship with Jesus is to have a faith-filled relationship with the Holy Spirit. Because if you are ignoring the promptings from God the Holy Spirit, if you are grieving Him by disobeying His promptings to do good works and to avoid sin, then you aren’t following Jesus as you should. In fact, you are silencing the person of the Trinity who communicates with you and for you most directly. Not good!
I think perhaps part of why Paul doesn’t say a lot about this is because, as you notice in John 16:14, the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus, not Himself. So He is guiding you to Jesus and Jesus guides you to the Father. But something that often happens, and I am guilty of this, is that preachers end up neglecting to say a lot about Him. He isn’t the focus, He wants you to focus on Jesus, but to ignore Him is a serious mistake that I fear I have inadvertently done. We need Him and I felt the need to say that so we don’t miss it.
Well, with that, onward to Colossians 2:16-23 where we see, once again, the deep importance of a faith-filled walk with Jesus for Christian growth.
Text: Colossians 2:16-23
Verses 16-23
The meaning of these verses can be obscure for many Christians so let’s address that before getting into how they apply:
The issues discussed in verse 16 very likely have to do with the Mosaic Law. The word “Sabbath” is particularly telling. There were all kinds of different cults and religions back then that might have regulations regarding food and drink and festivals. For some that was all there was to it, food, drink and festivals. With polytheism, there was a god for food and a god for drink.
But the Sabbath was one of a number of things that distinguished those who believed the Bible from those who followed other beliefs.
When Paul also says “these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” it is further evidence that this controversy has to do with Old Testament practices. Many things in the Old Testament – like the sacrifice of a lamb for sins – were shadows of the things to come. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Other lambs were pointers to Him. He is the substance.
It can’t be about the Greek God Zeus or some other religion. Those aren’t shadows of Jesus.
So then, verse 16 is primarily dealing with Old Testament sorts of issues: Issues of Passover celebration, celebrating the Day of Atonement, observance of the Sabbath day, food that has been sacrificed to idols, drinks that had been poured out to idols, pork and other unclean foods.
Evidently though, these false teachers were going beyond the Mosaic Law with even more stipulations. Verse 18 mentions asceticism and worship of angels. Verse 20 hints that they are being given additional regulations by spiritual creatures of some sort. Verse 21 says to not even handle, taste, or touch certain things, which is way beyond what the Mosaic Law prescribed. Verse 23 says these people are being severe to their bodies – perhaps physically harming themselves or practicing extreme forms of fasting.
These people were insisting upon a kind of false humility and forcing lowliness upon oneself, neglecting and harming their bodies in some way, as well as worshipping angels. So this is far from a pure form of Judaism. It is some kind of perversion that involved practicing the Old Testament Law, but being even more strict and adding some worship of angels to it as well.
Again, very probably an early form of Gnosticism. There are actually still gnostics that exist today – you can find everything on the internet. But it is extremely unlikely that you are going to meet a genuine gnostic today.
Nevertheless, these verses still have profound value for believers. Here’s why:
First off – I draw your attention to verse 19. This says well what our sermon was about last week. True spiritual growth comes from God. And that growth occurs through holding fast to the Head – Paul said in chapter one that Jesus is the head of the church, so He is talking about Jesus here.
Jesus is the head of the church. The church is therefore the body. We are the church, not this building. As we “hold fast” to Jesus we experience growth that comes from God. To give another plug for the Holy Spirit here, if I were to describe Him with the body metaphor, I would probably call Him the spine.
Another metaphor comes from Jesus in John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” They are two metaphors for the same truth. The nourishment and growth comes from God to you through your connection to Jesus. If you do not maintain that connection, you do not grow. Spiritual growth occurs through a faith-filled relationship with Jesus Christ. And without that it doesn’t. Simple as that.
That truth hasn’t changed and will not change. Your growth comes from God through your relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s the same.
And so though you’re probably not going to find a gnostic today, you are going to find innumerable ideas and teachings and suggestions that there are other ways to grow. I talked about a lot of them last week. People suggesting you need to buy in to a particular philosophy or practice to grow. Sending your money away to some TV guru to get a holy handkerchief. Adding additional books to the Bible.
The problem still exists today, it’s just the gnostics have been replaced with innumerable other ideas, philosophies, practices, and offerings.
Secondly, why these verses are so important to us still today, these verses teach that “stopping the indulgence of the flesh” cannot be achieved by self-made religions, asceticism, and severity to the body. There are people who think that forcibly bringing yourself low and neglecting your body will lead to a diminishing sin nature. It will not. And the reason that it will not is because growth comes from God through a faith based relationship with Jesus Christ.
The idea is very similar to the other. Some think that you can get more spiritual growth by adding things other than Jesus to your life – philosophies, traditions, and holidays. I think you get by now that doesn’t work. But what also doesn’t work, that these verse make clear, is that you also can’t beat and harm and starve sin out of yourself. That also doesn’t work.
Here is an extreme example of this idea that asceticism and severity to the body can produce godliness:
I had a good friend in China named Fatima who was from the Philippines. I and several others went to the Philippines with her and some other Filipina friends and had a wonderful time. Such a beautiful place and many wonderful people. I remember one time we were on a boat going to a small nearby island that our Filipina friends knew had a great beach that other people didn’t know about.
Man, was that a nice beach. Like something millionaires would pay a fortune to go to, only it didn’t cost a million and it was just me and my friends. I’ve never seen a more beautiful place. And I think it was the first time in my life that I ever completely forgot what day it was, and didn’t care to find out. It was that relaxing.
If you want to know the name of it I will sell you that info for just $10. Haha! Actually, I’ve forgotten. But it was beautiful.
Well anyway, while we were on the boat on the way to that island, I was sitting beside my friend Fatima. She pointed to a different island not far from us and said “Do you see that island over there?” I said, “Yes.” It was small and covered in deep green trees. It was a rainy day with tall waves. She said “once a year, people go to that island and they crucify themselves on that island.”
I heard that and my heart sank. I can’t remember exactly what I said after that, but I asked something to the effect of “What? Like, literal crucifixion?”
“Yes. They actually crucify themselves.”
I was in disbelief. I asked “do you mean they just tie themselves up onto the cross to look like they are crucifying themselves?”
She said, “No, first they beat themselves till their backs are covered in blood. Then they carry the cross on their backs to a hill. Then they are actually nailed to the cross through their hands and feet.”
I asked “do they die?”
“No, they use sterile nails and everything to help prevent infection. And they are usually on the cross for only 10 minutes or so.”
“Why do they do this?” I asked.
“It is because they are trying to be their own Savior. It’s to try to make up for sins that they have done and to make themselves sin less. It’s sad because it doesn’t work.”
That conversation and especially the image of that island are very vivid to me. I felt as though I could see the crosses as she described it. That is an extreme example of the error verse 23 is speaking of.
You aren’t likely to see that in your lifetime, unless you decide to google it later, so let me give you one that you are much more likely to see. I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t tried this one before yourself! I used to do this.
Something that I used to do was to frequently spend a Saturday in prayer and sadness about sin in my life. Sometimes I would add fasting to that day. I don’t know how many Saturdays I did this, but it didn’t work.
Why did it not work? There are many intelligent preachers, Bible teachers, books, and people that I would usually agree with – good Bible believing Christians – who would encourage you to try something like that if you are struggling with sin. Take a day, fast, pray, become sorry for your sin.
Why did it not work? Because self-made religion, asceticism, and severity to the body have an appearance of wisdom but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
They didn’t work because I was trying to be my own Savior. I didn’t think of it that way. But the only difference between what I was doing and what the people nailing themselves to crosses were doing was the degree of asceticism and severity to the body. Self-criticism was my flagellation and fasting my nails.
But when I realized that Jesus not only saves from the penalty of sin, but also saves from the power of sin, then it was that I started to find victory again. You must grasp hold of the Head of the church, Jesus Christ, “from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.” Jesus says “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
We all still have sin in our lives – the answer is to look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. Jesus is your Savior. Abide in Him. If you want to set aside a day of devotion to God in order to see less sin in your life, that is an excellent idea. And sorrow for sin and fasting are godly things. But let it be driven by growing closer to Jesus – not by asceticism and severity to the body. You can’t save yourself. Only Jesus can.
Alright, one more reason that these verses are still very meaningful for us as believers today. And that is because Christians are still arguing about this sort of stuff.
“Must I observe the Sabbath? Can I touch this? Can I taste that?”
First: Sabbath observance. The Sabbath, you may or may not know, occurs on Saturday. That’s why they sound so much alike, Sabbath day Saturday. So going to church on a Sunday is a different thing. Sabbath observance is taking a Saturday and doing no work.
Some Christians, not many, will say – you must observe the Sabbath day. Some have even said that to not observe the Sabbath day is to receive the mark of the beast, which is way wrong. And then there are other Christians who would say – you must not observe the Sabbath day.
Which is it? The command to observe the Sabbath day is found in the Mosaic Law. It is not found outside of the Mosaic Law. Christians are not under the Mosaic Law. Therefore, you do not have to observe the Sabbath day.
However, if you want to observe the Sabbath day for your own personal and devotional reasons, there is no problem with that. “Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of the Sabbath” works both ways. The individual who would say – you must observe the Sabbath to spiritually grow is mistaken. The individual who would say – you must not observe the Sabbath to spiritually grow is also mistaken. They are both mistaken because – queue the broken record – spiritual growth occurs through a faith filled relationship with Jesus Christ. You must hold fast to the Head.
Another controversy you may or may not be aware of has to do with celebrating Christmas and Easter. Types of festivals. There are believers out there who think that you should not celebrate Christmas and Easter. They state: the early church didn’t celebrate these festivals. Evergreen trees and dying eggs have pagan roots. The timing of Christmas day is wrong and was chosen to transform Saturnalia – a pagan Roman holiday – into a Christian one. Those aren’t bad points really.
There are other Christians who would ask – how can you not celebrate Christmas and Easter? Without Jesus coming to earth as a baby, there would be no Christianity. Without Jesus dying on the cross and resurrecting, there would be no resurrection. Also excellent points.
I’ve run into this situation before, by the way. When I served as a deacon at the previous church I was an events planner, among other things. And every year our church would have an Easter egg hunt. My first year planning it I asked the wrong person to help with the event. As it turned out, little did I know, this person had very strong convictions against searching for Easter eggs because of the history of the practice. Whoops! I found out real quick that was a mistake.
The truth of the matter is I think we both had the wrong perspective on the whole thing. She felt the practice was evil and I felt she was being legalistic. We were cordial about it, but that’s how we felt. But really, the important thing is a person’s relationship to Jesus. Honestly, we ought to be celebrating Christmas and Easter all year round in our hearts. If I miss that or if she missed that, then that’s the real problem. If by my celebrating Christmas I am elevating green trees above my Savior, that’s a problem. If by her not celebrating Christmas she is neglecting to rejoice in Her Savior’s birth, that’s a problem. If you think celebrating or not celebrating those holidays is what it means to be a Christian, that’s a problem.
I could go on and on with examples but we’ll close with that. One truth, profound importance for your Christian life and practice: Your new life as a Christian started with a faith filled relationship with Jesus. That is how it continues. Let’s pray.