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You know, in your Christian life you never really stay the same in your relationship to Christ. Your spiritual life is always changing. It’s impossible to stay where you’re at. You’re either growing in your Christian faith or you’re becoming weak. Because, as you’ve found in your relationship with the Lord, it’s it’s like a relationship. It’s exactly like a relationship with him. And that’s what Jesus invites you to. And as any relationship that you experience in this world, as you spend time with the person that you care about in that relationship, that relationship can grow and blossom as you’re distant from that person, that relationship, that relationship can grow weak. That’s our spiritual life. Much like your physical body requires food, so does your spiritual body. It needs nourishment. And it depends more on just a Sunday morning service, where you come and gather together to praise the Lord to receive that nourishment. I mean, we, we as people eat at least 2 to 3 times a day, correct? And you think about your soul and your spiritual life, the nourishment that it requires to grow and become strong in the faith and understanding of who you are in the eyes of Christ. Because what you believe matters. And throughout my time in ministry, I’ve had several discussions with people of all sorts of faiths. And one of the things I found out with people who have any other belief, contrary to just truth, it seems a lot of times that they choose to follow a belief because they’re they’re, uh, they’re put together with a group of people who share a common bond.
But as you begin to discuss with them, you’ll find out that a lot of their beliefs, they don’t really, as that group holds to. They don’t necessarily hold to those beliefs. And as you dialogue in a conversation with them, you begin to ask them, why are you a part of a group that you don’t necessarily believe in? Do you know it’s possible to follow after the Lord and complete truth and understanding of who God is? And they’re shocked. You mean there’s there’s a belief in this world that stands completely on truth and and follows the truth for the sake of necessarily not always following what the group has to say. My answer to that simply is yes. Come to our church, because what we’re about here at Alpine Bible Church is Jesus. And the invitation here at our church isn’t about joining some religion or some group. It’s about following after Christ with your life, getting close to him, and growing in that relationship with him. And as you grow in that relationship with him, you understand the purpose and the desire for why God created you in this world and what he wants to you to understand in that relationship towards him and how that relationship lives out in your day to day life.
Your relationship to God matters and what you believe matters. A wrong belief as an individual makes us dangerous. And we’ve talked about the extreme of those examples when referring to Nazi Germany. They didn’t wake up one day and decide to kill Jews. They they had a belief. And that belief continued to be fueled. And as it was fueled, they created this hatred and they massacred millions of people. I think of religions around the world, different belief systems that have caste systems that literally lower and put people in lower positions of one another and rank them according to their society because of a belief. And people are treated more as as items than human beings. Beliefs, if they’re wrong, can be dangerous, but a right belief can make you both victorious and powerful. And so, as a church, we’re not ashamed this morning to stand for what we believe, because we stand for Jesus as he clearly communicates himself in Scripture. And as Paul wrote the book of Colossians, we found that epaphras from that city came down to Rome, where Paul was in prison. Paul was so concerned, even in jail, writes a letter to these Christians, Colossae, who were losing their faith in Christ. They were beginning to delude the facts and understanding of who Jesus was, and infiltrating into their church was where these false beliefs and doctrines and teachings. And Paul wanted just simply to set the record straight for the believers there, saying to the Christians, listen, this is what you should stand for, because in this you will find freedom.
The Bible tells us that Christ will set us free. In chapter one of Colossians we’ve looked at together. It lays out for us a belief in who Jesus is. And if you ever want to read a good section of Scripture on the identity of Christ and the deity of Jesus, the second half of the book of Colossians in chapter one outlines it beautifully for us and understanding who Jesus really is. As Paul goes through this book, he begins to build for us a foundation of belief, because what he’s going to do to us as people, as we begin to understand this belief and everything that Jesus is, he’s then going to propel us into how we live our lives according to that belief. It’s important what you believe. Paul begins by sharing with us in chapter two, and if you have your Bibles with you this morning, I invite you to Colossians chapter two. We’re going to begin in verse one of that section. But as we start to pick up this morning, before we begin to read that section, I’m just going to read these couple of verses to us to give us an understanding and backdrop to to the theme that Paul is going to create in our minds. One of the most powerful verses I love in all of Scripture comes in Romans chapter 12 and verse one and two.
The first, first ten chapters, really, of Romans. Paul outlines for us what it means to be saved. You ever hear that word saved and wonder, what does the word saved? Why do Christians use that? Maybe we could substitute it for a word like rescued means we as people are in a position where we need someone to step in. More powerful than us to help us out in our need. God steps in for us and he literally saves us or rescues us from our position of despair. And he lifts us up and he gives us a new position in him. And Paul, when he gets to Romans chapter 12, begins to write to the believers what the response should be to a God who loves you so much that he would rescue you from any position of danger, despair, or sin, Satan and death that you might face in this world. And he says to the believers, therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. You know, one of the beautiful things I love about following Jesus in my life is that it’s a choice. Notice Paul’s not saying in this passage, I’m telling you. He says, just simply, I’m begging you. Whether or not you choose to love God is an option that the Lord gives to you.
And understanding what God does for us in this world, and how much he loves for us and cares for us and meets our needs as we follow him in this world. Paul is begging the believers because Jesus has demonstrated this love to you. I’m urging you to make the choice to love him. He goes on to say in Philemon, Paul actually wrote this book while he was in prison in Rome. At the same time he writes the Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians, and he says this. Yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you. He’s writing to Philemon about a slave named Onissimus who has ran away. And he’s actually in Rome at this time. And Paul has found him, and he begins to talk to him, and he finds out that he’s a runaway slave and that he’s he’s left his master. And Paul writes back to Philemon, and he says to him, listen, I’m sending this guy back to you because he left on bad terms. He he ran away when he wasn’t supposed to. And for love’s sake, I prefer to appeal to you. Paul’s not saying. He’s not saying. I’m telling you, you have to do this. But because I know you’re a believer, God’s love is working in your life. It’s going to work on behalf of other people as well. And you’re going to love other people because Jesus is loving you and you’re allowing him to love you.
And so that I’m appealing to. So when you read the book of Mark in chapter 12 and verse 29 to 31, what we find is the two greatest commandments in Scripture to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love others. And in those two commands, all of the law of Scripture is fulfilled in those love languages. God’s desire for you is to love him. And as you experience that relationship with him, what’s going to happen is the same that happened in the life of Philemon is that he began to love others as well. So what we find in this relationship that we have with Jesus is that it becomes a relationship with all of us on behalf of Jesus. That’s what makes us his church, the body. This is a team sport. It’s not about what I do and what you do separate from ourselves, but we’re working together to accomplish God’s plan on his behalf in this world, for his glory to our benefit that we may worship him together. And we have the choice to unite with his team or not. In Colossians chapter one, Paul begins that journey with the believers, and really he’s spelling out for us in our lives, having known everything that Jesus has accomplished and everything that Jesus is and what he means to us as people, he begins to share with us how that relates to our lives and the living, the way that we should pursue after Christ and our relationship with one another and our relationship to him.
He says in Colossians chapter two and verse one, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face. Paul, talking about his responsibility to the church, he said to us in chapter one and verse 28, his whole plan was to make us complete in Christ. To find us pure in our relationship with Jesus. And he told us we saw in the book of Corinthians that Paul has an anxiety for all the churches, his passion, his thoughts, his pursuit is that we may be the beauty that Christ desires for us to possess. And Paul here says, for that cause I struggle. The word struggle literally comes from the Olympic Games that took place in the time of Paul’s life, as you would see the athletes competing out on the field in the Greco style of Rome, Roman wrestling. They would fight one another and struggling to to beat their opponent. That wrestling that went on in that relationship. That’s Paul’s pursuit for the church. He is struggling for the benefit of Jesus literally saying, and he just wants to wash the feet of Jesus’s church. You think about how precious the people are in this room this morning to God.
So much so that he would come to this world to die for it. How valuable does that make you in the eyes of God? And how much better it is to communicate to God your love for him by loving that which is important to him, his church. I like how Paul says it, because in these moments Paul is in prison and when he could be feeling sorry for himself, his passion is just still to love Jesus by serving his church. And some of us have the tendency when someone says something we don’t like. I’ve even seen people, when their name is printed wrong in the bulletin, raise a fuss and leave forever severing that body. I’m not saying this church, this church would never do that because we’re perfect here, right? No, that’s not true. Internet people who are listening. That’s not true. A computer has it. I don’t know. Paul’s desire for us is to struggle even when it’s hard. Actually, exactly. At those moments when it’s hard, that’s where the struggle is to struggle, to show the beauty of his church. Not that the body would be divided, but that we would live together. He goes on in verse two and says that their hearts may be encouraged. See, Paul’s living for that purpose, that struggle that you and I, our hearts together would be encouraged, having been knit together in love in that relationship, attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance and understanding resulting in a true knowledge.
A true knowledge. Because what you believe is important and we unite in the truth. And as we unite in the truth, we unite in the love, he says, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery that is Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. It does good to us as a church to focus on Jesus, doesn’t it? I mean, we’re saying to ourselves, in this world, if you are, if you are seeking power, fame, and wealth, all power is possessed by God. All wealth is possessed by God, and every fame that you might want in experiencing that relationship, that longing that you have inside to feel important. It’s possessed by God to be manifest in your life. And so as we focus on Jesus, we really find why we’re here on this world. It’s your life starts, as Paul says in verse two one and two, that we in truth in Christ live together in love because Jesus most importantly unites us. Paul goes on to say in verse four, the reason that he’s encouraging down this path for us as believers. He says, I say this so that no one will delude you with a persuasive argument. Paul’s literally saying to the Colossians that problems are coming. Actually, they’re already in your church. And the danger that you guys face is you give up on truth in Christ is that your your belief in Jesus begins to be diluted.
Now, a half truth isn’t a full truth. A half truth and fact is no truth at all. Bible tells us that Satan is a liar. He’s the father of lies in John 844. You know when when Satan went into the Garden of Eden and he communicated with Adam and Eve to get them to commit that first sin against God, he didn’t just pitch them a total lie, he gave him a half truth for us to lose the power that God desires for us to have in all wisdom and knowledge and understanding in Jesus, as it talks about in verse three, those riches that Christ wants us to experience, all we have to do is to give up partially on the truth that is in Christ and the life of the Colossians. That’s exactly what was happening. See, people were stepping into the church and they weren’t saying to the Colossians, listen, forsake this Jesus. What they were doing was experiencing a gradual slip in their lives, and they were communicating to believers. Listen, we’ve got these other beliefs and these beliefs are important. So. So why don’t you just accept Jesus and this other stuff. And what was happening in their lives as they were beginning to delude the power and understanding of Jesus and His truth and his truth alone.
In this world, there is a tension that we face as Christians to forsake truth in order to love. And the further this nation gets away from Christ, the more powerful that influence becomes in the life of the church. Meaning I have this belief and you have this belief. But but let’s just forget that and hold hands and love one another. But can I tell you this morning that love without truth isn’t true love? If you truly love someone, you’ll love them enough to share truth with them. But on the flip side of that, truth without love is a dying belief. It’s important that we walk hand in hand with both truth and love. We’re going to find that Paul shares that passion with us, and he tells us how to go into this world and minister for him to other people on behalf of who Jesus is. Seasoned with salt with our words. Let it be filled with grace. He tells us in Colossians chapter three that we walk in truth because truth is important for people to know, because truth sets us free. And if you have a wrong belief, it can become dangerous. But if you have truth, you can know Jesus and live for him. And in that we love you. We love you to Christ. And Paul is saying, if you if you refuse to stand for what he presented in chapter one, if you refuse to understand who Jesus is, the danger that you stand for as a church is to begin to dilute everything that God would have us understand.
And who are we as people when God communicates himself to this world? To not stand for that. I mean, if it is true that Jesus came in the flesh, that Jesus lived in this world, that Jesus is God, that Jesus saved us. We have to look at everything in this world in light of who Christ is, and to step back from that is unloving to this world. Now it’s true. Not everyone will agree with you. Not everyone will like what you say. But if you love God and love others, you will share that simple truth with them. And so Paul goes on to tell us as Christians and living victorious, this is how we prepare in Christ. He he starts in chapter two and verse five, and Paul just uses imagery. He creates word picture. I like that for our generation because we’re TV kind of people, right? We’re used to seeing things on our screen. And Paul Paul gives those word pictures in our minds to describe for us what it means to follow after the Lord in our lives. And he says, for even though I’m absent in body, nevertheless I’m with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ. These first two words that Paul uses here are actually military terms, good disciplines literally the, the, the military as they come before to make their fight.
They’re they’re lined up in their perfect rows. Each believer has a position in the army of God to stand where they need to stand on behalf of Jesus. God has gifted us all in different ways to live and love and stand for him in this world. And so all of us fill those positions as an army for the Lord and love. And and we just share that as his army, having the stability, meaning we don’t back down, we’re persistent in presenting ourselves in that formation, understanding our role in this world on behalf of Christ. He goes on to describe it a little bit further in verse six. He says, therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him an understanding that relationship with God and living it as a relationship. He refers to it as a walk. It’s a term that would often be used for a pilgrimage. It’s a journey. Your walk with God isn’t something that’s dictated to you religiously. It’s a journey experience that you have in your personal life with God as an individual and corporately with his church. You enjoy that relationship. It’s not something you’re made to do, but it’s something you enjoy to do because of what Christ has done for us. Listen to this for just a moment. This comes from the surah, which is the Muslim’s holy writings in the seventh century.
This is how Arabs felt when Muhammad was in their presence. It literally quotes in several versions of the surah that Muhammad cast terror into their hearts. I mean, there’s all kinds of gods that you can create in this world, all kinds of gods that you can follow in this world, most of which what I find in understanding religion is that they’re all in creating gods or images of gods or idols to worship, that they are gods who are never satisfied with how good you are as people. And you can never rest comforted in thinking that you’ve lived good enough for that God not really knowing if that God’s going to accept you or not. The wonderful thing about Christ is that there’s nothing that you can do in your relationship with him that’s going to better or enhance his acceptance of you for who you are already. It tells us in Galatians chapter two and verse 21, if righteousness could be achieved through the law, then Christ died needlessly. Meaning this if there’s something that you can do to enhance your relationship with Jesus that Jesus hasn’t already accomplished on your work, there was no point in Jesus coming to this earth, and there was no point in Jesus dying. He accomplished it all, as the Bible tells us to tell us that it’s been paid in full. Your relationship to him can be experienced freely as you accept what Christ has done on your behalf, and his work on the cross.
God opens a hand towards you, asking you to take his and experience that relationship with him. Paul calls it in Galatians or excuse me in Colossians chapter two and verse six. A walk. He goes on to say, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in him. You think for a minute some of the great things that have been built in our society, some of the wonders of the world, I don’t know, the Eiffel Tower, for example, a powerful building full of steel. Right? That thing is never coming down. That’s what Paul’s talking about in this passage of Scripture. You think about some other things that have been built in this world, like, I don’t know, the Titanic. How many want to go on a ride in that ship? Not today. Right. It’s because when it comes, I love when we hear our kids do that. And then I say, when we when we are rooted in Jesus, when we’re established in him, you become immovable. When I was a young kid, I lived right on the Gulf Coast, and my dad is, I think, a fanatic for extreme things. He likes to jump out of parachutes. I like to watch him jump with or out of parachutes. How do you do that? He jumps out of a plane with a parachute, and I’m the one that watches him and cheers for him.
Um, when I was a kid, though, I can remember when hurricanes would come up the Gulf Coast. We would jump in his car and we would ride around and watch it. It’s not the best thing in the world. Don’t tell mom that happened. Right. But one of the things that was so wonderful to watch as, as a child is the stability of a palm tree. I mean, think about the phenomenon of a palm tree living in a desert, dug in the sand so deeply, and its roots are so powerful that it can just suck up all the moisture, be able to survive in that moment. And even if a hurricane comes, there’s nothing that’s going to rock that palm tree off of that beach. I mean, it’s got its vacation spot and it’s staying versus out west in the desert. Those tumbleweeds, when you come from back east and you move to the to the west and you drive for the first time. The only thing that ever crosses the street where I was from were people and deer. And you didn’t want to hit either, right? And then you move out here and all of a sudden these tumbleweeds are just going everywhere. They’re not rooted. And what Paul is saying to the believers here, listen. Things are going to come. They’re going to try to shake you and your relationship with Christ.
But what’s so important is that you understand how significant Jesus is in your life, and you live like that palm tree. No matter what storm comes. Just trust in him because all wealth and treasures are possessed in Christ and Christ alone in this world. He goes on to say, we’re being built up just as those buildings and I love. We talked about a building just a second ago, like the Eiffel Tower. But but the word here, the term built up, is a progressive word meaning this building isn’t complete yet. Throughout history, people have followed after Christ and what God is doing until he returns to this world to receive those who have followed after Christ. What God is doing is building up a beautiful building in him, and we together are playing a part in God’s picture, being built up together in him, in unison, in love and in truth. And as we do that together, Paul tells us that it’s important that as believers that we are established in our faith. It’s literally a term that’s used from a school teacher that we as believers are learning and growing from from as a student, from a teacher. When we call ourselves disciples of Christ or Christians, that means followers of Jesus. It means that if I call myself a Christian, being a follower of Jesus, I should learn about Jesus. It’s a novel idea, right? I open up Scripture and I discover what God wants me to know about him.
I’m establishing that. And it says, just as you were instructed, staying communicated with God in that relationship with him. The last picture that Paul gives us overflowing with gratitude. Overflowing carries the idea of a river. And as that river gets fed with water, it begins to overflow and abound beyond its banks and spread out across the land. And Jesus tells us in Scripture is the living water. He begins to overflow out of the river. He begins to impact our lives, change us, and he becomes a powerful movement in our hearts and our minds and within our church as we follow after him. Because in him is truth. I love the last part of this verse and overflowing with him. You know, I find a lot of times in our relationship with the Lord, especially here in America, is that there are too many Christians, and by that I don’t mean many, like we have too many, I mean many mini when it comes to living for Christ. We just don’t dream big enough. We don’t pray large enough. We don’t live powerfully enough in him. And what Paul is telling the believers that listen, if all wealth is possessed in Jesus, if Jesus has every power in this world to give to you everything that you need, ask or think. We need to live as if that God was real, that God was powerful to see change taking place.
Think about Lehigh for a minute. What can God do here in his church? As we understand in that relationship, God is going to allow us to abound in him and talking about our relationship with him. Paul goes on, just just one more verse and he gives us a warning. He says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. He’s saying in that first verse, see that no one takes you captive. What he’s saying to the church here is, listen, this is a term used for for an army when they come in and conquer and they take prisoners. If you forsake Christ, if you forsake following after Jesus and His relationship to you in this world, it’s going to take you prisoner. And before you know it, the delusion of truth is going to captivate your heart and your mind, and you’re not going to be following after the Lord anymore. Philosophy in this passage refers to teachings that that are contrary to God. False teachings. Traditions of men are traditions that didn’t necessarily come from God. Actually, they didn’t come from God at all. I often refer to this as folk theology, meaning it was passed on to from generation to generation, but no one really knows why we believe it.
Folk like folk lore, right? There was a conversation that D.L. Moody once had in Chicago with a gentleman. He goes up before this guy and he’s sharing the Lord with him, and he just simply asked, well, what do you believe? And the guy said, well, I believe what my church believes. And Moody said, okay, what does your church believe? Well, my church believes what I believe. All right. What do you and your church believe? Probably what you believe. And the conversation ends. But I think that’s a lot of how people review and look at their relationship with God. If it was good enough for mom and dad, it’s good enough for me. And it was personal to them. So I kind of make it good for me. But it’s not personal to me. And Paul’s talking about the traditions of men here being passed on, but you having no idea and understanding of why you’re even doing what you’re doing. I love my relationship with God. Having the opportunity to question and challenge and ask him things I don’t understand. I don’t like it in religious beliefs. When you have questions about God and no one can give you an answer. I don’t like it when people shun us from being able to ask God about our relationship with him. If what’s true about God, as Paul explained in Colossians, is true about God, He’s powerful enough to handle anything that’s thrown at him.
For 2000 years, people have been following after Christ and he hasn’t been disproven yet. And I think there are skeptical people in this world. There are people who even makes false assumptions or wrong accusations against the Lord. But if you really question, if you really seek answers and you really follow after them, you’re going to understand that what Jesus is communicating to us in Scripture is true. And there’s enough historical evidence alone out there for us to be able to understand the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus as being true Christ, being a literal figure, and being everything that he claimed to be throughout this world. And rather than follow the traditions of man, it’s important to be able to understand, to find your own life. What is it that you believe? When we talk about God building up this building within us, not just in this generation, but in generations to come, God formulating and building this building, it’s important for all of us to define what, what, and who we think God is in our lives because we have to communicate that beyond ourselves. It’s worth loving others and truth to God and what you believe matters. He goes on to say, in the elementary principles of this world, it’s literally spiritism, zodiac signs, mysticism, horoscopes, whatever we have today, just these spiritual teachings that are out there apart from who God is. Do you know who God is? See, the warning to us is don’t delude the truth of Christ.
Don’t be taken captive by these empty philosophies in this world. You know what happens in a world that you don’t really believe that your God is big enough to handle it. Sometimes we will respond in hopelessness or despair. Sometimes we get bitter at God, not understanding why he responds the way he does. Sometimes we get angry at God. Sometimes we even act in vengeance if someone wrongs us, rather than let God take care of it. We respond ourselves because our God really isn’t big enough. We act without faith rather than put things into God’s hands. We put them into ours. Romans 831 tells us, If God is for us, then who can be against us? It’s saying to you, if your God is really as big as Scripture says he is, and if you really believe that there is nothing in this world that you’re going to face, that he can’t give you enough to supply. One of my favorite passages of Scripture comes in Matthew eight. And this is why. Maybe it’s because I’m young, I don’t know, but I’m I’m kind of a spaz sometimes. I’m the guy that when we get together as a group, I’ve got to be doing something or I freak out. I’m just sitting there is not an option for me. I’ve always got to be moving. Having something to do, accomplishing some task. And.
And I’m reminded in Matthew chapter eight of the Life of the disciples, and they really didn’t believe in this passage yet that their God was big enough. But but in this passage, Jesus has just shared with a group of people, he’s going over the Sea of Galilee to go share with another group of people. He and his disciples all gathered in this boat together, and this huge storm arises. And all these disciples who are fishermen, used to being on the sea, are on top spazzing. We got nothing to do. How do we stop this storm? We’re going to die. What are we going to do? Get Jesus right. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. And then all of a sudden it tells us in verse 24, and behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves. But talking about Jesus, he was asleep. I look at that verse and what I say to myself is he’s asleep for me. Because God knows in this world everything that’s coming our way in the midst of any storm that we face, no matter how much you’re going crazy on the inside, Jesus is so in control that even in those Moments he can sleep, and the opportunity this passage presents to us is just to give us an opportunity to recognize that God is in control and that you as people, all we have to find ourselves doing is simply resting in him.
Paul goes on just a few more verses and he explains to us, continues to explain to us that victory. Colossians one he outlined how how Jesus is God and how how that God looks, or him as Jesus being God looks. He tells us that Jesus created everything that Jesus is in charge of everything that Jesus. He goes on to say, is God. And he reminds us in chapter two and verse nine again, if we ask ourselves the question, how can Christ mean so much to us in our lives? How can God accomplish this in our world? He says, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, literally God, deity. God became flesh and dwelt among us. God is powerful and capable. God accomplished this for you. And he says in verse ten, and in him you have been made complete, and he is the head over all rule and authority. Be complete. We’ve learned means made mature in Christ alone. As God has come to this world. He’s died for your sins. He rules and reigns in the heavens today. In him and in him alone you are made complete. You are made mature. You find every purpose for your existence, every intention that God has for you in this world through Christ. He goes on to explain in verse 11 to 13 how this was made possible. Circumcision was a big deal to the Jews is how they identify themselves as followers after God.
And the belief of Judaism and the tendency was in the early church, they would say to them as they became Christians and they trusted in Christ. The Jews would then go into the churches and say, listen, you need to be circumcised too, or you’re not really going to go to heaven. You’re not really following after God, and there was a debate that arose in the early church. It was a debate because the Jews were challenging it. Everyone knew the answer. It’s actually laid out for you in acts chapter 15, when Paul goes back to the church in Jerusalem and they debate over the circumcision. Do we have to really be circumcised to follow after Jesus? Does that really matter of whether or not we go to heaven? Is there a system of law that we have to follow on top of just believing in Jesus? And the answer to that simply was, no, it’s not. It’s faith in Christ alone. And he says in this verse, you being circumcised. He begins to talk to us about being circumcised, not not in the flesh, but in the heart and in him. You were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Made without hands. Listen, this isn’t something physically that you do. This is a miracle that God starts from your inside out, not from the outside in.
God changes you from the inside out into a new creation, a new creature. It’s like starting your life over again in Christ. And he says in verse 12, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised up with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, meaning you needed rescued man, you were in a bad place. He says he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions. He refers to baptism as a a symbolism to the spiritual awakening that happens in our life. You were baptized with Christ just as as as Jesus was buried and resurrected. So your old flesh was buried and you became a new creation in Jesus. You are identified with Christ. Wherever he goes, you go. That’s how attached you are to him, because Christ. It tells us in verse 13, when all the way to the cross for your sins. Paul goes on to say in verse 14, he adds that to the passage, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us. You ever think about the weight of your sin before God? How will you ever stand before a perfect and holy God and a perfect and holy heaven with any sin in your life? We can look at the person beside us and say, well, I’m better than them, but before God.
Are you going to make it? Isaiah chapter six. Isaiah, when he stood before the presence of God, said his words literally were in the King James I am undone, which in the Hebrew means I am a dead man. Isaiah was a prophet of God, and yet before God’s presence he refers to himself as a dead man and God, saying, listen, you were hostile towards God. That’s not good. You were against God, and he’s cancelled out the certificate of debt, and he’s taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. It’s finished. When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them having triumphed over them through him. God is identifying for you, your enemies. We talked about them last week. In this world, we war against sin. It’s anything contrary to the nature of God. We war against death. Death is an unnatural thing. God never intended for mankind to die. But when sin entered the world, so did death. Reign. And we war against Satan. In this passage of Scripture, it’s telling us in verse 14 that God has destroyed sin. The Bible tells us because of sin, the wages of sin is death, and because of sin comes death. And as God destroys sin, so death goes with it. But in verse 15, he recognizes that we have things battling against us in this world, spiritual natures that fight against us as we desire to follow after Jesus.
It says in this passage he disarmed them, literally meaning as as they have these weapons to fight against us, Jesus has ripped them all out of their hands. He made them a public display. He exposed them. He said, listen, these are your enemies. Here’s truth. Here’s your enemies. Stand against them. I’ve exposed them to you. And he says in the last verse, having triumphed over them in the time that Christ was walking the earth, there was a tendency that took place from kings who went into lands and conquered, or emperors or rulers. As they were victorious in conquering a people group, they would take them all as slaves and march them into the capital city of where they were from, triumphing over them and displaying to the people that they are victorious. And what Jesus is saying to you is you think of everything in this world that stands against you, every sin that might encumber you, every thing that you fear in this world, every power that might stand against you. Jesus has been victorious. And he’s he’s marched that through the middle of his church, and he’s exposed to you how powerful he is to stand against them if you simply would just trust in him. I like how Paul writes in Corinthians two to the believers there.
He simply dictates to them how powerful it is to follow after Christ in their lives. In chapter two, or excuse me in Second Corinthians chapter nine and verse eight, he says, And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. In 1290 he goes and says, But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. You think for a moment where you are on that pilgrimage with God. Some of us are in a place of despair. Some of us may be living on the mountaintops, but to all of us God says, what is your need? Because my grace is sufficient for you. Whatever mending your heart needs, whatever love you need. Express whatever you need to experience in your heart, whatever longing you have towards God and just to know him truthfully. The Bible tells us in Christ. His grace is sufficient for you. And I love chapter 12 and verse nine, how Paul expresses that because he talks about his weakness. In religious circles, you’ll never find an opportunity to talk about your weakness. You’re supposed to be perfect all the time. But Paul, the greatest Christian leader in all of history, as a man who on his own was literally transforming all the known world we saw in Ephesus, in Colossae, the entire nation, or excuse me, all of Asia heard the gospel proclaimed through those churches.
And he’s saying, this man who’s God is working powerfully and accomplishing so many things is saying I’m weak. But he also goes on to say, but when I’m weak, man, it’s so great. Because in that weakness, I realize and recognize how much I need Jesus. You know, in our lives, it takes us many times to get to that breaking point before we really recognize we just need to trust in God. We have to go through those valleys and in the storms before we just stop and say, hey, wait a minute. I need the grace of God working in my life. Can I tell you, as a body of believers this morning we talk about being many Christians, that the way that we overcome that the way that we live victorious in this world, the way that we walk hand in hand with Christ. It starts with truth. But as we understand that truth, we continue to just fuel it back to Christ. And we look to him and we look to him and our strengths. We look to him and our weaknesses. We look to him because what we find in Christ alone is that his grace, love towards you is enough for what you need in this world if you just trust in him.