Colossians Ch 2 — Colossians 1-2

0:00 We're gonna continue in our study of Colossians today, and, I'd like to just read the first, first verse here. We're not gonna go all the way back to the beginning. We're gonna pick up where Todd left off, but I'd I'd really like to just read if Colossians chapter one verse two, it says, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are Colossi. I think it's important to start here just just to keep remembering that the the Bible was written in these letters in particular, were written to those that are believers, to the saints. We can't use these words as anything more than good ideas and great pattern to follow for others.

0:42 But for for believers, it's certainly a call to us. It's a call for us to know what we believe and to act on it, to act on our belief. We have to give careful consideration. So we're gonna move down to chapter two verse eight quickly and and get started there. I was studying hard in chapter three for the last couple months thinking, you know what?

1:07 That's about where it's gonna hit for me. And so I called Todd with that expectation a couple weeks ago and say, Todd, how'd you make out? And he said, well, I got through chapter two. I said, good. Verse seven.

1:19 I said, verse seven. He didn't even make it halfway. I'm never gonna get to three where I feel comfortable and prepared for. So the lord had other things in mind. And so he has has has put us along the path beginning in verse eight.

1:36 So I've not had the benefit of Todd's this topic. I haven't listened to what he said. So, we're gonna trust the holy spirit to speak and coordinate but you know what? The more I study, the more I tried, the more I understood his problem. There's just so much here that we're gonna find ourselves down in the weeds today, okay?

1:54 As much as I tried and you know, to get up into the clouds and and try and put a cover over this and wrap it up in a bow and put my arms around it to help explain it better. It just never came. So, here's what I think the lord has for us today. We're going to spend time crawling on our knees, picking through the words, and and and understanding what's written here because there's just too much to do otherwise. So, let's let's give a word of prayer before we go forward.

2:22 Lord, we're thankful lord that you have given us your word. We're thankful that it's been preserved so carefully, that you inspired it, that you can trust it. Lord, we pray now as we study it, that you might deliver forth what it is that you would have us to know. Pray this thing... These things in your son's precious name.

2:43 Amen. So we're gonna take it section by section, bit by bit, and, we'll see how far we get today. Colossians chapter two beginning in verse eight through 10. Verse eight, beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. For in him dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily and you are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power.

3:18 Beware. Beware. That's a fitting place to begin. We need to constantly be aware and be on guard. And if you combine the two, we could come up with a definition of beware is to be wary or very careful.

3:32 Marked with a a keen caution, cunning, and and a watchfulness. Paul's really wanting us to know that that's something we need to do, and it's something everybody needs to do. Philippians chapter three verse two two says, beware of the dogs, evil workers, and the mutilation, people that would change the gospel, and we're gonna talk through that in little more detail as we go forward. But beware, all are called to watch. The elders in particular have a burden to watch and guard and protect.

4:05 It it... As a as a deliberate action on their part. Says, lest anyone anyone to avoid, keep, watch out for anyone, anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. We always should be testing and checking where. Well, let's move back just a little bit into verse seven.

4:49 Beware. And there's a clear body of evidence when we talk about the gospel that needs to be taken in its entirety, not from a single verse or a single phrase or anywhere out of context. Very important that we take it all carefully and consider who is teaching us. Well, we can look back, can't we? We can look back and find out who we should have teaching us.

5:14 First, it's Christ. Right? Christ was on this Earth. He taught. He left the holy spirit for us to take benefit of in our learning.

5:23 The apostles were given, you know, the apostles were next, then eyewitnesses who were close by. We have the scriptures that were recorded by them in the early church started and and also has some learning for us. There's learned men who study the scriptures and study the times and study and and can help us also a body of Christ. So if we talk about Christ, he's no longer on Earth, but he was fully man, fully god. Attributed that fact through many works and prophecies.

5:58 He's now sitting at the right hand of the father. His work here on Earth is done for him as a person and a man. His body is still here, but, we'll talk a little more about that later. We have the Holy Spirit given in acts sent from the father, which indwells each believer. But we need to be careful not to be thinking we're listening to the holy spirit.

6:20 We might be listening to our old nature instead. The apostles, Peter, Paul, and the others were special men. Special gifts they were given, and they gave us special teaching. They were eyewitnesses to the to the lord himself and chosen by Christ and taught by him as well. They laid the foundation of faith, wrote many of the scriptures.

6:45 We have eyewitnesses as well. Luke and Mark might be good examples of that. First hand accounts of what happened to whom, where, and by whom. Those those men recorded the scriptures. The Old Testament prior to that, the New Testament is what I'm basically talking about now, but we think the New Testament is the inspired word of god written by men that were apostles and witnesses of what happened.

7:12 It's been retained in history and stood up to the scrutiny of the source and where it came from and who wrote it and and the test of time as well. You know, the early church up until, you know, the apostles were still living and beyond. Many of those early church leaders too were were taught by the apostles, right? Witnesses of those apostles actions and acts. They've not written the scriptures, but they would learn...

7:42 They were learned men. We have learned men today as well that we study and and have them help as they consider the full body of evidence. We have to be very careful. You can see as we walk away slowly and surely from from the original source. Okay?

8:01 Christ is the original source and he's passed it along and now we have this learning to to understand because the farther away we get, the farther or the closer we get to biases or agendas and possibly errors, okay? We also have the body of Christ. The body of Christ amongst us and around us. Those that we interact with day to day that believe in the lord and and study the scriptures and understand, you know, the the Bible tells us that in a multitude of counselors, there's safety and also knowing that that this first that no prophecy of scripture is given or is of any private interpretation. We've had distribution of gifts amongst the body that we can depend upon.

9:05 Does it test up with what Christ taught? Does it match up with what the scriptures say? The next concept is that of cheating. It's interesting description of the concept or the fact what you're have to be aware of, that you aren't cheated. Okay?

9:24 Cheating might better be interpreted according to the notes in in my bible here as to be plundered or to be taken captive. More literal translation, I suppose, would be way of putting it. But the concept here is that you've lost something. You've you've given up something or gotten rid of or somebody's taken away from you, better way of putting it, something of great value. You know, plunder is a term of war.

9:52 War in the old days, and I suppose till today in some respects, was financed on the the basis of what a man could carry or what he could get out of the war. So as he went in and they conquered, they took plunder. They took valuable gifts or... Not gifts. They they they weren't gifts.

10:15 They took them. So they they took things of value, and they may have taken, you know, gold and trinkets. They may have taken tents and cattle, but they also took people. Okay? Took people and robbed them of their freedom.

10:33 They took them captive, made them... Enslaved them. So if there's if there's something that could be taken from you, what's the most precious thing that you have? I'd say that your your your children, your family, but your freedom when you get right down to it is something that you would never wanna give up. Strong words, beware lest you be cheated that Paul uses.

10:58 And when this does happen, if we were to lose the simplicity of the gospel and what the gospel teaches, we've lost an extremely valuable gift if we were to give it up. The gospel is amazingly simple yet deeply important to keep pure. So how might we lose it? How might we lose it? And what do we need to be aware of here?

11:21 Well, we can lose it through man's philosophy. Philosophy is a way of making sense of the world and life around us. Really, it's interpretation of knowledge. And it might be defined as a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means. Or it's man's attempt to explain life based on his own ability to reason or to think and to to figure it out on his own.

11:54 Empty deceit is a hollow lie, arguments that that lead astray and have nothing behind them. Imagine a balloon covered in paper mache. Right? We've all built those. It's got a solid crust.

12:07 It may even look beautiful. But if you were to open it up inside, there would be nothing versus a rock that's solid. Something that is very sure. If you open the rock up, there's more rock there. Right?

12:19 Something that's solid. It's substantial. But we can be deceived. We can have this philosophy come in and cheat us based on the basic principles of the world or the traditions of men. That's what we're trying to be aware of here in in Paul and with Timothy is trying to warn us about.

13:04 Right? We might look around us and say, gee, there is a rock. Or more important... More appropriately, as we were growing up, we were started by crawling. Right?

13:16 And and we would see that rock on the ground and say, I see that rock. It's no good to eat. I find that out pretty quick. Although some kids keep eating more and more dirt and think it's a good idea. But but, anyway, we we might look at that rock and say, it's unanimated, somewhat useful.

13:34 We could pile them up and create a shelter or something like that. But but we we learn about that. And then we look down the the way, and there's a tree or a plant. And that plant is different from a rock, isn't it? That...

13:48 It's it's growing. It gets bigger year by year. It might be something that's useful for us to eat. It might be something we can use to, again, build a shelter. You combine the two.

13:59 A tree goes into paper. Stone goes into limestone, and you could create drywall. Right? I mean, that's what these walls are made out of, and it's something even more useful. Right?

14:11 It's something that that is useful, but still, we command... I guess you'd say we we are better than it if you look around. You you go on to a small insect that has mobility and can fly around, but we still, under most circumstances, can, you know, still have power over the insect. Now if there's a bunch of them, maybe not, or just one might might overcome one of us. Right?

14:41 But the point being that it's still small. We still look around. An animal is strong and capable but predictable. Humans are capable of much more than anything else that we would see around us, and we would prevail in most cases. But if you do look at even amongst us, right, we've gotten up to where humans and we look around at each one.

15:04 We can always see, and my daddy always taught me, there's always gonna be somebody bigger, stronger, faster than you. So be careful. Somebody might be deeper, smarter, or even more knowledgeable, and some might be kinder, nicer, and gentler. So we've gone through this comparison. Right?

15:22 We can go from a turtle to Michael Jordan and see a big difference. We can go from an amoeba to Albert Einstein and see a big difference. Right? We might even go from Bob Markovich to Winston Churchill and see a big difference. And and what...

15:38 The the point is is that we always start to compare, and we start to figure out who's better. Well, some might say that Winston Churchill was a wonderful politician, but he's of no value to me in Sheffield, Ohio, is he? Or never would have been. So we can start to see that there's value placed in different ways. And it's easy to see, I'm not trying to walk too far down an evolutionary track here, but it's easy to see how a guy like Darwin combining comparative knowledge and understanding and trying to figure things out with natural selection could come to the conclusion that, gee, this must have started all back there somewhere with some big bang.

16:21 Right? Unfortunately, all of these arguments, this philosophy according to the basic principles of the world or man's traditions, falls short someplace. Okay? It falls short when there's gaps in where's that, you know, that part... Eight part man being out there.

16:46 It's not there. Okay? And and there's other gaps. Again, I don't wanna spend a lot of time on on evolution, but what about death? That's a problem.

16:55 I mean, if we're so smart, we're so self aware, and we're so capable, why haven't we abolished death? We haven't. Okay? As a human race. Okay?

17:05 But when you start looking at comparisons, it's easy to compare when you're looking at the normal distribution. Right? That's a statistical term that says there's variation amongst anything. But when we're all looking amongst ourselves, it's easy for me to say, I'm a little over here, and she's a little over there. But when you get somebody that blows the curve, to think of it in a school term, somebody blows the curve and does something that's completely outside of the box that you can't understand and you can't explain, we fall short in our ability to explain it with our own means.

17:57 We've got us a beginning and an end. Christ did something, some things, many things that we can't explain. Not only did he walk as a man on this Earth, did many miracles that we couldn't explain other than from a higher power. He died, and he rose again. He came back to life.

18:19 That's conquering death. That's putting something in place that explains the gaps. We may not completely understand it at all times or for everything this side of heaven, but certainly a higher power, a revelation of a higher power explains things. The story of Christ in and of itself is a huge stumbling block to our own personal standards of reasoning. You can't get over that story.

18:53 Let me read from you... Read for you. First Corinthians chapter 15 beginning in verse three. It's a very familiar passage, but I think it explains it well. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas then by the 12.

19:21 After that, he was seen by over 500 brethren at once. Of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles, then last of all, he was seen by me also, as one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of god but by the grace of god as I am what I am and his grace toward me was not in vain but I labored more abundantly than they all yet not I but the grace of god which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach, so you believed.

20:05 See, what do you do with that story? You've got prophecy. Men that predicted what was gonna happen hundreds of years before it did. How do you explain that when you're standing in your own human frame, knowing what you know, having started off by saying this rock is not okay to eat, and and concluding with, I'm better than he is. You can't explain how did somebody know five hundred years beforehand.

20:33 Miracles where he healed and did did miracles that we can't explain any other way. He was a man no like like no other and he must have come from a higher power. So, what can we do? What should we do? I submit we should do like Paul says in first Corinthians chapter two verses one through five or two two through five and I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of god.

21:06 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. In my speech and my preaching were not with we're not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and the power that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of god. Not in the wisdom of men, not in the philosophies of men, or the traditions of man, but in the power of God, something that we can't explain in and of ourselves. So what do you do with this revelation?

21:47 This revelation that there is a higher power, that that there's a story of a man who lived on this Earth who was fully man and fully god. I say we do like Paul does and allow the power of god to speak for itself. I can't explain it but I know it's true. I can't philosophize it my way through that but I know it's true. Therefore, I believe it and I tell you about it and we pass the story along.

22:39 Told Philip, have I been with you so long? And yet you have not known me. He who has seen me has seen the father. So how can you say show us the father? When we look at him either figuratively or literally from a close-up or afar, we see the complete representation of god.

22:59 One of love, of sacrifice, of commitment, willingness to live, and show himself as a man, identifiable, and on the list could go. We could put a year of sermons together telling about who Christ is, what Christ did, and what attributes he showed. But we, believers, you believers, are complete in him. You know, complete is an interesting concept. Complete in him implies that we're incomplete without him.

23:34 Right? I mean, it it seems simple but it is that we're complete with him, incomplete without. Means, and I think we could all agree that we long for search for and are not satisfied till we find that need. Was thinking just this morning as we were break... You know, remembering the lord and breaking the bread of that liberty.

23:57 I think mister Bingham gave out this this song that talked about liberty and the freedom. And the liberty we think of many times is the liberty to do what we think is right. Right? And not have to do. We'll talk a little bit more about that as we go forward.

24:13 But but the liberty to be free of the condemnation of my sins. That freedom that we have, that weight that was lifted off, that that that that pronouncement of judgment that was against each one of us is no longer there. We can be free. We have liberty. We can believe it.

24:44 It's also important or interesting from my mind to think about this concept of being complete. Because when you look at Ephesians chapter one verse twenty two and twenty three, it says, he put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Which think about this. You know, we're complete in him, but it says, the fullness of him is this body. This body of believers, not this one that's sitting in this room, but the church in general, the body of believers fulfills him.

25:27 He completes us. We complete him. That I'll never understand. Not because he needs us. Right?

25:34 John tells us that the rocks could cry out and witness on his behalf. We don't need to. But because he chooses us, Not because this contributes to our salvation but because of our gratitude and and the grace which with we've been given, we walk forward. It's his preferred technique to witness him in the world, to use the body, the combined body of believers that is his body here on Earth to accomplish tasks, to show forth who he is. Please don't come to the conclusion that we contribute anything to the development or fulfillment of our salvation.

26:17 He did that all. But the purpose of the body is to carry out the will of the mind behind it. The mind is in the head which is Christ for the church. We're to carry out his will. So if we look back and think about comparison, that idea that we look around and try and figure things out by comparing things.

26:41 When you compare yourself or somebody who doesn't believe compares themself to the believer or the actions of a believer and can't understand a reason for what they do other than they're indwelt by the holy spirit and acting on behalf of a higher power. Doesn't that show something different than what we can observe when men are just doing things for their own gratification and own own need? It's not to exalt us. It's really to take... Have others take a better look at us so that we can exalt him.

27:22 And then to end up that section, in case we're concerned about putting our faith in somebody that's not so powerful, we see that he's head over all principality and power. Overall and more powerful than all. He's big, powerful, and above all. He will deliver on his promises. I think we have enough time to try and tackle this next section.

28:28 Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us which was contrary to us and he has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross, having disarmed principalities and powers. He made a public spectacle of them triumph... Triumphing over them in it. I appreciate this imagery. I appreciate the imagery that the lord uses that transcends Old Testament and New Testament before and after.

28:56 The the the imagery... And and you've... We've all used analogies, and analogies break down at some point. But these imagery... This imagery transcends physical and spiritual and and it...

29:07 And still works. So kids, you'll have to go home and understand a little bit more about what circumcision really means. I'm not gonna go into a biology lesson today. But for those of us who understand a little more clearly, you might wanna ask yourself this question. It's an odd choice, don't you think?

29:26 I mean, the Lord chose for that to be a symbol of, you know, of joining with him. And and it's an odd choice if you think. Armies mark their soldiers on the exterior of their uniform. Right? Even in in today's day and age when they have, you know, the camouflage, there's still a marking there that identifies them with them.

29:51 Some clubs might use a tattoo today. Ranchers, I'm told, where's Karen at, they they would have a scar use a branding iron to to to mark on the outside. But the point is that it's some... For someone else to see. Right?

30:09 I'd like to think that this marking, if you call it that, is most important to the individual himself. There's a removal, sure, but the form and function doesn't change. We're still human. And I don't think God found an error that he wanted to correct with his special believers. Okay?

30:27 But I submit that this is another or or one of an outward showing of what should be an inward change. It's really a private matter. Right? It's a private matter of the heart and a reminder of the relationship with... Of God.

30:44 So some circumcision was done with hands. Right? In the Old Testament, it was prescribed by God. Male children were circumcised on the eighth day after their birth. It was performed by the hands of their parents or somebody designated to do that, and it set the child apart from others.

31:02 Right? It showed this inheritance this inheritance that was passed on to them, that set them apart and made them different. Reminder to the child and the man as he grew that he was different, that he was set apart, that he lived separately from the rest of the world. So when we transfer this into the New Testament, we run into a big stumbling block initially. There's a huge argument in the book of Acts, and Galatians essentially is written to deal with the subject of, is it more important to practice, or is it more important to believe?

31:33 Okay? And it's a clear answer. It's more important what's in your heart, not what's on the outward appearance. Whether it be private or not, it's most important. It came to be about the work and not the belief at that time, and that was the important thing that they had to deal with.

32:04 The buildup of spiritual baggage, walking away from god's plan plan that that that we would heap up onto us that needed to be taken off, need to be removed, and has been removed. The activities of the flesh or life according to me is removed. So let's let's talk about baptism another form of use of imagery. You know we can talk about the baptism of John. Right?

32:35 We talk... We know about John. He was even called John the Baptist. Right? And his was a baptism of repentance.

32:42 The turning from the old in the human sense in a fleshy ways to the ways of god. John was said to have been preparing the way for the lord and in the same way, our repentance prepares the way for our hearts to receive salvation. We have to turn from the old, move towards the new, realizing our desperate situation and turning to a new way. So when we're baptized, we can be baptized with the spirit. We turn away from our old ways and ask for the Lord to control our lives instead of what we've done.

33:16 The Lord promises that he will give us a helper. He indwells us with the spirit of the living god, live within us, and seeks to exercise control over our hearts and actions at all times. But there's also that imagery of the baptism by water. Baptism by water is an outward show of an inward change that we're... And we're called to be baptized to show that.

33:41 We don't need to be circumcised, branded, tattooed, or even wear different clothes, but we can choose to make this step of faith in front of others to publicly show what has happened in a very private matter. As we're baptized, we go under the water and then raised up, signifying how we would have died and come to a new life. The cover of death, that water has now been lifted lifted out of that and it's all the work of Christ, the faith of what he's done. So we talked about that, and then we get the reminder of our condition. Right?

34:23 We talked about circumcision, baptism. Now we we go backwards and think we were once dead in our trespasses and the uncircumcision of our flesh. We had a weight of sins holding us figuratively below the water. The pronouncement of a guilty verdict and a promise of death was clear. And and there right before us, a future eternal separation of God, but also a present separation from God.

34:53 Our sins separated us from him. Those sins and transgressions had separated us from God except for this action of Christ. Imagine as we're, you know, wrapping up this section, we're listening to the Cleveland Orchestra playing the eighteen twelve Orbitur. And if you ever heard that, it just builds and builds and builds until the cannons are going off. And that's sort of the way that I I understand this, or that's the way I feel when I read this next succession of passages.

35:27 But as we read it or as we talk through it, remember in your mind or ask your questions, who did the action? Hint, Christ did it all. And and number two, who has benefited from that action? We do. We did it all.

35:45 So he has made us alive. As in the picture of baptism. He has raised us from the dead, pulled us from a condition where we couldn't have survived into one of his eternal presidents. Not only has he made us alive, he's made us alive together with him. Just as Christ was raised from the dead, so too do we have a new life to dwell with him forever.

36:13 Not only he's done that, he's forgiven us all our trespasses. In order to give us eternal life, something had to be done about our debt, what we owed. The Lord promised, if you do this, you will suffer that. Justice had to be served. Promise must be kept.

36:35 But all trespasses were forgiven because of what he did. That's past, present, and future, all. Small, medium, and large, all. Intentional, inadvertent, unintentional, all. All.

36:50 All. All. Don't forget. It's all. He wiped out the handwriting requirements that was contrary to us.

36:59 Rules of conduct that no longer applied in terms of earning our salvation. The law was written document, handwritten document that by the hand of god that showed us clearly what the requirements were and that we could not achieve them. It wasn't partially cleared or improved. It didn't change the rules. It was completely and totally utterly wiped out.

37:23 Changed from all requirements to no requirements. Law no longer applies. We don't need to fulfill them. We are rid of them. We are rid of them.

37:34 He said, says he has taken them out of the way. The body of rules was standing in our way of approaching god. We couldn't do it. So in a way in a way, it was preventing us from the relationship with god. It showed us as as we know other places in scripture, a mirror to what we were capable of and what we weren't.

37:53 He nailed it to the cross. Christ took it off, care of it, nailing it to the cross. It didn't float away or sit beside. It was nailed there and stayed there. He came down.

38:25 Not only has it been taken away, it was taken away in a very public way. Made up the the principalities and powers were made a public spectacle of. It's not a hidden manner, a matter. I'm sorry. The creator of creator of the Earth, of the universe walked on this Earth.

38:41 He demonstrated his unique power and ability. He fulfilled all aspects of the law and without sinning or transgressing. He was publicly accused and executed. He rose from the dead, a fact witnessed by many, and ascended into heaven in the presence of many. He slammed the door shut to those who sought to win over god.

39:01 It wasn't a deal in a backroom and it wasn't a quiet ceremony in heaven. It was a public humiliation of our god. And he did it willingly so that he could triumph. The victory is won. The battle is over.

39:18 All enemies are defeated and he is triumphant. I'm gonna end on that note. Let's pray. Father, we thank you again who you are, more importantly, what you've done. That we've benefited from all that your son has accomplished.

39:40 We thank you lord that you've given us an explanation for how, why, where, who, and while there might be things that we don't understand this side of heaven, lord, we know that your son walked this Earth, that he paid for our sins, And if our hearts will accept him, we might live with him, you through eternity. Just thank you in your son's precious name. Amen.