Maturing In Christ - Week 4

[00:00:00] Speaker A: O Lord God. [00:00:04] Speaker B: We. [00:00:07] Speaker A: We stand in an amazement of you. The light of your life is the. Is our hope. And so I pray this morning that because we have received Christ and believe that he is altogether wonderful, you would teach us to walk in a manner worthy of him, rooted, built up, established in the faith. I pray that because Christ is wonderful, we would live like it. In Christ's name, Amen. We're studying the book of Colossians, and the whole book is built around a poem. And it's my intention to read it to you every week because you'll forget it. And the whole book is built around this poem. It's a poem about Christ. And so Paul wrote, Christ is the image of the invisible God. He's the prototype of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven, on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him. And for Him Christ is before all things and in him all things hold together. Christ is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the prototype of life from the dead, that is that in everything he might have the preeminence. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on the earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross. Now that is a very dense statement, but Paul spends the rest of the book explaining this statement and telling us how it works in our daily life. So this week we're going to look at Colossians, chapter two, beginning at verse six, and listen to what Paul says, because I've told you who Christ is and how wonderful he is. Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. Because Christ is wonderful. Paul said we ought to live like it. What the wonder of Christ does to the human soul should change how I live my daily life. [00:03:42] Speaker B: Ah. [00:03:45] Speaker A: The Christian lifestyle is described by Paul here. And it isn't about a list of do's and don'ts. It's not a dress code, it's not a group of Christian holidays. It isn't a. It's not a church culture. This is what Paul said the Christian lifestyle is. It's being rooted, it's being built up, it's being established. It's thinking about what you've been taught and giving thanks. There's the Christian lifestyle. Too often the Christian lifestyle got wrapped up in in church expectations. And the Christian lifestyle became countercultural or, or all these things that Christ never meant it to be. All right, I want to go through each one of these one at a time so that you have clear thinking about what the Christian lifestyle really looks like. First of all, it means being rooted. Now, what is Paul, Paul. What is Paul thinking when he says, if you're living the Christian lifestyle, you're rooted, all right? That means you're drawing your life from Christ. The, the, the, the. The wonder of Christ is coming into your soul in the kind of way that it makes you someone you wouldn't be otherwise. Listen, what Jesus said. I am the vine, you are the branches. And he said, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you're going to live this healthy Christian lifestyle. But if your life is rooted in something else, if your life is rooted in ego, if your life is rooted in wealth, if your life is rooted in leisure, you're not going to be drawing the life of Christ into you. And you'll find, little by little, you're not living the Christian lifestyle. So the Christian lifestyle begins by being rooted in Christ and drawing from the wonder of Christ, something into my soul that makes me a different person. The second thing it means is being built up. What does that mean? Daily growth in your spiritual nature. The Christian lifestyle isn't meant to be static. There is no, there's no point where you graduate in the Christian lifestyle and you don't have to learn anymore. The Christian lifestyle is meant to be a daily progress in understanding Christ, in living out God's purpose, in letting the Scriptures have influence with us. We don't ever cross the finish line on that. Now, I've known a lot of Christians who stalled in their Christian life. They grew up to a point, and then they felt like, I'm doing pretty good, and they stalled there. And their Christian life hasn't gotten any richer, although the time and the years have passed. Okay, if your spiritual life has stalled, if you don't have a sense that you're becoming a better person now than you were two years ago, you're not living the Christian lifestyle. Paul said, because Christ is wonderful, we can grow more and more and more to be like him. The third thing he says is established in the faith. Paul worried about people hearing all these strange religious ideas that floated around the world when he was alive. And I worry about it, too. The biggest religious wackos in the world, they're on the Internet, they've got websites, and they're just religious nutcases. They don't know Christ. They have all kinds of strange ideas that Christianity has never believed in and often called heresy. And they float around out there. And from time to time, somebody comes to me and says, doc, I just heard this guy. You got to listen to him. And I want to say, no. [00:09:19] Speaker B: All right? [00:09:20] Speaker A: So Paul is warning all of us that not everybody who has a religious vocabulary is trustworthy. Not everybody who has a religious TV show you should be listening to. There. There is a. There is a faith that the church has believed for 2,000 years, and that is the faith that we have to be established in. When I went to a seminary, I had to listen to these people who. They didn't. They didn't believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. They didn't believe Paul wrote any of the letters he wrote. They. They denied the core of what Christianity has believed for 2000 years and their teaching in. In religious institutions. That's like saying, I don't believe in math, but I will be teaching you algebra this year. [00:10:26] Speaker B: All right? [00:10:28] Speaker A: Paul said, you gotta be established. The Christian lifestyle isn't flaky. He used another term that people are like the waves that are blown and tossed around by every false doctrine. All right, all right. If you're going to live the Christian lifestyle, there's got to be, there has to be an effort on your part to understand clearly what the church has always believed and be established in that. I'm not changing because Billy Baru wrote a book that denies everything that the church has ever believed. [00:11:09] Speaker B: All right? [00:11:10] Speaker A: That's exactly what Paul is arguing against. If I'm going to live the Christian lifestyle, I have to be serious. I have to understand what Christianity's believed in, and I have to hold firmly to it. And then he said, I want you to think about what you've been taught. Ah, I stand up here every week and rant and rave for about 40 minutes. I want you to think about what I'm teaching you throughout the week. I'd like you to try to remember a couple of good ideas and think about them. They enriches your Christian lifestyle. It has you thinking about things that are above. Listen, what Paul said. Set your mind on the things that are above. Well, well, how do you do that? Well, you can read the Bible, you can pray, but you can also think about the things that you've been taught. This is why we have life groups, so you can sit down with other good people and talk together about what you're learning and enrich your Christian lifestyle. And then Paul said, and never get tired of being thankful. Thanksgiving increases our appreciation of the wonder of Christ. How often do you say thank you? I know I want to push this one step farther. How often do you say thank you to God? I want to push it one step farther. How often do you say thank you to God for how good Christ is? Yeah, you say thank you for your food. You say thank you that you got a good deal on that car. You say thank you that your kids got better from the measles or whatever. But how often do you pause and think about how wonderful Christ is? And then you just start saying to God, thank you for how wonderful Christ is. Thank you for the beautiful life he lived. Thank you for the miracles he did. Thank you for the parables and the lessons he taught. Thank you that he who knew no sin became sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God. You just pause and think about how wonderful Christ is. And you turn every one of those thoughts in a into a thanksgiving to God. You know what Paul said? That's the Christian lifestyle. The Christian lifestyle is to have deep roots in Christ and draw spiritual life from him. The Christian lifestyle is to be growing spiritually. The Christian lifestyle is to know what we believe and hold firmly to it. The Christian lifestyle is to think about what we're learning. And the Christian lifestyle is a perpetual flow of thanksgiving to God for the wonder and the beauty of Jesus Christ. So now I have to ask you, are you living the Christian lifestyle? Are you living the Christian lifestyle? Are these five things a normal part of your daily life? Because Christ is wonderful. He has a wonderful influence on our daily lives. He wants to share the wonder. He wants to enrich you. He wants your souls to be beautiful and full grown. But we have to do the things that he uses to become the people he wants us to be. Then Paul says no other philosophy or human tradition can compete with the wonder of Christ. Listen what he says. You be careful that you are not taken captive through philosophy and empty deceit according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of this world, and not according to Christ. You know what he's saying. There are other ways of thinking that compete with the Christian way of thinking. The Christian way of thinking is not the only one out there. And there are other ways of thinking that compete with it. And we have to be on guard. We have to be aware. We have to be alert. We lose our sense of wonder for Christ when we're taken captive by inferior ways of thinking. For example, Paul says there are many philosophies that compete with the Christian way of thinking. Let's just do, let's just do one, all right? The 20th century was American philosophy was characterized by pragmatism. Pragmatism stopped asking what is right and what is wrong, and they only ask what works. If it works, it, it's right. If it doesn't work, it's wrong. It's pragmatism, all right? That way of thinking competes with Christ. Would you listen? Because people do things and may they, they make stuff work, but they're doing them in ways that are inconsistent with what Christ said he wants for us. Do you see? I can make this real easy. People make lies work all the time. They lie and they make the lie work and they end up getting what they think they want. [00:17:49] Speaker B: All right? [00:17:51] Speaker A: Just because the lie worked doesn't mean that it's right and that it's pleasing to God. Are you listening to me? Church philosophies are great. I took a bunch of philosophy classes. I've read a bunch of philosophy books. But philosophy in my heart will never compete with Jesus Christ. Where philosophy and Christ are not consistent. I'm always going to choose Christ first. I don't care what Hegel said, I don't care what Leibniz said. I don't care what any of them said. When it comes to thinking, I'm always going to follow the thinking of Christ above every philosophy. Because if you have studied philosopher philosophy, the philosophers come and go. They may, they may have their time in the limelight briefly and, and then they become another book on the shelf. But I tell you, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He said. The second thing that can compete with the Christian way of thinking is empty deceit. When Paul says empty deceit, he's talking about a fraudulent way of living. Ah, this, this empty deceit, this fraudulent way of living is we put up an appearance to everybody around us. But our real person behind that appearance is somebody very different than what we're trying to appear to be. Church. [00:19:43] Speaker B: Ah. [00:19:44] Speaker A: And the same thing works the other way. Other people put up an appearance and they want us to think that they're one way. And in reality, behind that facade, they're very, very different. Now Paul said that way of thinking is encountered is counter dictory to the Christian way of thinking. Because Christ calls for us to be authentic. He actually calls us to, to be better on the inside than we are on the outside. When my life is connected to Christ, I am actually a better person on the inside than I am on the outside. Paul Says, in my spirit, I'm living by the law of God, although in my flesh, I keep making mistakes. What was he saying? When this thing is working right, you have nothing to hide because you are a better person on the inside than on the outside. If I'm living behind the facade, I'm living in a way that is inconsistent with the thinking of Christ. And then he says, traditions compete with Christ. Jesus had a wonderful example of this. One day, Jesus and his disciples had supper with a Pharisee. And of course, the Pharisees watched everything Jesus did very closely. Ah, well, Jesus and his disciples didn't wash their hands before supper. I guess his mom wasn't there to ask him, did you wash your hands? [00:21:28] Speaker B: Ah. [00:21:29] Speaker A: And the Pharisee got ugly about it. And he said, why do you break the traditions of the elders and eat your Big Mac without washing your hands? Jesus said, why do you break the rules of God to keep your foolish traditions? Jesus said, a person isn't defiled by what they eat, by what goes into their mouth. A person is defiled by what comes out of their mouth. [00:22:10] Speaker B: Ah. [00:22:11] Speaker A: The church has created a lot of traditions, and some of them are beautiful and good, but many of them, many of them misdirect people away from the wonder of Jesus Christ. Would you hear me on this church? How easy it is to celebrate Christmas totally disconnected from Christ? People do it absolutely every year. In fact, it has almost nothing to do with Christ. And it has everything to do with. Well, we have this tradition. We have that tradition. We always do this, we never do that. And somehow or another, the soul never sits in quiet worship for the wonderful Christ who was born that day. Do you hear what I'm saying? Traditions can compete with the thinking that Christ wants us to have. And so Paul said, be careful. And then he said, there's one more thing. It gets translated. I mean, the English is. The English is the elements of the world. But I did some research on it, and basically this term means basic principles, all right? And I can illustrate this too. Have you ever heard of the German word zeitgeist? Some of you have, all right? It simply means the spirit of the age. Every generation has a spirit about it, the spirit of the 60s and 70s, when was a very different spirit than 2025. So every generation, it has. It has. It has a basic identity. And we start saying, well, baby boomers are like this, and then Gen X is like this. And. And it goes on and on and on and on and on, all right? So every generation has a. Has a spirit about it. And Paul said, the spirit of any age is capable of competing with the right thinking about Christ. You see? [00:25:03] Speaker B: Ah, yeah. [00:25:09] Speaker A: When we were baby boomers, when, when we were young, we thought, we thought we would be the generation that set things right. We kind of deceived ourselves, didn't we? Okay. Paul says you have to be careful that you don't let the generation you live in create your way of thinking. Sometimes you have to push back against the spirit of the age and you have to insist on forcing yourself to think in a Christian way. All right, now why is this important? Because if I don't push back against these things, Paul says, they'll take me captive and I will end up being a slave to a way of thinking instead of the driver of the way I think. This is important, Church. You get to pick. Are you a slave of thought patterns or do you say, I will decide what I pick. I will decide how I'm going to think. I will not be enslaved, but this thought pattern. See what Paul is saying? He's saying because Christ is so wonderful, he helps you think in a healthy way, but you have to push back against these other ways of thinking because if you don't, you will become a slave to him. This word take captive is so unique. This is the only place it's used in the whole New Testament. And it has the idea of being led away as a captive. You're. You've been captured, you're wearing chains, and somebody is leading you away. Now put that back into your thinking. If I don't discipline myself to follow the thinking of our Lord Jesus Christ, in fact, what's happening is my mind is being enslaved and, and it's being led away by someone or something else. And Paul says, there's something so much better than that. You don't have to do that. And on top of that, Christ's way of thinking is superior to all of these. It's just not an alternative any. It is. It's better in every way. If you are following in your Bibles, look at verse nine. Why is Christ's way of thinking superior? Because in him all the fullness of deity dwelled bodily. When you think like Christ, you are thinking like God because all the deity of the Godhead lived physically in Jesus Christ. When you think like a philosopher, you're only thinking like a person. When you think like the spirit of your age, you're only thinking like everybody else around you. But when you follow the Christ's way of thinking, you are thinking the way the Lord God Almighty thinks you are following the thoughts of the most brilliant mind in the universe. He's also superior because he is the head over all rulers and all authorities, every authority there is out there. Christ is greater than they are. So when you follow his way of thinking, you're following the way of thinking of the greatest leader the human race has ever known. When we follow Christ's way of thinking, verse 10, you are in him having been made full. When I follow Christ's way of thinking, listen, I grow into more of what humanity is supposed to be. Humanity is not living up to our potential church. Are we willing to admit that we are living below our potential? All you have to do is watch the news, all right? When I follow Christ's way of thinking, when I let the wonder of Christ have influence with me, I'm being more. I'm thinking more, I'm living more like God's original intention for what humanity was supposed to be. I'll have an amen from somebody out there. I'm doing all the work here. And then Paul changes the imagery. He says, before you're going to start thinking like Christ, you have to be initiated into Christ. And he uses this Old Testament initiation ritual of circumcision to illustrate it. When Abraham. When God made a covenant with Abraham, he gave him a symbol of that covenant. And that covenant was passed down generation through generation through circumcision. [00:30:54] Speaker B: And. [00:30:54] Speaker A: And it was a sign that you belonged to the descendants of Abraham. Now Paul is using that idea and saying, in the same way that you're initiated into the family of Abraham, you have to be initiated into the family of God. And God is the one who does that. And then he changes the. And he says, well, maybe you'll understand baptism better. And so he said, a baptism illustrates this. So when we baptize people, we say, buried in the likeness of his death, raised in the likeness of his resurrection. Okay, where did we get that? We got it right here out of Paul. Paul says in verse 12, buried with him in baptism, in whom also we are raised up together through faith, through the work of God, the one raising the dead. All right, so baptism is a illustration. It's an image of being initiated into God. All right, let's put some of this back together. 1. Christ is altogether wonderful. He is amazing. He is. He is the prototype of what life on this world is supposed to be and what life in eternity is supposed to be. Everything that can be known about God is known in Christ. All right, and then we put that together with, if I really Know Christ I should live like. Should change the way I live. Well, how does it change the way I live? I progressively think more like Christ and less like these alternative ways of thinking. And all that begins when I am initiated into the life of God, into the life of Christ, through God. Meat and potatoes Church. We're going for the meat and potatoes. You can get the cartoon somewhere else. Before we are initiated into Christ, we're spiritually dead in our trespasses and sin. It is God who makes us spiritually alive. We are made alive together with Jesus Christ. All right, I'm gonna throw on some more. How does God make us alive together with Jesus Christ? He does four things. This is verses 13, 14, and 15. First of all, he forgives all our trespasses. You can live a better life. You can think in a better way, because the things that haunt you, they've been forgiven. And Christ wants you to think differently. 2. He cancels the record of debt. Every sin I commit is a bill that has to be paid. And in Christ, that bill is canceled. He crucifies my sin to the cross with Jesus Christ. And then he disarms rulers and authorities, triumphing over them. [00:34:37] Speaker B: Ah. [00:34:38] Speaker A: In Christ, we are more than triumphant. [00:34:42] Speaker B: All right. [00:34:48] Speaker A: All right. I'm going to let you off the hook. All right, one more time. Could we put this all together? Think with me. Think with me. Let's do this together. Paul shows us that Christ is altogether wonderful. He is magnificent. He's absolutely awesome. And then he says, because Christ is awesome, that ought to affect the way you live. It ought to start having an effect on your lifestyle. And the evidence that it has an effect on your lifestyle is you're rooted. You're being built up. You're firm in the faith. The evidence that's having a lifestyle, it affects the way you think. You're not thinking the way people around you think. The ones who are guided by philosophy, the ones who are guided by empty deceit, the ones who are guided by tradition. You're not thinking that way. You're thinking the way Christ is guiding you to think. And all of that is possible because Christ has initiated us into the life of God by forgiving our sin, by canceling the debt, by. By being crucified in our behalf and by triumphing over evil. So life in the wonderful Christ is superior to every other lifestyle you can pick. I know you look around. Some two people got real rich last night, and it's going to radically affect their lifestyle. I know you look around and you go, oh, if I. That's an awesome lifestyle. I wish. I wish I could do that. I this is an often lifestyle. Wouldn't it be great if and we pick out all these lifestyles as if somehow or another they really are better than what Christ is offering. And Paul is making a profound argument because he is wonderful. There's nothing better than what he has to offer the lifestyle in Jesus Christ. No matter what your culture tells you, no matter what you see on tv, no matter what what you hear, no matter what your little heart longs for, there is no lifestyle superior to the lifestyle in Christ Jesus. Our dear Heavenly Father, I hope in you, I trust in you. I pray that your Holy Spirit would do what only he could do. And some of these good seeds would be planted in the rich soil of human hearts and it would make sense in a new way. And they would start looking at Christ differently. And they would start seeing the advantage of knowing Christ, the advantage of thinking like Christ, the advantage of living the Christian lifestyle. And then I pray that as your Holy Spirit does that work, men would see our good work and glorify you in heaven. Amen.