The Grace of God in Truth | Part 3
Download MP3If you would open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2. This is our 3rd week in Colossians. Next week we will look at chapter 3 as we go through Easter. And I'll begin reading in verse 16.
Joel Brooks:Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels going on in detail about visions. Puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head. From whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with a growth that is from God.
Joel Brooks:If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why as if you were still alive to the world, do you submit to regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used, according to human precepts and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Pray with me. Lord, we thank you for your word, And we now come humbly before it.
Joel Brooks:Lord, and I pray that this written word would lead us straight to the living word of Jesus. I pray now that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord may your words remain and may they change us. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:When I was in college, I had a friend. He he was not a he wasn't a good friend, but we had the same circle of friends. And so we were around each other a lot. And he wasn't a Christian. A matter of fact, he he would tell me that he would never become a Christian.
Joel Brooks:And, he he thought Christians to just be ridiculous. And often he would kind of playfully jab me about my faith. Not not in a harsh way, but, you know, just occasionally poking fun. You know, if he heard some ridiculous Christian on the radio or on TV say something, he'd be like, one of your own. That's right.
Joel Brooks:And I would invite him to church, but he would never go and said he would never ever go. But one time, for some reason, he, he went camping in north Georgia and I guess he just decided I'm going to go to a church here. It'll be a cultural experience. And, and so he, he went and he found a remote country church in the mountains and went to it. And, of all the churches and all the places that he could have gone, he went to a a super Pentecostal snake handling church.
Joel Brooks:A real snake handling church. And, and he's telling me this story, and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this, this can't get any worse. And it does, it, it gets much worse. He said that the service was, you know, ridiculous. He kept saying how these simple minded folk were just going on and saying ridiculous things.
Joel Brooks:And finally, in the middle of the service, somebody came in and they said, well, I guess I guess, you know, the brother Jim's not here. He was supposed to bring the snakes. So I said, we're we don't have the snakes, but but I brought some rubber mallets for us. You can't make this stuff up. And he brought rubber mallets and he handed them out to whoever wanted them so they could hit themselves on the head with rubber mallets and claimed that they would not be hurt because of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And, so they handed them out and, my friend Paul, he, he said he didn't care for 1, but he was just like in the back just saying, this is gold. He could not wait to get back to me and tell me these things. And so he comes back as like, you know, I went to church and he's telling me all this. I'm like, oh my gosh. And he goes, just another reason why I'm not a Christian.
Joel Brooks:And I was like, well, you know, gosh, how, how can you argue with that? How really, how, what can you say when somebody has just gone to a church service and seen people hit themselves in the heads with rubber mallets? And so that was the beginning of a long conversation that we would start to have according to about the problems with Christianity. And I'm sure here that some of you have some problems with Christianity. You have problems with church.
Joel Brooks:A lot of people have reasons for not being a Christian. Perhaps one of your problems with Christianity is that you think church and Christians, they just are full of empty ceremonies, that they just do meaningless outdated rituals. And you look at it and you just think that's just absolutely ridiculous. You, you think you're so concerned about your outer appearance, but, but you don't need to care about your heart. And you see Christians going to church and you think you're nothing more than a hypocrite per perhaps that's your problem with Christianity.
Joel Brooks:Or maybe it's something else. Maybe you find Christians to be some of the most arrogant people that you know. They think that they are spiritually superior. They're always talking about how they know all of this and, and, and they look down on you. And although they might say, Oh yes, I'm a sinner too.
Joel Brooks:It's it's always like in this respectful distance between you, a real sinner, and me, a sinner too. And and even when they confess sin, it's always sin in general. You know, pastors do that all the time. You just confess sin in general. When when you hear pastor confess sin specifically, it's it's always, you know, of course, I struggle with pride, but you don't name the pride in the instance in which you had it.
Joel Brooks:And so there's always that kind of degree of separation. And they're just so arrogant. So maybe that's the problem that you have with Christians. Or perhaps you object to Christianity because you believe Christians are people who just follow a bunch of rules, arbitrary rules. You find them legalistic, heartless.
Joel Brooks:They're not the kind of people you want to invite to a party because they're nothing more than killjoys. And so maybe that's your problem with Christians that they're legalistic. And while I want you to know that I agree with you about every one of those problems. Absolutely. But if those are your objections to Christianity, I want you to know, I, I agree.
Joel Brooks:I see those in the church. Paul sees those in the church and he raises up these objections and he deals with them 1 by 1. And he says, they have absolutely no place in the church or with Christians. And so let's walk through each one of these objections. 1 by 1, Look at verse 16 again.
Joel Brooks:Paul says this, says, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or in regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Jesus. Now there are these false teachers and they're coming into the church at Colossae and they're beginning to lead some of the people astray. It's important to realize that these teachers were Christians. They, they, they weren't just, you know, people outside of church.
Joel Brooks:These were people within the church, but their teaching is starting to get skewed. Their beliefs are starting to get a little suspect and they're, and they're getting a following here. They were judging other Christians by whether or not they were rightly doing all of the appropriate rituals, whether they were observing festivals, whether they were keeping ceremonies. And so they'd ask things like, you know what? Are you observing lint?
Joel Brooks:You have to be observing Lent to be in good standing with God. Are you keeping your Sabbath? Did you hold your Passover and did you do it the right way? Because if not, you're not in a right relationship with God. The all these things, these ceremonies, these observing of days and stuff were required.
Joel Brooks:They weren't just said, you know, these are good things. These were required to be in good standing with the lord. And Paul, he looks at these things and he says, you know what? They're nothing more than shadows. That's what they are.
Joel Brooks:They're, they're shadows. They are a shadow of the things to come. Now last week I was in Chicago for a few days. And when I came home and I got to see my family, and my my little girls, they they come running up to me to give me a hug. How odd would it be if in that moment, you know, where I'm kneeling down, I'm like, my arms stretch out and they run to me and they come right next to me and they kneel on the ground and they start kissing my shadow.
Joel Brooks:You know, and they they start, you know, kind of patting and trying to trying to hug my shadow. And I'm like, you know, I'm I'm right here, but but they're just fixated on my shadow. You would look, I mean, and I granted, you know, my kids do unusual things, but even for them, you would think that's a little suspect. That shouldn't be happening. Why kiss my shadow when they could kiss me?
Joel Brooks:And Paul says, that's a great question. But that's what some of you are doing. That's exactly what you were doing. You're you were worshiping the shadow of Jesus, but you're not worshiping Jesus himself. Now, granted you're in the proximity of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:He's casting his shadow. You you were near him, but you're fixated on the shadow and not the reality. Now observing the Sabbath or observing rituals like communion or Lord's supper, these can be really good things. Good things. But we have to realize that just because we do them does not instantly translate into a love for the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Just because you celebrate Christmas doesn't mean that you have celebrated Jesus and His birth, and have shown them love in doing that. Just, just because you, go to church on Easter, doesn't mean that you were celebrating the life of Jesus and His resurrection. Just because you partake in communion, doesn't mean that you're actually communing with the Lord Jesus Himself. There can be a disconnect between their ritual and their reality. Not that the ritual is wrong, but it's a shadow.
Joel Brooks:Jesus is the substance. And, and I have this fear that a lot of Christians treat days like Easter, or Christmas or, or just even even a typical Sunday or a Sabbath. They they treat it kind of like we would treat Memorial Day, in which, you know, there's certain things you do in Memorial Day. You ask people, do you celebrate Memorial Day? Everybody's like, yes, of course, we celebrate Memorial Day.
Joel Brooks:You know, some people celebrate it by by going to the lake. You know, other people celebrate it by, maybe having a parade, going to a parade, honoring fallen soldiers. And if you know that you're really good at celebrating Memorial Day, you might even go to the tombstones and you might lay flowers there. And, and in doing those things, what, what some might say is we have to honor our country, honor the people who've given up their lives for our country, and we have to keep their spirits alive in doing this. And we kind of think that when we come to church, that if we just kind of do the right things, go through the right rituals, that somehow we keep the spirit alive.
Joel Brooks:But what we do when we come here is we don't keep Jesus' spirit alive. It's the exact opposite. We come here to meet a risen Jesus, who through his Spirit, keeps us alive. He breathes life into us. And so we don't just go through the motions, we come here to engage a person.
Joel Brooks:A living person, Jesus Christ. Book in the Bible. So if you wanna just kinda go right to Revelation chapter 2, and these are famous words to the church at Ephesus. Verse 2. I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not and are and have found them to be false.
Joel Brooks:I know you're enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen. Repent and do the works you did at first. Jesus here is talking to a church.
Joel Brooks:He's talking to Christians who are doing all of the right things. They're working hard, They're patient. They're not growing weary. They're obviously very committed to the local church. And so they have this outward appearance of doing what you need to do.
Joel Brooks:Jesus says that they have forgotten their first love. In the midst of all of their church activities, they have somehow forgotten Jesus. They thought, you know, if we just keep the Sabbath, we just take Holy Communion, if we just say the right prayers, if we, you know, keep singing our deep theological hymns, if we if we keep doing all this that that instantly translates into a love of Christ. But we can do all these things and yet forget our first love. So Jesus, he reminds them.
Joel Brooks:He says, remember. Remember what you did it first. Remember how when you first came to know me. Remember do do you remember that time when your hearts longed for me? Re remember when you prayed to me, and your prayers were so genuine?
Joel Brooks:They were so heartfelt? Do you remember that? Repent and go back to that. Repent of how you hold up, you know, having correct doctrine over loving me. Not that correct doctrine is not important, but you can have correct doctrine and not love Jesus at all.
Joel Brooks:Repent how you have to have the right music or how you have to be in the right building or you have to observe the right days in order for you to think that you are growing and that's what's necessary to love me. Repent of those things. And I have to repent of those things. I'll just confess all the time because so often you could be planning a service, a worship service. And, you know, Jeff, Dwight and I, we can get together and be like, all right, we need to sing a few songs.
Joel Brooks:All right. So we got these songs, maybe have a confession. We can have a confession. Alright. I'll take care of preaching the word of God.
Joel Brooks:Alright. Check. Check. Check. Alright.
Joel Brooks:There we go. Instantly translates into loving God. And we we we could get in that mindset, but are we really longing for him? When I was in Chicago, I went to this breakout session with a not very well known pastor. And for an hour, all he did was confess.
Joel Brooks:It just kind of took me back. He got up there and he read from Revelation 2, and he said, I know you came here to hear from me, and, you know, to hear me spout words of wisdom and to teach you, you know, paid a lot of money to come here and hear. He said, I just need to confess. So 25 years ago, I planted a church and the church had grown, you know, to 1,000 now. So I planted this church and and I used to say, you know, I I got some families together and and and we would come together 2 times a month just for prayer.
Joel Brooks:And our hearts were just on fire for the Lord. We would just meet with no other agenda than just to seek the Lord. And then our church began growing. And so we had some business items that needed to be done and we needed to develop some leadership and things. And so, we, we had just kind of our general prayer time and, and then we had our business meeting.
Joel Brooks:And so, you know, prayer time early in the month, business meeting later in the month, but then the church grew more and things became busier. We had more programs, life just kind of became crazy. And so we said, well, we really need to combine the 2 together. And so we had our prayer and our business time together. And then what happened is there became more and more business.
Joel Brooks:So prayer became nothing more than the introduction to the business time in which they could get the real things done. And he said he read revelation 2 and God just hit him and he said, I've got to repent. That's where we are now. It's like we say a 5 minute prayer before we get down to business. It's like we, I have forgotten my first love.
Joel Brooks:I've got a lot of programs. We're doing things the right way. We're singing the right songs, but I forgotten my first love. He says, I need to go back to what we did at first. Have you forgotten your first love?
Joel Brooks:When you came here tonight and you've sung songs and we've heard confessions, we've read scripture. Where was your heart during that? Were you on autopilot? Were you engaging with the Lord? Let's look at the next problem that Paul tackles, that of spiritual superiority.
Joel Brooks:Look at verse 18. Let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. Now here, when Paul mentions worship of angels, we're not really sure what it means. It's actually a pretty hard verse to translate. And some of you might have different translations than that.
Joel Brooks:One option of what it could mean is simply that these people were, you know, bowing down to angels. They were worshiping angels. Another option is that these people were so consumed with talking about angels. It became like the doctrine above all doctrines that Paul looked at it and he says, well, this is all you talk about. This is the passions of your heart.
Joel Brooks:It's essentially an idol. You are worshiping angels. Very similar to where, you know, if you were to come here in Alabama and seriously, if people, all you talk about is football, you know, Alabama or Auburn football, whatever. If all you talk about football, you schedule around football. It's the passion of your heart.
Joel Brooks:Paul Virwell might say you worship football. It's whatever is guiding the passion of your life. Or he might say that about money. All you ever talk about is money. All you ever pursue is money.
Joel Brooks:And so you're worshiping money. It's not that you're bowing down to it, but it's the center of all you talk about. And so here we might have that these people are just consumed with the talk of angels. Now this is something that's kind of foreign to, to, to a younger generation, but, but those from my generation grew up with the Frank Peretti books. Any of y'all read, you know, through this spiritual darkness.
Joel Brooks:And so you grew up with these books and, you know, there is demons under every rock, you know, there's angels everywhere. They're, they're helping you drive. They're helping you get up. And, and so it became the topic of all our youth groups was angels and, and demons. And so we, you would name these demons, you know, if you were late getting up out of bed, you know, it was the, the demon of slothfulness kept you in bed.
Joel Brooks:You know, if, if your car wouldn't start, you're like, curse you demon who doesn't let cars start, you know, and just you're you're always talking to these demons, your headache demons, whatever it is. And, and you would spend more time talking to angels or talking to demons than you would talking to the Lord. You would make it the issue. Now we likely, you guys don't do that. If you do, come talk to me afterwards.
Joel Brooks:We'll work through it. We'll work through that. But some of you might struggle with other things. You know, for instance, I'm a Calvinist, which means that I believe in predestination. And that's one of the things that being a Calvinist means.
Joel Brooks:But let me just freely acknowledge that there is nothing worse, nothing worse than a former free will Baptist believer becoming a Calvinist. Because that's all they want to talk about afterwards. They they make everything come back to predestination. And I know because I was that person and I was so annoying for years. Everything would come back to predestination.
Joel Brooks:And so, you know, you're, you're in a middle of prayer meeting. You're like, you know, I just want to acknowledge that God has predestined us to pre praying this prayer and at this time, and it's always predestination. You know, for others, it might not be that maybe it's baptism. And so either believers baptism or infant baptism is the doctrine and the gauge as to whether or not you are a true believer. You have true spirituality as if you, your understanding of these things.
Joel Brooks:And so, you know, your prayers in a prayer meeting is God, Lord, open up these people's eyes to believers baptism. You know, and that's the issue. And all conversation revolves back to it. And I've been amazed, you know, you could be talking about the weather and people would go, yeah, it is nice weather. It's supposed to rain tomorrow.
Joel Brooks:Don't you think rain and the way it sprinkles down is God's way of reminding us the true meaning of baptism? Like, oh my goodness. You know, it's just everything. Paul says it's worship. You're worshiping that.
Joel Brooks:Worship Jesus. Says when when you do this, you know, you're just so puffed up. He says you're arrogant. You are full of hot air. You're missing the important things.
Joel Brooks:When he says, you're not holding on to the head, which was Christ. Once again, he says, your problem is this, It's your relationship with Jesus. That's not at the forefront. And Paul reminds us to these people, he says, you know what, you're all part of a body, you know, and there's, there's legs, there's arms, there's eyes or ears or his mouth or all these things, but there's only one head and you're not it. Okay.
Joel Brooks:It's Jesus. Let's look at the final problem, verse 20, where Paul addresses legalism. If with Christ you die to the elemental spirits of the world, why is if you were still alive in the world? Do you submit to regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.
Joel Brooks:Referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teaching. They have indeed an appearance of wisdom and promoting self made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Here, Paul addresses legalism. Now legalism is addressed a lot in the Bible, but it's actually nowhere are you going to find the word legalism. And as a result, you you have, you know, I found that Christians kind of casually and carelessly throw the word legalism out all the time.
Joel Brooks:And the definitions range greatly. And so let me give you a definition of legalism here. So we're all on the same page. Legalism is this. It is holding forth a regulation or a moral conduct that has to be kept in order to merit God's mercy.
Joel Brooks:It's holding forth a regulation or a moral conduct that has to be kept in order to merit God's mercy. And so Paul describes things like, you know, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which sounds probably a lot like the youth group that you grew up in, in which, you know, you get the list of all the don'ts that you're not supposed to do. That's the kind of youth group I grew up, grew up in. And I don't want to bash the church I grew up in because the Lord really did use that church, but it was pretty legalistic. And I, I grew up in church and, you know, and I knew the things that probably you were taught, you know, you don't have sex.
Joel Brooks:You, you don't drink, you don't smoke or you don't do other drugs. And Christianity was this long list of don'ts Do not handle, do not touch. So there are these rules that I had to follow. And of course, the problem with that is you can go through life and you can not have sex, you can not drink and you can not do drugs and you can also not know Jesus. You can do all of those things and be absolutely no closer to Jesus than if you had gone and done them all.
Joel Brooks:These things don't just translate into, okay now I know Jesus. Keeping rules does not equal loving God. We know from the story of the older brother and the prodigal son, you see that so well. And that prodigal son kept all of his father's commandments, yet he didn't love his father at all. And actually keeping those commandments indulged his flesh, as Paul would say.
Joel Brooks:They made him proud. They made him arrogant. He could pat himself on the back and say how much better he was than everybody else. Now, Jesus addressed this so many times when he would confront Pharisees. When he confront Pharisees and he'd say things like, you know, you strain out a gnat, you keep every little rule, including the rules about, you know, how you can't have anything dead and wine.
Joel Brooks:And so you always put a little filter there. And so you pour the wine through that to strain out even the little gnats. Congratulations. But what you don't realize is you're swallowing a camel. You're missing the whole point.
Joel Brooks:And so in the 1st century, you have so many rules and regulations that the rabbis would put out and you have things like you're not allowed to spit on the Sabbath. You can't spit on the ground on the Sabbath, because if you do that and you walk by and your foot just casually brushes over it, that's obviously tilling the ground. You have tilled the soil, and so you have farmed. And therefore, you are not allowed to spit on the Sabbath. And you have all sorts of things.
Joel Brooks:You would have, you know, modern equivalents of some really Orthodox Jewish people, they, they can't turn on lights because you see equivalent of lighting a fire. One of the, you know, if you're really bored and you want to go through some of this stuff, look up some of the old regulations. One of my favorites is there's a long, long discourse about what you would do with a amputee with a wooden leg. And says, if this this person with a wooden leg is in a house that catches on fire and the wooden leg catches on fire, on the Sabbath, are you allowed to put it out or not? And so there's this huge dialogue.
Joel Brooks:And finally it's like, yes, you were allowed to put out a person's wooden leg if it is on fire, even on the Sabbath. And so there's, there's all of these rules and these regulations of what you could do or what you can't do. And people strain out gnats and they swallow camels. Now remember here that Paul is talking to Christians. He's talking to Christians here and he's talking to Christians with really good intentions.
Joel Brooks:They want to do the right thing. Don't just, you know, think they're just like really bad people. Now these are Christians who want to do the right things. They want to live good moral lives. And so the easiest thing is to just follow a rule rather than follow Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And it's tempting for all of us to do this because it's so easy. You know, you might see the danger of alcoholism. And so although, you know, the Bible says, do not drink. We also know that like getting drunk is wrong. And so it's just tempting to say, well, as a general rule, we're just gonna say no drink.
Joel Brooks:Nobody is allowed to drink, you know? And so Redeemer Community Church could say that for membership, you were not allowed to drink alcohol. Problem solved. No more alcoholism. And if that was a problem, no more alcoholism.
Joel Brooks:Yes. Problem would be solved, but you have created a lot more problems. You know, Paul, he he would say this. You know, nobody would ever accuse Paul of being soft on sin or not being a moral person, but you're never gonna find Paul giving a rule. He'll point to the law, but he's never going to add to the law.
Joel Brooks:Say, just to make sure we don't get drunk, none of y'all drink. He's not going to say that there. But he would say things he had such trust in the holy spirit. He would say things to the Philippians like this. You know what?
Joel Brooks:He who began a good work in you is going to complete it. Just such trust. I don't know of any pastor who has that trust in which I can, like, look at you guys and say, I know he began a good work in you. He's gonna complete it and just walk away. I'm thinking, no, I've got, you know, I've got to tell you all the things you've got to do.
Joel Brooks:Or later in chapter 2 of Philippians, he would say, God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. And so you see, Paul doesn't trust in rules, he trusts in Christ, who's going to sanctify you. And the problem with rules is this, that the reason we have them, rules and regulations are only brought in in order to preserve what the spirit of god wants created. Here that rules and regulations are only brought in to preserve what the spirit of God once created. We bring those things in to replace the spirit of God and his absence.
Joel Brooks:And when we do that, we can establish an institution that will last for years because rules, the right rules will establish an institution, but you lose your heart for the Lord. And so when you hear all these things that Paul is mentioning, let me just ask you some questions. Do you cling to a shadow? Are you holding onto the substance? What is it that so you like so much about church?
Joel Brooks:What is it you like so much about songs? Is it to tune? Or is it the person to whom you sing? Have you forgotten your first love? Can you remember back to that time when, when God saved you, He changed your heart and you were just so enthralled and in love with Him.
Joel Brooks:And and do you look at that person almost as if he or she was a stranger? You're like, oh, yeah. Well, that was a that was a more simple time of life. You didn't have, you know, the kids that I have now, the job that I have now, all this do you have the same passion? If not, repent, you know, Jesus, he doesn't mince his words.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't say, well, you know, go into this 3 step program, you know, and we'll find ways where we can ignite this passion on that. He says, you know what? Remember and repent. Remember your first love. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Our lord Jesus, I ask that we would remember you. Not as we remember Memorial Day or other holidays in which we go through rituals and we do things in order to keep the spirit of those who have fallen alive, and in order to honor the fallen. Lord, you keep us alive. And so we want to engage a living person who who breathes his spirit on us. And so right now, even in the stillness, I pray that we would have you examine our hearts and ask the question, have we forgotten our first love?
Joel Brooks:And if we have, God, I pray that you would give us a spirit of repentance. I do not want to be a church that's got everything together. It's got all our programs in place, singing all the right songs and doing all those things, but 25 years later can look back and say, we have forgotten our first love. So God, I pray that you would change us in this moment. I pray this in the name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.
