Freedom in Christ

He was telling us about what we were missing, what we needed to be doing to reach a higher level of spirituality. I don't think I remember him smiling once. He was very serious. He had this sort of atmosphere of spiritual superiority about him. Now thankfully, we were part of a Bible teaching church and a Bible believing group, and we weren't taken in by these things.

But the reason I share this story is because this man encapsulates some of what the Colossian false teachers were doing. They claimed to have spiritual experiences and that their authority was based on these experiences, and they were looking down on these Colossian Christians. As a church, we're in the middle of a series on Paul's letter to the Colossians. We're in our fifth of eight weeks on this series that we've called the All Sufficient Christ, why Jesus is all you need. We are looking at a letter that Paul wrote from prison after he received word from a man called Epaphras.

Epaphras was a member of the Colossian church, and he saw these false teachers among them promoting these things. He's worried about the church, so he travels to Rome where Paul is imprisoned and tells Paul about what's going on, and this letter is Paul's response to the church. And I've been mentioning false teachers week after week, but finally, now in Colossians 2:16-23, Paul refutes their teaching directly. Now if you're a Christian, it's important to get clarity about what Paul is concerned about because these things, while there were ancient problems for the Colossian church, they actually show up in different types and forms today in the modern church. And so we need to be clear about what was wrong, what was dangerous about them, so if they show up today, you're not led astray from Christ.

But maybe you're here and you're not yet a Christian, maybe you're a seeker, or maybe you're online and you're just checking things out, and maybe I sound a little bit arrogant to you to say, hey, I'm gonna show you what the truth is so you're not led astray by all these other people. Maybe that sounds a little bit arrogant to you, but I want you to understand that I am not preaching a message and saying because I've had all these spiritual experiences, you need to listen to me. And I'm not saying because I'm so strict and disciplined, and I've overcome this and this and this, you need to listen to me. This message is based on the Bible. It's based on Paul's letter.

Now the reason I trust Paul is because he was an apostle. He was an eyewitness of Jesus, and he was tasked with passing on Jesus' teachings and applying Jesus' teachings to different churches in different situations. And so I trust Jesus. I believe Jesus rose from the dead, and that's why I follow His teachings. So don't trust me, trust the scriptures, and think about who Jesus is.

If you're a seeker, it really matters who He is, and if you think He's Lord, if you believe He's Lord, then you gotta listen to His word. So let's jump in and find out a bit more about what this passage says to us today, and we're gonna break it up by looking at three things that describe the false teachers at Colossae. The three things we discover about them in this passage is that they were caught up in shadows, they were hyped up on heaven, and they were severe about discipline. So first of all, the first thing that describes them is that they were caught up in shadows in verses 16 to 17. So we read in verse 16, Paul says, 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.

See, most scholars understand that there were Jewish heresies going on with these false teachers. They may have been Jews themselves or maybe not, but there are Jewish elements to this Colossian heresy. And one of the things that they were saying to the Colossian church is, hey, you need to observe the Jewish dietary laws that were in the Old Testament. You need to abstain from certain foods. So we see in books like the book of Leviticus, laws about what the people of God in the Old Testament could eat and could not eat.

It was a way for them to set themselves apart for God from the other nations, and it was also one of the things God asked them to do in order to maintain their ceremonial cleanness, so they could participate in worship at the temple. So the big problem that the book of Leviticus is dealing with is how can an unholy people dwell in the presence of a holy God? And that's why we've got all these laws about how they are to relate to the holy God, and these food laws were part of that. So the false teachers were saying, we don't eat pork. We don't eat certain these things.

Why don't you? They were passing judgment on the Colossians. They were also passing judgment on them about festivals and Sabbaths and holy days. So in the Old Testament, the people of God were asked to observe certain festivals. One of them is called the Day of Atonement, or what the Jews call Yom Kippur, when they would have one day each year and they would take two goats, and one goat was slaughtered and its blood was sprinkled around the temple, and the other goat, the priest's hand was placed on the top of its head, and he would confess his sins and the sins of the nation, and they'd banish this goat into the wilderness. And it was a way of achieving atonement.

It was a way of reconciling a sinful, unholy, unclean people with the holy, righteous God and enabling them to live in His presence in the camp, to worship in the temple. And so these Jewish, well, possibly Jewish false teachers were passing judgment on the Colossian Christians. Why aren't you observing these holy days? Why aren't you eating like we do? But you see, Paul explains why they're wrong.

Verse 17, he says, these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Now don't read shadow in our modern idea of it being a kind of negative dark thing. Think of shadow in terms of literally my silhouette. My silhouette, my shadow is not me, is it? It's just the lack of light behind me.

It's just the outline, the shade, the shadow of who I am, but it's not me. Now Paul is saying that Jesus is the substance, the real deal, of which those Jewish things were just a shadow. So think about the food laws with me for a moment. So the food laws that said don't eat pork and so on, do you think that actually made them clean before a holy God? That what you eat or don't eat actually makes you spiritually clean?

Now those things in themselves don't have any power. Or the Day of Atonement, slaughtering a goat, banishing another one away. Do you think that actually achieved atonement? Do you think that the blood of bulls and goats, like Hebrews says, can really cleanse someone and make them righteous? No.

But these were good things. They were shadows that pointed forward to the substance who would fulfil them. So the food laws that helped us maintain cleanness in the Old Testament were pointing forward to the person who would ultimately make us clean, to Jesus, who would shed His blood on the cross as the perfect Son of God. When we put our trust in Him, God applies that sacrifice against us. He cleanses us and makes us righteous.

They were shadows that pointed forward to the substance. Or Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Jesus is the one who really did bear our sins in His body on that tree at the cross, and who died for our sins and died to our sins and achieved atonement, who made us one with God, who reconciled unholy sinful people with the righteous and holy God. Jesus is the substance, but these things were the shadows. And they were never meant to, these things never had power in and of themselves. It was always that the people of God in the Old Testament were by faith to trust God, and they go, okay, we'll observe these things because we trust you, until that day that Jesus would come and fulfil it all, and Jesus' righteousness would be applied against those who by faith trusted in Yahweh.

It's always been about faith. It's always been by grace that we have relationship with God, whether Old Testament or New Testament. Anyway, that kind of explains why Paul is saying, don't let someone pass judgment on you about these things. Imagine Jesus was here today, and He's standing in front of me, and I have this opportunity to talk with Him, to know Him, but I'm just staring at His shadow the whole time, and He's trying to talk to me as He's walking around the room. I'm just looking at His shadow.

What a waste of time. And that's exactly what these false teachers were doing. They were just staring at the shadow when the substance had already arrived. Jesus had already come. There was no need to look at the shadow anymore.

Jesus was everything we need. So don't let someone pass judgment on you. There are some Christian groups today that say you have to eat certain dietary things because of the Jewish laws. Now don't go and start a war with them, but if they pass judgment on you, don't feel that judgment. We have everything we need in Christ to be clean before God.

He is the substance. Now if you wanna learn a little bit more about this shadow substance theme in the Bible, if you wanna get your head across why certain laws we don't observe anymore because they've been fulfilled in Christ, let me recommend that you study the letter of Hebrews, that delves into a lot of this stuff. The other thing I recommend if you're a parent is this book called I See Jesus by a wonderful Bible teacher called Nancy Guthrie, and she helps children see Jesus in all of the shadows of the Old Testament. Actually, I'm happy for one of you who is first and best dressed to borrow a copy if you wanna read it with your kids over the next couple of weeks, you're welcome to do that. And here's actually how she explains our verse, Colossians 2:17.

She says, and this is for kids as well, when I stand in the sun and look down, I can see my shadow. It looks a lot like me, but it isn't me. The Old Testament is full of shadows. And when we look at these shadows, we see something that looks a lot like Jesus. Just like we can't see everything about ourselves in our own shadow, we don't see everything about Jesus in His shadows, but we do see some things about who He will be, what He will do, and how He will save.

And then the very first thing she looks at is Adam and Eve, and she points to how Jesus is the second Adam, the greater Adam. The first Adam was a shadow of which Jesus is the substance. So beautiful book, first and best dressed, you're welcome to borrow it, and you can of course buy it online. I See Jesus by Nancy Guthrie. The false teachers in Colossae were caught up in shadows.

That's the first thing that describes what they were doing and what they were like. The second thing that describes them is that they were hyped up on heaven. They were hyped up on heaven. Now what's wrong with heaven and being hyped up about heaven? Well, nothing's wrong with being excited about heaven.

But what these false teachers were doing, they weren't excited about the hope of heaven. They were hyped up about heavenly experiences that they were claiming to have. So we see what was going on in verse 18. Paul says, let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism. Let me just define that term.

That means harshness and severity. Someone who's an ascetic believes that they can overcome sin and they can ascend spiritually by depriving themselves, by being harsh with themselves. Things like fasting, which is a good spiritual discipline, it can be taken to an ascetic extreme where you're starving yourself so much because you think that's where the power for spirituality comes from. That's asceticism, and that was pretty common in the ancient world. 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.

Now the Greek word originally for sensuous mind is the Greek word sarcos, for sensuous, and that's Paul's favourite word to describe the sinful nature. So he's saying these false teachers, this might look super spiritual, but it's actually very man-made. It's coming from his fallen human mind, this stuff. He's puffed up in his fleshly sinful nature. Now what's going on here?

It's a bit of a crazy interesting verse. Well, there's actually a few different options if we're gonna try and nail down what these Colossian false teachers were doing. Because the word where it says going on in detail about visions, there's a Greek word that appears there only once in the New Testament, and so it's a little bit hard for us to nail down exactly how we should translate that into English. There's a bit of debate, but I'll give you the two main options that I think are the best ones to consider. The first one comes from a guy called Doctor Doug Moo, and he likes this ESV translation we've got on the screen, and so he would explain it this way.

He'd say, these false teachers were insisting on asceticism, which I've defined for us, and worship of angels, not that they would necessarily say, let's worship Jesus and let's worship the angels, but probably more likely what was going on is that they were obsessed with angels. Some people in the ancient world were actually obsessed with angels for protection from evil, and so they were insisting to these Christians, you've got to, like, ask the angels to protect you as well if you're going to be protected from evil spirits and so on and so forth. And he basically says they end up idolising things. They're worshiping the angels, going on in detail about their hyper spiritual visions, puffed up without reason by their sensuous mind. So that's one interpretation which the ESV translates the Greek that way. But let me put up the alternative translation, which someone called Doctor Greg Beale.

I love this guy, advocates for this one. And I actually think this one's a little bit more convincing. But anyway, so the way you would translate it from the Greek with the alternative interpretation is this, let no one disqualify you by taking pleasure in asceticism and worship of angels whom he has seen when he enters into the heavenly sanctuary. So notice in this alternative translation, they're not worshiping the angels. They're taking pleasure in seeing the worship of angels when they enter into the heavenly sanctuary. That's what they're claiming to do.

So in the second interpretation, it's more about this hyper spiritual heavenly experience. In the first interpretation, there's a bit of that hyper spirituality going on with the going on in detail about visions, but there's also idolatry going on, worshiping the angels. Either way, both of them deal with hyper spirituality. One just deals with the idolatry of angels. So I'm gonna preach based on the alternative interpretation, but if you're worshiping angels, please stop doing that.

Okay? Bit of a joke because I assume none of you are doing that. But anyway, so these false teachers were hyped up on heaven, puffed up, and proud about their visions and experiences. Now heavenly visions and experiences aren't necessarily bad. Let's not just throw the whole baby out with the bathwater, because remember the apostle Paul is writing this in 2 Corinthians, he claimed to have ecstatic experiences, like reaching the third heaven at one stage.

But they were a problem in Colossae because the false teachers were using these experiences to look down upon and disqualify the childlike faith of the Colossian believers. Their arrogant boasting threatened to take the Colossians' view off of Christ and onto heavenly experience. Let me illustrate it to you with a personal story. So again, around about when I was 18, I was a new Christian, and one of my friends invited me to his youth group. Now I'd already belonged to a church, but I was like, well, I'm a Christian.

I'll go along to your youth group, which is more of a young adults group, really. And so I went along and when I got there, there were all these young people who seemed devoted to the Lord and having all these spiritual experiences. It was very emotional when we were singing, people were falling down, people were claiming to be so overwhelmed by God's love that they were crying and all these sorts of things. Now I don't wanna disparage all of that because there might be some genuine experiences amongst it. But as I spent time and I kept coming back to this youth group, eventually, I became obsessed with getting this spiritual experience.

I thought, well, that looks, that sounds amazing. I want to experience more of God. And I found myself singing my heart out and seeking the Lord, wanting to have this experience, and I wasn't getting the same thing. And eventually, the small group that I was part of there were like, well, we're gonna get the pastor to pray for you tonight and something's gonna happen. He's good at this stuff.

So he prayed for me and maybe pushed me a little bit and nothing happened. I didn't have this experience. I was genuinely open. I was like, yeah, if God wants to give me it, please give me it. Now I was actually tempted to change churches and join this church because there were people that were investing in my life and were like checking up on me and praying for me and asking how I'm doing.

I thought maybe I can really grow here because I was a serious new Christian. But I prayed about it, talked to my current church about it and I felt the Lord leading me to stay where I was. And a few months later, I thought about it, and I was thankful to God because I realised I had actually idolised spiritual experience by the end of it. I'd actually become so distracted with having this experience that everyone else seemed to be having that I wasn't even focusing on Christ anymore. I had become so obsessed with it that I needed to repent to Jesus and say, Jesus, I'm sorry.

I'm content with you as you are right now. I'm content with what you give me today in this moment. If you choose to overwhelm me with your love, wonderful. If you don't choose to give me that, wonderful. You are enough, and I'm content with what you give me.

But can you see how from my story, that hyper spiritual environment, it can actually cause you to idolise spiritual experience? And that's what these false teachers seemed to be doing. They were going on and on about these visions that they were having, passing judgment on these Christians like, oh, you haven't had that? Tempting them to be ashamed of their simple faith in the gospel, when actually Jesus is all sufficient. He's exactly what we need.

If we take our eyes off Christ and start focusing on spiritual experiences, we lose touch with Christ who is the head of the church, and we might lose our access to the fullness and the growth that only comes from God. So Paul says in the next verse, these false teachers that were going on about their spiritual experiences, were not holding fast to the head, that's Jesus, from whom the whole body, that's us, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. Who's giving the growth here? It's not the heavenly visions. It's the head from whom the whole body grows with a growth that is from God.

So the false teachers were hyped up on heaven and were puffed up in their fleshly immature minds. They thought of themselves as more mature, further ahead in spiritual growth, elite and superior compared to these simplistic, basic gospel believing Christians. But their growth was really just puffing up their own egos. They were full of hot air, destined to be punctured and deflated. But God calls us to hold fast to the head, to Christ. Craig Keener, who's an expert in the ancient background of the New Testament, he says, ancient medical literature sometimes described the head as the source of life for the rest of the body.

And that's exactly what Jesus is. Jesus is the source of life for our church. Not spiritual experience. Jesus. He nourishes us.

He knits us together in love. He is the source of the kind of relational and communal beauty that only God can produce. If we choose to be ashamed by other Christians who claim to have more spiritual experiences than we do, we not only risk adding on to Christ, we risk missing out on the growth that only can come from staying connected to the head, to Christ, from God Himself. But you see, growth is a two sided coin. The Christian life is a two sided coin.

It's about living for Christ, and it's about dying to sin. And these false teachers, they had this strategy for living in Christ, being very hyper spiritual, but they also had a strategy for dying to sin, and we're gonna look at that next in the final thing that characterised them. So these false teachers were caught up in shadows, they were hyped up on heaven, and they were severe about discipline. So we see this in verses 20 to 23. Paul says, if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world.

We talked about these basic elements last week, I think it was, or in the last couple of weeks, that the ancient people of the world thought about the world as made up of fire, wind, water, and so on, but it wasn't just purely material. They were associated with spiritual powers as well. And Paul has already made the argument that we've been placed in Christ, if our faith is in Him, and we died with Him on that cross to the world and to this merely human earthly way of doing spirituality. And so he's saying, if with Christ you died, which you have if you're a Christian, why is it as if you are still alive in the world, this man-made space, 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.

In other words, this is man-made stuff. This is merely human. These false teachers saying, don't touch this. Don't eat that. It's just a human way of thinking.

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. They are of no value in killing sin, in putting it to death in your life. In other words, these false teachers were severe about discipline, and they claimed that severity could overcome sinful tendencies. Now this is a trap that the famous Martin Luther fell into before he truly understood the gospel.

He was an Augustinian monk, and he threw himself into all sorts of severe discipline to try and kill his flesh. And he was full on. He went after these practices that they advocated. So they had confession in the Roman Catholic church, and he would torment his confessor, Johann von Staupitz was his name, he would torment him by confessing his sins for hours and hours until his confessor would sometimes tell him, I don't need to go for this long, and he'd leave the confessional, and while he's walking home, he'd remember one or two more sins and go back to Johann and confess some more because he was so devoted to these Roman Catholic practices. He also refused to sleep with a blanket during winter, letting himself almost freeze to death because he was being harsh with his body.

He was being what we call an ascetic, practising asceticism, trying to gain power over his sinful tendencies through this harsh, severe spiritual discipline. But Martin Luther reflected later on and said, if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery, it was I. All my brothers in the monastery who knew me will bear me out. If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, reading, and other work. But just as Paul teaches, severity has no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Maybe a modern parallel, though not quite as extreme, are the habit stacking, biohacking, performance tracking disciplines of our modern self-improvement culture. And these ideas can subtly influence our understanding of Christian growth. It can seep into our Christianity. Famous podcasts like the Huberman Lab. I actually listen to it. I think it's a helpful podcast, science-based tools about how to stay healthy and whatnot.

But if we adopt that mindset into our Christianity slowly, we may be tempted to think that if we are just super disciplined, if we are severely disciplined and structured, that we will grow, that we will improve. Now don't get me wrong, Paul himself talks about disciplining his body elsewhere. Discipline's not wrong. But when discipline becomes severe, when it becomes non-negotiable for growth, it becomes a hindrance to growth. Why?

Because where is Christ in that mindset? He isn't in that mindset. When you're obsessed with discipline, strict about it, it actually becomes about your ability to be disciplined and no longer about confidence in Christ's power to transform your life. Discipline is good. Obsession with it distracts you from Christ.

Jesus didn't just deal with the penalty of sin at the cross. He dealt with the power of sin. Romans 6 says, for the death He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. The message that doesn't free us from sinful tendencies is stop being weak, be stricter, be more disciplined, try harder.

The message that does free us is the gospel. Jesus has done it. It is finished. At the cross, He died for your sin. He dealt with the penalty and also the power of it.

Now that you've put your faith in Him, you are united with the one who died to sin. You are dead to sin. You should believe that you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Focus on Jesus as you seek to put sin to death. Give thanks to Jesus.

Pray to Jesus. Dwell in Jesus. He is the one who gives you the power to overcome. The false teachers at Colossae weren't just disciplined, which is a good thing. They were severely disciplined and harsh and insisted that this technique would help you overcome sinful tendencies.

They were taking the Colossians' eyes off of Christ. Now whatever it was, there's a mixture of things these false teachers were advocating for, whether it was that they were caught up in shadows saying you needed to do all these Old Testament practices still, whether it was that they were hyped up on heaven, hey, look at these heavenly experiences I've had. You haven't had it. Oh my goodness. You're a lesser Christian.

Or whether it was being severe about discipline. You need to do this, this, and this if you want to overcome the flesh, if you want to overcome sin. Whatever it was, it was all distracting the Colossians from Christ. It was taking them away from Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is still speaking through the scriptures today. And God's word to you, church, is don't let super spiritual Christians who have lost focus on Christ shame you, because all spiritual reality is found in Jesus.

He is the substance that all the shadows are pointing to. Every spiritual blessing, whether it's forgiveness or growth or power to defeat sin, is not found by moving on from Christ. It's found in union with Christ. Don't divorce the blessing from the one who gives the blessing, and don't let some super spiritual Christian steal your childlike simple joy in Jesus. Rejoice in Christ.

Boast in Christ. Dwell in Christ. There is nothing greater to move beyond Him. He is all in all. Augustine, the North African theologian, born in the fourth century, is remembered as one of the greatest thinkers of church history.

But before he became a Christian, Augustine spent years searching for truth, searching for spiritual fullness and freedom through different philosophies and spiritual regimes. And he got mixed up in all sorts of different philosophies that had very much ascetic tendencies. I would say you need to be harsh to your body. The body is either gonna be discarded or it's bad and evil. You need to get rid of all that earthly stuff and ascend to the spiritual realm.

And he was immersed in these philosophies, but they were not powerful enough to save him from his problem. You see, Augustine, from his youth, was deeply enslaved to lust and sensuality, and no philosophy or spiritual discipline seemed to be able to free him. The more he searched, the more divided he felt within himself. But later on in life, he moved to a place called Milan in Italy, and he heard a preacher called Ambrose preaching the gospel, and he began to listen to him preach the Bible week after week, and slowly, the gospel began breaking through. And Augustine describes in his writings reaching a crisis point, a fierce battle between his love for sinful pleasure and his growing desire for Christ.

And what finally changed him was not harsher discipline or deeper philosophy, but the surpassing beauty of Christ Himself. Looking back on his conversion, Augustine wrote, how sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose. He's talking about his enjoyment of lust. You drove them from me. You who are the true, the sovereign joy.

You who are sweeter than all pleasure. O Lord, my God, my light, my wealth, and my salvation. See, Augustine discovered what Paul is saying in Colossians. Sinful desires are not ultimately overcome by severity toward the body, but by finding a greater joy, a greater beauty and a greater fullness in Christ. Christ is the answer.

Christ is all sufficient. Christ is the substance that the shadows were pointing to. Christ gives the growth that spiritual experiences can't guarantee. Christ is far more powerful to liberate us than our own human efforts and discipline. If Christ chooses to free someone, sin cannot stop Him.

Don't let super spiritual Christians or clever sounding teachings or super promising techniques put your simple faith in Jesus to shame. They might appear wise and mature, but really, it's all emptiness, because all spiritual reality is found in Jesus. Let's pray together. God, we pray these words of Augustine, that you have made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. Jesus, you are the fullness.

You are the head. You are all sufficient. You are supremely beautiful. You are all powerful. We praise you, and we know that we were made for you.

And we ask that you would help us to keep trusting in you, to keep our eyes on you, to enjoy you, to boast in you, to thank God for you, for what you've done. Jesus, help us not to be distracted by clever sounding teachings out there. Help us to abide in you each day, to dwell in your presence. We thank you for your great love. We thank you for defeating sin.

We thank you for dealing with all of our ultimate problems, and that one day you will return in glory and in power. We pray this as your people in your name, Jesus. Amen.