Pleasure in Moderation: Asceticism is Sensuous

The Colossian Warning Against Ascetic Regulations

Please turn your Bibles to Colossians chapter 20. That can be found on page 983 if you're using the Pew Bible in front of you. Stand when you have that. Colossians chapter two, verse 20. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?

Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that 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.

Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that you would open our ears and eyes and hearts to receive your word today as it is proclaimed. We pray that we would understand your law, how we have failed it, how we ought to follow it, and how Christ is the answer to everything.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, we are in a series about pleasure in moderation. This is something we have just begun. So last week we looked about at excess pleasure. This week, naturally, we're going to look at the opposite of that, which is denying yourself pleasure.

Asceticism as Excessive Denial of Pleasure

Not pleasure in excess, but an excess denial of pleasure, which is known as asceticism, asceticism. In this passage, and we went through this in the scripture reading not too long ago, so maybe this will be just a refresher for some, but Paul, in chapter one, talks about all things being fulfilled in Christ, just as in Ephesians 1.

Remember Ephesians and the Colossians are talking and written around the same time. He talks about the purpose of everything being in Christ. All things were created through Christ and all things were created for him.

So he is the purpose of all things. All things, you want to know what your purpose is? It has something to do in relation to Christ. The purpose of everything is found in its relationship to Jesus Christ.

And so therefore, it says in verse 28, him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. It's necessary that Christ be proclaimed in order that everyone be mature in Christ.

Now, he is concerned that that will be threatened by other things that would take the place of Christ. He says in verse eight of chapter two, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.

Okay, so if we are supposed to be made mature in Christ, then any kind of other ideology, any other kind of philosophy in the world is going to be something that distracts from Christ, something that does not build us up in him.

And so it goes on from speaking of that abstractly to dealing with something that the Colossians very well might face. And that is a kind of legalism that takes laws, even God's own laws and misunderstands them, not understanding their purpose in Jesus Christ, but rather the divorcing them from Jesus Christ, using them as a means of righteousness on their own and then loading people up with heavy burdens.

Old Testament Shadows and the Sufficiency of Christ

Therefore, it says in verse 16, 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 all its joints and ligaments grows with the growth that is from God.

So in other words, few are distracted by all the, he's describing here, Old Testament laws, right? Festivals, new moons, Sabbaths, and you do not understand that those all have a purpose in illustrating Christ.

And so as Christ has come, those shadows have passed away. If they are being presented as a thing in and of themselves, a means and into themselves, not just the means by which you would know more of Christ, then that is actually distracting you from Jesus Christ, taking you away from your head by which the body, that is the church, would grow.

And then he explains this once again, more generally, just talking about asceticism in general. If with Christ you die to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in 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.

The Sensuous Mind Behind Asceticism

The title of the message today is asceticism is sensuous. Now that is the word that is used here. It is that these things appeal to a sensuous mind. Now that might be very surprising to you because it seems like asceticism is a denial of the senses.

Asceticism isn't feeding the senses, right? It's a denial of the senses. So how could you say it's sensuous? But look at what the text says. He is puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind. Literally, what that means in Greek is the mind of the flesh, the mind of the flesh.

And then later, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh in verse 23. Now, and he uses the word flesh in part. And remember when the Bible uses a certain term, it might use it mostly one way, but there is a semantic range, right?

It might mean slightly different things, different times. That's why people get very confused when James 2 talks about justification in a different way than Paul talks about justification. He doesn't have to use the word exactly the same way that other writers might use a word.

He's still speaking truth. And so here, when it talks about the flesh, on one hand, it is talking about our sinful natures, like a lot of times Bible's talking to. But I think there's a particular emphasis on the nature of the flesh being something that has senses.

And that is why translators decide to translate this sensuous. It's talking about being enslaved to your most animalistic impulses, to just your senses. What it does is it makes us a victim to our senses.

That's what asceticism, a mindset that is ascetic does. If it says that if you enjoy certain pleasures, if you have certain things, if you don't engage in this particular severity to the body, then you will be led astray.

What it is doing is making you a victim of your own body so that God is not supplying sufficient strength to the body. And if your senses experience a particular thing, then you'll be just led astray.

You're a victim to it. This is how a lot of people approach their problems. For example, while certainly one approach to sinful problems is to, problems of sin, is to cut off your arm, like Jesus says, meaning cut off all temptations of sin.

Something that might be okay in a moderate measure may need to, for a season, be completely cut off. Maybe even for the rest of your life it needs to be completely cut off. Yet you will see some people that take that as a principle that has to be held so tightly that if you were to ever encounter that temptation at all, you are just a victim of your own body.

Look at the 12-step programs. What do they do? If you're an alcoholic, you're always an alcoholic, and that is just who you are. And you're such a victim of your own body that if you were ever to taste alcohol, again, you would just fall back into everything and there's no other way of looking at it.

It makes you a victim of your body. Second, it makes you a slave of your body. If you think about what asceticism is trying to do, it's trying to free you from the senses, trying to free you from all kinds of desires.

But if you're doing exactly the opposite of what your senses desire, if you were doing exactly the opposite at all times, you're obeying the compass exactly just in the opposite direction. And it's less pleasant even.

So it's hardly a fair trade. If you're familiar with the play, The Fantastics, it's this two-act play. The first act is this Romeo and Juliet situation where these fathers are at war with each other and one has a daughter, the other has a son, and the son and daughter fall in love and they decide to get married despite the fact that their fathers are at war with each other.

The second act is where they discover that their fathers were just faking it to trick them into falling in love. The fathers wanted their kids to fall in love with each other. They know that our children will do the exact opposite of anything we tell them to do.

So we're going to pretend to be at war, tell them not to get married, and then that will arrange this match. So that's how it works out. And so they ended up becoming a slave to their father's wishes even though the whole reason they got married in the first place is because they wanted to be free of their father's wishes.

This is how many people are with their senses, with asceticism. And this ends up increasing one's pride. It does not stop the indulgence of the flesh. Instead, it builds up pride. This is what happens.

The flesh is fed. Your sinful desire for your own sense of greatness is fed. The more that you are severe to your body, the greater of a person that you are. Calvin, in commenting on these matters, quoted something that was a popular saying in his own day.

I had never heard of it before. But he said something along the lines of, it's true what is said that often humility goes about in fine linen and purple garments while pride goes around in rags. And it's true.

A lot of times the things that you would think to be humble, right, the one who is very ascetic, who is very severe to his body, who has this outward sense of humility is actually very prideful. Many things get misinterpreted that way.

If you think about convictions, a lot of people think about convictions as a very prideful thing. But someone might have convictions because they're very humble before the word of God. And another person who would try to put themselves out there as being a very humble person because they don't have convictions is actually very proud, not submitting to the word of God.

This is often how these things work. Ephesians 5, 29 says that no man hated his own body. No man hates his own body. And so everyone in trying to do whatever they do is trying to help themselves in some way or another.

If they give themselves the thing that their senses want, or if they don't give themselves the thing that their senses want, they are trying to help themselves in some way. The ones who are accepting and denying the way that God would have them accept and deny are growing themselves in the way that they ought to grow.

But the one who rejects things, not in the way that God has commanded, what are they building up if it is not their body? It is their pride. It is their pride that they are building up before God. And these are things that are detestable to the Lord.

Asceticism, Self-Sufficiency, and False Righteousness

People want a sense of self-sufficiency, right? They want to say that we don't need anything. We can live without feeding these particular desires that the body has. We can be severe to ourselves. God made us, and I feel like I've mentioned this a lot lately, God has made us creatures of need.

That is how we are made. Part of the reason that we have bodies and are different than other creatures like the angels is so that we would have a distinct experience of having needs that would be met by God.

And the person who engages in asceticism, severity to the body to build up a sense of pride is essentially saying that they don't need God, that they, while God has made them a creature of need, they don't actually need God.

Now you might object to this and you might say, what about things like fasting? Doesn't the Bible command fasting and religious means that would be a lot of self-denial? How could you say that something like that would build up pride?

Well, that doesn't build up pride because the purpose of something like fasting, which is in a measured sense that is not indefinite, is to remind yourself of the need of God. But someone who goes on with severity to the body indefinitely is doing so not to remind themselves of their need to God, it's to teach themselves that they don't need God at all.

The other thing that people are doing is they're essentially trying to create a bar of righteousness that they can achieve. They're trying to say that I can go above, above what God has required for me.

I can do enough. Now, if you take a situation where there is some kind of bar or measurement, and that measurement is perfection as it is with God and his law, and you try to move it in a way that you can accomplish it, there are two ways of doing that, right?

There is license where you say, actually, the bar is much lower and I can go over it. Or you can instead artificially pretend that you're moving the bar higher, but you can never really move the bar higher than perfection.

So what you end up doing is moving it somewhere else, making a different standard for yourself so that you can meet that and then ignore all the other rules that exist. This is what was going on with the Pharisees, right?

They tithe on dill and mint and cumin and reject the weightier matters of the law. This is frequently what happens when someone makes these little rules for themselves that they are able to follow. It's easy to make yourself feel good having that sort of righteousness, but then you're a hypocrite.

You aren't actually following the weightier matters of the law, real righteousness. And to be clear, I believe that tithing on dill and mint and cumin was commanded by God. The Pharisees in adopting that were not adopting more than they ought, but they were so focused on that and elevating the role of such laws that they were satisfying themselves in their own sense of self-righteousness before God.

Maybe you've heard of this story before, and I don't know if I'm pronouncing this guy's name right, but there was a Japanese soldier in World War II named Hiro Onoka. I think it was something like that.

I'm missing a syllable in there somewhere, but Onokota, yeah. I think it's Hiro Onokota. And he, after World War II had ended, continued along with his men to stay in the Philippines where he had been sent for nearly 30 years.

For nearly 30 years, he ran around, and there are claims that he killed nearly 30 people in those nearly 30 years. Now, when he finally was informed and he had heard that the war was over, but decided to reject those claims as being untrue, when he was finally told and he went back home, I think he got some kind of outward sort of honor, but really, this man's a fool.

And most people tell this story not to honor a great warrior, a great soldier. Say, what a fool this kind of man is that would go about doing hard labor for a cause of supposed honor when there is no honor in it at all.

This is what people do. They do it as a way of setting some bar of righteousness by which they can achieve a greater righteousness for themselves. It is giving to God something that he has not commanded.

Worshiping God Without Adding Human Rules

This is what we've been talking about in the announcements as we've been going through the second commandment, idolatry. This is worshiping God in a way that he has not commanded. Nadab and Abihu brought strange fire before the Lord.

God did not command the incense they brought. They brought that incense, and he rejected it. He destroyed them. Now, this is not just something that happened late in Israel's history. This is something that you see very, very early on.

In fact, even before the fall. What was it that Eve said to the serpent? God has told us that we may not eat it or even touch it. She's inventing additional rules that God has not commanded. This goes back that early.

As it says in Isaiah 112, who has required this at your hand? Who has required this at your hand? These things are not required by God, but they have the appearance of religion. So what it says, these things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity of the body.

They have the appearance of these things. Many people, especially the more devoted ascetics, as you go into the otter and otter cults, they will have lots of visions of angels, all kinds of things that they, all kinds of religious experiences that they want to share for you.

Asceticism, Visions, and Charismatic Emotionalism

Now, the relationship between those two things that Scripture observes here is worth a long set of contemplations on its own. Why is it that one leads to the other? Well, I can think of a few reasons, although I'm sure there are many more.

If you wouldn't mind, turn that off. Yeah, thanks. Go ahead, yeah, turn it off. Yeah, thanks. So, I blanked on what I was saying. Somebody help me out. Asceticism, yeah, that's what the service is on.

Visions, right, right. Why is there the connection between these two things? Well, for one, someone who is going about asceticism has the kind of pride that would lead them to more quickly accept various visions and ideas that they might receive from the suggestions of Satan, okay?

And then, in the other direction, someone who is receiving visions, et cetera, might be led to engage in a sinful sort of asceticism. I want to give you one example of this, okay? One example of this is in charismaticism.

All right, in charismaticism, there are frequently visions of angels. Now, you may not know this because you're used to seeing how it exists today, but early on, the charismatic movement was incredibly ascetic, right?

A lot of legalistic rules around all kinds of things. It doesn't matter if it's cards, drinking, dance, et cetera, right, all those things, a very ascetic religion, and it came with a lot of severity.

And so, that also combines with visions. And this is what you see throughout church history, too. All the different enthusiastic movements, traditionally, they were called enthusiastic movements, they almost always came with asceticism and visions.

Those things go hand in hand. Now, today, charismatic movements that are receiving all these kinds of visions and stuff, and not that God can't work through dreams and things like that. I believe that God often will bring to mind truth through dreams and things.

So, I'm not absolutely denying that God would do that, but why is it that you see this in this particular movement and often in a way that is obviously fraudulent, okay? The kind of severity to the body that is happening now is not a direct denial of the senses in terms of any kind of food you would eat or anything like that.

It is, instead, it is particularly a severity to the body when it comes to emotional experiences. Okay, if you've been involved in this movement, you know how it tends to work. There is generally a high view of those who have stronger and stronger emotional experiences in the services that exist, right?

Or in the special camps that there are. And as you engage in these groups, the more you, this is, in a way, something that gives you an assurance of God's work in your life, that you are having these special sorts of emotional experiences.

And so, the severity to the body is not a denial of food or drink anymore. It is primarily a handing yourself over to very extreme waves of emotion in order to give yourself, once again, that same sort of sense of self-righteousness.

So, there's still a severity to the body that is being associated with that. Those things still go hand in hand. What's going on in each one of these cases is a dissatisfaction with Christ himself as the means by which we would be declared righteous.

Instead, we want to be declared righteous by something that we do. This is the heart of all false religion. But to the pure, all things are pure. Why does Scripture say that? Well, if you're pure, if you have a pure conscience, if you are innocent before God, if you are trying to earn your way into anything because you already have that ticket paid by Jesus Christ, then there's no need to invent special rules for yourself.

The whole motive that would be there, that self-righteousness, is not there anymore. And so, to the pure, all things are pure. The one who has the forgiveness of Christ is free to enjoy the good things of God in the measure that he has given them for, not in excess, but in proper measure and moderation.

The forgiveness of Christ gives a freedom, a true freedom, not the freedom from the senses that the ascetic imagines, where he is not really free, but observing the opposite end of the compass, being a slave to his own senses all the same, obeying his animalistic impulses, but rather a true freedom, a freedom to thrive in the commands of Jesus Christ.

Applying Christian Moderation to Daily Pleasures

As you think about how to apply this to your life, there are several categories of any kind of thing you might deny yourself in or be severe with yourself on. Okay, there are those things that are necessary, right?

There are things that you should absolutely abstain from. You know, I could list different kinds of hard drugs or something like that, right? There are things that you should absolutely abstain from. There are things that may be very good and reasonable for a person to abstain from.

A lot of people abstain from social media. I think that's, for a lot of people, a very good thing. It's not a bad thing. And there are pleasures that you should actually receive and enjoy with thankfulness from God, like food, right?

If you're rejecting all kinds of food and just eating the bare thing that is necessary at any given point, I can't imagine that someone who does that their entire life would actually be honoring God, never once receiving anything additional that God would give from his bountiful hand.

Okay, so there are those three categories. Things that you actually must reframe from completely, things that it may be good to reframe from, and then things that, well, it's actually bad to reframe from them.

Okay, every single one of those can be used for your own sense of self-righteousness. Now, this passage, obviously, is trying to address those ones that would be better to observe, good to observe, but every single one of these can be used to feed your self-righteousness.

So that attitude of asceticism can be present in all of them, whether they'd be good to abstain from or not. So just to walk through some examples, first obvious one is food, right? There are a lot of people who engage in veganism or vegetarianism, observe those dietary restrictions, not because they think that it will benefit them health-wise but because they think that there's some moral uprightness in doing so.

There are all kinds of people who do that. But this makes no one better than anyone else. There are plenty of people who reject pork, right? You can look at all the different religions that do that, whether it be the kind of Judaism that hasn't recognized that the shadow of those laws has passed, whether it be Muslims for their own reason, whether it be Seventh-day Adventists who don't understand the relationship, once again, between the New Testament and the Old Testament, whether it be various Hebrew roots movement, all of these reject pork and give themselves a sense of self-righteousness in doing so.

And then there are all kinds of modern dietary restrictions that some of them fads, some of them, once again, you may decide that these things are good for you but do not observe these things with a sense of self-righteousness and superiority.

Who was the celebrity that began being gluten-free and then it became kind of the hot thing to do? I think it was Gwyneth Paltrow or something like that. Now, if you don't eat gluten, I'm not making any judgments on that, but I know a lot of people have a sense of self-righteousness about rejecting certain groups of food or certain kinds of things, right?

And because they haven't done it just for dietary reasons, they've also done it because it gives them a moral sense of superiority. There are other kinds of substances in addition to food, of course, alcohol and tobacco are obvious ones.

Bible talks about wine plenty. Yes, you should not drink in excess, but it is given as a gift by God and frequently is described that way. In fact, the Lord's Supper even includes wine. And then tobacco.

Tobacco, it is so interesting how things have changed. You know, I'm of an age where I remember every single restaurant having a smoking section, it being a fairly normal thing, even if a little annoying sometimes.

But now, if you speak to younger generations, because of the quantity of propaganda against it, there is just this incredible moral self-righteousness often about not smoking tobacco. One that I, it is just one that has been so catechized by so many commercials, it is really incredible.

You have to ask yourself with substances, just to give you a framework to think about how you should think about substances like tobacco, because maybe you've not heard preaching or teaching on that kind of thing.

There are three things that you should think about with any kind of substance. Okay, first of all, there's the sobriety concern, right? So if it ruins, if it damages your sobriety in a sense that would be drunkenness, that would be inappropriate, okay?

There's second, if it harms your body in a way that is beyond what any kind of normal pleasure would do, right? And the reason I say beyond any normal pleasure is because every kind of activity that you engage in comes with some kind of risk.

So what I'm saying is, you can't just write off all risk-taking, et cetera. But if it does substantial harm, I think substantial might be a good word here. And then third, if it creates a dependence, right?

And then in what measure does it create a dependence? So you have to ask yourself those things and then apply them reasonably. Don't just operate off propaganda, but apply those things reasonably. Now, I'm not saying any of this to encourage everybody to go out and smoke today, but I am encouraging you all not to be self-righteous about anything that you abstain from.

Fitness, Social Media, and Minimalist Self-Righteousness

Okay, then there's lifestyle things, right? There are maybe fitness, okay? Maybe you have a particular level of fitness that you are keeping. You look down on people who do not keep that level of fitness.

Now, there's certainly good thing in fitness, but if that is giving you a sense of self-righteousness, that is not, that is the kind of thing that this is talking about. And especially if you're engaging in higher levels of fitness, right, that are a real severity to the body, that are, that more and more is likely to be coming from a cultivation of an ascetic spirit.

Another lifestyle thing would be abstinence from social media. That's another thing that people will just think of themselves very highly because they have abstained from social media. I remember when I was a kid, there were a number of fads among kids in the 90s, and I really prided myself on not getting involved in any of those.

And I think it was good that I didn't get involved in any of those. I didn't get into Pogs. I didn't get into Ninja Turtles. I didn't get into Pokemon cards, you know. But looking back, I just really had a self-righteousness about it.

You know, all the other kids playing with their Pogs, et cetera, just, nope, I'm not gonna get into that fad. You can develop a self-righteousness about any kind of lifestyle choice. Beware of it, beware of it.

You can do this with possessions. You know, people can be serious about minimalism, right, the Marie Kondo kind of stuff. They can just have such a frugality that they look down on anyone who doesn't exercise the same level of frugality.

Might be very good to be frugal, but do not, do not embrace such abstinences in a way to justify yourself before God, to build up your own sense of self-righteousness. All right, there's certain tells you can look for in yourself to know whether or not it's coming from a spirit of self-righteousness.

One is that the rule may grow over time. That can be a tell, it can be. There's also a sense of keeping score, right, and keeping score in a particular kind of way, okay? So think about some kind of thing where it might involve a streak, right, like devotionals.

You know, you do your devotionals every day, good thing to do, you should be in the word of God, very good thing. But if you ever miss a day, then you just feel awful about it. And in fact, you might even miss multiple days because once you've missed one, why not?

Why not miss multiple in a row? What does that show? It was never really about honoring God, was it? It was really about your own sense of self-righteousness. And once that was gone, what was the point?

This happens often with purity too, sexual purity. Let the here understand men in sexual purity. Often if they stumble once, they will just, after a long streak, they will just continue stumbling because might as well.

What does that show? It was never really about honoring God. It was about a sense of self-righteousness. Okay, so if one failure leads you to giving over to the whole thing, and that's the way you're keeping the scorecard, okay, that shows that it's a sense of self-righteousness.

Also, you might keep a scorecard that you lie about. That's a common thing too, right? You tell yourself that you're really faithful in your devotionals and you pray this much a day, but if anyone were actually to sit there with a clock and measure it, they would find that the number is far less, right?

And you're just kind of lying to yourself in your head about how righteous you are before the Lord. That's a common one as well. I think I may have told this story before, but I once went to an escape room with a guy who was, who really prided himself on having gotten out of every single escape room in the time limit that was given.

He had never failed a single one. And anyway, we failed this one. And then afterward, he was talking some more about this and he said again that he had never failed an escape room. And we said, well, what about that one?

He said, oh, that one doesn't count. So Sarah said, ah, now I understand how you've managed to beat every escape room. This is what many people do with their lives, right? Is they lie to themselves about these things, about their law-keeping in order to feel self-righteous.

The one who has been forgiven by God is able to be honest about their behavior and their actions. Because there's no fear of these things. There's no fear in confession. The shame has been dealt with, it's been covered.

We shouldn't go about shamelessly parading our sin, but if it's been covered, you don't have to lie about it. The difference between one who is, who understands this truth, that we can enjoy the good things that God has given, and the one who thinks that they need to work to make them right before the Lord.

Receiving Good Gifts from Christ with Gratitude

It's the difference between Mary and Martha, right? Martha, just working, working, working, not enjoying the things of Jesus, while Mary being at Jesus' feet, receiving things from the Savior. I want you to receive good things from your Savior, receiving them with gratitude, appreciating God for what He has done for you.

That if you are pure, you can receive all things. They are pure to you. And you can receive them as thanks from the hand of a good giver, but then also receive them from the hands of a good Savior who has made you pure, in order that you may enjoy those things.

Amen. Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blessings that you have given. We ask that we would appreciate these things in right measure. We pray that you would give us wisdom, that you would help us to cultivate a spirit of real gratitude that is, that does not reject the good things you give, but receives them with joy.

We pray that we would have love for one another in true humility, not a false humility that is dressed up pride. In Jesus' name, amen.