Let Us Keep The Prize

Now please stand for the reading of God's Word Colossians chapter 2 verses 16 to 23

Colossians 2 beginning of verse 16 Excuse me

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 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 a 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 the growth that is from God 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 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 severity to the body

But they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh God bless the reading and now once again the proclamation was word.

Please be seated So the first warning that we had from this morning

These are the second two but the first warning from this morning in verses 8 to 15 Do not be taken captive by those elemental forces that were what there were soundly defeated by Jesus Christ on his cross

They were taken out of the way as it were you are the plunder that Jesus got from his victory

The war prize that God gave him you and me Don't return to those elemental forces to that human tradition to human philosophy and empty deceit and all the rest

You've been raised with him. You are filled with him You've received man and woman alike the circumcision not made with hands, but by the

Holy Spirit himself We who are dead he made alive so let's make sure that as I said this morning we don't turn our victory in Jesus around and bring back to power in our lives those elemental forces that once entrapped us

That Jesus has defeated and now he has led them into open and public shame

The rulers and the principalities they held us held us captive as it says in Hebrews by the fear of death, which held us enslaved all that defeated by the

Lord Jesus Christ and Now we have a whole different worldview a

Creation view if you will bigger than just this world because we worship the maker of it all we continue with Paul Trying to guard ourselves against the incursions that the world can make in us

These little things that come in and they sound so plausible again to use the Apostle Paul's word from earlier in chapter 1

They sound plausible So they hook you in just a little bit As I said earlier this morning,

I don't tell you not to read books. I don't say don't even Reject those books that are against God If we read them discerningly with wisdom to see what's going on out there so we can talk to our friends our neighbors our sons our daughters our wives our husbands and Such like that to know what they're being exposed to and how to argue against it, but let us be careful for our own souls

That we don't ingest These things that come from the world. They're from outside of Christ There's something

I didn't spend much time on this morning I want to cover it now because the last verse the last part of verse 13 and then verse 14 itself lead us into where we began just a moment ago the

Therefore in verse 16 says therefore and we need to circle back just a little bit above and pick up.

What is therefore That he's talking about he says in verse 13 the last part of it and then 14 that Christ having forgiven us all our

Trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands this he'd set aside

Nailing it to the cross now. That's the therefore you've been forgiven of your sins therefore

You're able to have the wherewithal The discernment from the Holy Spirit the means of grace

God gives us etc To resist and not only to resist but to recognize these things when they come in therefore because Your debts have been forgiven.

They were nailed to the cross They were set aside by God the Father because of the work on the cross of God the

Son So God set aside What sounds like of a legal document on which was recorded all your transgressions all my transgressions you can think of it as each one of Invoice of sorts

Recorded where you owe the money for each one You took this you owe money. You took this you owe money and on and on it goes

Maybe that's the record of debt that was set aside. They alludes back to a first century

Document that proves that one person has incurred a debt with another person that is owed Much like today when you buy a house

The mortgage you record is recorded at County Records so someone can prove yes that person really owes me usually the bank the money for this

Something like that Well, I think of it this way There's something nailed to Jesus cross wasn't there

There's a sign that Pilate put there that said Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews now most commentators think that that was his way of poking the poke in the eyes of the

Jews who kind of Manipulated him into crucifying an innocent man So he put that sign he nailed that sign

God nailed something to that cross also That record of debts that we've been talking about that commercial record

With all the transgression all the debts that we owe to God was on there You see

God nailed to the cross the sins for which Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews would indeed suffer

And as I said this morning, I can tell you how many of your sins He paid for on that cross and how many of my sins he paid for The word is very simple all

Our transgressions all of our sins So it's important as I said this morning

That as we consider these things these incursions that can be made That slow us down in our progress towards the image of Christ that we ask the right question and here the question would be

What exactly is that record and where is it from? So Two answers are fairly common and both have some pretty good reasoning behind them first It's the record of death that we inherited from Adam Adam sinned we were in Adam when he sinned he represented us much as Paul says in 1st

Corinthians as a type of the way Christ would represent us, but Adams representation brought sin and death and Christ became a life -giving spirit and he brought life and salvation

But the idea there is that Adam as our federal head representing us in this case bringing case bringing sin and misery and As he sinned so we who were in that sense in him sinned with him and incurred his debt to God And each of us incurring that debt then added to it and added to it and added to it you see

You don't Become a sinner by sinning you sin because you're a sinner And I'm pointing you but this is me too.

This is all of us. Why do I sin because I'm a born sinner Why do you the same thing it's not you sinned therefore you became bad

We're born with the predilection to sin. So Adam passed this on to us and because of that we have this debt to God a

Debt, which if we had one sin on it from Adam taking the forbidden fruit, that's not what we start with.

Okay, that's enough But all of us know that we added to it and added to it So this record of debt is pretty lengthy for all of us that was nailed to the cross

That was set aside because Jesus Christ paid it So we have this document signed on our behalf by Adam and held over our head by the elemental forces or even

Satan might think of the Zechariah chapter 3 where Satan appears making accusations against Joshua the high priest and The angel of the

Lord comes and says the Lord rebuke you Satan It goes on to take the filthy clothes

Covered with the sins of the people take those off him and cleanse him and put the clean clothes on him

That's the difference between being born to Adam being born to Christ This is where that record of debts come from the record of your trespasses

So that's one idea about where that actually came from another is it refers to the Mosaic law

Mosaic law here is a little bit awkward in the context There's not many references if any at all to Mosaic law as binding upon the

Gentiles there in Colossians or in Colossae But Doug Moo, who obviously

I rely upon quite a bit. I love his commentary in Colossians He helpfully helpfully points out this he says there's insufficient evidence to give us to give to the word

Any nuance beyond its beyond its general well -attested meaning of an IOU record of debts

Just an IOU Mool M O U L E Mool succinctly puts the idea as this

I owe God obedience to his will signed mankind So let's just think for a moment about what has been set aside

What is this record of debts? I'm trying to think of a way to illustrate it because it needs to be understood here

Because it's one of the reasons is that therefore For these second two warnings that we're gonna get to in a moment and the only or not the only but I think the best

Illustration of this would be in Matthew chapter 18 and the parable of the unforgiving servant

You see he owed this tremendous debt to his master And he goes to his master and it's just gazillions of dollars as Forrest Gump would say

We don't have to take the talents from then and try and make it into today's dollars It's just an unbelievable fortune that he owed and he goes he asked for mercy he asked for patience and the master forgives him all the debt and That unforgiving servant then of course won't forgive a small debt that one of his fellow servants owes him and therefore he's condemned

But we stay with the first part of it This is the debt that was set aside. This was a debt that God nailed to the cross

This is the debt that God the Father Put on the cross with Jesus Christ the record of our transgressions

So I like the simple

I like simply that we inherited our sin nature from Adam We added to that sin nature by our willful acts of sin and transgressing against God Whether it's the

Mosaic law or the responsibility we have because of nature itself Romans 132 says that the nature shows that the

Holy God made what is made and we owe him our allegiance either way

The debt is tremendous Romans 132 though They knew God's righteous decrees by virtue of what they saw that those who practice such things deserve to die

They not only do them but give approval to those who practice them the application of that to our day

We won't even touch because we just don't have time for it But all this this idea of this record of debts this commercial record this

Mosaic law this sin inherited from Adam However, it is is the same transgressions. It's the same long long list of Each of our transgressions it was nailed by God the

Father to the cross and all that leading to the therefore in verse 16

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink and drink or with regards 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 Now what is

Paul saying here is Paul saying you Christians go ahead and do them It's a matter of Liberty just don't let them stand in the way of Christ in you or worse to that effect or Is he denying the efficacy or even the standing binding nature of those things that he lays out there?

The grouping has a very Jewish kind of ring to it within the church Romans 14 being a really good example

We find that Gentiles who in that context were the stronger were not to pass judgment on The weaker brothers who were their

Jewish believers with them in Rome And that was by reason of their adherence to Jewish customs

Largely, but not exclusively found in the Old Testament law and that's what made them the weaker

Brothers in that church So what's he saying? You go ahead and do these just don't let them rule over you.

It's a matter of Conscience it's a matter of choice. You can do them or not if you want one of the hard things with this verse is that Paul seems to have literally thrown the whole lot of what he puts there under the bus

Do not let them in Because they are or were but a shadow of things to come

It sounds future as if we're still waiting for that shadow to become fulfilled

But that's not what is meant by the language here. They were a predictive shadow of what has come they were a shadow

They were insubstantial compared to the fulfillment. The fulfillment is Christ Who not only was a substance of them, but that word for substance the same word we use for body

He was the physical fulfillment of them God became flesh the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

So the predictive shadow of what has come therefore because your Transgressions were set aside nailed to the cross

Christ paid for therefore do not let anyone pass judgment on you in these questions These questions of man -made regulations these questions of things that are purported to bring you closer to Christ Will accelerate your progress towards his image will make you a more sanctified

Christian therefore because your transgressions were paid for He's saying

You're not to be judged by these things Christ was judged

Christ is our judgment So food and drink, what does he mean there?

I mean the Old Testament law says very little about what we drink. The only real restriction was the Nazarite vow we read that in Numbers chapter 6 this morning and The Nazarite vow, you know, we have to remember it was freely entered

They weren't required to do it. But once they did and say I'm gonna be a Nazarite then they had those restrictions and Food restrictions.

What were those? Well, we know in Acts chapter 10 in Peter's vision that the food laws the food restrictions were all abrogated by Jesus Christ himself

We have that in Acts 10. We have that in Mark 7 19 where Jesus declares all foods to be clean

And this means that our diet is no longer a sign of our separateness from the world as it was for Israel then

Christ is Christ is a sign of our separateness. He by his atonement and our faith in him has made us holy

Now Paul sort of deals with this in one place where he says food for the stomach and the stomach for food We're not to be judged by the food that we eat

Whether you like steak or lobster or vegetarian, it makes no difference You know when

I was preparing this he reminded me of 40 days to a healthier life. Remember the

Daniel diet plan Rick Warren wrote that I don't know if anybody gets judged for doing or not doing it

But certainly if if he's saying this is the Bible plan, this is the Daniel plan. This is from the Bible Well, there should be a certain authoritative ring to that shouldn't there you don't just say it's from the

Bible You get to do it or not. I have an impression for you or something like that. No He calls it the

Daniel plan he's got it from the book of Daniel What's funny about that is that if you read what the scripture says about the

Daniel plan You remember Daniel goes to the eunuch was in charge of the young men who were getting ready to be presented before Nebuchadnezzar the king and Daniel and his two friends don't want to eat the king's food because they don't want to be defiled by it

He says, okay. Well, listen, we want to eat vegetables and water He says no, no, no, because he is skinny and scrawny

You're not gonna look healthy and I'm gonna get my head chopped off. Daniel says give it a try So the vegetables and water for what was it 10 days and after 10 days, what did the

Daniel plan do for them? Here's this diet for you. It says now this is scripture. This is not 40 days to a healthier you

This is scripture after 10 days. It was seen that they were fatter in the flesh than all the youths who ate the king's food

Some of those judgments that we get From the world outside. I know this book is fairly old at this point.

They're just ridiculous We need to be careful. We need to think about these things. We need to be discerning about what we let in Miracle that God worked in them to make these young men more attractive eating vegetables water they got fatter

The Daniel plan don't be judged by these things They're new moons don't be judged by new moons and what does he say they're

Sabbaths and all that festival new moon Sabbath New moons are not much discussed in the

Old Testament Numbers chapter 29 verse 6 says that the trumpet call to the feast is that the new moon and Psalm 81 3 says about the same thing

Isaiah 66 verse 22 says first the new heavens and the new earth that I shall make remain

Before me says the Lord so shall your offspring and your name remain From new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath all flesh shall come to worship before me declares the

Lord now We're not going to go into a long discussion of new moons

We know that there are lunar calendars. So the new moon was fairly important and had a lot to do with the timing of things but there's nothing wrong with new moons and Sabbaths per se

There are shadow of the things to come the substance belongs to Christ They were the mists if you will that points in a direction and then in his body

God became flesh in Jesus Christ the substance the body of it is Christ So they were just a shadow.

They're just a prefigurement There's just this forward -looking metaphor teaching God's people to remain separate from others remain separate from others and Now they've returned

Now there's some pressure on the Colossian Church Like a 40 days to a healthier you

Daniel plans sort of thing. Maybe what were these meant for?

What we need to think before we accept something like that before we incorporate into our belief system What was the diet plan meant for what is

Leviticus and all the food restrictions meant to accomplish? It's meant to accomplish separateness

Simply to make them different from the surrounding nations. Some people say it's a healthier diet Some people say with those foods would last better in the desert and all these other things may be true

But the purpose according to Scripture is you be not like those nations surrounding you that you don't be like those nations

I am sending you to the nations. I'm going to drive out before you says the Lord shadow fulfilled in Christ Christ the substance

He is what it all meant more than just a substantial point of all he was and now resurrected

He is the actual substance in substantial in physical form in flesh

Now he is the point of it and remember when he says that Christ is a substance

He really is Remember Acts chapter 1. What does it say? In his body in the same way that he lived in that same physical form

He was on the cloud and returned to heaven and the angel told the disciples who mentioned this this morning

He will return to you in the same way Physical the physical flesh and blood

Jesus Christ. There's one There's only one God and there's one mediator between man and God the man

Jesus Christ the substantial man Became flesh and blood like us he's the substance of it and truly the substance not just the fulfiller of it, which he is not just that but Physically as a human the fulfiller of it

You know God decreed the seventh day as holy and he gave it to man as such as a holy day and here we find

It grouped with things which we are not to let ourselves be judged by What do we do here with the

Sabbath now? It's it's kind of like I said thrown under the bus with all the rest of this and we need to deal with this We need to deal with it.

Honestly, we're reformed believers The teaching position of this church is Sabbatarian.

Our confession is Sabbatarian We believe that the seventh day was the day of rest for Israel and now because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ the first day

Call it Sabbath. Call it Christian Sabbath. Call it Lord's Day. It's today.

It's Sunday It's the first day of the week and yet here in Scripture We're not to let anybody pass judgment on questions of food drink regard to festival or a new moon a new moon being that Announcement of you will the coming

Sabbath new moon or a Sabbath. What do we do with that?

With the new moons, they were temporal markers to bring people into knowledge of what's coming up on their lunar calendar

Well, let's agree this way Let's remember that Jesus Christ is our rest.

That's what the Sabbath meant. He is our peace Therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord even said come to me all you labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest and All this is confirmed by the resurrection which is why we meet on the first day of the week because he was resurrected on the first day of the week and this is

Why what we call the Sabbath and I will not judge anybody if they call it the Sabbath called the Lord day I will still not judge you if you call it the

Lord's Day call a Christian Sabbath These are not matters of judgment against us either from within amongst ourselves or from without if somebody should try and impose a particular rigid belief upon us because the substance of what the

Sabbath meant which is rest and Worship is fulfilled in Christ by his rising from the dead.

And so we all together meet on the first day. I Don't want to take a poll. I Personally, I'm not real concerned if you think of it as Sabbath Or if you think of his

Lord's Day But if we agree that the first day is the day of resurrection and that's the day the church has always met and come together willingly and freely and voluntarily and Enthusiastically to worship

Jesus Christ if we agree upon that Will not be judged by it and that's

Paul's point Don't let these things tear you down. Don't let these things pull you away

Don't let these things entrap you because they are now if they're misused those elemental spirits

They spoke of that we gave more detail about earlier this morning. Don't resurrect

What Christ has fulfilled and set aside? Most especially that record of transgressions against us

Some of us just live with a guilty conscience and we just feel bad about things and we remember all the wrongs we did

Remember them the way God did He set them aside Do with them what

God says to do with them If we confess our sins, I know I could fall back on this one often

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness believe that Don't be judged by it because Jesus Christ was judged for it

Don't accept it. Don't take it lightly Sin is a terrible blight upon God's honor even from God's people but You can move forward

You can excise your guilt because the guilt was upon Christ And if you don't understand that your guilt was upon Christ and he paid and he was judged for it that gives you more depth of Repentance that gives you more depth of remorse that can make you even more sorry for your sin

Because Jesus Christ paid for it, so that's what

I do With new moons and festivals and Sabbaths all that Jewish Old Testament ring to it

No judging No judgment because Jesus was judged so that's the first warning is

No one passed judgment on you in any of these questions The third warning is in 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 a sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head

From the whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with a growth that is from God And what is that head who is that head that head is

Jesus Christ? If on the one hand we reject judgmental criticism here we find that the risk is not being judged but being disqualified

So the idea there is from the umpire in the ancient ancient Greek games Who somebody didn't compete according to the rules he could disqualify him

Like today in baseball you have the Empire he could throw you out of the game So someone who can eject you or reject you or disqualify you for violating the rules

Now Paul uses a word here cut a bro Brule cut up Rob what practice it a couple times to cut a bra bro

And he only uses it once and he's the only one who uses it and again it means Empire It means authority to eject a rule bender, but it could also mean to rob of a prize

That's how the new King James has it. I like this better than our ESV Which is not something that's very common for me with the

ESV compared to the King James, but this is better Let no one cheat you of your reward There's a related word that he uses it's another one unique to Paul as Brabant and that's the prize again

Okay, so one's a verb once a noun 1st Corinthians 924 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one receives the prize?

Philippians 3 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus So let no one disqualify you in your

ESV That works, but I think better to say let no one take you take away your pride

Let no one remove the prize which Christ won for you and take it out of your hands

Rob you of it He's warning against the insidious nature of all the things that the world has to offer that might cause you to veer off course

Reliance on any other than Christ to provide what only he can give Now Jesus won't disqualify you because he is our

Qualification. He is one brings us before God. Therefore we go boldly to the throne of grace What's the therefore there in what's it?

Therefore in Hebrews because of Jesus Christ because we come to God in the name of Jesus Christ So we can go boldly to the throne of grace.

We cannot be disqualified Jesus won't disqualify you but they the purveyors of these things they will

And really what they're purveyors of is those elemental spirits that we talked about before Now back then it was an astral being a spiritual deed of some kind ruling over some aspect of creation

What about today phony regulations that come in wrongful ways to grow as a person

You can think of New Age with this pop psychology You can think of Wicca growing medium for men and women you think of Roman Catholicism At least

I do with this Mariology as veneration of Saints and they call it veneration but veneration and worship

I think the two words have a distinction that has no difference. It means the same thing Somewhere they've justified it.

I'm sure they've got page upon page written on it But I don't think it's really a difference between veneration and worship this is just a resurrection of those forces those things that Christ Defeated brought to a public shame and they're also tempting because the solutions are so easy to grasp

So, how can you protect yourself? If you're not to allow yourself to be judged And if you can't if you are not to allow anyone to disqualify you, how can you protect yourself?

Ask yourself this If I accept this teaching this book this doctrine this view of Christ any biblical character

Anything like that if I accept and incorporate this into myself Who does it make me depend upon does it turn just a little bit of dependence on to me reject it?

Reject it out of hand brothers and sisters It's King Arthur's battle cry run away run away get far from it because it's going to take you away from Christ Ask yourself who gets to have more control of my life if I do this me or God If it's

God If you look at scripture and say yes If I follow this pattern of living this thought process this if I take upon this world view if I strengthen it a little bit more in this or that direction

Does that make me depend upon more on God more upon me more? Does that give me a higher view of Christ in his cross or a greater view of myself?

It's like I heard Charles Stanley one saying I won't tell you what God wants on the cross and why God put Jesus on the cross because you were worth dying for That's the way he wants you to think of yourself.

I was so shocked by that I literally pulled off into the emergency parking right up here. We're Lawrence expressway goes on 237.

I literally pulled over because he was gonna say it again. I turned it up. That's exactly what he said

That's the kind of thing that you start incorporating that draws you from Christ You need to reject it on hand.

We need to understand that those kind of things Cannot disqualify it so we can be disqualified by not doing them

But we shouldn't be in the first place If with Christ verse 20 you died to the elemental spirits of the world

Why as if you were still alive in the world because you've died with Christ You're not in the world if with Christ you died that assumes you did die with Christ and you with Christ you died to those elemental spirits

Why as if you were still alive in the world now? It's the other way around if with Christ you died we assume that's right if you're still alive in the world

We assume that's not true, but that being the case alive in Christ no longer alive in the world

Why do you submit to its 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 they have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self -made religion and asceticism

Severity to the body, but they're of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh

If with Christ you died Christian Those worldly ways are as dead to you as you are to them

Leave them where they are Leave them buried where Christ put them leave them disarmed leave them ashamed

Defeated by the triumph of the cross and Christ's resurrection his victory, which he gives to you

Be aware of what you're taking in you cannot be disqualified Because Jesus Christ is your qualification

And we must not be judged so there are judgments, and that's a whole another subject, but in this context

Why cannot be judged because Christ was judged and the record of transgressions was nailed to the cross and Every one of them was satisfied all your transgressions