Colossians 2:16-23 Stop Being Judged

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan.

Good morning, Recast Church. I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here, and I want to thank you for coming. And a warm welcome to all of you, and especially those of you that this is your first time.

Here.

I'm glad that you're here. I hope you have all walked this past week in freedom, the freedom that Jesus provides.

For you.

I hope that you've had some sense of joy in living with Him, walking with Him, and having Him walk with you. And I hope this morning we all grow in faith and community and service together. That's one of the main reasons we gather together as His people, is we need each other, and we need to hear from His Word, and we need to worship Him.

And so that's part and parcel of the reason that we are gathered together. God has called us together, and we grow best in community with others. This morning we're going to dive back into the book of Colossians, where Paul has been explaining so clearly that it is all about Jesus.

That's been kind of like the drumbeat of the book of Colossians so far, is that it's all about Jesus. Last week we talked about the dangers that the church, that face the church in terms of philosophies and empty deceit that are not consistent with or according to Christ.

And there's a lot of thoughts swirling around and in the media and through social media, and all different kinds of avenues of communication with us, and different thoughts that are out.

There.

And we talked about that last week. And now this week, Paul moves from those mental attacks of those who would seek to damage us, would seek to, as the text said last week, lead us captive and lead us away.

And then he's going to move to this week, talking about the specifics of the way that those same people were having a negative impact on the church in Colossae. And in reality, as we look at that, we're going to contemplate and consider the way that those types of things can have a negative impact on us as well.

And the irony is that we might assume that the enemy of the church, like if you have in your mind an enemy of the church, somebody who would be against the church, you probably have in your mind some kind of a notion of something.

You might think of somebody who does really evil things. We might think of, or you just might be moved to just think of philosophies or thinking like atheists or violent extremists or false teachers who deny the truth of God's word.

But it's interesting that in our text this morning, Paul speaks at length about these enemies and he identifies the number one characteristic of these people, particularly in Colossae. The number one thing is that they put forward a bunch of man-made rules.

Scary, right? Oh, terrifying. Those are the enemies of the church. Those would be people who would go against Christ, people who would have a lot of rules. It seems kind of counterintuitive, right? As a matter of fact, I was raised under the opposite assumption.

I was raised under the assumption that we have to follow a bunch of rules in order to be okay with God. Anybody ever heard that message before? More rules, the closer you are to God, you have that kind of notion.

And yet as I've grown in my faith and as I've read and I've studied the word and I've tried to draw close to Christ and acknowledged him, I've walked a few years with Jesus, I'm finding that the pathway forward is freedom in Jesus, freedom in Christ.

It's not a long list of do's and don'ts. It's a strong connection with Jesus by faith that matters most. Here at the beginning, I want to suggest to you that you could follow two different people throughout the day and their lives could look quite similar in speech, quite similar in behavior, quite similar in action, the things that they do throughout the day.

And you might not be able to tell whether or not they are in with Jesus Christ just by observing them. Anybody ever notice that? Are there people who are not connected with Christ that have a moral life that do good things?

Absolutely, and I think probably everybody can get a name of a person in your mind who, you know, isn't connected with Jesus but still does some pretty decent things and does okay it seems. But in our text, Paul is going to help define the difference for us and it is this primary.

Thing.

It's a question of walking with Jesus, a question of acknowledging him with your life. Are you connected to him or are you following a list of rules and just trying to be a good religious person? And I think we've got to really do some searching in our own soul and recognize that it would be very easy to join a church and begin to just do what other people do around you.

Just follow monkey see, monkey do. And so I'm going to act like everybody else around me and I'm going to try to blend in and that's our tendency is to kind of begin to take on the patterns and forms of people around us to talk like them, to act like them, to work like them.

And we could do all of that without ever having a real change of heart, without having a transformation, without getting.

A new heart.

And so eternity rests in the answer to those questions. Are you walking with Jesus? Are you connected to him? This text ends pretty dramatically. Verse 23, trying to be good, Paul says, rules, regulations, man-made rules have no value in fixing your sin problem.

There's no value in them. No amount of washing, no amount of giving, no amount of attempted devotion can save your.

Soul.

Our only hope is clinging to Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross for us by faith. So let's open up Colossians 2, verses 16 to 23, if you don't have a Bible or a device to navigate to a Bible, just raise your hand and Mike is back here, Mark, and they can bring you a Bible.

We want everybody to have a copy of the word of God on their lap as we dive in and go through this text, specifically for the reading right now, but then especially afterwards as we.

Walk through.

So, recast, this is what God wants for us to hear this morning, Colossians 16, rather Colossians 2, 16 to 23. Let's read together. 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 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 a 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 the 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. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship.

Father, we are a people from a variety of backgrounds and a variety of places and I recognize that some of us really like rules, we really like laws, we really like things black and white. And yet we also have acknowledged that we have broken our own rules, we've broken our own laws, we've set our own standards and then we've gone beyond those.

And so there's inconsistency, there's hypocrisy in our hearts, there's a brokenness that is in there and this text openly declares that rules do not solve that brokenness in our.

Souls.

They do not stop us from indulging our flesh, they do not stop us from exceeding the speed limit, they don't stop us from saying harsh words to those that we love. And so Father I thank you that a remedy has been provided for us and his name is Jesus.

And so Father from a place of victory, from a place of healing, from a place of being constantly made more whole each day I pray that we would worship you together as your.

People.

Father, that we would be exalting in Christ this morning. Not in rules, not in regulations, not in laws that cannot fix us but in Jesus Christ and his blood that has redeemed us and bought us. So Father from a place of freedom in you through the blood of your son I pray that you would move here in our midst as we worship you with songs even now in Jesus' name, amen.

Freedom in Christ Versus Man-Made Religion

Thanks a lot to the band for leading us in worship, I want to point out a couple of things as you're getting settled in. First of all, well Mike's shirt, I want to clarify that we as a church do not endorse any political candidates so I wanted to clarify that despite the shirt so, but if Chewbacca was running that would be pretty sweet.

Second of all, if I look a little bit nervous, there have been some threats to me this week that if I make a good point during my sermon I might get doused with Gatorade and then I arrive here and this is sitting here, I don't know if this belongs to anybody in here but it is empty fortunately, I'm glad to see that, but I am, so I'll try not to make any good points, how about that?

So we'll see. Do keep your Bibles open to Colossians chapter 2 verses 16 to 23, keep those open just because that's going to be what we walk through and I really think that my messages are best received if you have the word of God open in front of you, you can see that I'm walking through the text and then remember to just be as comfortable as you can in here, I know that those chairs get uncomfortable so if you need to get up and stretch out in the back or you need to get more coffee to keep your focus on God's word, whatever it is, take advantage of that.

The book of Colossians as we've been going through it is like one big argument that Paul is making and he says one paragraph or one section and then that paragraph supports the next paragraph, it's very common if you've read any of the letters of Paul, that's kind of the structure and the way that he thinks so he'll say this and because of this therefore this and because of this therefore this and he's basically spelling out arguments as he goes through and it can get kind of complex in his writing, he writes, he's the king of run on sentences and he likes to just thought after thought after thought and he sometimes distracts himself, I kind of think sometimes that maybe he had ADD or something because he would just like, you know, be talking about something and then all of a sudden, oh that thing makes him think of this and then he goes on to the next thing and so most of our sections begin with the word therefore and our starting point, our therefore in verse 16, Paul is referring back to all the great things that are true of those who are trusting in Jesus Christ as their king and savior, that's how he ended the last section last.

Week.

Things like Christ has canceled our debt, Christ is victorious over the force of darkness, in Christ we have died, in Christ we have been buried, in Christ we have been raised to new life and therefore if those things are true of you, then our text, then our text, if those things are true of you and then he goes on to say three points from this morning, from this text, verse 16 and 17, let no one pass judgment on you, first point, second is let no one disqualify you from verse 18 and lastly our third point is going to be hold fast to Jesus, verses 19 to 23, all of those presupposing that you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, all of those presupposing that you're already connected to the head, that you're already in him and then let no one pass judgment on you and then let no one disqualify you and then hold fast to Jesus once that relationship has been established and you're running with him.

And in our first section, Paul commands those who are in Christ to not allow others to tell you what to eat, what to drink, what holidays you need to celebrate or how you should celebrate them or how you should participate in Sabbath rest.

Now it's funny how Paul is both emphatic and passive in this first command, really first and second command, let no one pass judgment on you, let no one disqualify you. Let no one is a strong statement, we know that what comes next is something that he doesn't want us to ever let somebody do to us, okay.

But you have to consider when somebody commands you to let no one do something to you, how much control immediately is in your mind do I have over others, right, do you have, how much control do you have?

And so it's obvious from the text and from what he's trying to communicate that he wants us to think about this in terms of how we respond when others would seek to judge us. Think of it this way, if I say to you let no one cheer for Denver, we just can't get that done, right?

Could you accomplish that today? No, of course not, and some of you in here are cheering for Denver, I get that. But we just can't do it, it's a command but it's passive at face value, but I believe that it's intentional because the only other way Paul could say this in an active voice would be too aggressive for what he wants to communicate.

He's not saying force others to drink what you drink or flaunt your dietary decisions or your Sabbath practices before others, as a matter of fact then you'd be guilty of being like those people who would do that to you, right?

And so he can't really say it in that way so he's saying just don't let others judge you, don't take that to heart. It amounts to don't be stirred up about what others say about your freedom in Christ, about these gray areas and these things that pertain to the temporary stuff of this world.

Do you have the freedom to enjoy whatever food you would like? Do you have that freedom? Think about that. Up to what scripture would indicate is an invisible boundary that I have a hard time defining for you, I hope you have some semblance of definition, that is gluttony, I hope you have some kind of definition in your mind of what that word means, but up to that invisible boundary you have freedom to eat what you want.

Praise God, one word, bacon, right?

I mean, right?

You have the freedom to eat what you want because Christ has set us free from those old dietary laws. What about drinks? Right up to the edge of your own conscience, right up to the edge of drunkenness and man-made laws that say that if you're under 21 you are not to drink, you have the freedom to drink what you want.

How about Sabbath practices? I grew up in a church that, you know, when I was little I don't really know, this is kind of hearsay and what my mom let me hear or communicated to me or what I heard from others or overheard adults speaking or different things like that, but I grew up in a church that would judge people who went out to eat on Sunday.

I actually heard that they would actually drive past, and I grew up in a small town kind of like Matawan, but they would actually identify vehicles that were in the restaurant parking lots and then come and address people, you know, whether that was the next week or.

Throughout the time or whatever.

But I guess they were able to kill two birds with one stone because they could judge your food and your Sabbath practice at the same time, right? And some of you know what I'm talking about and some of you have no clue.

You're like, what? People actually do that? Yeah, they actually do. But hear me carefully in case you missed this. Paul does not say that there should be zero judgment in the church. This has to be said because people will take a passage like this and run with it with misunderstanding, and it's patently false that there is zero judgment in the church.

But we judge according to what standard?

The Word of God.

We have a standard given to us, but we judge according to this standard and not according to our own preferences or additional laws that we would seek to add on top of things like thou shalt not eat on Sunday.

Who came up with that one? Mankind has loved to add laws above and beyond the rules of God. I meant eat out on Sunday. We love to add rules, right? Have you identified that? Maybe you're not the person who likes to add laws, but you recognize that there are people who love to add rules and laws, right?

And some of us are that way. I mean, it just seems to make things more crisp and clear. Anybody with me on that? It seems to make things more black and white. But if you give me a list, I can check things off and I can tell you, you know, where I stand at the end of the day.

I did this, I didn't do that, you know, that kind of stuff. But if God says don't get drunk, then someone decides for everyone else that they shouldn't drink at all, right? You know what I'm talking about?

Some of you know that there are churches and there are communities that follow Christ that would say you are not here, not if you're going to be a member here, you can't drink. Or if God says, hey, bonehead, quit working yourself into the ground.

Take a day off each week to rest in me. Someone else comes along and says how many steps you can take on the Sabbath like the Old Testament and like they did during Jesus' time where they had rules about not being able to pluck a grain off of the head of a piece of wheat on a Sunday.

And they added rules and rules and rules on top of rules. Someone says, you know, when it comes to Sabbath practice, you can't play basketball or you can't exercise or you can't do this. And the basketball one always frustrated me when I was in high school and college.

I went to a Bible college where they would literally close down the athletics center on Sundays. And I was like, man, this is a no class day. Like this is a chance to play some ball. And some of you might recognize like me that that's recreation.

Like that is relaxation for you. That gets kind of some of the tension and the energy out. And it was like, well, okay, I guess this is the rule at the school where I attended. So some of you can think of the rules and the things that you were raised with that you kind of go, that seems kind of manmade.

That seems like somebody kind of is just trumping this up or kind of trying to overprotect or whatever you might think it is. But Paul is tackling head on. Hear me carefully. He's tackling head on manmade rules and saying, don't let those be your guide.

Don't let manmade rules make you feel condemned. Recognize them for what they are. He says here, they're just a shadow when the true substance has already arrived in your life. Even good rules, even really good rules like the dietary laws of the Old Testament or Sabbath keeping or the monthly sacrifices on the new moons or the annual Jewish festivals that they celebrated were all rolled up into the coming of Jesus Christ.

They were like signs that announced the fair is coming to town. But once the fair has arrived, you don't need a sign that says the fair is coming to town because guess what? The fair has already arrived.

He's already here.

All of these signposts that in the Old Testament were pointing forward to the need that we had for a savior. Guess what, folks? He's arrived and his name is Jesus Christ. And he has fulfilled the entire law on your behalf.

Anybody excited about that?

I am.

I would be a bloody mess right now trying to slice the throats of goats and bulls for your sake to expiate your sin if it weren't for Christ. That would be the role of pastor. I'm glad I'm not a priest.

I'm glad we're done with that. You know what I'm saying? That was kind of gruesome, wasn't it? You're like, oh, yuck. That's the way it would be. That's the way it was in the Old Testament. It was a mess.

And all of those things were signs that pointed to the coming of the Messiah. And Paul's saying, he's here.

He's here.

Am I suggesting that the Sabbath is no longer needed? I believe that Paul is about to make a case in our text that the Sabbath no longer is a law to us. We are not mandated to keep it. But it still bears wisdom that is wrapped up in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

In other words, you don't have to take a rest day. It's not law to you. But you should take a rest day. Because you trust in Jesus as your King and Savior. And he thinks it's a super great idea that you take a day off.

He thinks that's great. And he loves you. And he knows what's best for you. So he says, take a day off. And you should. But in verse 17, the point is really strong. Laws and rules are to Christ what shadows are to the things that cast them.

You can stand by admiring all of the shadows. Or you can dive into a real relationship with the one who is casting those shadows. He's the real thing. And you can play around with the shadows. Or you can engage yourself in a relationship with the true one who loves your soul and died for you.

So Paul says, don't give in to the judgment of others on issues of food, sacrifice, Sabbath, and all different kinds of stuff that people will make crazy, silly rules about. Because these things don't compare to the real thing we have available to us.

Namely, Jesus Christ. He's the real deal. Second, Paul commands us to let nobody disqualify us. What follows is a description of the beliefs of these false teachers in Colossae that show the way that they would seek to drag Christians down.

Remember last week, Paul used the phrase, let no one take you captive. And here he speaks of letting no one disqualify you. There are some who would seek to disqualify you by interfering with your connection to Jesus Christ.

I want to be clear. Think of disqualifying not like losing your salvation. Some of you are like, can I be disqualified from heaven? Disqualified from what? What would I be disqualified from? It's not like losing your salvation, but think of it like a church or even an individual member being sidelined because of what others think.

Can you imagine that? We could get so caught up here at Recast into laws and rules and regulations that we would eventually cease to reach out. We would cease to be what we were intended to be because we're so inwardly focused and so mired down with a lack of joy and a lack of freedom in Christ.

Are you getting what I'm saying in that? And remember, he's writing to a church. He's not writing to an individual person. He's writing to Colossae. He's talking to us, Recast. He's talking to churches and saying, don't let anybody disqualify you.

And I would say that to you. Don't let anybody disqualify you, Recast. Don't let them take your joy from you and your power for ministry by burdening you and putting heavy yokes and heavy burdens on your shoulders so that you can barely stand up, so you can barely lift your gaze to heaven.

And I don't know if you've ever felt that way. If you've ever lived under law, if you've ever lived under a sense of burden and the weight of your own sin and that I needed to do a lot, you can hardly lift your face to God, right?

You can hardly gaze upon him. You can hardly even cry out to him because of the weight if you feel like you're the one who has to do it all. If you think about it, adding rules on top of the Christian life is a form of leading people away from the sufficiency of Jesus Christ.

If I believe that Jesus is all I need, then I'm going to be satisfied to walk with him. I'm going to be rooted up in him as we talked about last week. I will dance to the beat of his drum if I am sold out for Jesus.

But the reality of it is there are people who like power, right? Any of you ever get involved with somebody who likes control, likes power, likes authority? Some of you are laughing a little bit, but it's probably not that funny really.

And one consistent way to exercise power over others in life, I don't know if you've noticed this, but one consistent way to exercise power among humans is to set the drumbeat and see if you can get people to sway to your rhythm.

Set rules for them. See if they'll jump when you say jump. See if they will go through the hoops that you set up for them. Jesus has a way of life, I want to be clear, he has a way of life that he desires for you to go.

He has a way of life that he desires for me to go. The Christian community is not just some amorphous blob of people doing their own thing. We are also not to be people pleasers, but God pleasers. And the church is an organized family who follows Christ and seeks to honor him by attention to his word and obedience to his direction.

I want you to think that the Christian life has no standard, has nothing to follow, has no place to go, but it is not man-made rules and regulations that are going to get you there. Some would seek to steal the direction that Jesus is trying to send us through the word.

They would come in with heavier laws that burden the church and burden its members, laws that fight against joy. Asceticism is even mentioned in verse 18, you see that there, 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.

Asceticism is a type of philosophy that attempts to beat sin out of us by depriving ourselves of fun, of pleasure, of enjoyment, and then in turn tries to minimize that for others as well. Asceticism is a philosophy, like that philosophy that he was talking about last week.

It's a system of thought that says, man, God does not want you to have fun. Anybody gone through seasons where you felt like that? You felt like, or that was communicated to you, or you fell into a group of people who was communicating that to you?

So these false teachers here in Colossae were teaching the denial of joy. If there's anything that, if you read the New Testament, if there's anything that stands out, it is that the Christian is to be joyful, is to be full of joy and enthusiasm and excitement, because why?

We've been set free in Christ. We have freedom in Him. Joy, excitement, enthusiasm, exuberance should define the Christian life. We should be the most joyful people in our neighborhoods. We should be the most joyful people in our workplace.

We should be saturated with joy, not just chintzy, cheesy, you know, but a deep, abiding joy that even when things are tough, even when there are tears, there's still a sense of hope with us, right? There's always hope.

So these false teachers were denying joy. They were also teaching, the text says, the worship of angels. This is a phenomenon that occurred throughout church history. It was well known in this area of Colossae.

We have documents in ancient archaeological finds that date to about the 4th century A .D. from these churches in the area of the Lycus Valley where Colossae is. And there were letters written to angels, prayers written in letters to angels in this area of Turkey.

So they were somehow encouraging false worship. And I don't know if any of you, some of you weren't even alive then, but some of you were hanging out in the 80s and you remember the 80s and the late 80s, early 90s.

Do you remember the angel craze back then? I think it was like whatever the run was of Touched by an Angel, somewhere around there. But do you remember people having, they got these little lapel pins?

And it even got to the point where I saw some really creepy stuff at the Christian bookstore that was like the names of angels that don't occur in scripture and how you can pray to them for certain things and stuff like that.

And it got a little bit weird, right? Anybody know what I'm talking about? There was a little bit of a craze there. And so it's not that far removed. You're like, man, people would worship angels? Yeah, they would and they did even in our generation, even in our time.

So these false teachers were encouraging false worship and they also claimed to have ecstatic visions that they were very happy to share with others. They would go on and on in detail about the way that God had blessed them with these visions of truth and things that they could reveal to the church that were new and they would brag about these visions that God had shown them heaven or shown them insight or whatever.

And so by the end of verse 18, Paul pulls off the gloves and openly declares that these false teachers are puffed up. They are arrogant. They are full of pride, he says. They're operating out of a sensuous mind.

The word sensuous right away, for some reason in English that sounds like naughty to me. Sensuous, but really it's a word that means carnal or worldly. Paul's picture of these false teachers is not very good.

They operate out of a fleshly mind, a worldly mind. They claim to be the inner circle of God's favor. They live their lives by following strict rules and not having any fun and looking down on those who might enjoy something from time to time.

So they must be really spiritual, right, because they don't have any fun? Isn't that the way that a lot of people think? They cover all their bases by even getting in close with God's holy messengers, covering all their bases and making sure that they've worshipped everything.

They have detailed visions that they are all too eager to share with the church. And in these things they become arrogant, which betrays the center point of their mind, which is their flesh themselves.

They are approaching the church from a worldly, sinful perspective. This is the description of the kind of person who would seek to disqualify a church, who would seek to add and keep on heavy burdens and loads of work for you and I, loads and loads of laws and rules to keep, and scads of hoops for us to jump through.

The kind of person who claims insider information with God. I find myself becoming a bit incredulous when I read this. Do people really follow leaders like this? Sometimes I think, okay, Paul, really?

You're going on and on about this, but are there really people who would follow this? Would people really honor someone who is arrogant and proud, boastful, claiming to be the answer to everyone's problems?

Some of you are laughing. Some of you have watched some debates recently on both sides, right? Both sides of the aisle, and you kind of go, whoa, wait a minute.

How does that work?

Yeah, people would follow people who are arrogant and proud and boastful and claim to be God's answer. But further in the church, here in Colossae, there were people who would act like they were God's favorites.

So would people follow someone who makes lots of hoops for them to jump through? Yeah, and it happens. I know people who have come out of churches that would require their members,.

This is a true story,.

Would require their members to ask permission of the elders if they wanted to buy a refrigerator. If they wanted to buy an appliance, they had to come before the board of elders to have a review of their finances in order to make a family purchase.

I'm not talking about a refrigerator for the church's kitchen. I'm talking about for their home. Or to go trade in a vehicle or to move or to leave their job and quit and go someplace else. They would come before the elders for permission for that kind of thing.

Anybody else just kind of shocked that that kind of thing really happens? I hope you're shocked. I hope you're not like, well, I could see you going there, Don. Please know, I hope that you're not feeling like the, man, if you feel like we're on that slide, let me know.

That is not going to happen. I'm not going to micromanage you in that way. I wouldn't even want that, my goodness. But down through the ages, churches have disqualified, have been disqualified or disqualified themselves through this type of leadership.

Cults are real. And people turn to strange places for leadership, right? Turn to all kinds of places for leadership. And in verse 19, it really is the greatest indictment of these leaders, the people particular to Colossae.

He says, they have not held fast to the head. Who is the head?

Jesus Christ.

They have not stuck with Jesus. I would suggest to you that from Paul's description throughout this text that there is evidence that these false teachers were never really in with Christ. They never were fully incorporated.

They have not accepted the sacrifice of Jesus as sufficient to cover their sins. They are still working to try to pay for sins that Christ died for. Some of us could be guilty of sliding in that direction in our minds, right?

What about the way that you live? What about the way that you walk? Are you thinking that, man, I deserve this bad thing because, man, it would pay for my sins, or it would cover that, or I have that coming.