WWUTT 069 Self Made Religion (Colossians 2:16-23)

Thanksgiving for Soldiers and the Call to Honor Their Service

You know, there are some people in this world who have this way of wording things in just the right way to make you feel guilty about something that you enjoy, and probably enjoy it in a righteous way.

We need to be sure that our pursuit of holiness is not based on anything that anyone else has said. It's based on what Christ has said, when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand The Text, committed to sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. And don't forget our website, wwtt .com.

Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. Today I am going to go in reverse order and start with the what video and finish with the Bible lesson. The reason why is because I want to start this episode by thanking our veterans.

Should have done that yesterday. The reason why I didn't, though, is because I didn't record that program on Veterans Day. I recorded it earlier in the week, so just didn't think about that program falling on Veterans Day.

So this day being the day after Veterans Day, I would like to take a moment to thank those who serve in the military. I appreciate what it is that you do, the freedoms that you fight for, so that we can enjoy the freedoms that we have here in this great country.

I may not always agree with your commander in chief, but I always support our soldiers. Thank you for laying your lives on the line, protecting those that you love and those that I love here in the United States of America.

Now I am a pastor at a church that is primarily military. Greater than 60 of our congregation is military because of our proximity with Fort Riley, which is, it's so close to Junction City, we pretty much consider it Junction City, Kansas.

So oftentimes I field questions from soldiers that are asking me things like, you know, is it okay that I have done this in my past? Is God going to forgive me for this? Soldiers have to make some really tough decisions and my heart goes out to you.

And one question that I'm asked ever so often is, is it okay for me to be a soldier? And I want to tell you point blank, yes, you are not in violation of scripture or God's command in any way by being a soldier.

The Gospel Coalition yesterday through Twitter, they posted something that was written by John Piper. And I wanted to read this to you. Piper wrote this, when soldiers came to John the Baptist and asked, what shall we do, meaning how shall we respond to your call to repent?

John the Baptist answered, do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation and be content with your wages, Luke 3, 14. From this, we learned that repentance did not demand ceasing to be a soldier.

The tensions between being a follower of Jesus as a soldier are essentially the same as the tensions of being a follower of Jesus in all other authority structures of society that God ordains for the stability of the world, like business, education, government, and family.

There have been agonizing choices that veterans have had to make. May they and we all turn to the cross of Christ for the final resolution of what we have done. I am thankful that they embraced the risk.

Here at When We Understand the Text, we put together a video that was posted last year about how we are to honor our soldiers and how the Bible actually speaks favorably of our soldiers. And this is that video.

In his final words to his understudy, the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and said, suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.

He wrote, the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. The Bible speaks very favorably of soldiers. When a Roman centurion came and asked Jesus to heal his servant, Jesus didn't say, go and stop being a soldier.

On the contrary, he said, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. In the book of Exodus, the Lord said, thou shalt not murder. And he also commanded Moses and Joshua to fight against the Amalekites.

Murder is an act to destroy another human being out of hatred, whereas a national army is a God-ordained defense. He is God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

Pay to all what is owed to them, taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. Our soldiers deserve our respect and our honor.

They lay down their lives, some of them paying the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedom from those who want to take it and protect the ones we love. They are an example, a reminder that freedom isn't free, for even the Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life so that we would have freedom from sin and from death, paying the ultimate sacrifice out of love when we understand the text.

Clarifying Jesus and the Centurion in Matthew 8

Now, right after that video was released, I will tell you that we got a couple of comments from some folks saying that some verses were being taken out of context there, particularly when Jesus addressed the centurion in Matthew 8.

Jesus wasn't saying that the centurion had much faith because he was a soldier. And on that point, I agree, but the video was not suggesting that in any way. It wasn't saying that Jesus said the soldier was full of faith because he was a soldier.

It was because the soldier believed that Jesus could just speak a word and his servant would be healed. The soldier said, the centurion said to Jesus, I have people under my command and when I tell them to go, they go and my servants, I tell them to do it and they do it.

So therefore I know that you can just speak a word and my servant will be healed. So this centurion displayed a faith that Jesus had command over creation, essentially that just by speaking a word that it would be done.

And that's why Jesus said of him with no one else in Israel, have I found such faith? He was also kind of poking at Israel a little bit with that, because Israel should have known who Jesus was. The soldier was served in a in a pagan Roman army of the Gentiles.

And yet he was the one that believed that Jesus could speak a word and creation would bow to his command. And yet so this is the guy that's displaying so much faith and Jesus saying with no one else in Israel, have I found this kind of faith?

So this man was celebrated and in no way was it said of him that he needed to repent of his sin because he was a soldier. Instead, Jesus said that it's men like these who are going to come to the table and recline and dine with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob rather than those who think that they will sit at that table simply because they are descendant from him.

So the man was celebrated in no way was told that he had to repent from being a soldier. In fact, we don't see that anywhere in scripture, that being a soldier is wrong or a sin. In fact, when when soldiers are talked about in the Bible, they are spoken of very favorably.

And so I thank the soldier for doing what they do. Thank you, veterans, for laying your lives down, sometimes leaving your family and going overseas to fight for freedoms. I support you and pray for you as I do the soldiers that I worship with in my congregation.

It is an honor to pastor at a church where there are so many soldiers and their families that attend. Our lesson today is from Colossians chapter two, starting in verse six. We'll read to the end of the chapter and then our focus will be on verses 16 through 23.

Christ Our Sabbath Rest and the Fulfillment of the Law

Well, for the sake of time, let's go ahead and start there. Colossians chapter two, starting in verse 16 before coming to the passage. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our gracious heavenly father, we thank you so much for the freedom that has been given to us in Christ Jesus.

We know that freedom is not free, that Jesus had to die for us to be free. And we thank you for that and pray that we would honor that sacrifice with our bodies, with our lives, with everything that we do.

May we be a living sacrifice to you as you have called us to be. So give us this word today, our daily bread, and by your spirit, help us to understand these things, feed us by your word and help it continue to nourish us as we go throughout our day.

We pray and ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. Colossians chapter two, starting 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 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 its 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. So going back to verse 16, remember in this section, the apostle Paul has said back in verse three that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I say these things to you in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. Then in verse six, as you have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him rooted and built up in him and established in the faith just as you were taught abounding in thanksgiving.

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. For in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily and you have been filled in him.

So if we have been filled in Christ Jesus, there is no reason for us to have to wander after any other spiritual or philosophical idea to come up with any kind of esoteric fulfillment in this world. When I say esoteric, I mean that there is some kind of hidden knowledge that is yet to be revealed to us.

Whereas we've got the Bible where all of the knowledge of God through Christ Jesus has been revealed to us this way. So there are not these hidden truths in the world that have yet to be discovered or that the spirit is still working in such a way that he is revealing things not written down in the word of God.

We need to be very careful about those who would claim to have some kind of hidden knowledge that the spirit is speaking to me right now and he's telling me this. Well, if we can't go back to the Bible and test what it is that person is claiming is being revealed to them in the spirit, then it does not come from God.

It comes from whom? It comes from the devil. And this is why a scripture that I've quoted earlier this week, 1 John 4, 1 tells us to test the spirits for not every spirit comes from God and there are many false prophets that have gone out into the world.

In our Wednesday night Bible study, we're going through the book of Deuteronomy and let me share with you something that we just read last night, Wednesday evening. Deuteronomy 13, starting in verse 1, if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass and if he says, let us go after other gods, which you have not known and let us serve them.

You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.

But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he is taught rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk.

So you shall purge the evil from your midst. Now today we don't put to death false teachers, but be assured that if they do not repent of their false teaching, that will be their result. They will be put to death, but their condemnation won't just be in the moment of death.

It will be eternal unless they repent of those things. So we must pray that they would come to repentance. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises as some consider slowness, as Peter talks about in 2 Peter 3.

And the Apostle Paul does talk about purging the evil person from among us. Now that doesn't mean we drag them out to the parking lot and stone them, but it means they must be put out of the church. And we read that in 1 Corinthians 5.

So we must be careful about those who would claim to have some kind of divine mystery revealed to them, but then the instructions that they give us and the teaching that then follows would contradict the Word of God.

So even if they predicted something or some prophecy came to pass, and then what followed up with that later would be something that would contradict the Word of God, know that the prophecy that they made that came to pass did not come from God.

It came from Satan. Satan is the father of lies, and he can manipulate people with these kinds of things as well. Everything that is spoken to us must be testable according to the Word of God. If you cannot test it according to the Word of God, or if something somebody says contradicts the Word of God, we know it did not come from God.

It came from Satan. So be very careful about those things. And the Apostle Paul is saying that if we are rooted in Christ and we know his Word, if we are established in the faith just as you were taught, if we have grown in Christ according to his knowledge in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge so that no one may delude us with plausible arguments, then we will not need to know any of these other false pieces of information that attempt to woo us away from Christ.

And as I mentioned earlier in the week, there was this philosopher that came into Colossae, and he had this esoteric knowledge that he was trying to fool everybody with. And we actually see whatever that faction was and whatever it was they were telling the people, we see that come up in this section of Colossians 2 again here.

So let's go back to 16, 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.

Whenever we talk about things that were spoken about in the Old Testament, we will refer to those things as types and shadows. And it's because these were a shadow of the things that Christ was going to fulfill.

There was something that this was leading up to, and Christ fulfilled that thing. Okay, so when we talk about the Sabbath, why is it that we do not keep the Sabbath holy anymore? Why do we not attend church on a Saturday?

Now, there are some people who will say, well, Jesus died on a Friday. He was in the tomb on a Saturday, and then he rose again on Sunday, and that changed the Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday. So we go to church on Sunday now because that's our Sabbath.

No, actually, the Sabbath day is still Saturday. You talk to a messianic Jew and they will say, no, the Sabbath is still Saturday. Sunday is the Lord's day, and we call it that day, and that's the day that we worship on because that was the day that Christ came back to life.

So it's no longer at the end of the week, it is at the beginning of the week. But does that mean that the fourth commandment can just drop off now? We no longer keep the Sabbath holy and we don't have to pay attention to that commandment anymore?

No, on the contrary, every day is the Sabbath day for the Christian because Jesus is our Sabbath rest. Let me show this to you. In Matthew chapter 11, Jesus says in verse 28, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And what Jesus is addressing here is that what the Pharisees and the teachers of the law are telling you that you have to do this, this and this in order to gain eternal life.

I'm telling you, you cannot gain eternal life that way. They are placing a burden upon you that you cannot bear and you cannot meet those qualifications. As we read in Romans, our attempts at trying to keep the law will only result in death.

It will not save us because we can't keep the law. We are incapable of doing that. So it is in Christ Jesus that the law is fulfilled and we find our rest in Christ. So this is why he says to me, come all you who labor and are heavy laden with this burden of works, trying to attain your salvation by works, which you can't do.

Rest in me. I am your salvation. And then in the same context of this, we get into Matthew 12 and right at the start of the chapter is where we read this story. At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath.

His disciples were hungry and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. And he said to them, have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

You would not have condemned the guiltless for the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. And he is talking about himself in Jesus. All of the laws of the Sabbath have been fulfilled and he is our Sabbath rest.

So this is what this means for the Christian. Every day is a Sabbath day for the Christian because we rest in Christ from our works. We rest in his finish work. So by contrast, those who are not in Christ every day, they break the fourth commandment because every single day they try to attain their righteousness by their works.

They think they can be righteous in and of themselves and they do not need God to be righteous. And if they do not repent of that then and live that way all the way up to their death, then they will perish forever for they will try to stand before God and justify themselves by their works, which they cannot do.

So for the Christian who rests in the finished work of Christ, every day is a Sabbath day. Now, does that mean that we don't have to have a day of rest anymore since every day is our day of rest in Christ?

No, you still need to have a day of rest, which is why Sunday becomes that day. The Lord's day that we designate for worship, getting together with the saints, celebrating our Lord God, hearing the public declaration of scripture, which Paul told Timothy to be regular in doing.

We have our hope restored. We continue to be filled with a hope in the promises of God, being reminded of our salvation that is in Christ Jesus. We grow together with the rest of the saints in knowledge and understanding of the word of God, growing into the head who is Christ Jesus.

And so we designate Sunday as the day to do that. But you can't have any day of the week that you're doing that as long as you are committed to being together with the saints, attending church and growing together with them in Christ.

That's still important for us to do, and we still need to take a day to do that. And in our family, with my wife and kids, we also go on a media fast that day. We do not watch television and movies and some of those kinds of things.

We make exceptions occasionally, like, for example, when Becky's parents come over and the kids haven't seen him in a while and Opa wants to watch a movie, well, I'll let the kids do that. But for the most part, we try to take a fast from those kinds of things and meditate on things that are godly, spending time together as a family and talk about spiritual things and biblical things.

And that's the day that we designate to do that. So a person needs to do that. Rest from work that you would apply six days of the week and instead have a day where as together as a family, you are meditating on the holy things of God.

Commit yourself to books. If you don't have any other day of the week that you can read a book and grow in the knowledge of God, use Sunday as that day that you can read some of those biblical books that help to point you to the things of scripture and help you understand it better.

Sunday would be a great day for that. All right. So anyway, as as we come back to verse 16 here, we've only gotten through verse 16. I only have about six minutes left. But anyway, Paul says, 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. All of the festivals that were mentioned, the Old Testament Sabbath days and all of these things, they were a shadow of what was to come.

But Christ has fulfilled these things and he is our Sabbath rest. Let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels. In other words, self-punishment. Okay. You cannot attain righteousness by punishing yourself or by worshiping angels.

This is one of those verses, by the way, that I have used when ministering to Roman Catholics. You cannot attain righteousness before God by saying our fathers and Hail Marys and praying to dead saints.

It says to us very clearly in First Timothy, Chapter two, that there is one mediator between God and men, and that is the man, Christ Jesus. Your prayers are not heard by God by praying to Mary or any dead saint.

It is only through Christ Jesus. So when these people go on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, they are not holding fast to the head, which is Christ Jesus, from whom the whole body, talking about the body of Christ, those who are in Christ, all of the saints are nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, growing with a growth that is from God.

When we are held fast to Christ, not any of these other things, asceticism, worship of angel, going on in detail about visions being puffed up without reason, all of this other stuff, none of that produces godliness because it is not holding fast to the head, which is Christ Jesus.

Verse 20. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were alive in the world, do you submit to regulations? Let me read that again. 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?

Now, Chapter three goes on. We're not going to get to this today. We'll get to this next week. But Chapter three goes on to say, if you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. So that is where our mind is to be, not in the things of this world, but in the things of Christ.

So if you are in Christ, why do you submit to worldly 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. A couple of years ago, we had a couple of young men who came into our community and bounced around a few Bible studies in churches, including our church.

And over time, they showed themselves to be very unteachable. I had my suspicions in the beginning, but unfortunately, I was trying to be smart and probably should have paid attention to my gut instead of trying to outwit somebody, which was prideful on my part.

It was like they had this air of being elders themselves instead of submitting to the authority of the church. Many of the things that they said caused a lot of problems for some folks. They even succeeded in capturing the less mature because it was pretty difficult to discount what they said.

It had an appearance of wisdom, but it was self-made religion. It was in one sense legalistic and in another, it was very subjective. They would criticize others for not seeing things the way that they saw things.

Like I said, something was off about them from the get go. And I should have just said, look, we'd like you guys to move on instead of trying to find something substantive by which I could say, here's why you're wrong and you need to repent and submit to the teaching authority here or you need to leave.

But I remember one of the things that they argued about was sports and entertainment, that you couldn't play sports or watch movies and television shows and that kind of a thing because there was no spiritual value to it.

And it was difficult to respond to the way that they worded the question, the way that they worded things kind of put you on their playing field. It was a teaching moment for me because it taught me how when someone words something like that, I need to just pull back and go, OK, let's come at this another way.

And it's OK for me to do that, to not have to answer the question according to their rules. And I'm not going to remember exactly how they worded the question. I just remember it being something to the effect of what is the spiritual value in watching sports or watching movies and asking the question in such a way as if to suggest there is no spiritual value in that.

Now, Paul here is mostly talking about food, but I think that entertainment applies in this sense as well. You can be irresponsible with the food you eat and abuse the consumption of food just as you could be irresponsible with the sports you watch, the movies or TV shows or the music that you listen to.

These things can be done to the glory of God. They are not in and of themselves devoid of any praiseworthiness. But if you're not careful, these things can also be consumed in a harmful way, just as food can be consumed in a harmful way.

You can overindulge. You can eat things that are not good for you. So anyway, these two young guys came into our church. They would ask these questions in such a way that would make people feel guilty about the things they enjoyed and probably enjoyed them in a right manner, just as this philosopher was making the Colossians feel guilty about things that they enjoyed.

And probably enjoyed them in a way that gave glory to God. Those things, the wording questions in that way, saying things like that have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity of the body.

But they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Just because you abstain from those things doesn't mean that you're going to be able to prevent yourself from indulging in sin. The only way that we keep ourselves from unrighteousness is by clinging to Jesus Christ, who is our righteousness.

God, as we come away from this text today, as we have been filled with good things according to your word, teach us to understand this so that we don't fall into human precepts and teachings. But we are 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.

Grow us that way.

And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in God's word when we understand the text.