- Well good evening
- And welcome to refuge church
- And welcome to our first big time cold snap of the fall
- I love the fall
- I love the crisp and cold mornings
- Mornings where the cold air just feels fresh and cleaner than those warm humid days
- I’ve been getting ready for this season
- I’ve started thinking through how I’m going to put Christmas lights on our home
- I’ve been thinking through thanksgiving
- Who will come over
- What to eat
- What football to watch
- And my meticulous minute by minute cooking plan
- I’ve been spending some spare time splitting wood so we can get to heating our home with our fireplace
- Truly one of my favorite things to do in the colder months is having a roaring fire
- And I love this time of year
- Plenty of reasons to gather with others
- Eat good food
- Do fun things
- And in my mind, there are many steps to take
- Steps to prepare
- Steps to execute in order to have an adequate fall and winter
- And if those steps aren’t taken, sometimes I find myself disappointed or feeing inadequate
- Like I missed out on an opportunity
- Similarly tonight we are going to discuss how some false teachers were trying to convince the small town Colossians church that they needed to complete some steps
- Execute some things
- In order to have an exciting or vibrant church life and relationship with God
- So how did the Apostle Paul respond to the attempts by false teachers to make the Colossians jump through hoops?
- Let’s read about it in Colossians 2:11-23 which is on page 1087 in the blue Bibles
Colossians 2:11-23 – 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. — 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. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 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, 19 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. 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— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 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.”
- Pray
- We are now continuing to see Paul’s battle Ty to the Colossians church
- Last week we were discussing how false teachers were trying to dilute the church’s view of Christ
- Through plausible arguments and the wisdom of the day
- A deception Satan employed in the garden as he said, ‘Did God really Say.’
- These arguments are bombarding us from every direction
- Well another argument that was attacking the Colossian church were various hoop jumping processes
- Like me and my perfect fall and winter plans
- There were false teachers trying to pull down believers
- Trying to tell them they needed to do this task or that task in order to be acceptable to God
- Or to reach a level of spirituality
- These false teachers claimed to have some sort of special knowledge
- A special knowledge of how to reach spiritual maturity
- Or even initiate the process of becoming acceptable to God
- And here in this part of Colossians chapter 2 we have Paul pushing back on some of the false teachings
- Tonight our focus will be on verses 11-15 and next week we will touch on verses 16-23
- Tonight we are going to focus in on 3 big questions
- What’s the big deal about baptism?
- Who made us alive?
- How complete is our salvation?
- So question 1 – What’s the big deal about baptism?
- Verse 12 says ‘12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.’
- First I want to be clear, that the baptism is occurring after the circumcision of the heart articulated in verse 11
- The baptism here described is an outward action to signify something that has already occurred
- John McArthur here says ‘This (the circumcision without hands) is the new birth, the new creation in conversion. The outward affirmation of the already accomplished inner transformation is now the believer’s baptism by water.’
- Through water baptism we are declaring our lives have been changed
- Our wanters have gone from what do me myself and I want
- To what does God want from, through, and in me?
- So we must be clear, baptism, circumcision, religious activity is a response to salvation
- Not an initiator of salvation
- There were all kinds of false teachers
- Being quite discouraging to the people of the Colossian church
- They would say – hey make sure you do this religious act or that religious act to help you get right with God
- Some of these false teachers would go as far as saying go get circumcised you uncircumcised gentile, that is, if you really want to be saved through Jesus
- These people were putting a yolk of Jewish Legalism onto Gentiles
- They were called Judaizers
- And Paul says no, the circumcision is done without hands, it’s not physical
- Recall the salvation of Lydia in Acts chapter 16 on page 1025 in the blue Bibles
- ‘14 One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.’
- Who opened Lydia’s heart?
- God did!
- Not Lydia
- Not some religious ritual
- So to put some sort of ritual burden on people
- Is Anti-Gospel
- Warren Weirsbe on this says ‘Our fourfold identification with Jesus Christ that makes it not only unnecessary, but sinful for us to get involved in any kind of legalism.’
- And we must be careful
- Because we can make baptism into some required ritual
- When in actuality baptism is a celebration, a symbol, an outward action of an inward activity
- And that outward activity is to be celebrated
- And it’s important to see what is occurring
- In baptism, we signify our flesh, our sinful nature, buried dead, gone
- And raised to newness of life
- We declare publicly
- God is God
- I trust Him
- I trust the perfection of Christ
- I trust Jesus paid my bill on the cross
- I believe that God raised Him from the grave
- And I am submitting to Jesus as Lord
- He is the Boss
- What he says goes
- He says jump, I jump
- He says sit, I sit
- Because of what Jesus has done for me
- This is what Baptism is
- It’s a public profession of an already ocurred inward activity
- So, have you been baptized?
- Have you celebrated publicly in front of other believers, the reality of the opening of your heart by God?
- If not, what are you waiting for!?
- You don’t have to get your life together to do this!
- Do this so you can have brothers and sisters know you believe in God and trust in His salvation. And then we can come alongside you.
- Baptism is important
- It’s how we know who has been saved
- When i was a student pastor I would take our students to a camp to hear a speaker named Jason Curry. He would say something that he probably took from someone else, but it resonates.
- Your salvation is personal, but it is never private.
- So have you been baptized?
- If you’ve not been baptized, let’s talk about that. In our prayer time later, come see me.
- If you’ve been baptized, and I wasn’t in the room, come tell me or alan, or caleb about it in our prayer time
- So we can remember and celebrate God working in your life.
- Now Somewhere around you is a slip of paper, this paper has a copy of what Refuge Church’s drafted statement of faith says about baptism
- I thought it would be a good time to read this out loud so follow along:
We believe that water baptism is only intended for the individual who has received the saving benefits of Christ’s atoning work through faith and has thus become His disciple. Therefore, in obedience to Christ’s command, we water baptize converts by immersion in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We receive into our membership those who have confessed their faith in the Lord Jesus through baptism. (Acts 8:36-39; John 3:23; Rom. 6:4-5; Matt. 3:16; Matt. 28:19; Rom. 6:3-5; Col. 2:12; Acts 2:41-42, 9:17-19;10:47-48;16:14-15; Matt. 28:19-20)
- So yes baptism is important
- But it is not a hooop to jump through
- Neither is circumcision
- But if there isn’t a hoop to jump through for salvation, meaning we can’t save ourselves
- Who saves us
- Who makes us alive?
- This is our 2nd question tonight
- Let’s reread Colossians 2:13 ‘3 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,’
- So short answer – God made us alive
- We were dead
- And dead things cannot do anything
- But be dead
- Matthew Henry says of this ‘As a man who is dead is unable to help himself by any power of his own, so an habitual sinner is morally unable to take action… he has not a spiritual power, till he has the divine life or a renewed nature.’
- John MacArthur similarly says ‘Note that God takes the initiative and exerts the life-giving power to awaken and unite sinners with his Son; the spiritually dead have no ability to make themselves alive.’
- This is the preverbially chicken or the egg discussion
- And in Colossians 2:13, we were said to be dead in our sins
- But then God made us alive
- This is a beautiful God glorifying thing.
- Turn to Ephesians chapter 2, I have a passage I want us to read.
- This is found on page 1079 in the blue Bibles
- We will read verses 1-10
- Y’all ever read a passage in the Bible for the 2nd or millionth time and it just jumps of the pages at you?
- I remember reading this passage with a friend of mine my freshman year of college
- And it changed everything
- I grew up in churches that taught a level of hoop jumping
- And with that hoop jumping, I would be fearful, what if I die on a day I’m not really living for God
- What if I die on a day where I didn’t even think about God
- Why do I still struggle with Sin
- Why do I still battle these things?
- Why is it so hard to be good?
- Why is it so hard to love my neighbors?
- And this weight was heavy on my back
- And then God showed me this passage
‘And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.’
- This passage is so so so beautiful
- You see
- The hoops have been jumped through
- I don’t know where you are spiritually
- I can’t know it entirely
- But what I can tell you is this
- God loves you
- And for the frist time
- Or the millionth time
- He wants you to hear that
- That while you were dead in your willing sinfullness
- Living for your own passions
- While there
- God being rich in mercy
- Full of immeasurable riches of Grace and Kindness
- He sent His son to die for you
- And that death, paid your bill in full
- And we know this because Jesus didn’t stay dead.
- There is no hoop to jump through to become saved
- Christ Jumped through the hoop, through his perfect sinless life
- Subsitutionary death
- And because of his victorious resurrection
- We can answer our last question
- How complete is our salvation?
- Fully complete
- Verse 14 ‘14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. ’
- Every sin
- Past
- Present
- Future
- Cancelled
- Gone
- Erased
- Washed
- Gone
- Forever
- It’s been nailed to the cross
- So no you don’t have to get life figured out to approach Jesus
- No you don’t have to do some sort of religious ritual
- So tonight
- Or recently
- Or even sometime in the last few years
- The question is – has God opened your heart to this truth like He did Lydia?
- Have you trusted in Him completely?
- Have you publicly professed that through baptism?
- If you’ve had the personal salvation moment, but not the public declaration of your new life, please come talk to myself, caleb or alan that after the Lord’s Supper
- But if you have publicly professed your faith in Jesus Christ
- We are now going to joyfully remember what Christ died for us by participating in the Lord’s supper. Here’s what we are going to do.