Video Transcript: Freedom and Fullness in Christ

In Colossians two verses six through 10. Listen now to the word of the Lord. Therefore as you 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, who is the head of all rule and authority. This ends the reading of God's Word and God always blesses His Word to those who listen. 

It was a dark and stormy night as the terrible opening to bad literature goes. But it was a dark and stormy night and Martin Luther was walking along the road. He was a young law student. And during that dark night, lightning was striking very often and very close and terrifying Luther. And Luther was so fearful that finally he cried out a prayer. Saint Anne, the mother of Mary. St. Anne help me. I will become a monk if I survived the storm. While he kept his promise to St. Anne and became a monk because he thought that by becoming a monk, he could do more to get right with God and become a person who was acceptable to God. And there in the monastery as a monk he starved his body and fasted for days and days on end. He beat his body and mistreated it. He prayed to Mary very frequently. He chose 21 different saints three for each day of the week to pray to to try to get the favor of those saints. He relied on the various rituals and rosaries and other activities that a person could do to get in good with God. He talked with priests and he sought pardon from the priests. He, just in case knowledge was going to do it, he studied for his doctorate in theology.

So, Luther did one thing after another after another because he was terrified of God. And he thought that if he were righteous enough, he could have the righteousness of God. But he kept on being tormented. And he began to study the book of Romans and the book of Galatians, in particular. And to study them very hard. And he says, night and day I pondered, till I saw the connection between the righteousness of God and that statement that's in Romans and Galatians. The righteous shall live by his faith. Then I grasped that the righteousness of God is the righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy, God justifies us through faith. It wasn't all the rituals and all the other activities that were going to make him right with God. It was God's grace and putting his faith in God's grace in Jesus. He says, I felt myself to be reborn, and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole pf Scripture took on a new meaning.

Now that he understood justification by faith and salvation by God's grace in Christ. This passage became to me a gate to heaven. The righteous shall live by faith. And on October 31, 1517, Luther went public with his discovery. Luther nailed 95 theses 95 statements that he invited people to debate him about. And in nailing those to the door of the church, he didn't just start a debate. He started what later became known as the Reformation, as the churches understood this doctrine of salvation by faith. And looking to Jesus for salvation and not to your own earnings. And today on October 31, a lot of years later, it's valuable again, to reflect on the great work of God in Luther’s heart and then unleashed through Luther and others in the Reformation as people began looking again to the authority of the Bible. To salvation by God's grace in Jesus Christ. 

Now, this is not just a one time event to think about from the past. The need for reformation is always with the church and the need to stay focused on Jesus Christ has been a challenge from the very beginning. It is not easy and automatic to keep focused on Jesus. The Book of Galatians was written already during the ministry of the apostle Paul, because people were already straying away from justification by faith in Jesus Christ alone. And so Paul wrote that letter to call these people back to trusting in Jesus and not into the other things that could be added, such as obedience to the Old Testament law or other activities that they thought to make the right with God. Paul wrote, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law. But through faith in Jesus Christ. This actually was stated by Paul, when he was addressing Peter because Peter had briefly gone astray. Those of you who are following the bible reading plan, read about that, as we read from the first three chapters of Galatians this week. Paul said, I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives me and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself for me.

I live by faith in the Son of God. And he said, I do not nullify the grace of God. For His righteousness work through the law through stuff we can do, then Christ died for no purpose. He says, now it is evident, that no one is justified before God by the law. For the righteous shall live by faith. Now, just one quick snippet. We also in our Bible reading plan, read from a book of Numbers. One of the saddest passages in the Bible in some respects where Moses, the great man of God is told to speak to a rock to bring water out of it. And Moses is mad. So instead of speaking to the rock, he takes his staff and waxed in a couple of times. And God sends water out of the rock, and he says to Moses, you're never gonna make it in the Promised Land. Now, that doesn't mean of course, that Moses didn't go to heaven when he died, but it did mean that if, making it is based on your perfect performance, Moses couldn't live up to the law of Moses. And Moses himself, for one act of disobedience was cut off. And if we were all under the old law as our means of being right with God, and making it to the place of promise, even Moses himself couldn't make it. And I think that's one reason why that happened in that stories in the Bible, so that we all know that you're not going to talk Moses. And if you're going to get your standing with God, and you're receiving of God's promises based on Moses, you're out. because Moses didn't make it. One act of disobedience means you break the whole law. 

So there is no one justified before God by the law. And Paul makes that really clear in Galatians. And he also gets a very nasty almost with the Galatians. He says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him, who called you in the grace of Christ and returning to a different gospel. Your foolish Galatians who has bewitched you. It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this? Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh? 

The big danger was that they had started with Jesus. And now they thought they were graduating to something beyond the Jesus or that they needed something in addition to Jesus. And so Paul gets in their face and he says, Who put you under some kind of spell? Are you guys nuts? Don't you know that you not only start with Jesus, but you continue in Jesus all the way and you keep trusting him for your salvation, for your transformation for everything. Now, Paul gets pretty angry and pretty confrontational when he's dealing with the Galatians just as Luther later had to do in dealing with the church, which had fallen away from grace and it fallen away from Christ. In the book of Colossians. Paul doesn't get quite that ornery because there he's trying to head off an error, not fight one that the people have already made. And so he can be a bit gentler, a bit calmer and just speak to them of a danger that's out there but hasn't yet infected that church. And he says to the Colossians now, I've been hearing that somebody that was trying to lead you astray and I know that you're still standing firm in the truth. But I just want to make sure 

And so as we've read this book, we've heard of him speaking of Christ and of the greatness of Christ and of Jesus being the fullness of God and of salvation coming completely through Jesus. And now we get to kind of a turning point of the ladder where he really gets down to his point in writing to them. He says, therefore, therefore. You always have to ask what it's there for, when you see that word. And he's been talking about all that, that thing that he's been talking about of the supremacy of Jesus, of Christ in you, and of that being enough, and he said, therefore, as he received Christ Jesus Lord, so walk in him. And so I just want to look at three main areas that come out of this passage and one is that Christ is your life. So continue in union with Him. The second that we're going to see in Colossians two verse eight is that Christ is your freedom. So don't be kidnapped and enslaved by something else. And third, Christ is your fullness. So find your contentment in Jesus Christ and that's going to come through in verses nine and 10.

First thing Christ is your life. Continue in your union with Him. Therefore, as you 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. That's tremendous sentence and I want to focus on six word pictures that are in there. Now, as they say in the advertisements, if you're a student and you're working on writing style, don't try this at home. A good writing teacher will tell you don't mix your metaphors. Paul has at least six metaphors in one sentence. Six different word pictures of receiving Christ or continuing in Christ. And let's just look at those word pictures in terms of some pictures. 

One is therefore as you received Christ Jesus the Lord. Now, the word received in this context is not so much the word for receiving Jesus into your heart. I mean, that's a truth of the Bible, Christ in you the hope of glory. As  many as received him and believed in his name, he gave them the right become children of God. John one verse 12. So receiving Christ in that sense is absolutely important and vital. But here when he's talking about receiving the word, paralambano, is receiving in a technical term, a tradition or a set of truths. In this case, the set of truths of the gospel of Christ the Lord, that are being handed on. If you read first Corinthians 15, Paul says, what I received I also handed on to you. Same word. What I received I handed on to you, that Christ died according to Scriptures, that he was raised again according to Scriptures, and that he was seen by a whole bunch of people. That was a tradition that he received. Not traditionalism, but simply the body of truth that he had received about Jesus, crucified, risen and witnessed. And he says, now, that's what I received, and that's what I'm handing on to you. When he speaks of the Lord's Supper, he says, I also delivered to you what I received. That our Lord Jesus in the night he was betrayed took bread when he'd given thanks, broke it and said, this is my body and this is my blood. He says, what I received was this Lord's Supper. It's Christ, the true tradition of Christ and I received it and now I hand it on to you. And that word of receiving a body of truth, deposit of faith, a tradition is the word that is used here. 

Now, take a picture. Receiving and then passing on. What you have on the screen is a picture of the fastest man in the world receiving a baton. Now, what does it take for the fastest man in the world to finish out the relay race and win it? Well, Usain Bolt, of course, has to run like Usain Bolt and really zoom and beat everybody else. But he still loses if he drops the baton. He receives that. Then he's got to grip it tight in the transition as he takes it from somebody else and he's got to run with it, and he's got to carry it through to the finish line. And Paul was saying, as you received Christ the Lord, as you received that tradition, now you take it, you grip it, you run with it, and don't let it go. Or, you know, what would happen if Usain Bolt is running along and all of a sudden he just tosses the baton down and says, somebody I'd like a piece of Laffy Taffy to chew on. So he grabbed the Laffy Taffy, and chews on it while he's running, and then hits the finish line with a Laffy Taffy wrapper in his hand instead of a baton. He doesn't get any gold medal does he? He blew it because he didn't hang on to what he received. 

Another case of something being passed along and received and then carried on to the next station would be the old pony express. When they needed to deliver mail they would have a variety of stations and then you'd have a horse waiting at the station. And when the previous horse and the rider got there, they take the mailbag handed over the next one, he would receive that mailbag, put it on his horse, and then take off with it. And so when you're receiving this body of truth, you receive it from somebody else. You don't get to take it. You don't get to change it. It's the mailbag that's delivered, and you don't get when you're delivering the mail to change what's in it. You just take it receive it, deliver it. And Paul says something similar. Hold to the traditions that you were taught by us. There are gospel traditions of truth, and of practice that you hold on to. 

So as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, in that body of truth, you take it, then you head for the next station. And Paul says to Timothy, guard, the deposit entrusted to you. When you receive that deposit of faith, and if you're a pony express right, you may run into a few problems along the way. But your job is to deliver the mail. And so whatever else you do, and whatever else you find, you have to take or whatever enemies you run into one thing you don't do is ditch the mailbag. Because you're to guard the deposit entrusted to you. So that's the first word picture. As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, this body of truth that reveals Jesus Christ, you receive it, and then you keep going with it. He says, so walk in him. 

Now, just a little bit about I told you, you won't want to consult this for writing style, but you do need to take a note of grammar. Grammar, you received it. It was a one time thing. This body of truth was handed to you. And the translation doesn't quite capture it. The word says So walk in him. It's a little different tense in Greek. It's really be walking in him or keep walking in him. Received is a one time thing. Keep walking is an ongoing activity. And Jesus said, I am the way. You walk in him, you abide in Christ, you stick to that path. Here you have a path on a very steep cliff. It is not advisable to get off the path or you will be a dead duck. Stick with that path and walk in that way. Abide in Christ and you live. Fall out of Christ and you fall to disaster. So Paul is saying you received him now, walk in him 

And rooted in him. There again, it's a one time thing a past tense of having been rooted in Him would be the more literal translation. If you tried to capture all of this in English, it gets pretty clumsy. You know, if you translate it at all very literally. But sometimes if you think about itself, it's having been rooted in him. And here you see a picture of a tree, and it kind of portrays the roots going down and then going down to the water supply in the soil where it gets its water, its nutrition, its life, and Jesus is your life. And he's the one from whom you draw your life as well as your stability. You see what happens when you're not rooted? The roots are pulled up and you die. Outside of Christ, you die. And branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned as Jesus said in John chapter 15. And so being rooted in him is continuing in Christ.

And then built up in him. And here again, the original tense is being built up in him. The root is just kind of a one time thing. You've got those roots there, and now you're being built up in him in an ongoing way. He's your foundation. Now, if you got a building going up, and it's going up this much, it's a little late in the game to say, You know what, I think I'd like to switch foundations at this point. Let's just move that stuff over to a different foundation. And Paul is saying that's what it would be like if you believed in Jesus and received him and then thought you could be built up on some other foundation. Come on. If you start with Christ, you continue with Christ and you're built up in him. You're founded on Jesus as your basis as the foundation for everything else, and in an ongoing way you're being built up into who he wants you to be. 

One of the pictures for individual Christians and for the church is God's building. And there you're still under construction. Okay. That's why I picked this picture. First, I have to admit, I had a picture of the temple. And it was a nice picture, you know, an artist's rendering of the temple with the big stones foundations and all that and I wanted to say, you know, you're founded on the rock of Mount Zion. You know, we're marching to Zion, the big mountain of rock on which Jerusalem is built. That's a great picture of a temple built on that kind of foundation. But the only problem that picture was the temple was beautiful and finished, and I'm not and you're not. So maybe this is a little more realistic picture. We're being built up in him and sometimes it looks a little messy. And when you're in the middle of a building project, there's a lot of garbage lying around as well. And so you want to keep in mind when you're discouraged that okay, I'm not there yet. And there's some garbage lying around, but I'm being built up and I'm on a solid foundation, and he who began a good work in me is going to continue it and finish his building. And so Paul's encouraging us that we're being built up in him in an ongoing way. 

And then the next picture the next metaphor is established in the faith just as you were taught. This word established is often used when confirming a legal document. And so when you look at this, you see establish. You see this little red blob of wax with a stamp put in it, a seal. That means that all this writing above it has been officially confirmed or established. The Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit as God's seal on believers and the Holy Spirit seals on us these truths of the gospel and the reality of Christ and so we're sealed, we’re established, we’re confirmed in the faith just as we were taught. Remember how that teaching works and how it's passed along and how it's transferred and then received, like in a relay race, Paul, received from Christ. Epaphras received from Paul. The Colossians received from Epaphras. And so you have this baton being handed along, handed along, handed along. Or if you like the other image better, the mailbag being handed along, handed along, handed along. But here's a picture where whoever's getting handed along, it's you're still confirmed or established in the faith by the seal of the Holy Spirit, in your own life and of your own faith. And it's just as you were taught, you don't get to make it up. And so that's another, yet another picture of what it is to walk in Christ and belong to Christ. 

And then abounding with thanksgiving. Some translations say overflowing with thanksgiving, because paracel, the word there is overflow. Abounding lots and lots and lots coming out of you. Jesus said, whoever believes in him, out of him will flow rivers of living water. Just fountains of water gush out from you. And the Bible says he was talking about the Holy Spirit when he said that. But a life that is gushing and overflowing with living water, the Holy Spirit is also gushing and overflowing with thanks to God. We're heading into Thanksgiving season, and a person who is abiding in Christ and walking in Christ is someone who is also overflowing with gratitude to Christ. 

And that was a big theme of the reformers. They said, Yeah, we are to live a life worthy of Christ and of Christ in us and a life overflowing with God. But it's not in order to earn God's favor. It's in thanksgiving because we've already received God's gift and his favor in Jesus Christ. And that's what really unleashes the fountain into the fountain of thanksgiving, the fountain of the Holy Spirit. So that's our first main area to think about. Christ is your life continue in union with him. Don't throw six metaphors into one sentence when you're practicing writing at home, but God has his own ways of writing and communicating and there's such wonderful ways of thinking about what it is to continue in Christ. Receive, walk, rooted, built up, established, abounding or overflowing. 

Second thing is Christ is your freedom. Paul wrote elsewhere, it was for freedom that Christ made you free. Don p't let yourself be trapped again in slavery. So Christ is your freedom. Don't be trapped or enslaved. 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. Now in that statement, Paul has compressed a lot again, but there's three main problems or Triple Trouble. One is philosophy and empty deceit. And it often comes to us through human tradition. And behind all that is not just human thinking, but spirits, the elemental spirits of the world. See to it that no one takes you captive. The word used there is simply to be captured and hauled off and dragged off and forced into slavery. You're oftentimes in war. Soldiers who weren't killed were hauled off and taken as captors and made slaves. And  if the invading force took a city, they would take the women and children and haul them off and make them slaves as well. And Paul says, Don't let anybody take you captive. 

Now, it's kind of too bad when you're captured and made a slave, but it would be really stupid if you won the war and let somebody takes you off as a slave. If somebody tried to invade you and ruin you, and then you found that a great general and his host had come and rescued you and defeated the enemy and shamed them and put them to flight. And then you ran off after the enemy and said, Please, please take me with you. Take me with you. How stupid would that be? And Paul says, Christ has disarmed the rulers and authorities. He says that in the past, we'll be looking at in the future. He says Christ has disarmed the rulers and authorities. Earlier in chapter one, we saw that Christ has rescued you from the domain of darkness. So you've been rescued from this domain of darkness. These rulers and authorities, these demonic powers have been defeated by Christ. And now are you going to go run after them and say, Oh, please, please, please take me with you. Oh, I would so love to go with you into slavery. Paul says see to it that no one takes you captive. And what he's talking about is falling under the slavery, of thinking you can earn God's righteousness by your own deeds or by other false non gospel traditions. He says these do not help you. They do not add to Christ. They make you slaves and rob you of your freedom. 

First of those things is philosophy and empty deceit. Now, this could easily be misunderstood. There literally are people who have gone to college and said, Well, I can't be a philosophy major, and have actually cited this passage Don't be captured by philosophy and philosophy is an academic discipline that leads you down the tubes. Well, full disclosure, I was a philosophy major. Now, actually, in the original, it doesn't just say philosophy even it says the philosophy. Somebody who was coming to the Colossians and presenting something as the philosophy, the lover of wisdom. That's what philosophos means, a lover of wisdom. And so they were presenting philosophy as some great and wise thing. And Paul says it's empty, and it's wrong. So there our philosophy is just an academic discipline of studying how we think, how we know of studying things such as ethics and so on. It can be a very worthwhile study if it's not disconnected from Christ. But anything that claims to be bringing wisdom and even who doesn't go by philosophy in the college curriculum. Philosophy may come to you in the science curriculum. There is a whole host of assumptions that are deeply embedded in science. And if you don't know a little bit of philosophy, you won't even know that because they're just part of that way of thinking. 

And there are philosophies, worldviews, ways of looking at life that enslave. Can we know God on our own? Can we figure out the way to God on our own? Well, Paul gives the answer to that in a lot of different passages. He says, has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world. He says God's foolishness is wiser, than man's wisdom. Then he speaks about the truth of God. He says, We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart these in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. In short, if you're going to know anything of God, it will come by revelation from God and by the work of God's Holy Spirit in you. You will not think yourself up the ladder to God. You will not get there by any kind of philosophy. If you think so you're just being deceived. And this kind of philosophy is not according to human wisdom, but when it comes to presenting itself as human wisdom you've really got to watch out. Just a few examples of human traditions. One is human tradition of reason. And in the human tradition of reason, we believe to be true, whatever makes sense to us. 

Now, what makes sometimes, some people try to prove Christianity. I teach an apologetics class and there's a danger in apologetics of thinking that okay, a lot of things are known to be true. And now let's try to prove the truth of Christianity based on the stuff you already know. That's very dangerous, because a lot of what you know, isn't true. And a lot of what you don't know and don't think makes any sense is God's truth because his thoughts are not your thoughts. And so one of the first things you need to do is realize that when God reveals Himself, you believe what He reveals. When it comes to you in Christ, then Jesus becomes the standard by which everything else gets judged. You don't judge Jesus by your own standards of what's true and rational. The time of the Reformation that was one of the several battles that had to be fought. Thomas Aquinas, though in many respects, a godly man had tried to blend Christianity with the non Christian pagan philosophy of Aristotle. And that was what his great intellectual achievements was blending Aristotle and Christ. Luther said, those two, don't mix that well. And you have to beware of thinking you can use Aristotle to understand the Christian faith and approve the Christian faith. 

Or human traditions of rightness, maybe here even more dangerous. We're untrusting in my own goodness, my own ability to earn my way to God and I'm not trusting in God's free gift His grace in Jesus Christ. Another human tradition is ritual. And religion is very widespread among humanity. And as we're gonna see, religion is one of the deadliest plagues on humanity. But we come up with a variety of rituals to feel better about ourselves and even Christian rituals that are taught to us in the Bible can be used in the wrong way as kind of magical ceremonies that have a power in themselves to make us okay. And that simply is not true. Any ceremony that we do have, baptism points to washing by Christ and to dying and rising with Christ. The Lord's Supper is not a magic ceremony in itself. It draws us again into the body of Christ given for us and the blood of Christ poured out for us. And so whatever ritual there is, that's of any value at all, is of value only because it's pointing to Christ and drawing us into the life of Christ. And the moment that a ritual becomes magical, and has some power in and of itself to make me okay with God, we have fallen into human tradition and into error. 

And then there's the human tradition of results. American people in particular are very devoted to pragmatism, whatever works. And so we like books that give Seven Steps to raising perfect children, 14 steps to become prosperous and happy, and so on. We get all of these step by step guides that if you do this, if you do A then B will result and all will be well. This is living according to the flesh. That doesn't mean you never need any half decent advice. But a Christian lives first of all by the Holy Spirit of God, and is guided by the Spirit and your ultimate goal is not just to get what you wanted by all those steps you followed, but to know Christ and to glorify Christ. And so our idea of

human traditional results can be very misleading and we have to be very wary of human tradition. We'll get to Paul's advice on child rearing later on. It takes in one sentence. Fathers don't drive your children crazy. You know, we'll talk about that one. But there's more in the Bible than that. But in Colossians, that's all Paul says. He seems to think that if you’ve got the grace of Christ and Christ in you and are working to cultivate Christ in others, you might not need those eight seven steps to be perfect at this or that. It  might be a lot better off to be shaped in Christ's likeness and then to help others to envision and shape Christ.

Anyway, according to human tradition is a thing to be avoided. Larry Crabb says churches, by no means all, but too many, that becomes dangerous to health of our souls as porn shops. That wasn't a very nice thing to say. But his point is that very often, churches will be teaching us human tradition on this or that or the other subject and not aiming to draw us to Christ. Not p living by the Holy Spirit of God, but acting just like any other religion. A good many books on church growth that I've read should be subtitled how to grow a religious group in the power of the flesh, because it would work for any religious group on almost any population of people. If you do certain things and check them off, you can get people to go along with that and they won't know Christ or living by the spirit but they'll kind of like getting together sometimes. And they'll get what people expect from religion, whether Baal worship or any other religion, but you can deliver it. 

The message of religion says Crabb says is simply this, get it reasonably right and life will go reasonably well. Not too many crosses, not too many shattering disappointments were maybe even where you were following the Lord, things falling on you anyway. Or where you weren't following the Lord and God just poured out a bunch of undeserved blessings. The message of religion without Christ can get reasonably light, life will go reasonably well. Religion is the invention of the devil. That was a very nice either. He wasn't first one to say that. 

Human tradition and he goes on to say according to the elemental spirits of the world. So he's saying, religion is of the devil or of the devils. Now what's this elemental spirits. Some translations will say basic principles or rudiments or whatever. But the most accurate translation still is the elemental spirits ‘stoicheion’ of the world. Elemental spirits are the angel powers and some elemental spirits are fallen. Now, what do they do? One of the things they want to do is block the gate that leads out of this evil world age. They want to block the gate out. Now what about the good elemental spirits? Well, they really can't save you either. Because they're blocking the gate in to paradise. Remember what happened after Adam and Eve sinned? Cherubbim with sword guarding the gate back into the Garden of Eden. So you got the bad angels trying to keep you trapped in the domain of darkness and you have good angels blocking the gate into paradise. If you're counting on angel worship as it refers to a little later in this epistle. If you're counting on the angels to help you get there, you got a big problem and a big misunderstanding of how these elemental spirits work. The bad ones are against you trying to keep you trapped in the good ones are too holy. They're not gonna let you in. Unless Christ has opened the gate and given the order to the good angels and he has. So evil angels, good angels, they're opposites. But they have one thing in common. They wield God's law as an accusation against us. And they doom us, unless Christ rescues us. That's very important. Understand that whether it's bad angels or good angels, they know God's law and it's against you, unless Christ makes things right for you. 

Now, again, just our reading for today if you haven't read it yet, um, you may get to it today, according to the elemental spirits of the world in Colossians. There's an echo of that in Galatians. And sometimes they don't understand Bible translators. Sometimes one person was translating one book and didn't one was translate another book and they were in the system. That's what happened in Galatians. They translated it as elementary principles rather than elemental spirits. But that word is the same stoicheion’ and you can tell that it's not just talking about things or principles because it says these were not gods. The temptation was to think of the spirit powers as gods. When we were children, says Paul, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved by those that by nature are not gods. But now that you've come to know God, or rather be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental spirits of the world whose slaves you want to be once more? Remember that picture I gave you. When an army has been defeated, and they were here to enslave you, it is not very smart to run after them and ask to be taken with them. And so when you have these elemental spirits, Paul says the way to freedom is to reject them and to stick with Christ. 

And not according to Christ. You are doing it according to the elemental spirits of the world, not according to Christ. I'll remind you again for maybe the third or fourth time of that question, what would happen if Satan ran a city. Donald Barnhouse gave his imaginary picture of that and he said, Hey, the streets would be clean, the children will be polite, the porn shops would be closed, the bars would be shut down. If Satan were running the city, and Christ would not be proclaimed even though the churches would be full, if Satan ran the city. Take that picture very seriously, and take very seriously that claim that religion is of the devil, if it is not fully focused on Jesus Christ. And again, not according to Christ. If I'm believing just current opinion or whatever I happen to want to believe then I'm not according to Christ, true. If I start with my goodness, and think God owes me something, then it's not according to Christ’s cross. If I'm living by my own efforts, it's not according to Christ's spirit. If I'm chasing my goals, then I'm not seeking solei dei glory, the glory of God, the glory of Christ. Not according to Christ, its just about the worst thing that can be said about a religion.

And the other stuff wasn't very nice. You know that it's empty deceit, or that's just merely human tradition, or even that it's coming from the demons. That may sound the harshest thing you can say. But the worst thing that can be said to simply this, it's not according to Christ, and anything that's not according to Christ is from the elemental spirits. And so you gotta understand it that way. So religion offers you an option, says Paul. You can be enslaved and a slave is somebody who, one aspect of slavery in the Roman world was they would chain you below the decks in the galleys and let you row and row and row and row until he dropped out of exhaustion, or until another ship rammed you and your ship went down and you were still chained. Some of you may remember the movie Ben Hur, you get a picture of life as a galley slave. Everything to move into the ship counts on your effort, and you end up dead. 

And then there's another possibility. You can be sailing freely by a power that's not your own. The ship does not move by your rowing abilities, but by the power of the wind. And of course, the word spirit simply means wind. It's the wind of the Holy Spirit. That is what moves the Christian. And it's important that we have our sails up. We're living in prayer. We're reading the Bible, we carry out spiritual disciplines, but not to make ourselves right with God and not to row our own ship, but simply to raise the sails and catch the wind when the Spirit blows. This is what Paul was talking about. This was what the Reformation was about. Do you want religion where you do all the rowing? Or do you want Jesus Christ and the wind of His Holy Spirit? So we've got Christ as our life. Continue in union with Him. Secondly, Christ is your freedom. Don't let religion or anything else kidnap you and enslave you. And finally, Christ is your fullness. Find contentment in him.

The danger Paul wanted to head off was people would think, yeah, Jesus is necessary, but it's not enough. I want to start with Jesus. But now I want to start adding and tacking on other stuff that adds to Jesus. And this could come in the form of say, well, yeah, it's nice to believe in Jesus, but you really get embedded with God or maybe even have to be circumcised in order to be right with God. Well, yeah, we got Jesus, but boy, there were a lot of really cool feasts that were revealed in Old Testament times and you're not really experiencing the fullness of Christ, unless those feasts are being celebrated. And those various things are being practiced. Paul's gonna say a little later, come on, give me a break. All that stuff about special days and food and drink, if it pointed you to Christ, and if you got Christ, you got everything. What do you need that stuff for? So Christ is your fullness, find contentment in him. 

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you've been filled in Him who is the head of all rule and authority. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. Paul says that now but he's been developing that a lot more fully in chapter one. Remember where it said for him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things. Just before that in chapter one, he said, he's the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, everything was made through him. Everything is redeemed and reconciled through him. It goes on in great detail about the greatness of Christ. Now here he just reminds us one phrase for him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. Bible carries that that theme all the way through that Jesus Christ is God made flesh. In the beginning was the Word the Word was with God the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and from his fullness we've all received grace upon grace upon grace. In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily and we've received grace upon grace, and that means we've been filled in him. 

The best antidote to false religion is not just have a long laundry list of all the errors that have come up throughout history. It's worthwhile to do that. I did that in a previous sermon, didn't cover them all. But sure there were a lot of them, of errors people make about Jesus Christ or errors about religion. We need to be warned against those things because the Bible does warn us. But the best protection is to be filled and to know you are filled and to know that Jesus Christ is the fullness and you have been filled in him and if you want to add anything else, it means you need to know Jesus Christ better, not trying to get to something else. If you're not feeling filled, it means that you need more of Jesus not that you need to add other stuff to Jesus. Because that other stuff will instead detract from Christ fullness in you, and it will in fact enslave you. 

So you've been filled in him and let me remind you again, Jesus is not a little thimble full of water. He's not some little teacup. He's more like this massive waterfall that just thunders and thunders and pours and pours inexhaustibly, filling all who trust him. You've been filled in him. And he's the head of all rule and authority. We saw earlier that all things in heaven on earth visible and invisible thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, all were created through him. So he's above all them. That's one reason why you would look to Him and not to them to angels or any other power. And he's also the head of all this rule and authority and we're gonna read in a few minutes or a few Sundays, but it's only a minute away in this in the Bible, that he has disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame. And so you have Christ as the ruler of heaven, as the conqueror of the powers of evil, as the one who is the creator of all of those authorities, as the one who's the head and King of them all. Why would you go for anything less? Why would you try to communicate with angels? Why would you pray to saints? Why would you talk to Saint Anne, Mary's mother. You're not worthy to go to Mary. So you go to St. Anne, her mom. And you're not worthy to go to this saint or that saint. Go straight to the top. Go to the one who's the head of all rule and authority. 

Let's read together the final words of this great passage that we've just read. Let’s read this passage again. it's short, it's wonderful. Let's take to heart these many word pictures that Paul has given us. Therefore, as you 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, who is the head of all rule and authority. 

Let's pray together. We praise the Lord Jesus for who you are, as our salvation our sufficiency, our everything. We ask that you will continue to help us walk in you to be our strength from day to day. We pray, Father that you will, by your Holy Spirit, help us stay true to the faith to the deposit handed on to us, and that we may in turn be faithful in taking that precious gift and carrying it throughout our lives and having it carry us as well and passing it on to other people and our own children and future generations. We pray Father that we may be found faithful not by our own strength, but by Your grace and your spirit constantly working in us. Help us learn not to begin with Christ and then to try to carry on by other means. But every day look again and again to Christ, for our forgiveness for our pardon and also Lord for our strength to live each day. For the life in us that can pour out to others. Help us learn to abound in thanksgiving. Father, we pray that you will help us as a congregation as well as individuals to delight in Christ to be protected from the strategies of the evil one, to not fall prey to human tradition, but instead to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Father, we thank you for this day when we can remember the Reformation that was launched in Luther’s time, for the rediscovery of the full authority of the Bible alone, and for salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, to God's glory alone. We pray, Father that these great truths and the wondrous reality of Christ may continue to bring throughout our hearts and to shine from our lives. 

We pray, Father, that we will have personal lives and family lives and the church life and life with others that is radiant with the reality of Jesus, we pray too Lord for the great mission of the church around the world and we pray that this Good News of freedom in Christ may spread to the ends of the earth. We thank You, Lord, for those whom we support with our gifts and prayers and we ask for your continuing blessing in their lives. And thank you for Brad Ruth Duffer and their family. We pray that as they soon return to Mongolia, you'll prosper them and the work they do there and we pray for the Christians in Mongolia that you'll help them to spread the good news. We thank You, Lord for Jacob Ghosh in leper colony in India as he seeks to bring the reality of love and truth of Jesus to people who are often written off by everybody else and considered untouchable, we pray that you will use him and bless him. 

We asked the Michelsons seeking to reach Muslims in Mali will be empowered by your Spirit to be faithful in bringing the good news they have received and transmitting it to others. Help Eurion and Olga and other African Moldova as they work among students, and as they fellowship with other Christians and seek to build up your church there in the power of the Holy Spirit. And pray Lord for John and Jean Anderson and their family as they work in supporting broadcast ministry and in helping HCJG to spread the Gospel. We pray, Lord for back to God Ministries, and it's a broadcast ministry in many languages and ask that many people even today will hear that good news and be transformed. Pray Lord, for those who are ministers of reconciliation, we pray for peace, fire and Brian de Cook and his work in helping people to know Christ better through conflict and to experience the peace of Christ at work in their lives. Let's prosper Bible Institute and his teaching of prisoners and the precious truths of the gospel that these prisoners too can experience what it is to be rooted in Christ and to be in the process of being built up and constructed in Him and to be overflowing with thanksgiving. Lord bless crossroad and bless the students in prison who are learning through them. 

Father, we pray for Christian leaders Institute and for those who are being taught gospel ministry and the truths of the faith through CLI. We thank You, Lord that as Solomon Meals can be ordained today at Eagle Rock that Jim Martin can join with the people there at Eagle Rock in celebrating Aaron's completion of much of the CLI studies and of his ordination now as a minister of the word. Use him mightily and blessing us others as well. Finally, thank of our country. We thank you for freedom to speak and to express our convictions and beliefs and also for freedom to worship You. We thank you for many opportunities that we have in this country. And we thank you for the opportunity to choose our leaders. Thank you for the opportunity to vote for good leaders to continue and to vote out leaders who have failed in their obligations and we pray that on this Tuesday, we will exercise that power and do it well. We ask for your blessing and guidance on our country for your forgiveness of its many sins. Teach us Lord in difficult times to trust you and not in financial stability or the power of a nation which is bound to fail, but to trust in the unfailing riches of Jesus Christ. Father, we pray for our people in our congregation, for their personal and individual needs as well as for their loved ones, people in our congregation, Lord help Richard Hambly. We pray that you will give him continuing recovery and full healing from the stroke that he endured. Bless Lord, his dear ones in his family and we pray for his loved ones in our own congregation, for Joanna Marino and for Angie Martin as they long for Richard's restoration. We pray that you'll continue the work you're doing in his heart and soul and spirit as well as the healing you accomplish in his body. 

Pray Lord for Jay Lawrence’s Uncle Ralph, as he's in failing health in his senior years and we pray that you will be nearer to him. We pray, Lord, for others who are dear to us who are aging and who are losing some of the physical capacities they once had. And we pray that you'll be near to them. Lord, thank You that Nancy Merrick could worship here last week and that after her fall of several months ago and serious injury and breakage she sustained she could be back on her feet again. We pray that you'll watch over her and watch over the Carlson's too as they love her and we pray that if she's able to make a move to this area that you'll bless that and we pray too Lord for the other seniors who are the parents and grandparents and many in our congregation that you'll be their help and their support. Father help Sam Shelties’ nephew Marty, his wife Erica and their little child We pray Father that you will give Marty faith and living trust in you and assurance of salvation in Jesus Christ and that will also give him relief and healing from the cancer that he's suffering even though he's only 24 years old. Father be near to him and use even these devastating circumstances in his life to help them to build on the foundation of solid rock. 

Bless Hazy Shelty’s cousin Mark too and watch over him and be his help and his healing. Pray father for the various activities of our church. We ask that as people gather on Saturday for the country dance, so that there'll be a lot of fun and fellowship and joy that we can have together as people who know you and love you. We pray for young Christian leaders and those who help coordinate the activities and those who provide guidance and leadership to our young people through that. We pray for the coaches and others who are involved in various sports programs and trying to help young men and young women to rejoice in the bodies that they have, in the team work that they have with other people and the fun they can have as free sons and daughters of God. We pray Father for all the teaching that goes on in homes as the Bible is read as we pray together as parents share, not just this or that step to success, but above all sharing the living Christ who is in them and the love of Christ with your children. 

We pray that you'll bless those too who seek to help and supplement what the parents do. I mean the heights Co Op and the apologetics class, in the Alpha group in homeschoolers in heart to heart and other in other ways too Lord, in all that we do we offer it to you. I mean, we know that everything we do will accomplish nothing apart from the mercy and work of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Now Lord hear these prayers and answer them according to your wisdom and your faithfulness to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.