Only Jesus
Colossians 2:1-23
June 23, 2013
As you know we have recently been studying
The person and work of the Holy Spirit.
And I admit that this is somewhat of an “open-ended” study from my end
Because I really don’t know everywhere we will go or how long it will take.
There are, to be sure, many more things we need to understand about the Holy Spirit,
But I must honestly tell you that I’m not sure I even know them all yet.
So, we are just kind of riding this thing together,
And I hope that in your own personal walk and study
You are also seeking and searching out who He is.
• Well SINCE we don’t have a set course we are following
• And SINCE we are also partaking of the Lord’s Supper,
I really had to spend some time seeking
What exactly God would have me to preach to you.
It seemed difficult to me to preach a sermon on the Holy Spirit,
While at the same time preaching on the sacrifice of Jesus.
And I certainly didn’t want to try and force anything just for the sake of saying I did it.
But as I prayed and studied, I was led to a wonderful chapter of the Bible.
And I apologize at the outset here, that since we are going to study the whole chapter,
We are obviously going to leave a lot of truth on the table this morning.
All we are going to be able to do is take a “forest approach” a “wide angle” approach.
It is up to you to come back and start examining the individual trees.
But to help you see where we are going here this morning,
I first want to remind you of the precious truth
We learned about the Holy Spirit last week.
John 16:14-15 “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. “All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”
The last several weeks have been spent looking at
“the fingerprint” of the Holy Spirit.
We call it the fingerprint, because the actions listed in John 16
Are sort of the indicators that the Holy Spirit has been at work.
• He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment
• He guides us into all the truth
• And finally, as we read there, He glorifies Jesus.
And particularly the way He glorifies Jesus
Is by revealing the true Jesus to you.
We saw how even on the night before Jesus died,
The disciples still didn’t have a full understanding of who Jesus was.
When Jesus said He was leaving, but that the disciples knew the way that He was going, Philip interjected…
John 14:8-9 “Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”
Even the disciples, after three years of ministry,
Had difficulty truly recognizing who Jesus was, and because of that,
They also had difficulty truly worshiping Him as He deserved.
• The Holy Spirit would come and truly reveal Jesus, and thus truly glorify Him.
• The Holy Spirit would make sure that you knew that “all things that the Father has” are Jesus’s.
And so our point was that the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus.
If Jesus wasn’t glorified, then the Holy Spirit wasn’t there.
Now hang on to that truth for a moment, and also do me a favor
And remember the previous truth we learned.
And that truth was that the Holy Spirit guides us into the truth.
John 16:12-13 “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”
And hopefully you remember the very important point there.
• The Holy Spirit promised to guide the apostles “into all the truth”
So the apostles would get it all.
• Secondly, when the Holy Spirit speaks “He will not speak on His
own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak;”
The Holy Spirit gave all the Scripture to the disciples,
And now speaks nothing but.
When you want to hear the Holy Spirit speak, get in the word.
He wrote the Scriptures…
And that is what He speaks, He will not speak anything contrary to them.
So at this point we know that the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus,
By teaching us who He really is,
And the way He does that is through the Scripture.
And yet, here is something I want you to realize.
We are seeking to know the Holy Spirit better,
If you want to do that, then read the Scriptures.
You can come to understand much about a man
If you read everything He writes.
Well, so it is with the Holy Spirit.
Do not claim to have a desire to get to know the Holy Spirit
If you aren’t reading the book He wrote.
Read the Scriptures, listen to what He wrote,
As you do, you will get to know who He is.
And so that is where we have come thus far in our study of the Holy Spirit.
Now this morning you will also see that we are taking the Lord’s Supper,
And so it is imperative that we see Jesus.
But by now you should know that the two topics are not in conflict.
We want to see Jesus, and the Holy Spirit wants to show Him to you.
And so this morning, as we study Jesus,
You also get to see how the Holy Spirit glorifies Him.
This morning we study Colossians 2.
This chapter (along with the rest) was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
He wrote it.
2 Peter 1:20-21 “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”
2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;”
The Holy Spirit wrote the Scriptures, that includes Colossians chapter 2,
So this morning sit back and listen to Him lead you to Jesus.
NOW FIRST, A LITTLE CONTEXT
The Holy Spirit is writing this letter
And He is doing so through the Apostle Paul.
• However, Paul had never met the Colossae church.
• In fact, Paul was presently in prison
• But problems had arisen in the Colossian church and their pastor Epaphras went looking for Paul for help.
And here is the problem:
Pirates had come to Colossae.
Not physical pirates, but spiritual ones.
(READ 2:8)
That phrase “takes you captive” comes from the Greek word SULAGOGEO.
It is a compound word used only here in the New Testament,
And because it also never seen in Greek literature,
It may have been a word Paul just made up,
(all good preachers do that…)
SULE = “booty” or “spoils”
AGO = “to carry off”
So the word means “to carry off spoils” or “to kidnap”
Precisely the work of a pirate
And these spiritual pirates had moved into Colossae and were figuratively carrying the Colossians away as spiritual prisoners of war.
They were seeking to lead them away from Christ.
Not much different than what Paul warned the Corinthians about.
2 Corinthians 11:3-4 “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.”
In sort of the same way, these spiritual pirates
Were threatening the faithfulness of the Colossians.
WHY WOULD THE COLOSSIANS LISTEN TO THEM?
Because they were convincing.
In fact, these spiritual pirates had three main and very effective tools.
1) STRICT RELIGION (2:16)
They were very legalistic, and legalism is always enticing.
People who hold to a legalistic outward form are very effective
Using the power of guilt to conform others to their standard.
These men did that.
2) SELF REJECTION (2:18a)
The delighted in “self-abasement”.
Now, initially that is not appealing, but it does wield a certain respect.
If a man will starve himself for his religion, he does get your attention
And cause you to think there might be something to what he believes.
3) SPIRITUAL REVELATION (2:18b)
They actually had “visions”
There were mystical experiences that supported their claims.
So these people came up to you and said they saw a vision
Commanding them not to eat certain food in order to please God,
And when you saw their self-abasement, it made you stop & think.
• Maybe they knew God better than you did…
• Maybe they knew something you didn’t…
• Maybe they saw visions, but you just weren’t that spiritual…
• Maybe you weren’t as real as you thought…
AND THE RESULT OF THESE PIRATES
Was that the Colossians were losing their prize (2:18)
Their prize was their assurance of salvation, their joy in the Lord,
Their emotional peace, and ultimately their gratitude.
These Pirates had turned the eyes of the Colossians off of Jesus
And onto their own self-made religion
And had succeeded in sucking the life right out of the Colossians.
They were just like prisoners of war.
They had come to Christ, they had believed in Jesus,
Now they were made to feel like somehow they were still missing out.
(Mystical religion can make you feel that way can’t it?)
The Colossians felt like they just didn’t have much.
ON THE CONTRARY – THEY HAD EVERYTHING
And the Holy Spirit wasn’t about to tolerate some spiritual hacker
Coming in and disregarding the blessing of knowing Jesus.
So through a man the Colossians had never met,
The Holy Spirit speaks to set the record straight.
So this morning see the Holy Spirit’s passion and the value of Jesus.
Now we are going to break this chapter down into three points
As I told you, we are going to leave a lot of meat on the bone,
But let me give you the overall picture.
There are three main things the Holy Spirit wanted the Colossians (and us) to see.
#1 STAND WITH CHRIST
Colossians 2:1-5
You notice from the beginning there that through Paul
The Holy Spirit mentions a great agony He feels toward the Colossians.
“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf…”
“struggle” translates AGON
From where we get our word for “agony”
• There is a heavy burden…
• There is a deep concern…
• There is a spiritual anguish for the Colossians…
And verse two shows us WHERE this agony is pointed.
(2) “that their hearts may be encouraged”
As I told you these spiritual pirates had swooped in with their mystical religion and their legalism and had succeeded in convincing the Colossians
That they still didn’t have anything.
There was still a level of intimacy with God that they were far from having,
And the result of that was doubt, confusion, even a type of spiritual depression.
But here the Holy Spirit wants them to be “encouraged”
Namely because the result of being encouraged is that
Their hearts will be “knit together in love” and they will attain “all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding.”
See, the reality here is that Paul (or the Holy Spirit)
Wants these Colossians to have full understanding of the truth,
So they can again have assurance and encouragement and unity.
All of those things were in jeopardy.
And you even notice the complete AIM of this journey:
“resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Now if we stop right there,
You see those fingerprints of the Holy Spirit I told you about.
• His desire to guide them into the truth…
• His desire to glorify Jesus…
• In a moment you will see Him expose the sin of the pirates.
This is how the Holy Spirit works.
He wants you to know the truth and ultimately to see Jesus.
WHY?
Because in Jesus “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Everything you need to see can be found in Jesus.
There is nothing more of spiritual value in this life outside of Jesus.
He contains it all.
If you have Jesus, you have everything!
So through Paul, the Holy Spirit is telling the Colossians
Not to be discouraged that somehow they are missing out.
Not so, be encouraged, you have Jesus,
And a true knowledge of Him is the greatest treasure you can have.
NOW LET THAT SINK IN FOR A MOMENT
• Are you in Christ?
• Is Christ in you?
• Do you have a relationship with Jesus?
If you do, then you have everything you could possibly need or want.
He is all sufficient.
• You don’t have to await another “filling”…
• You don’t have to seek some deep experience…
• There is no need for a new revelation…
John 1:16-18 “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”
You have Jesus and it doesn’t get any better than Him!
That is how the Holy Spirit starts this chapter with the Colossians.
NOW TO THE REASON BEHIND THOSE FIRST THREE VERSES.
(4) “I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument.”
In other words, I want you to know that,
Because I don’t want someone to deceive you by some sort of fancy talk
And convince you that there is more out there than Jesus.
And here is the goal:
(5) “For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ.”
It is the Holy Spirit moving Paul to have this burden for the Colossians,
And the ultimate goal is that they would maintain “good discipline”
And that their “faith in Christ” would be stable.
Stay with Jesus.
Friends, that is exactly the message of the Holy Spirit.
He moved Paul to write this letter, because He is passionate about Jesus
And wants us to stay with Him.
So first, Stand with Christ
#2 SEE THE TRUTH
Colossians 2:6-15
We start off here with a “Therefore”
Since Christ is enough and I want you to stand with Him:
“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him”
In other words, “Change nothing!”
• You received Jesus…
• You decided to follow Jesus…
• Don’t get shaken from that, keep doing it…
Keep walking with the Jesus you know and love!
(7) “having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.”
Notice the verb tenses there.
• You were “firmly rooted”
• You are now being “built up”
• You were “instructed”
• You should be “overflowing with gratitude”
When you came to Christ He firmly rooted you in Him,
And He is presently working in you.
You were taught that from the beginning,
So remember it and instead of feeling like you are somehow missing out,
Return to being grateful.
• Remember when you were first saved?
• Remember when you realized that Jesus had forgiven your sin?
Do you remember how grateful you were then?
Well, so were the Colossians.
The only problem is now someone has come and made them discontent and they have lost their gratitude.
The Holy Spirit wants them to get it back.
Run back to the Jesus you know and love,
See what He is doing in your life, and be grateful once again for Him.
That is the positive side.
Here is the negative side:
(8) “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”
There is that pirate phrase.
And notice that the Holy Spirit is passionate that they not be duped!
“See to it!”
Don’t let anyone kidnap you.
They will use:
“philosophy” which is “empty deception”
A philosopher is one who tells us things we already know
In words we don’t understand.
And philosophy is empty. It started with the assumptions of a man, and was built upon by other men’s assumptions, but philosophy is not rooted in truth.
It is rooted in “tradition” it is “according to the elementary principles of the world” but it did not come from Christ.
The world invented philosophy
As a means of explaining things it did not understand.
Only Christ has the truth, and the reasoning of humanity is useless.
1 Corinthians 3:19-20 “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS”; and again, “THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.”
The Holy Spirit guides you into the truth, and He is passionate that you not be carried away by some empty philosophical teaching.
Don’t let their reasoning pull you away from Jesus.
WHY?
Why is it so important you stick to Jesus?
(9-10) “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;”
• You have to stick to Jesus, because only Jesus is fully God.
• Only Jesus makes you complete.
• Only Jesus stands at the top of all authority and wisdom.
The point is, you have to stick with Jesus,
Because when you come to Jesus you have reached the pinnacle.
Finding Him is like standing at the peak of Mt. Everest,
There is nowhere to go but down.
When you find Him, you’ve found God
And He then imparts His nature to you, making you complete as well.
JESUS GOT IT ALL
JESUS GIVES IT ALL
When you have Jesus you aren’t missing anything.
So don’t let anyone make you dissatisfied with Jesus.
But real quickly let me show you what you have in Jesus,
And why you don’t have to go anywhere else.
1) COMPLETE SALVATION (11-12)
(11-12) “and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”
Jewish circumcision was done to remove the flesh
From the most carnal male organ.
But when Christ came, He circumcised you spiritually.
He circumcised your heart.
When you died with Him, and then were raised in newness of life,
He worked a deeper change in you than you could work on yourselves.
His salvation worked, it was complete.
2) COMPLETE FORGIVENESS (13-14)
(13-14) “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
• He forgave us “all our transgressions”
• He cancelled those “decrees against us”
• He “nailed it to the cross”
When Christ died, He took our sin and paid its penalty in full.
And so now the Law is powerless to condemn us.
The Law can speak of sin all day, but we all of our sin is forgiven.
The Law is still there, but it can’t touch us.
We are completely forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus.
3) COMPLETE VICTORY (15)
(15) “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”
And that assures us that no one will ever undo what Jesus did.
• He not only defeated the enemy, He “disarmed” Him.
• He then humiliated Him and thoroughly “triumphed” over them.
In short, Jesus totally saved because He totally forgave,
And it will never be undone.
And that is why the Holy Spirit is so adamant
That the Colossians stick with Jesus.
Someone has told them that there is still more to get.
Someone told them there is still more receive.
And that infuriates the Holy Spirit
Because He knows that Jesus is more than enough.
• And I think that thoroughly answers all those questions about these “secondary fillings” people are always talking about today.
• You know, where you can be saved, be forgiven, have a relationship with Jesus, and there is this group that talks about this “secondary filling” of the Holy Spirit.
• They call it being “baptized with the Holy Spirit” as though all believers didn’t get everything when they got Jesus.
They would claim when you got Jesus, you only got part of it,
Now you need to go back and get the rest
(which obviously they have and you don’t)
That teaching does two things:
• It makes you dissatisfied with the Jesus you already have
• It glorifies them as possessors of something you don’t have
The Holy Spirit wants you to know that when you got Jesus,
You got it all!
So Stand with Christ
See the Truth
And one more thing
#3 SPURN THEIR RELIGION
Colossians 2:16-23
There is that “Therefore” again.
And this time it is simple:
“Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day”
That was those legalists, always trying to make you feel like you may have Jesus, but if you didn’t keep all their rules you still weren’t pleasing to God.
That is a lie
Furthermore if you aren’t pleasing to God,
How do you expect those things to help you?
Those things according to verse 17 “are a mere shadow of what is to come”
That is all just temporary, Christ is what they were pointing to.
If you found Jesus, you found what they were pointing to.
(18) “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize”
These people love their visions, and they love their self-abasement,
And they love their legalism.
And they use all that to make you feel inferior
And suck the life out of your relationship with Jesus.
And the Holy Spirit says, “Don’t let them”
(20-22) “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use) — in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?”
In other words if Christ has saved you, what good is all that extra stuff going to do?
And then comes the summation.
(23) “These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
In other words, all that extra junk may look good,
But it is absolutely pointless and worthless.
THE POINT?
• If you’ve got Jesus, you’ve got it all.
• You don’t need anything else.
• And don’t let someone tell you that there is more out there.
The Message of the Holy Spirit to these Colossian believers
Is simple: ONLY JESUS
And based on what we studied in John 16, that sounds just like the Holy Spirit doesn’t it?
That is the Holy Spirit.
He wants you to see that it is Jesus and Only Jesus.
And friend that is how we come to the Lord’s Supper.
We come just as the Holy Spirit intended.
We look at this cracker and remember His body.
We look at this juice and remember His blood.
And we remember that we need nothing more, He is all sufficient.
• He brought a perfect salvation
• He brought complete forgiveness
• He brought total victory
Now I’m going to pray and we will have a time of preparation.
It is a time to prepare our heart and to make sure we come in a worthy manner.
And then we will partake of the table of the Lord
And remember that what Jesus did on the cross
Is all that we will ever need.
Pray
LORD’S SUPPER
• Deacons come and fold blanket
Colossians 1:15-18
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.”
• Give Bread to Deacons
• Deacon Prayer
• Deacons pass out bread
1 Corinthians 11:23-24
“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
• Take Bread
Colossians 1:19-22
“For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach”
• Give Juice to Deacons
• Deacon Prayer
• Deacons pass out juice
1 Corinthians 11:25
“In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
• Take Juice
• Deacon Prayer
• Closing Hymn
