July 28 & 29, 2007
Sermon Title: "Truly Free"
Colossians 2:6-15
Today, we look at the letter to the Colossians once again. As Peter Ill said two weeks ago, this is a letter to us as well as to its original readers. God sends these words to the Christians at Colossi, to church members. For us, the geography is different, but the message is the same. Through Paul, God tells us He has made us alive in Christ, recounts for us how He did that and then gives us encouragement, warnings and guidance for living the life He gave us. We’re going to look very closely at the text today and see how all of this plays out and how it applies to us today. A focus statement for all of this would be "Christ has made you truly free, don’t go back into captivity."
This section begins with the affirmation You have received life in Christ.
Without Him we were dead in trespasses and sin.
This is the condition of our sinful human nature, spiritually dead and headed for "eternal" death in hell.
We were enslaved by our nature, Paul calls it the flesh, and condemned by the law.
But God cancelled the record of our debts because of the work of Christ.
Jesus’ life and death as our substitute fulfilled the law for us.
The Father raised Him from the dead pronouncing Jesus’ work accepted and us free from the condemnation of the law.
Then God gave you spiritual life in Christ in baptism.
By this miracle of God’s saving grace,
We died with Jesus, leaving our sin on the cross, and
We rose with Him to new life spiritual and eternal.
God made you alive together with and in Christ.
You are now free from the laws demands, free from its condemnation of the flesh.
Don’t give up that life, that freedom by returning to the ways of the flesh.
"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, human traditions or elemental spirits of the world" we are instructed by God.
Though written to the Colossians, this applies to us as well.
In their day, the Colossians were in danger from a heresy that combined Jewish legalism and pagan philosophy.
Today the threats come from a combination of liberal Christian and pagan and from naturalism, atheistic philosophy and universalism.
These things are of this world and not of Christ.
Test such things by God’s Word.
What goes against God’s written Word, the Bible, goes against the Word made Flesh, Jesus.
So test the philosophies of today. If they go against what the Bible says or change it from its plain meaning they are trying to trap you.
And test the teachings of today, not just do they quote the Bible but what are they saying. Is it in keeping with the context and what is its relationship to the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.
That Gospel is simple, it’s straightforward and it is connected to all that the Church teaches. Test everything taught about or with the Bible by how it affects the Gospel.
So what does this mean for us day by day?
You are alive in Christ, so put off the things of the flesh, the things of the human nature.
In Christ, that is in Jesus of Nazareth, God became man and lived among us.
God, who called the world into being by the speaking of His Word, took on human nature and live here to free us from the forces of evil.
He triumphed over sin, death and the devil and gave us the victory.
Now Christ has made us part of His body.
We have life in Him.
He has separated us from the world, cut us free with the spiritual circumcision.
Now freed from them, He promises us life and to provide all we need to remain in Him and He promises to remain in us.
SDG
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