Christ is Number One – So Live Like It! Colossians 2:6-15
Two Sunday’s ago, I preached a sermon from Colossians 1 entitled, “Five Wonderful Truths About Christian Living.”
Those five wonderful truths are:
• We have been called to a holy calling.
• We have been called to walk a faithful walk.
• God has made us a family.
• As long as we remain in Christ we win!
• Our mission begins at home!
In Colossians 1, the Apostle Paul makes it clear to the Church that Jesus Christ is Lord!
• He also makes it very clear that it’s not enough to receive Him as our Savior, but we also must walk daily with Him, obeying Him as Lord.
• My Bible has notes in it about each book of the Bible: In Colossians it has the question: What’s the point of Colossians? Christ is Number One – so live like it.
• Our passage from Colossians 2:6-15 continues that teaching – so let’s look at it this morning.
I). I love those first two verses: (read vv. 6-7)
A). I really believe that the very first line is an import one for us to consider: “And now, just as you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord…”
• I think we need to stop right here and take a close look at ourselves.
• Many of us – when we were saved – accepted Christ as our Savior…but now many of us this morning has gone on to accept Him as our Lord?
B). There’s a big difference:
• A Savior is a person who saves someone else from danger! And we can all agree that that is exactly what Jesus has done – He has saved us from danger – He has delivered us from death and an eternity in Hell – and that’s why many of us got ‘saved’ to begin with – because we realized the danger we were in!
• A Lord is someone who has power and authority over you; he is your master & ruler. You submit to Him and obey Him in every aspect of your life.
• So, Jesus as Savior is what He has done FOR you – Jesus as Lord is who He is TO you. So which Jesus is He??? We have to get by this very first part to continue on with what Paul is teaching us here.
C). Now we can go on: If we accept Jesus as Lord here’s what we do:
• We must continue to follow Him – to walk with Him and obey Him
• We need to let our roots grow down into Him, and let our lives be built on Him.
• Results: A strong faith and an overflowing thankfulness to God.
II). Now let’s look at the warning of verse 8 (read)
A). I love the use of the word ‘capture’ here.
• When we accepted Christ as Savior & Lord, we were set free from several things: The bondage of sin, the sting of death and the clutches of Hell.
• Now, the Bible warns us of the dangers of being “Captured” again.
B). This potential capturing comes from two different sources:
• “Empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking” and “the spiritual powers of this world.”
III). So, what is philosophy?
A). Philosophy is the “study of wisdom”
• On a more practical note: it is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.
• Such questions include:
o Is it possible to know anything and to prove it?
o What is most real?
o Is there a best way to live?
o Is it better to be just or unjust (if you can get away with it)?
o Do humans have free will?
B). So, what’s the problem with philosophy?
• The problems is – where do we get our philosophies from?
• Where are we looking to find the answers to those questions?
• There’s nothing wrong with studying wisdom – but whose wisdom are we studying???
• Look at the Scripture again: we get captured by sin and this world again, when we seek after the “empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking.”
C). We don’t need the world’s philosophies – we don’t need man’s philosophies!
• We have a better philosophy – we have a better wisdom.
• We have the wisdom that comes from God Himself! What more could we possibly need???
D). Have you ever considered the way the Bible is written: Do you know its’ divisions? Not the Old and New Testament divisions, but the division of the entire Bible itself?
• There are seven divisions of the Bible:
o The Law of God (Pentateuch)
o The Books of the History of the Jews
o The Books of Wisdom
o The Prophets
o The Gospels
o The History & Teachings of the Church
o The Revelation of Jesus
• All of these contain what we need to know about life and living ~ about philosophy
• And there is not one question that showed you before that cannot be answered by the Bible – it is the Word of God.
• So again, all man’s philosophies will do is capture us back into the bondages of sin.
IV). Now let’s look at the other part of this verse: We are warned against being captured by the “empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking” and “the spiritual powers of this world.”
A). Folks we had better remember who the ruler of this world is: Yes, God is on the throne – but he is not on the throne of this world…at least not yet!
• In John 14 Jesus is teaching His disciples, and He says something very troubling to them in verse 30: ““I don’t have much more time to talk to you, because the ruler of this world approaches.”
• He’s not taking here about Pontius Pilate – or King Herod – or the Scribes or the Pharisees – He is talking about SATAN.
B). But how did Satan become the ruler of this world?
• God created the world. At that time, the world was in God’s dominion.
• After He made man, He gave dominion to Man (Gen 1:26-28), Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground. So, God created human beings[c] in his own image. In the image of God, he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
• Look! It doesn’t say that He shared rulership with man but gave it to him. When He gave it to man, it belonged to man and not to God anymore.
C). The problem is that there were still spiritual laws that man had to live by…the most important was that of obedience to God.
• Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that grew in the Garden of Eden. But then Satan came along and convinced them that God was a liar. They both ate of the fruit – and became disobedient to God and listened to the philosophy of the Devil (remember those ‘spiritual powers of this world’ that our Scripture warns us about.
D). When they obeyed sin, then they became a slave to sin!
• When you become a slave to someone – what happened to the things that you own? They become property to the master.
• Not only do you belong to your master – but everything you own belongs to your master…what did Adam and Eve own? The world!
• Now Satan is the ruler of this earth! (again, at least for now).
E). When you accept Christ as your Savior and Lord, you become His property.
• He paid for you with the price of His own blood on the cross.
• Now, the Bible warns us – don’t be captured again by the spiritual power of this world.
Let’s skip down to the end of our Scripture this morning (vv. 13-15).
You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
• We have all sinned – because of our disobedience to the Word of God.
• Christ came and died to set us free from the debt of sin we owed.
• He forgave our sins and canceled the charges against us.
• Look! He has also disarmed the spiritual rules and authorities – they have no power over us. (Here I used the movie “Labyrinth” where the girl tells the Goblin King – after he has thrown obstacle after obstacle in her way, while she is trying to rescue her brother, “You have no power over me.” At that point the labyrinth shatters and her brother is saved.)
• So – JESUS CHRIST is to be #1 in our lives – church! Let’s live like it!
