Just Jesus: Colossians 2.11-23 (ESV)

 

Thanksgiving is on our minds this week.  I want us to pause and think about our hearts and our souls.  I want you to take good care of yourself and I’m not just talking about the pandemic.  I want you to let God be your Shepherd and take care of your soul. 

400 years ago, in 1610,  a group of people left Plymouth, England and boarded a ship called the Mayflower and headed to what we now call the Unites States.  These people were religious separatists.  They were tired of the rules of worship and they had an ideal in their hearts that people should be free to worship as they feel led.  We still have that same spirit in us today.  There’s a sense of this spirit in Colossians chapter 2.  We have a tendency to squelch faith and worship and this can be done by people who sometimes don’t even know what they’re doing.  One of our Baptist distinctives goes all the way back to colonial days.  It’s called, “soul competency.”  It means we are completely capable to walk with God and to determine how we walk with God.  Paul will encourage these believers to take care of themselves, not just for the future but because of what they’re going through in the present; this is open ended.  Maybe what they were going through is similar to what we’re going through?  It’s good for our souls to be reminded of God’s power.

See God’s power in you.

Paul’s words can be difficult to wade through sometimes.  You don’t just read Paul’s words once and feel like you have it.  It’s not that easy.  I want to encourage us to go back through this passage ad read it again.

                        ¹²having 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.

Paul immediately identifies us with Jesus when he says, “with him.”  Being identified with Jesus is a major theme in Colossians.  Jesus is the core and basis of our faith.  Paul identifies with the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Think about this connection.  You are with Christ; you’re with Him when His body was in the tomb.   Let’s think about what happens at a graveside service.  There’s a finality when we walk away.  It’s hard.  There’s a dark sense of reality of where we’re all headed.  We are buried with Jesus.  There’s a finality to what Jesus did on the cross.  There’s a note of victory.  The person we were before Christ is buried. The person we were no longer exists.  You are also raised with Him!   This takes us to Easter and the empty tomb.  Our old life is buried and we have new hope.  We have new life in Easter.  We share in the resurrection.  The same power that resurrected Jesus now propels us in this new life.  It’s like putting a new set of batteries in a toy at Christmas!  It’s so easy for us to identify our sin as connected to Christ but it’s easy to forget the power of Christ present in us.  God is resurrecting you.  We don’t see this all the time; we only see our failures.  God is producing fruit on our lives.  There’s a tension of the already but not yet.  God is having an impact on this world through your life right now.   It’s like we can smell the pie cooking in the oven.  The house smells good.  We’re salivating.    We know it’s there but we are not there yet.  Dark times happen in our lives but it’s not the end. 

Release your past.

There’s a legal record of our past. 

            ¹⁴by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

This is a legal term to refer to the debt we owe, the offenses we have committed against God.  There’s a legal record of our sins against God.  It’s a formal accounting of charges against us.  For example, kids, if you’re playing ball in the house and you kick the ball and break mom’s lamp while you’re brother and sister are watching your brother and sister have a legal account of what you just did.  They become lawyers so they do not get into trouble!  This is what Satan does to us.  All of us have a record and Satan reminds us that we are not the people God has called us to be.  The last part of verse 14 says, “set aside.”  The evidence against us is removed.  It’s still there but it’s no longer held against us; we are forgiven.  God is just and holy so we wonder how God can justify removing our sin.  In verse 14, “nailing it to the cross,” is grace.  Grace is not free.  Grace is the most expensive thing.  Jesus taking our sin and nailing it to the cross is grace.  Jesus takes our record and nails it to the cross.  I’m reminded of a hymn that says, “It is well with my soul, my sin not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.”  We have to release it as well.  The record is there but power of the cross covers it. 

Stop collecting labels.

            ¹⁶Therefore let no one pass judgment on you…

People do pass judgment on us.  We live in a world of should and should nots.  We pass judgment on others as well.    When we say, “should” we are passing judgment on someone.  Moms can do this because they’re teaching us.  We are talking about different space in our lives here.  We’re talking about people who have no authority over us saying “should” or “should not.”  We should be careful about what we place on other people.  The One who nailed our offenses to the cross can tell us “should” or “should not.”  If Jesus said we should not do something we should follow.  Lots of people have their lists of should and should nots and the Colossians were getting confused.  Paul says to not let anyone pass judgment on you.  Jesus says what you should and should not do.  “Who are you to tell another man’s servant what to do?”  We belong to Christ.  We have a huge load on us.  We are the ones who put the most should and should nots upon ourselves.  Not all of these are bad but we put things on ourselves that we’re not even supposed to carry.  There’s a lot of should and should nots in our lives.  Some of us are really stressed out about these.  A good question to ask ourselves is if Jesus asked us to do it.  We keep putting unnecessary pressure on ourselves.  What does Jesus want you to do?  Our old life is buried with Him and Paul says we should stop allowing others to pass judgment on us.  Jesus didn’t say for us to stop people from judging us.  We know people will judge us for the rest of our lives.  People can say anything they want. 

Keep growing.

What happens if you stop watering a plant?  Come to my house and you’ll see!  There’s no plants in my house because they all died because I forgot to water them. 

                        ¹⁹and 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.

When we fail to be connected to Jesus we stop growing.  We are no longer excited about worship.  We’re not thinking, “We get to do this!”  We grow as we connect together.  This is an important distinction we need to hear.  The whole body is nourished.  What’s the whole body?  The church!  The church is the whole body.  Because of our western mindset of individualism it’s important to understand that parts of our growth can only happen when we’re with the body.  We grow as a body.  Some faith elements can only happen when we are together.  It’s like team sports or a marching band.  Everyone needs to do their part.  In a group one individual effort doesn’t matter.  We have to bring other people along.  Here in the USA we believe we can be a Christian all by ourselves.  This is not true.  If you’re not a part of building up other believers you’re not obeying Christ.  We need other believers.  We cannot use our gifts if we are not connected.  For example some are gearing up for a Thanksgiving parade that won’t have crowds this year.  There will be lots of giant balloons.  These balloons are a team effort.  Imagine if half the group does their own thing!  It’s fun to do things together.  What Satan does is try to pic us off.  He puts us in conflict.  We have to learn to shut out the noise and stop listening to those who are not walking with Jesus.  Look to the body of Christ.

Live in grace.

                        ²³These 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.

Following Jesus is not about a list of rules.  Here’s a passage we need to spend time on.  If you do these things you will grow.  Trying to do the right things just won’t work.  Jesus ran into the Pharisees who had a long list of rules to make you godlier.  Jesus calls us to follow Him.  Following Jesus isn’t about manmade rules.  Sometimes we follow a rule because it makes us feel good.  For example, we can go all day without eating a brownie and at the end of the day we can say we did good today because we said no to a brownie.  Or, we can eat a brownie and feel bad about it.  Who came up with that rule? We did!  This isn’t about what God calls us to do.  Just follow Jesus.  Live in grace.  Your sin is nailed to the cross.  You are alive in Christ. 

Sermon Notes are taken, transcribed and posted by Jeni Martin Johnson.  Sermon by Dr. Scotty Carpenter.