Sermon Transcript
And we’re looking at Colossians chapter 2. If you didn’t bring a Bible, you’ll find the scripture that we’re going to look at in the message note sheet that’s found there in your bulletin. So follow along in that or pull out your phone or whatever you’d like to use. We’re talking about preventive thinking this morning in this proactive series. So much better to help people before they fall into a trap.
Or whatever, a bad situation or harm’s way or something. And taking a proactive approach or preventive thinking approach can help us prevent error or falling into error. When Bernice and I a couple years ago wrote this book, Just One More Thing, Just One More Thing Before You Leave Home, we had in mind preventive thinking. Our thought was, you know, we want to put something into the hands of students and parents in those last couple years before they leave home so that they don’t walk away from their faith. It was something that we had focused on with our children.
You probably know that we have 3 children. They’re all grown now. They all are married. They’re all still walking with the Lord. Their families are connected to the Lord.
And so we’re really grateful for what’s happened in their life. But before they left home, we felt we needed to just get some final focus on that. And so we had conversations and discussions for that last year or 2 that they were at home about matters that we knew they were going to face once they left home and they got onto a campus or wherever it was they were going. We’re having some fun right now in the college ministry actually looking through some of these studies, but it’s all based around this whole preventive thinking idea. When we were getting this book finalized, we asked parents here at the church to actually help us with their thoughts about this, and so we had a group of people twice before the book was published, giving us some input.
And one of the pieces of advice we received from one particular parent was to add an additional chapter. We already had 29 chapters. It’s an interesting approach, just one more thing, but 29 chapters that, you know, you need to know. But anyway, so this person said, why don’t you add one more if you think it would be okay? And we agreed that it would be.
The chapter that was suggested would be on safety. And so we’ve added the chapter Safety Matters, Better Safe Than Sorry. Probably you agree with that. If you were watching the news this week, the television news, at one point there was a report of a couple who was driving over on Highway 1 near Half Moon Bay, and there was a car that came up behind them and started tailgating them. This couple decided that perhaps they needed— what they needed to do is just to pull over.
So they pulled over expecting that this couple would pass them, or these people behind them would pass them. They passed them just only enough to get right in front of them and to cut them off and parked right in front of their car so they could not escape. And 2 people jumped out of this car with masks on and gun drawn and a knife drawn as well and robbed this couple. The news report talked about, you know, what had happened, but then they went on to talk to an authority, a police officer, and said, what kind of advice would you give people when something like this is happening behind you? And they said, well, you know, the best is just don’t pull over.
They interviewed another person who said, every time somebody pulls up behind me like that and they appear to be a police officer or something like that, and in this case, it was a black car that looked like a detective car that was tailgating them. And this person said, so when that has happened to me, I’ve just taken the phone and called 911 and asked, is there a police officer tailing me right now? You know, should I be pulling over or what should I do? Preventive advice. We welcome that advice.
We need that advice in the world that we’re living in because it’s not a safe world. You are very aware of receiving this kind of advice, as I am, because we’ve gotten it from our parents from early on when our parents told us, you know, when you are crossing the street, before you cross the street, look what? Both ways. Yeah, see, your parents said the same thing to you that they said to me. It’s interesting, in our area, I can’t really comprehend how some people will just walk across the street without looking both ways.
Have you noticed this? People taking their life into the hands of the person who’s maybe driving or something. It just makes absolutely no sense to me. Maybe they never received that kind of preventive advice. I’m not sure.
Advice like, don’t get into a car with a stranger, eat your vegetables. So there’s all kinds of advice that we’ve received. This morning in the passage we’re looking at, there’s some preventive advice given here for Christ followers, these Christ followers who are living in Colossae. And what the Apostle Paul wants to do is he wants to help them continue in living toward this abundant life. Jesus said, I’ve come that you might have life, have it abundantly.
So the advice that is found here is advice that impacts an abundant life, the abundant life that Christ promised. So let’s look at it because it’s applicable to us just like it was applicable to them. We need this kind of advice, and I think you’re going to find this can be very helpful. Colossians chapter 2, it begins in verse 8 where it says, see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. Now, this is written to a group of, you know, Christians, as I said, new believers in Jesus Christ in Colossae.
But this could very well be written to you if you’re a student who are in an environment where you maybe are a part of a class on philosophy or just hearing philosophy in classes or reading books or whatever it might be. There’s always the potential of being taken captive, taken captive and drug away from Jesus Christ. So if I could picture this for you, I put together a chart that helped me understand what verse 8 is teaching. Essentially what we have is the possibility of human tradition and human teachings removing people or pulling people away from Christ. In this particular situation, he says human tradition.
There would be a lot of human traditions that the people at Colossae would be potentially influenced by. For instance, one of the human traditions at that time was that a woman was a second-class citizen. A woman was not equal to man. That was a tradition that was a part of their culture, even to the degree that Men would not talk to women in public. That was not permitted.
So there were these relational traditions. There was a relational tradition that a sinner or a tax collector was somebody to be avoided. Of course, Jesus comes along and he gives a whole different perspective on the status of a woman and the status of sinners and the relationships that we should share and all of that. So there’s this human tradition, but there’s also this human teaching, and that’s caught in these the words that are found in verse 8 where it says the basic principles of this world. The basic principles of this world is humanistic teaching.
It’s what the world teaches. And these basic principles would give rise to a philosophy of how to live, things to do, things to not do. At that time, human traditions and human teaching led to Pharisaic kind of commands. We talk about being PC. They had PC back then.
They had Pharisaic commands of things that they would or they would not do based upon human traditions and based upon human teachings. So you’ve got this human teachings, you’ve got human traditions that can entice or entrap you into philosophy. What’s philosophy? Philosophy literally is the love of wisdom. So it can trap you into a humanistic approach to life, and ultimately it can take you captive.
Now, Paul wants to prevent that from happening. He wants to prevent these people from being taken captive by other people’s human traditions or other people’s teaching that builds a philosophical system that ultimately takes them captive. Can that still happen today? Well, you guys absolutely know it does happen today. It happens in universities.
It happens in homes. It happens through books. There was a book that came out actually 10 years ago, but it’s still around now. It’s a self-help book titled The Secret. The Secret.
The Secret has sold 20 million copies. It’s now been translated into 50 different languages. This book has been so successful, they added 3 other books since then called The Power, The Magic, and The Hero. The whole thing got started as a 2-month odyssey where Rhonda Byrne did a lot of research and investigation, traced what she called the secret back thousands of years, incorporating almost every religion and every field of endeavor found in history. And the outcome was what she calls the secret.
She says that the secret contains modern-day teaching for men and women that can help you with your health and wealth and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, she says, people have eradicated disease, acquired massive wealth, they’ve overcome obstacles, they’ve achieved many things that others would consider as impossible. And it’s all connected to what in the book is described as the law of attraction. Have you heard of the law of attraction? The Secret says that our minds are like magnets and they attract whatever we think about, whether it’s good or bad, it attracts that.
If bad things are happening to you, The Secret says, it’s because you’re a person that’s filled with negative thoughts. And since it’s a law, that’s what’s going to come— negative thoughts, negative things. It always, they say, works that way. By changing your thoughts to positive thoughts, you can have what your hearts desire. The book says you have the power to speak, feel, and think things into existence.
So Rhonda Byrne says, you are— now I’m going to quote— you are God in a physical body. You are power. You are all wisdom. You are all intelligence. You are perfection.
You are magnificence. You are the creator, and you are creating the creation of you on this planet. The Secret goes on to say, so in application, so many different ways they apply this. If you’re in debt and you keep getting bills in the mail, don’t bother trying to figure out how to pay the bills. Just start imagining that you get checks in the mail and you’re instead, you’re going to find that soon your bills will magically be replaced with checks.
The Secret teaches that Victims of suffering and tragedy attracted those circumstances to their lives. Did you hear that? The victims of suffering and tragedy attracted those circumstances to their lives. So co-author Joe Vitale was on an interview show, a talk show. He was asked about Jessica Lunsford.
Now, I don’t know if you remember this, but this was some years ago. This was a 9-year-old girl, Florida girl, who 10 years ago was brutally raped and murdered.
And this co-author was asked about this rape and murder, was asked basically the question, she— did she bring this rape and did she bring this murder on herself? And this co-author to The Secret said, we are attracting everything to ourselves and there is no exception.
Which is to say, yes, she brought it on herself. Now that’s the kind of thinking and tradition and teaching that can capture people in our day. And there were other matters that captured people and potentially could capture people in Paul’s day. And so Paul says, in light of that possibility, and the possibilities are endless of pulling us away from Christ, Paul says, Verses 9 and 10, for in Christ all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. What he’s doing here is he wants to contrast captive thinking with what we’ll call preventive thinking.
And this captive thinking that the people potentially could have fallen into at that point in time was a Gnostic thinking that said Christ isn’t God. So as we’ve sung this morning about how Christ is enough for me, there was a thinking of the day that was built upon human tradition and human teaching that was enticing people. This philosophy was enticing people. This hollow, empty philosophy was enticing people, and it was capturing them, and it was then pulling them away from Jesus Christ. And Paul comes along and says, listen, Christ is God.
He is the fullness of God. He is God in the body, God incarnate. He is 100% God. He is 100% man. He is superior to anyone.
Jesus is superior to anything. He is preeminent over everyone and everything. You notice the word head here. He is above and beyond superior to every power and every authority. Now you say, Well, why does that even matter?
Why does that matter? Because our thinking about Christ will impact the life that we live. And essentially what Paul’s trying to say here is this: fullness of life is found in the fullness of Christ. And if you want to experience a full life, a full life isn’t found in somebody else and what they think and what they teach. The fullness of life is found in Jesus Christ.
If you go to somebody else for your philosophy of living, you’re taking a step down. You’re taking steps down because ultimately life is found in Jesus Christ. And he wants them to understand that and not lose sight of that. The unfortunate thing is that a person can begin to follow Jesus Christ and somewhere along the way, Somebody else or something else replaces Christ. I’ve seen this over and over in student ministries and youth ministries where kids or students make a decision to follow Jesus and he’s going to be the one that they find life in.
But then somebody else comes along who offers them life, who offers them a relationship, and they trade the relationship with Jesus for a relationship with this other person. And it’s not just students who do that kind of thing. Adults do this as well. Sometimes it happens in compromising relationships. It’s Valentine’s Day, and I hope that you’re celebrating a special relationship with somebody.
And if you’re not, I hope that you can encourage somebody else who’s sharing a special love relationship. But unfortunately, we live in a time where people will compromise their relationship with Jesus Christ by a person that has given them something that they’ve always wanted. The fact of the matter is, is that what we always wanted and what we’ve always needed is only found in Jesus Christ. And anything that replaces Christ replaces the fullness that you find in him. He goes on and then he says, in him, speaking of Christ, you were also circumcised in putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men, but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through your faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. Now Paul then goes on and talks about the possibility of being taken captive by a human tradition or human teaching connected to a ritual. And the ritual here is what? Do you see it? It’s the ritual of circumcision.
See, there was a place in the Old Testament scriptures or the ceremonial law for God’s people to be circumcised. But since Jesus has come, that’s been replaced by Jesus’ work on the cross. The ceremonial law has been replaced by the work of Christ on the cross. But these people who have come out of these rituals still have the potential to continue with the rituals or to fall back into the ritual. Why, why would they do that?
Well, because that was their teaching. They believed— just talk about circumcision for a minute— they believed that circumcision saved a person. The Midrash, one of the Jewish documents, says God swore to Abraham that no one who was circumcised should be sent to hell.
Rabbi Menachem said this, our rabbis have said that no circumcised men will see hell. So if you just get circumcised, you’re going to be on the way to heaven. Now you say, really? Did they believe that kind of stuff? This was such an ingrained belief for the Jewish people that after Paul’s first missionary journey, where all of these Gentiles were coming to faith in Christ, They had to hold a council at Jerusalem to discuss this one major issue.
Because if you look at Acts 15:1, there were some people who heard about all these Gentiles that had come to faith in Jesus Christ. And we’re told in Acts 15:1, some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved. There it is. They believed that the ritual of circumcision would save a person for all eternity. And hearing that that ritual was not continuing to be taught through Paul’s preaching, they objected.
They came down and thought, you know, wrong of it. They had this major debate the verse goes on to talk about. And ultimately what happens is they hold a council. You’ve probably heard throughout church history or history of different councils, the council at, you know, Nicaea or whatever. But all of these different councils was— this was the first church council, Acts chapter 15.
And the issue was whether or not a person has to be circumcised in order to be saved. They had all these people present papers, I don’t know, but they spoke on the subject. Peter got up and spoke in verse 11 and it says, no, We believe it’s through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we’re saved, just as they are, speaking about the Gentiles. We were saved not by circumcision, Peter’s saying. We’re saved the same way the Gentiles are being saved right now, and it’s not by circumcision, it’s by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s Christ who saves us. Well, Paul then, knowing that, begins to obviously pass that information along, and here to the church at Colossae, he says to them, listen, In Him, Christ, you are also circumcised. And you say, wait a minute, I thought that he was not teaching circumcision saves. Well, read the rest of the verse. In Him you are also circumcised in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with the circumcision done by the hands of men, but with the circumcision done by Christ.
He’s not talking about the circumcision that they were talking about, which was a circumcision of man. He’s talking about a soul circumcision. He’s talking about a circumcision that’s done by the Great Physician, Jesus Christ, a circumcision that’s done on a person’s heart. And when a person finds new life in Jesus Christ, Christ circumcises their heart and he baptizes them in the Holy Spirit, and their sins are washed away and they are forgiven. Their old life passes and they are given a brand new life.
Now, who does that? Is that the work of man? No, it’s the work of Christ. And so he says, having been buried with him in Christ in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You see, this is the result of Christ’s work.
It’s an internal work. This isn’t an external work he’s talking about. So he’s not going to— he’s not talking here about a water baptism. He’s talking about an internal baptism. He’s talking about an internal work of circumcision and an internal work of baptism.
It’s the internal work of God that saves. It’s not a ritual. It’s the internal work of God that saves. He goes on and simply says this in verse 13, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. You know why this is such a big deal?
It’s because rituals can capture people in their human thinking and human tradition and lead them to believe something that’s not true. That if I keep this human tradition or I keep this human ritual, then I’m okay. God and I are okay. Now today, it’s not the matter of circumcision. That people are looking to as a ritual.
Thank God, you know, that one’s not the issue anymore. But today the issue is baptism. A verse like this is taken to mean something that it’s not intended to mean, so that now baptism becomes an act that a person performs, and by their work of baptism, they’re saved. And we have whole religions and whole churches that teach this to people. In other words, there are human traditions and human teachings that become a philosophical system that capture people in that system so that now they believe this ritual will save them.
So for instance, Roman Catholicism teaches that baptism is a sacrament of faith without which no man is ever justified. Some of you come out of Roman Catholicism. Some of you have Catholicism as a part of your background. Now, I’m not saying that everybody who’s a Catholic actually believes this belief, but I am saying this: this is the teaching of the church. And the teaching of the church very simply is that if you’re not baptized by the church, you’re not saved.
You’re not going to heaven. Mormonism teaches the same thing. Mormonism teaches that Jesus said, verily, verily, I say unto you, though they who believe not on your words, and are not baptized in water in my name, Jesus’ name, for the remission of their sins, that they may receive the Holy Ghost. So the teaching here is that when you get baptized, you receive the Holy Ghost. Shall be damned, and they shall not come into my Father’s kingdom where my Father and I am.
Mormonism teaches that a person must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ into the moment that they’re baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, they will be saved. If they are not baptized in the church, they’re not going to be saved. They’re going to be damned.
Seventh-day Adventism teaches this. Is it necessary— Adventism teaches this, or asks the question, is it necessary for a person to be baptized to be saved? Answer, yes, indeed. Now, that’s just a sampling of of religions or churches or dogmas that people are holding on to. The Church of Christ, much of the Church of Christ believes the same thing.
Same, some Lutherans, some Episcopalians, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Apostolic Church, Russian and Greek Orthodox Church. They’re all captured by this thinking. It’s a thinking that captures people into believing rituals save. However, preventive thinking, which Paul is going after here, isn’t rituals save us, but Jesus saves us. It’s Jesus, it’s Christ that saves us.
And it’s very possible that you have struggled with a ritual thinking this ritual will save me, of being able to completely let go of the ritual, of the thought that, you know, since I was baptized as an infant, I’m okay. Well, wait a minute, that’s not what this is teaching. To view a ritual as a means of salvation is to view something that you do as a means to salvation. And, and, and this ritual could be baptism, it could be the taking of communion. Some people take communion on a regular basis because they believe that it saves them.
It could be getting married in a church because of holy matrimony, and that’s a part of salvation. It could mean something like just the ritual of going to church. If I just go to church, God’s going to, you know, see that. He’s going to keep score and I’m going to be okay. Or it could just be related to giving.
You know, you tithe, you believe that tithing will save you. I wish I could say that that’s true, but I can’t. That’s not what the Scriptures teach, right? It’s not by tithing or any other ritual. It’s not by a prayer.
Some people have certain prayers that they pray over and over and over thinking that this is salvation, is to pray this prayer. No, the point of this here is that Jesus is the means of salvation. It is not a ritual. It’s his death. It’s his life.
It’s his resurrection. So Captive thinking is based on fiction.
Preventive thinking is based upon fact. Captive thinking will rob you of the life that God wants you to have in Jesus Christ. Now it will rob you of life now. These rituals will rob you of life now and forever. However, preventive thinking will give you life now and forever.
So Paul is trying to say, and I think it’s so applicable to us, don’t let human tradition or human teaching, even with regard to rituals, capture you and keep you from experiencing the fullness of life that’s found in Jesus Christ. When I first got involved in ministry, I began to work with this wonderful couple. She came to faith in Christ, and soon after that, he came to faith in Christ. He came out of Catholicism. That was his background.
His family raised him as a Catholic, and that was just so much a part of his culture. And so as he’s growing in the faith, he comes to discover what the Bible teaches about baptism. And if you’ve never looked at what the Bible teaches about baptism, it talks about baptism as a choice that a person makes. That is so much a part of of life, isn’t it? God gives us the opportunity to make choice, and the choice to be baptized is a choice that God wants for his children to make, those who are Christ followers, to demonstrate their faith, not to give them faith, because baptism, the act of being baptized by water, will not wash away your sins.
That’s something that Jesus has already done when he saved you. So it’s a sign, it’s a testimony of what Jesus has done. So this man came to understand that, but then began a struggle for the next couple of years in actually taking a step and being baptized. He came to realize that his baptism at infancy wasn’t something that saved him, that was something that made his parents happy. But he came to the point where he wanted to be baptized, but he couldn’t do it for a couple of years.
And you know why he couldn’t do it for a couple of years? Because he was still captured by human tradition and human teaching that had been given to him through this philosophical system that had pulled him away from what Christ so wanted for his life. And that could be you. That could be you because you’ve been raised in a system. You’ve been raised in a certain ritual, and you get to a point where you begin to discover all these other things.
And part of the fullness of life is just experiencing what God wants for you, and yet you can’t get past it. You can’t get past this. Is there application here? Absolutely. And we’ll talk more next week about some other things that I’ll Oftentimes we hold on to as a means of, you know, making us feel good.
The point here is that the fullness of life is found in someone, and the fullness of life is found not in something other than Jesus Christ and the work that he did. Finally, he says, he— verse 13, the middle of the verse, speaking of Christ— he forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us, he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the power and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. What’s Jesus talking about here? What’s the Apostle Paul talking about that the Lord did here?
Well, Christ forgave us of our sins. Forgiveness is found in Jesus Christ. And when Christ forgives, When Christ forgave, or to say it differently, when Christ died on the cross for our sins, at the moment that he died on the cross for our sins, the ceremonial law was canceled. You see it there in verse 14, having canceled the written code and all of its regulations. This was a code that stood against people.
It opposed people. In fact, It was a code that they could not even keep. When in Acts chapter 15, they’re trying to decide whether or not circumcision is necessary for salvation, one of the things that the apostles say in Acts chapter 15, verse 10 regarding that code was simply this: that was a yoke that we couldn’t even bear. I mean, we couldn’t even get it right. Why in the world would we push this yoke or this burden onto other people.
That’s just not right. And so they said no to that yoke. Well, Paul here is saying those regulations and commandments were an oppressor. They opposed us. They were against us.
But the good news is, is that Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, he canceled, he canceled the code. He canceled the ceremonial law. And not only that, but he also beat up on Satan. He disarmed Satan. He was victorious over Satan.
Verse 15, he was victorious over Satan and his powers and his authorities, so that no longer would Satan be the winner in this thing, but Christ would be the winner. He would be the victorious one. You see, what he’s going after here is the continuation of people potentially living under law. And if they were continuing to live under law, instead of experiencing forgiveness, they would continue to experience condemnation. And the Bible says that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Jesus Christ, but there is complete forgiveness.
But it’s very possible, it’s very possible that you or I could continue to live in condemnation. And if we’re living with an ongoing condemnation spirit, a spirit of condemnation, then that means we don’t understand what Christ did for us when he canceled the law. So there’s another contrast going on here. Captive thinking results in condemnation. However, preventive thinking results in, as he says here, forgiveness, complete forgiveness in Christ.
So let me ask you this question: Have you ever beat yourself up for past failures?
Let me put it in the present. Do you continue to beat yourself up? For past failures? Are you a person that feels like you will never be good enough to do what you hear God wants his children to do? Do you feel like, you know, I could never serve in that way.
I could never do that because my past is just so bad. I mean, I just, I can’t get it right. Do any thoughts like that ever haunt you? If thoughts like that haunt you, what that is an indication of is that you are still living under the condemnation of the law instead of living under the freedom that’s found in the grace through Jesus Christ. There’s a huge contrast here.
It’s because of grace— here’s Paul’s point— it’s It’s because of grace I can live, you can live a full and a forgiven life. But I’ve got to let go of the law. I’ve got to understand I’m no longer under the ceremonial law. That is a basis for condemnation that nobody could keep. But I am now under grace in Jesus Christ.
And understanding that and living in light of that knowledge will set me free. Jesus said the truth will set you free. So coming to understand that truth will not only set you free, but listen, it will keep you free. Really, the summary of this whole passage here is simply this, this morning: if you practice, if I practice preventive thinking, the truth will keep us free. It will keep us free from condemnation.
It will keep us free from thinking that rituals will save us. It will keep us free, free from going to somebody else for life that we could find in Jesus Christ. It will keep us free from all of that. So what is the preventive thinking that will keep us free? Remembering Christ is God, and in the fullness of Christ comes the fullness of life.
It’s found in someone, and that someone is not someone else. That someone is Jesus Christ. Preventive thinking realizes that Jesus saves. It’s not a ritual that’s going to save me. It’s not performing some act.
It’s found in something, yes, but the something that this forgiveness is found is in Christ. It’s found in Christ’s work and not my work, and that’s something that I receive by faith. And this forgiveness, Wow. It’s found in remembering that I have forgiveness in Christ because of God’s grace. I can live a full and a forgiven life.
Now that kind of thinking needs to become automatic, as automatic as other preventive thinking is in our life right now. Bernice and I, Thursday night, we went out and enjoyed a show and we went out for dinner and we went to this place. That was located in an area where there, there, it just wasn’t well lit. It was a really dark area around there. And we got done with dinner and it was nightfall and it was pitch black outside.
I mean, it wasn’t, it seemed very unsafe. And I began to think, we’ve got to get quickly from the door of the restaurant to the door of our car. And this is not a time to, you know, dilly-dally around and be looking at the stars and doing whatever else you want to do at that moment. I just sensed in my heart that, you know, and probably some of it had to do with some of my upbringing, that I, we just needed to get from there to there quickly, get into the car, lock the doors, and, you know, get out of Dodge as quickly as we possibly could. Now, where did that come from?
Did I all of a sudden say, oh, this is a moment that I need to have preventive thinking? No, it’s just automated, right? It’s just a part of our makeup. And essentially that’s what the Apostle Paul is doing here for these people. He’s giving them some information that if they will internalize it, it will keep them from losing the fullness of life that’s found in the fullness of Christ.
If this morning you are holding on to someone else for the fullness of life, this message is for you.
It’s not someone else that’s going to give you the fullness of life. It’s Christ.
If this morning you are holding on to something else, something else that give you life, you know, it’s something that you’re doing. It’s something that you’re performing. It’s something that you look to for commendation. Then you could potentially be missing out on the fullness of life that’s found in the fullness of Christ. And what can help us with that is preventive thinking.
It’s realizing That in the truth I’m set free, I’m kept free. And so it’s taking truth like this and saying, and so this is the kind of thing that needs to become first and foremost in my thinking. I hope that for you. Let’s pray together. Lord, thanks for helping us today examine a passage that in some ways is hard to understand, and yet it’s wonderful to understand this because we, like the people in the first century, can get so easily sidetracked, especially in university settings, conversations with people that want nothing to do with you.
We can get so easily sidetracked in human traditions and human teaching. And that philosophy of the world can become something that can entice us and to trap us and, and really pull our hearts away from you. And so as we would live with an awareness of the danger around us in the world we live in, we pray that you would help us live also aware of the thinking dangers that are around us that can harm us spiritually and can harm us emotionally, perhaps physically too. And so we pray that what we’ve talked about this morning, you would help us see areas in our lives where this relates and then practice preventive thinking. May the truth set people free.
May the truth keep us free. And Lord, I pray for any who’s here this morning that has not yet made the decision to receive the gift of salvation that’s found in the Savior. I pray, Lord, that if they’ve been depending upon a ritual, they’ve been depending upon their church attendance, confession, whatever it’s been to save them, we pray that even today would be the day where they would recognize their need for the only one that can save them, your Son Jesus Christ, and receive him as their Savior and Lord. And if that’s the desire of your heart, tell God that. Respond to his prompting and his leading in your heart this morning.
Say, yes, Lord, I want, I want this forgiveness. I want this new life. I want you to circumcise my heart. I want you to baptize Baptize me in the Holy Spirit. Wash me.
Cleanse me. Make me a new creation.
And if you tell God that, mean it, he’ll hear that prayer. He’ll adopt you into his family, and he’ll begin to help you live a life that’s intended for you. A fullness of life that’s found in the fullness of Christ. Lord, thank you that you hear those prayers. May we today go out of here encouraged with this thought.
May it change us as we seek to represent you well in this community. For we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
