Ron Dunn Podcast - False Paths to Fullness

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

No matter where we are spirtually in our pilgramage we are not where we want to be, we all want to experience the fullness of Christ. How do we get there? From the series The Fullness of Christ.

Everybody doing all right tonight? Have a good day? Somebody said to me once, good morning. I said, that's an opinion. When you say morning, that's a fact. So when you say good morning, then that becomes an opinion.

But it's been a good day. And praise the Lord for His presence with us. First six verses, Colossians chapter 2. I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not met me personally. My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love

so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him,

strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Of course, tonight the real question is how do we get there from here. And I'm assuming that's why we gather together like this, because no matter where we are spiritually in our pilgrimage, we know that we're not where God ultimately wants us to be. And so we're trying to get there from here. I don't know that I've ever met any serious Christian who is honest about it, who has been content with their present spiritual position. And I think that all of us would say tonight

that we do want to make progress. We do want to grow. We do want to mature. There is no stopping in the Christian life. There is no end of the grace of God. God's purpose is for us to continue to grow in grace and in Christlikeness, being conformed to the image of God's Son. But the real question is not, do we want to get there? All of us tonight, I think, would say, yes, I want to be what God wants me to be. I want to come to know the fullness of Christ in my life. Just as Paul is writing to these people, wanting them to know the fullness of Christ,

to know all the riches of the treasures that are hidden in Jesus Christ. So I think all of us tonight would say that that's what we want. We want to be able to come to the place where we can experience the fullness of Christ as God intended us to feel it. But the question is not do we want to get there. The question is how do we get there from here? How is that progress made?

Sometimes it can be very frustrating. I remember seeing a book a few years ago. The title of it was, it said, Lord, if I'm so spiritual, then why am I still where I am? And that's a pretty good question. Why has it taken me so long to get there? Why is it taking me so long to get where God wants me to be? And why are there so many difficulties in the path?

It is a struggle to get there from here. And that's what Paul is basically saying when he opens up this second chapter It is a struggle to get there from here. And that's what Paul is basically saying when he opens up this second chapter. As we look this morning in chapter 1, Paul said he rejoiced in his sufferings on their behalf, and now he gives us a part of that suffering. He said, I want you folks down there to know how much I am struggling, how much conflict I'm in, the battle that I'm fighting, so that you may be all that God wants you to be. In other words, Paul is saying it doesn't come easy and I'm the one as your pastor in

absentia, I am the one who's struggling. I want you to know what a battle and a conflict I'm going through praying for you, wanting you to be where God wants you to be. But it is a struggle because, well, there's so many wrong paths you can get off on. He says, as you have therefore received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk ye in Him. He's giving us right there a hint as to how we get there from here.

As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, what do you do now? Well, you just walk in Him once you've received Him. The trouble is that there's so many paths that we can get off on thinking that this path or this path will get us where we want to be. And Paul in this second chapter

gives us four warnings about this. This is a chapter filled with warnings. He's praying and preaching that these people may be encouraged in heart, that they may be knit together in love, that they may come to a full understanding of the fullness of Christ. But this passage is full of warnings

because there are those out there who would try to detract us and somehow steer us off on the wrong course. And what I want to do for a moment is just to go through this second chapter and look at some of the wrong paths that Paul is warning us about, some of the paths that maybe some of us are traveling tonight thinking that if we travel by this path, we can get there from here. But you'll never make it if you try to get there on the path of

intellectualism and that's the first thing that Paul mentions you'll notice he gives a hint of it in verse 4 he says I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine sounding argument and then he gets down to it in verse 8 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 Christ. Now there was a heresy going about Colossae. It was really a hodgepodge of heresies like we have today. It was part Judaism and part Gnosticism. There, you know what the Gnostics were. They believed in a secret religion. The word means knowledge and pure knowledge. And they were going around saying, hey, you know, listen, tell you something,

if you knew what we knew, you'd be elevated above this ignorance. And if you really want to get where God wants you to be, then you need to be initiated in some of the mysteries that only a few of us know. The key word was knowledge, knowing things that others do not know, going into what they would call a deeper knowing and deeper truths. It was a mystery religion that highlighted high-sounding phrases

and there was really a lot of talk about intellectual soaring that had no real substance to it but it sounded mighty good. One reason it sounded so good is because you could never understand what they were talking about. But they used such fine sounding phrases and philosophy that you were impressed by. It was just impressive. And they would say, listen, you're still struggling down there with Jesus and that bunch. Well, now, it's nice that you've come to Christ, but Christ is just one step along the path, you know.

There are a lot of other places you can go to from here. And if you're going to make any progress and finally become what God wants you to be, then you probably need to somehow be let in on the secret that we have. And so that was Gnosticism. Then there was Judaism that said, well, it's not enough just to trust Christ. You also need to be circumcised and keep all the laws and keep the festivals and the holy days.

And so they brought these two things together. And this was sort of the heresy that was coming about in Colossae and what Paul was warning about in colossi and what paul was warning about and basically he said that there are those who believe that by intellectual effort by coming into new unheard of truth and revelations then you can be perfected and you can be lifted out of the ignorance of just basic christianity high sounding phrases. You know, as I was reading this and studying this, ironically, you'll find this today in two extreme positions. First of all, it is very obvious that it's a New Age type of religion. And everything that you're hearing today about

the New Age is exactly what Paul was talking about. There's something more than Jesus. I have discovered something about the world. I used to think the world didn't like to hear me preach Jesus, but I've discovered they don't mind that so much. As long as you don't make Jesus the exclusive way, you see. It's all right to preach Jesus. I mean, the Muslims, they appreciate Jesus.

Unitarians appreciate Jesus. Everybody appreciates Jesus. He was a good man, a great prophet. They don't mind you preaching Jesus. What they mind is when you say Jesus is the only way to know God. He's the only way. He is the exclusive Savior, you see. And so they would say, you know, it's nice to know jesus but you've got the you've got to worship angels and there are other beings there are cosmic forces in the universe there are unseen powers that that you have to know how to get along with these and and so it's that new age type of thing but ironically at the furthest end of the spectrum there is also much of the charismatic movement, which much of it is a basic Gnosticism that says you are on the wrong side of the track

because you don't know what we know. Now, I'm not talking about all of them, of course. I'm not talking about all of them, of course. I'm talking about in the extreme. Has anybody ever made you feel like you're a poor relative? Because all you had was Jesus? And they become sort of an elite group and you look up to them and you follow them

because they know things nobody else knows. And so you think if you could just somehow crawl out of the ignorance of basic Christianity and tune in to some of these higher, fine-sounding talks and philosophies and ideas and be initiated to some secrets, then you'll be better off than you were before. A number of years ago,

I first got an inkling of the danger that I was in back in the early 70s when I believed God was really moving in revival across our country, my part of the country. And there were several of us. One of them was Brother Beasley. We'd go around doing what we call these conferences on revival.

And I'd say the folks would drive 100 miles just to come and hear us preach because God was doing a new thing. And one fellow always preached on the Holy Spirit. Brother Manley always preached on the faith, and I always preached on prayer. And, you know, after a while, you start to, you know, you gather a following, people, you know, they'll come.

I mean, they'll drive 100, 200 miles to come into one of these conferences. And, man, we were just having a great time. I mean, the Lord was blessing. And, well, it was just, you know, it were just having a great time. I mean, the Lord was blessing, and well, it was just, you know, it was a pretty good time. I remember one afternoon I was praying about what God wanted me to preach, and I couldn't get away from Isaiah 53, just preaching on the suffering servant. But I was struggling with that. I didn't want to preach on that. And you know why? And it took me about all afternoon for this to dawn on. Basically what it came down to was this, Lord,

these people did not drive a hundred miles to hear something from me they could hear from their own pastor back home. They're here tonight because we know something others do not know. And brother, I tell you, God said, son, when the cross becomes a boring subject to you, you are in deep trouble. What I was doing is I was becoming a Baptist guru. And if you're a guru, you've got to keep your following and the only way you can keep your following is going from one bigger truth to another,

one more secret to another, always ever going further and further away. You've got to better yourself this time than you did last time. After a while, people are going to get tired of that, and they're going to have to have something new. And if you don't have it, they'll go to somebody else. Paul said, don't let anyone take you captive. Don't let anyone deceive you. You'll never

get there by traveling the path of intellectualism. Now, one of the good things about this passage of Scripture is that every one of these, Paul has an answer for. The answer is in verses 9 and 10. For in Christ, all

the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. Here these intellectuals come along and they say, we've got this new secret, we've got this new truth, and if you'll come in with us and let us initiate you into this mystery, then you're going to make great progress. And Paul said,

don't let anybody deceive you like that. Don't let anybody take you captive like that. Why? Because in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and you're filled with it too through union with Him. He said,

your fullness in Christ is linked to the fullness of Jesus Christ. And as long as you are in union with Him, you have all the fullness of God bodily just as Jesus had in you. You don't need these other things. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are gathered up in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But he says something interesting also in that ninth verse. Verse 10, he says, Christ who is the head over every power and authority. The head over every power and authority. Have you noticed in reading the epistles of Paul,

especially Ephesians, and here in Colossians, there is constant reference made to powers and authorities and dominions? For instance, you look in chapter 1 in verse 16, where Paul says that, For by Jesus all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him. Now why do you suppose He's mentioning that? And here in our 10th verse, He says that He is the head over every power and authority. And then look in chapter 2 again, down in verse, where is it, in verse 14 and 15. He says,

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 powers and authorities,

He made a public spectacle over them, triumphing over them in the cross. Now He keeps making constant reference to this, and I tell you, folks, it would be a great study to get into this. Those four phrases, sometimes translated differently,

but those four words, powers, authorities, dominions, and rulers, what do they refer to? They refer to the unseen world. They refer to those invisible forces that man believed determined their destiny. The crudest form of this, of course, is astrology and the horoscope. There are people who won't walk out the door in the morning

until they read their horoscope because they believe that their life is in the hand of some fate. Well, there are certain days to do things and there are certain days not to do things. I was sitting on a plane a few years ago and a young woman came and sat down by me after we were flying for a while. She said, what are you?

And I said, well, you know, there were many things I could have said. I said, well, I'm a minister. She said, no, no, that's not what I mean. She said, what sign were you born under? Well, I didn't know I was born under a sign at all. I was born on a bed, but that's all I knew. No, she said, what is your birthday?

I said, October 24th. Oh, she said, you're a Scorpio. I said, really? Yes, oh yes. And I'm a Pisces, and Scorpios and Pisces get along good together. Now folks, would you ever have believed it that in the 20th century, this age of enlightened sophistication, people still believe in those things. But I want to tell you something.

There are many of us tonight in this building who while we would never admit to believing in the zodiac and those signs, yet we do believe that somehow our life and our destiny and our faith is determined by forces that we cannot see and that we do not know and that we have no control. Somebody says, well, it's in the family.

It's always been like this. It's just a trait of our family. I can't do anything about it. Somebody says, well, it's the environment that I was brought up in. Somebody says, well, it's this reason or this reason. But out there, there are forces in this life, there are forces in this world that I do not know about, that I cannot see,

and I know they are determining my destiny. Paul, it looks, or whatever you want to call it, call it heredity or environment, whatever you want to call it, but there are a great many of us tonight who believe that we are under the destiny of unseen forces and hostile powers and cosmic powers. And what Paul is saying is that whatever powers out there, Jesus Christ has made them in His head over all of them. What He's saying is you don't have to be under anybody's control

except Jesus Christ alone. And you can break the cycle. You can break the cycle. I've had people say, well, it's been in my family for generations. You know, it's just a family trait. We're all like this. No, you don't have to be doomed

by anything hereditary like that spiritually. You can break the cycle. You can break the cycle. You say, well, my father was an alcoholic and his father was an alcoholic. You can break the cycle. Don't you believe that? All of those hidden forces,

you feel somehow there is some power in this life that is keeping you from being what you want to be. My dad was that way. His dad was that way. I have news for you. Whatever power there is, authorities, dominions, powers, the powers of darkness, Jesus Christ created them and His Lord over them.

And I don't have to be ruled over by anything other than Jesus Christ. And I can break the cycle. So He says, first of all, you'll never get there by the path of intellectualism. Secondly, he says, you'll never make it by the path of legalism.

I want you to notice in verse 16, we have another warning. He says, therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration, or a Sabbath day.

These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ. There's a second warning here. First of all, the warning against these fine-sounding phrases, these false philosophies, intellectualism. But there's another danger, Paul says. That is the danger of legalism. Don't let anybody judge you.

Don't let anybody stand in judgment upon you and condemn you because you do not observe certain laws and certain rituals and certain ceremonies this was the judaistic part of the heresies that said it's not enough just to know christ you need to know moses also and uh even when you read the book of acts you'll find that even in that early church they were tempted at times to judge these Christians not just by their faith in Christ but by the relationship to the law of Moses whether or not they were keeping the festivals and the feast and the fast and one of the problems the early church had to continue in with so it was this we're not going to purge any burden on you

Gentiles we're not we're not going to put any burden on you that even ourselves have not been able to bear and to all of this business about legalism, keeping the doctrines and keeping the festivals, no. But the fact of the matter is that a great many believers tonight believe that they're going to be perfected in Christ by keeping the legalistic rules

of ritual and ceremony and worship. Paul, you say, but not me, preacher. Well, let me ask you something. Do you know the difference between obligation and opportunity? Let me tell you the difference. I was in Georgia sometime last year.

A young woman came up to me, a young mother, a mother of three girls. And she was really distraught. And I said, what's the matter? She said, oh, I just need your help. I need to pray. I said, what's the matter? She said, well, I know I'm supposed to get up early in the morning and pray.

I know I'm supposed to have a quiet time early in the morning. But she said, I have to get up at 5.30 in the morning anyway to get my children ready for school and get my husband and breakfast and all of it. Then I have to go to work. And she said, so I've been trying to get up at 4.30 in the morning and spend an hour in prayer, and I just can't do it. I fall asleep, and I just can't do it. And she said, I know I ought to be doing it.

I know I ought to be getting up early in the morning and have my quiet time. And she said, I'm just failing at it. I said, woman, you are abundant. I said, I want to say something. Getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning to pray is an opportunity, not an obligation. You say, what must I do?

Find a time that's easy to pray and pray. Find a time that's convenient. You see, what was happening to this woman is what was happening to many of us, that she was judging herself and other people were judging her faithfulness, her maturity, by whether or not she kept a certain legal ritual. Paul said, oh, no. or maturity by whether or not she kept a certain legal ritual all said you know it's not how many times you go to church it's not whether you do this or do that

he says no you know the reason that's wrong he said because those are just a shadow of what is to come but he said the reality is Christ I went into a restaurant the other night and you've been into these restaurants. A lot of them are this way. They have beautiful pictures on their menus, you know. And I went into one. I think it was a Denny's. And I like to look at those pictures.

But you know, the plate when it comes out never looks as good as the picture. Now let me ask you, what would you think of me tonight if you and I went out to the restaurant after this, and the waitress bought us these menus, and there was that menu that, man,

it had the beautiful picture of ham and eggs and bacon and grits on that thing, and man, it made my mouth water, and I ordered, I said, I want that one. And a few minutes, she came out and set that plate down and said here you are and I just sat there drooling over that picture just drooling over that picture even trying to hug that picture and just almost devouring that picture and you say, excuse me, there's your egg. I don't have time for that. I want this picture. Why am I so hungry? I'm still hungry. I better get another picture. Give me some more pictures. I'm trying to satisfy my hunger by all these cities and preachers. That's just a shadow.

This is the reality. This is the real thing right here. All the ritual that you and I go through, all the ceremonies, all of this, that's just a shadow of the substance. Christ is the reality, you see. Christ is the reality. Don't let anybody judge you by legalism,

by how many forums we keep and how many specialism facts we keep. That's not how you get there. Then there is a third path that won't get you there. It's the path of misjudgment. And you'll find that in verse 18. It says, Do not let anyone disqualify you for the prize. He delights in false humility and the worship of angels. Such a person goes into great detail about what he assumes, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the head from whom the whole body is supported and held together by its ligaments

and sinews grows as God causes it to grow. Here's the third danger. Danger of mysticism. He said, don't let people disqualify you from the prize, the prize of fullness, because they see things you don't see. And they're always going on about the visions that they have. Mysticism.

Now, mysticism itself is not necessarily bad. There is a Christian mysticism that is good. Mysticism, basically, the word carries with it two ideas. Number one, the word means to shut down the senses. And a mystic, a real mystic, is a person who shuts down all the physical senses

and opens himself to enter into the mystery. Literally, a mystical person, a mystic is one who bases everything on personal experience with the divine regardless of what the Word of God says. Now that's mysticism.

Mysticism is that kind of religion, that kind of exercise that is always feeling something, which is wonderful to feel, and that is seeing angels and seeing visions, and is basing everything in its Christian life on what it has seen and what it has felt, regardless of what the Word of God says. I never will forget a fellow in St. Louis. We were talking about this, and he said,

I don't care what the Bible says. I had an experience. I had an experience. I've noticed folks as they get off into this, they get off into this, and there's a reason why you get off into this. I think there's a reason.

Because you get hungry to feel something. You get hungry to feel something. And one of the greatest dangers that is abroad in Christianity today is this matter of basing truth on people's experience, the out-of-body experience, the I went to heaven and I saw the angel doing this,

and I had these visions, and they come back and tell everybody, and everybody oohs and aahs about that, and there's not a thing about it scriptural, but I don't know, there's just something about that person, and they have an aah about them because they've seen a vision. And the reason, of course, you and I eat that stuff up is because we're starving to death to see it. Most of our religious worship is dead and dusty,

and I'll tell you something, if you get hungry enough, you'll eat bread out of a garbage can. And if a person is starved enough to feel something, he'll fall for anything. I never will forget a few years ago, I was in a revival meeting

in a little town in Oklahoma. I would say it was a dead church, but that doesn't really say it all. You have to put it in two syllables. It was dead. That's the kind of church it was. It was dead. I don't guess I've ever been in a deader place in all my life.

You want to know how dead it was? I'll tell you how dead it was. On the last night, a singer, after ten minutes, turned it over to me and said, It's yours. Now, any time a singer only takes ten minutes, boy, you know that's dead. So I went up and I preached my sermon.

But before I got up and preached, while I was sitting there during that brief music service, I noticed out in the congregation a woman that I had not seen all week, an elderly woman. And in the course of the service, she began to raise her hand. I leaned over to the pastor, and I said, She must be a visitor. He said, She is.

She's from the Pentecostal church over here. Well, anyway, I preached my sermon, gave the invitation, and of course nothing happened. Well, yes, I preached my sermon, gave the invitation, and of course nothing happened. Well, yes, one thing did. We had one decision. That woman came, and the pastor met her down there, and she said,

I would like to say something. And the pastor made a grave mistake in not asking her, what is it you want to say? And she said, all right, you may speak. So she got up there and opened her Bible to some obscure verse in Ezekiel and read it and then preached a little bit

and then gave an invitation. And of course, nobody came. Well, then she turned to another obscure verse, this time in Isaiah, and read it and preached another little sermon and gave another invitation. But this time she put the B on the women. She said, some of you women,

I want you to get up and come down here and get on your knees and pray. And about four or five women got up, you know, and they came down and got on their knees. Well, the singer, in the meantime, had moved over to where I was, and he said, my goodness, he said, he said, well, he said,

do you think this is a God? I said, I don't know, and I don't care. It's something. It's something. But you know, there are times, there are times when you get so hungry and so desperate that you'll just go along with anything. But Paul says mysticism won't do it. Now, I want to show you something that I find to be extremely significant.

You know why Paul says mysticism, seeing visions and all this kind of stuff, why it won't do it? He says this person has lost connection with the head, which is Jesus, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. Do you know what's wrong with the mystic kind of religion?

It is, as I spoke about this this morning it is individual and excludes the body it glories not in the growth of the body it glories in its own visions he says he is puffed up by the notions and the visions that he's had and what's wrong with that is it's this person going out here all by himself and he's not concerned about the growth of the whole body. He has lost connection with the head. And you'll never get there by the path of mysticism. And finally, you'll never get there by the path of asceticism.

You say, where is that word well it's not there but it's it's there look at verse 20 here comes another warning since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world why as though you still belong to it do you submit to its rules for For instance, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. All right, now here is this approach to religion that makes Christianity a religion of rules and regulations. Your spirituality is measured by what you don't do. And usually it is accompanied by constant guilt,

and it puts you under a bondage and seeks to put other people under bondage, and the greatest criticism and judgment and condemnation from others comes on this type of approach where you believe that your spirituality consists in what you do not do. Don't do this and what you do not do don't do this don't do this don't do this then you begin to judge other people's spirituality by what they do not do you see the truth of the matter is folks we don't necessarily want people to become like Jesus we want

them to become like us we want them to believe what we believe in these things and to live as we live and we're going to put the same bondage on them that we have on us. It's always somebody else telling you what your spiritual life ought to be. Do not touch. Do not handle.

Don't taste. That's your spirituality. That's how you get there. That's how you arrive at the fullness of Christ by making rules and regulations. But he said, oh no, you don't do it that way. He said, these are all destined to perish with use because they are based on human commands and teachings.

And I love this, verse 23. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom. They look good. With their self-imposed worship, their false humility humility and their harsh treatment of the body but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence folks is only one thing wrong with rules they don't give you an ounce of strength.

Oh, they sound good. And you look good. Oh, boy, that man walks with God. Boy, he doesn't even drink coffee. He got rid of his television set one of them wants to read one of them read the newspaper he's a holy man he disciplines himself

so harshly this way he can walk with God boy it looks good but you know all it does? All it does is feed the thing. Because you're popped up with what I'm doing. Now, don't misunderstand. I believe there are rules and regulations.

I believe there is discipline in the Christian life. But they come from a different reason. This word, do not handle, has sexual connotations to it. Do not handle usually refers to the sex, and do not taste the food, and do not touch wine. And he says these are the rules that people are making, and he says they won't make you spiritual. You go down in the third chapter, though,

and he tells these believers to stop committing fornication. You see, it's the same, but there's a different reason for doing it in chapter 2 you're abstaining from this because you think it'll make you spiritual in chapter 3 you're abstaining from it because it's what Christ wants you to do and you do it for his glory they're not any use at all. When I was a young youth evangelist, every Saturday night was youth night. I always preached on Samson and Delilah, getting your hair cut in the devil's barber shop.

And I preached on the sins of the youth, whatever they were. Well, I'll tell you what they were. Smoking, drinking, dancing, petting, of the youth whatever they were well I tell you what they were smoking drinking dancing pitting whatever they call it nowadays and all that and you know what the invitation was the invitation was all right all of you young people that are going to give up the sins of youth once you come down here and stand here at the front of the office hey I, best invitation we had all week long. Every kid in the bunch came down there.

Why? Well, if you didn't, man, you're single out. Oh, he's going to live in the sins of you. But about the time that invocation comes, you know your mom and dad are looking at you. Oh, it's a beautiful sight. They'd all come down there and gather around the altar

and we'd praise the Lord and oh man, we'd write home and say we had invocation. Oh, it looks so beautiful. But you know how long their resolution lasted? Until the next temptation.

They're not worth a penny when it comes to resisting the temptation of the flesh. Well, what do you do? Well, I'm glad you asked. Look at chapter 3, verse 1. Since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above. Where Christ

is seated at the right hand of God, set your mind on things above, not on earthly things, for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ and God. And when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Now folks, don't miss the connection between

the end of chapter 2 and the first of chapter 3. He says all these rules and regulations, they won't do a thing against the indulgence of the flesh. But if it is so, then that you have been raised with Christ, here's the way to live it. Set your heart, set your affection on things above where Christ is. Put your mind, set your mind and your thought life on things above. That's how you overcome the things below.

Thomas Chalmers, an old Puritan preacher, preached a great sermon called The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. He opened that sermon with this illustration. He was riding with a friend in his buggy in his carriage, and the horse had been doing perfectly. But all of a sudden, without any obvious reason, the man got the whip and began to whip that horse mercilessly.

Thomas Chalmers said, I was confounded that this man would treat this animal in such a beastly way. He just kept whipping and kept whipping. After a moment he stopped. Chalmers said, what in the world were you doing? Why did you treat that horse that way? He said, I saw something the horse did not see.

He said, I saw a snake up on the side of the road. And he said, I knew that if the horse saw that snake, he would bolt and run. And I began to whip him. And he had his attention on the whip and didn't see the snake. The explosive power of a new affection. I arrived at a church,

and the pastor met me, and I said to him, well, how are things going? How are things going? He said, oh, they're going great. Going great. He said, our daughter's getting married in three weeks. I said, well, amen.

Oh, he said, we're so thrilled. Boy, we had a close call there. I said, well, amen. Oh, he said, we're so thrilled. Boy, we had a close call there. I said, what do you mean? Well, she got to go with this old boy. He wasn't saved. Fell in love with him. And he was just opposite of everything, you know, that should have been.

I said, what did you do? He said, well, our first inclination was to tell her how bad this boy was. But she said, I knew that if we did that, all we would do is make his daughter that much more determined to marry the guy. I said, well, what did you do? He said, we introduced her to a better boy. And when she fell in love with him, she fell out of love with the other one.

That's exactly what he's saying. That's exactly what he's saying. The expulsive power of a new affection. My dear friends, all the condemnation, all of the rules and regulations in the world will not get you in the fullness of Christ. It is when you have a new affection and you set your mind on things above where Christ is.

That's where the power comes. Now, in conclusion, well, if you can't get there by those ways, how do you get there? Paul says it in two verses. Chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. This is the focal point of the entire letter. So then, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord,

move on to something else. No, that's not what it says. As you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk you in Him. Continue to live in Him, rooted in Him, built up, established, overflowing with thankfulness. What's Paul saying? He's saying you get there the same way you got here.

How did you get here? How did your Christian life start? It started when I received Christ Jesus as Lord. He said, all right, keep on in that same vein. The same commitment you had when you were saved, you need to renew that commitment and be just as committed to Christ and living in Him as you were the day you were saved.

You don't get there any other way except by the Lord Jesus Christ. And as you have in Him as you were the day you were saved. You don't get there any other way except by the Lord Jesus Christ. And as you have received Him as Lord, you continue to live in Him because you've been planted in Him. Paul mixes his metaphors here. He says we are rooted in Him. That's a picture of a tree.

We're built up in Him. That's a picture of a building. And he says, and we are established. That's a picture of a legal document testifying to the ownership of some piece of property he mixes his metaphors terribly here as he always does but he does it with great emphasis he said jesus is the soil in which we've been planted he's the

foundation on which we've been built and he's the legal document that tells that we're saved he said you stay right where you are you've been rooted in Jesus Christ. Your roots go down deep into Christ. You draw your strength. You draw your nourishment from Christ and you're built up on the foundation and as you are built on that foundation He will continue to build on the same foundation and your faith is established in Jesus Christ

as you have therefore received Christ as Lord. Keep on walking in it. You get there the same way you got here. You never graduate beyond Jesus. You never do graduate beyond Jesus. When you entered the kingdom of God, you picked up the cross and you didn't lay it down,

you're still carrying it. You don't move on to something better. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus as Lord, go off to him. Would you bow your heads with me for a moment as we pray?