November 10 Sermon: Let No One Disqualify You

Think on these questions as we look at Colossians 2:16-23:

1. How does the Apostle Paul's message in Colossians address the feelings of unworthiness and the struggle to measure up in matters of faith and spirituality?

2. How did the false teachers in the Colossian church suggest that adding certain rituals and practices would enhance their spirituality?

3. According to Pastor Mark, what is the core message of the Apostle Paul's address to the Colossian church, and how does it relate to the challenges faced by modern-day believers in Edgerton?

Transcript:

Noble Doss dropped the ball. One ball. One pass. One mistake. In 1941, he let one fall. And it's haunted him ever since. "I cost us a national championship," he says.

‌The University of Texas football team was ranked number one in the nation. Hoping for an undefeated season and a berth in the Rose Bowl, they played conference rival Baylor University. With a 7-0 lead in the third quarter, the Longhorn quarterback launched a deep pass to a wide-open Doss.

‌"The only thing I had between me and the goal," he recalls, "was twenty yards of grass."

‌The throw was on target. Longhorn fans rose to their feet. The sure-handed Doss spotted the ball and reached out, but it slipped through.

‌Baylor rallied and tied the score with seconds to play. Texas lost their top ranking and, consequently, their chance at the Rose Bowl.

‌"I think about that play every day," Doss admits.

‌Not that he lacks other memories. Happily married for more than six decades. A father. Grandfather. He served in the navy during World War II. He appeared on the cover of Life magazine with his Texas teammates. He intercepted seventeen passes during his collegiate career, a university record. He won two NFL titles with the Philadelphia Eagles. The Texas High School Hall of Fame and the Longhorn Hall of Honor include his name.

‌Most fans remember the plays Doss made and the passes he caught. Doss remembers the one he missed. Once, upon meeting a new Longhorn head coach, Doss told him about the bobbled ball. It had been fifty years since the game, but he wept as he spoke.

‌Many of us probably have a moment in our life that we just can’t let go of. You think back to it and your stomach gets turned up in knots even though it is long in the past. It could be someone you let down, something you did, or a moment where you sinned and live with the regret. You look back on that moment and feel as though perhaps you are now unworthy to speak into anything that might relate to what happened. You feel as though you are disqualified from ever moving beyond what you did in that moment.

‌Those types of feelings are really strong aren’t they. This has a dramatic effect on me. These moments dramatically change how we see ourselves.

‌This feeling is at the root of what the Apostle Paul is addressing in our scripture passage this morning. As we have seen in Colossians so far the people in the church there believe that Jesus is necessary for salvation. Their need for the gospel doesn’t seem to be in doubt. It is the sufficiency of what God has done for them in Christ is what is in question. They are trying to add things to their faith in order to climb to a higher level of spirituality so that they can be sure they will be saved. This is why I called upon this idea of not being good enough because it is easy to think about this being a problem in the church but yet forget the emotions and experiences these people would have had at a personal level. I believe that we have all experienced what we are looking at today in some way. We have all wondered if our faith is good enough. We wonder why we don’t have the experience that someone else has had. Like I said, I’m pretty sure that this is something we’ve all been through. What Paul had to tell this first century church in Colossae also has great relevance for the 21st century church in Edgerton.

‌As we dig into our passage for today we have two clear things that come out of it today.

‌The sufficiency of worship is questioned.

‌While all of this affects our personal lives we see in this passage that what is going on in Colossae is people teaching that something needs to be added to worship. We will see that Paul calls the church there to reject these things.

‌Second, we see that we need to remember our identity is in Jesus.

‌The temptation will always be for something new and something better but we will see that in Jesus we died to these things and so our life is to be rooted in him, not in the things of this world.

‌There are many things that we can think will somehow increase our faith or make us more spiritual but we will see that Paul says that these are of no good for us. Instead we are to hold to Christ.

‌And so, as we arrive here in verse 16 we are going to get an idea of what this controversy in the church in Colossae is all about.

‌He lets the people there know that they need to make sure that they don’t get that feeling of unworthiness because of how they worship. In the verses leading up to this passage Paul let them know that Jesus triumphed at the cross. He says therefore let no one pass judgment because Jesus has won the victory. They no longer need to worry about following certain festival. There is no spiritual ascent in keeping these certain things. When it says “a Sabbath” here it isn’t saying that keeping the Lord’s Day doesn’t matter or that they don’t need to rest. It is meaning particular Sabbath festivals. It isn’t meaning gathering as a church body or anything like that. It was special observances and these false teachers they were up against in the Colossian church were saying that if they wanted their spirituality to increase then maybe they should be sure to go back to their Old Testament and do some of the old covenant rituals.

‌As I was thinking about this in my comings and goings this past week I imagined this false teaching packaged like an infomercial. Imagine with me a slick salesman saying “Do you feel stuck in your Christian walk? Are you struggling to put that one pesky sin in the rear view mirror? Do you wonder why other people seem so super extra spiritual but you feel like an ordinary Christian? We have just what you need. Get your Jewish festivals celebration kit for just $49.99 and you will be a better Christian.”

‌Now obviously I’m being silly to prove a point here. We have no indication that anyone was trying to profit from this but you get the idea. They are pushing the idea that all you need is a little spiritual ritual and it will help you be holier. We are prone to thinking that there is something we are missing. One little thing, one little trick that will help me be holier. And while I make light of this I have actually seen some TV preachers pushing things from the Old Testament as somehow being an aid to your spirituality and while they didn’t use the exact words I did the idea was the same. You’re missing out and what you need is what we are selling. Like you have head me say so many times what we see in scripture aren’t just 1st century problems they are 21st century problems too.

‌And what we see in this passage is that these rituals aren’t how holiness is achieved. It just isn’t how any of this works. There isn’t some special ritual or item that you need. Paul tells them that the things that were used in the Old Testament weren’t about making the people holy or more spiritual, they were pointing to Christ. As he says, they were but a shadow. Jesus is the real deal. We have him now, why would we want something that was just pointing to him in the first place.

‌When I worked at Toys R Us we had a system for purchasing big ticket items and expensive items that could easily be pilfered from the store. For example, to buy the latest video game you would look at a card that had all the information from the box. You would then grab a paper ticket with the price and the UPC code to scan and bring it to the register. They would pay and then come over to the desk where we would give them their merchandise. Not once did I ever see a child cry because we took that piece of paper from them and gave them the actual item they paid for. Of course not, that would be absurd. No one wanted to pay $200 for a quarter of a sheet of paper. For $200 you wanted your video game system or Power Wheels car. You wanted the real deal.

‌Paul is showing us this truth here. Why would someone want something that was just a meal or a ritual when they can have what that sign is pointing to? They don’t have much value beyond the materials that make them up. The real item that they were pointing to was Christ and now they have him. He comes them in Word and in Sacrament. He promises to meet them in their worship through these simple means and by his Holy Spirit he keeps that promise every time the Word is read and proclaimed.

‌As I said, this was about their worship. They thought they needed something more. The people felt disqualified, like they hadn’t done enough because people were insisting on asceticism. That’s a confusing word. It means that you set yourself apart from the world. An ascetic is someone like a monk who is removes themselves from the world because they believe it will make them holier. So these people would remove themselves from the world but there were also those who claimed to have special insight into these things.

‌When we read this next phrase worship of angels, we would think that it means that they are offering worship to angels but that isn’t what it means. People were claiming that the way they worshiped God was the way the angels did it. They claimed to have visions of how to worship God. But Paul says this is without reason and it is just their sensuous minds wanting more to do instead of holding on the Christ. It is in him that they are spiritually nourished. It is in him that the church is held together. In their worship the focus is ot be on Jesus and what he has done, not on themselves and doing things that they wish to do.

‌And so, in this first section of verses we have seen that the sufficiency of worship was being questioned. They were trying to add rituals and visions to it instead of just being content with Christ and his Word and as we step into the next two verses we see clearly where our identity is supposed to lie.

‌It lies with Christ. We died with him and that means we are new creations in him. He is using really bold language here to really make a point. You died to these things. It is absolute language. There is no kind of here. If you died with Christ then you now live in him. You don’t need these regulations because you have a new life.

‌You may have seen the news story that was circulating out there this week about the man who had been sentenced to life in prison and he had something happen to him and he had to be resuscitated. He claimed he had served his life sentence and so he should be able to get out of prison. You have to appreciate the effort but obviously it didn’t work, he is still in prison. But the basic idea of what Paul is saying is there in what this man was trying to do. When you died with Christ you died and you were raised to something new. The past is gone, your time has been served in being bound to these kinds of codes. That was the old. That is gone.

‌But still they are being told that by not touching certain things or tasting them or handling them they will have a better spiritual life. But Paul says this isn’t the case. These types of rules are not going to make your spiritual life better. They are not the one thing that his keeping you from getting closer to God. Paul says that humans think this is how we get closer to God. We naturally assume there is something that we have to do that is above and beyond the means that God has provided for us. But Paul says that this is a human precept and idea.

‌It appears to be wise but it is just a self-made religion and it has no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Like I said before we are tempted to think that we just need something new that will help us with our struggles. Why are we constantly tempted by these things? Because we want to be the one to overcome. The sensuous mind loves the idea that we are victorious over sin. But the means that God has given us to grow in him rests solely on him. It rests on the Word he has given us and the Spirit to work through it. It is all of God. It is all of grace. We don’t need a special vision or a new trick to be holy. Instead, we are blessed to have his word and Spirit and that is sufficient. We don’t need to add anything to it because, as we see here in Colossians 2:23 it won’t work anyway.

‌As I said I believe this passage is so important for us today. We need this reminder that we don’t need to add anything to worship and we don’t need to add anything to the gospel. What God has given us will actually do what he has promised? He is actually at work in us to make us holy.

‌And so what is the challenge for us from this passage this week?

‌Last week I challenged us to think about where we have let human philosophies into our minds. This week I think we need to assess something else. Where have we let ourselves see ourselves as being disqualified? What moments do you have like the football player I talked about when I started this morning where you feel like you spiritually dropped the ball? It might be a specific moment or it might be a way that you see your spiritual life. Be honest with yourself. Where have you let yourself be disqualified? Paul says let no one disqualify you but I think that often the person we are most likely to let disqualify us is the person in the mirror. We compare ourselves to someone else. We wonder why we don’t have it all figured out like someone else.

‌We don’t have to think that way. We have everything we need in Jesus Christ. There isn’t anything secret about Christian spirituality. Word and sacrament is where God is promised to be and he is there just as he has promised. Young and old, male and female it is the same. We all meet God where he has come to us. This is a beautiful and liberating truth so take hold of it. You have the same means of spiritual growth that every other believer has.

‌And so, the second part of the challenge for us this week is to pick up your Bible this week with this confidence. Whether you pick up God’s Word every day, just occasionally, or if it has been a while pick it up this week and take a moment to think about the sufficiency of it. That in it God provides all that you need for life, salvation, and holiness. As you hold it in your hands trust the truth that God has not abandoned you to try to become holy on your own through human precepts and teachings but instead will be at work in you through his Word and Spirit. Take a moment to pray before you read and ask God to build up a trust in the sufficiency of His Word as you read.

‌And you can start trusting in that sufficiency this morning because in a few moments we are going to be partaking in the Lord’s Supper and God has promised to be in this meal. It isn’t flashy it is ordinary bread and juice but God is at work through it. Hear the Word and believe in the sufficiency of what God has provided for us. Like I said, it isn’t flashy but that is a great blessing to us. The means he has given us transcend time and cultures and, I think, best of all it transcends our moods and experiences. Whether we are in a mountain or valley of life it is the same. Whether we are feeling quite spiritual or whether we are really struggling Word and Sacrament are always there and God is going to work in them, just as he has promised.