Colossians 10/31 (Nermalis Vera).

Today we're continuing in our sermon series out of the book of Colossians. I'm going to be reading today out of Colossians chapter 2, verses 13 through 23. If we've never met before, hi, my name is Nermalis Vera, and I'm the associate pastor here at New Culture, and I'm so excited to get to meet you.

This realm of death describes our former state, for we were held in sin's grasp. But now we've been resurrected out of that realm of death, never to return, for we are forever alive and forgiven of all our sins. He canceled out every legal violation we had on our record and the old arrest warrant that stood to indict us. He erased it all. Our sins are stained soul. He deleted it all and they cannot be retrieved. Everything we once swore in Adam has been placed onto his cross and nailed permanently there as a public display of cancellation. When Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner. They were his. So why would you allow anyone to judge you because of what you eat or drink or insist that you keep the feast, observe new moon celebrations, or the Sabbath. All of these were but a prophetic shadow and the evidence of what would be fulfilled, for the body is now Christ. Don't let anyone disqualify you from your prize. Don't let their pretend sincerity fool you as they deliberately lead you into their initiation of angel worship, for they take pleasure in pretending to be experts of something they know nothing about. Their reasoning is meaningless and comes only from their own opinions. They refuse to take hold of the true source, but we receive directly from him and his life supplies vitality into every part of his body through the joining ligaments connecting us all as one. He is the divine head who guides his body and causes it to grow by the supernatural power of God. For you were included in the death of Christ and have died with him to the religious system and powers of this world. Don't retreat back to being bullied by the standards and opinions of religion. For example, there's strict requirements. You can't associate with that person or don't eat that or you can't touch that. These are the doctrines of men and corrupt customs that are worthless to help you spiritually. For though they may appear to possess the promise of wisdom in their submission to God through the deprivation of their physical bodies, it is actually nothing more than empty rules rooted in religious rituals.

Colossians 2:13-23

Jesus, thank you so much because you're here. Your Holy Spirit is here. We need you to come and to speak this word. We need you because it's you that changes people. It's you that touches hearts. So Lord, come and make us soft and ready to receive from you today. Jesus, we thank you and it's in your holy name we pray. Amen.

Rules as shadows, not requirements

So we have community groups in our church that meet every single Tuesday. Abbie talked about it in announcements. And I'm a part of one of those communities. And last week, we had a discussion, and then afterwards we were all just chit-chatting, having a good time. And I got the smart idea to ask everybody what they were like as children in school. And we went around the room person by person, and long story short, they were all sweet, lovely children.

They were either the quiet kid in the back of the room, the goody two-shoes, or the teacher's pet. Those were like all the options. And then we went around the whole room, and I was like, great, and I wasn't going to say anything. And they were like, well, what about you? Well, guys, I'm the exception to the rest of my group. I was not the goody two-shoes. I was not the teacher's pet. And I was not the quiet kid in the back of the classroom, by any means. I absolutely was always in trouble.

Because I have always believed that rules are a suggestion. Sometimes a very strong suggestion, and probably one that you should follow and is to your benefit. But rules are just suggestions. So when I read this and Paul is like, "Actually nothing more than empty rules rooted in religious rituals," I'm like, yes. Following Jesus means no more rules. Freedom in Christ means I get to do whatever I want. Throw the rules to the corner. I'm good. My way or the highway.

But here's the thing. If I read this passage and that's how I taught it to you, I would really be doing the word of God a disservice. Because unfortunately when he says the rules are empty and worthless, it does not mean freedom in Christ means we have to do whatever we want, throw it all in the garbage can. So I want to talk about what these rules are. What is Paul talking about when he says the law?

In this passage, he's talking about something called the law of Moses. There are two laws that we read about in scripture. The first one is the Law with a capital L. The Old Testament refers to it. They talk about it in the New Testament. And this word is referring to the law of Moses, or specifically what's called the Torah in the Judaic Bible. And then it's called the Pentateuch in our Christian Bible. Those are the first five books of the Bible.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Everything in there is this God-ordained holy law that he spoke through Moses and through the Levites and all these things to the people in those first five books of the Bible. This is holy law from God. Some of the things included in this law is the process of sacrifice, when to sacrifice, what to sacrifice, what type of sacrifices to do, the process in the tabernacle, how the priests should dress, how they should adorn themselves. It included what you could eat, what you couldn't eat, what you could wear, what you couldn't wear.

It included when to wash your hands. It included things like, if you're wearing something that's like 30% cotton, 70% polyester, that was a no-no. You couldn't wear mixed threads. It included how to engage with foreigners, how to treat the immigrants and the poor, how to engage with your neighbor, who you could and couldn't marry. Well, then in the New Testament, we start seeing all this stuff that really comes out of nowhere.

If you've ever read the Old Testament into the New Testament, it's a whole new world. There are all these new words. There are all these new people. In the Old Testament, we end with Babylon and Persia. And then we open the New Testament and we're in Rome and Greece. And the entire Judaic system has changed. And there these new people called the Pharisees and the Sadducees that seem to have come out of nowhere.

That means if Genesis is all the way down there and Matthew's like right here, there's a 400-year gap between Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, to Matthew, the first book of the New Testament. And in that period is when all this stuff pops up. That's when the Jewish versus Samaritan rivalry comes up. That's when Alexander the Great comes on the scene. And then there's the Roman Empire and the Greeks rise. That's when all these different things happen and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Essenes show up. And these three were political religious groups that had taken the scriptures and had decided how to interpret them really based off of their political views. And in that time, the Pharisees wrote all of these new laws that really served one purpose, and that was to make them look all high and holy and special.

When Paul, Paul really throws all of that out. What Paul is talking about when we look at Colossians is specifically the law of Moses, because they were supposed to follow the law of Moses. Any of them that had grown up as a Jew or as a Hebrew had spent their whole lives under Abraham's covenant, having to get circumcised, and what to offer as sacrifices and doing that so often. That was a part of their everyday lives. And now they're Christians, and that's not a part of their lives anymore.

But what purpose did the law serve? What was the point of the law? I really believe that anything that comes out of the mouth of God has a purpose, and it's an important one. I don't think God speaks just because he likes the sound of his own voice. So if God gave this law, it had a purpose and it was important.

The entire purpose of the law Paul summarizes in literally two words. He says that it was a prophetic shadow. It was a prophetic shadow of what was to come. Every single law, every ritual, all these religious rituals, their entire purpose was to point to Jesus and what Jesus would do. So we have these five books of the Bible, these first five books of the Bible that are full of law, of God laying down this foundation for the people, and Jesus in his lifetime fulfilled every single law. This big ladder we had to climb to reach God, Jesus came and did it. And all we have to do now because of Jesus to fulfill the law is believe in him. Jesus fulfilled the law.

So what is this freedom in Christ? If Christ fulfilled the law, the purpose of the law was fulfilled in Christ, and your salvation comes from Christ. You see, the Colossian Church is a new church, and they know the right things. They've been taught the right things, and these false teachers came in. We've talked about this throughout our sermon series.

These new teachers are coming in, and they're giving these false teachings about Jesus. And one of those false teachings was actually an entire party called the Circumcision Party. And they believed that even though you're Christian now, you still need to be circumcised. So those of you who were Gentiles or Samaritans or whatever, all the other groups that weren't circumcised as children, in order to come into this relationship with Christ, you still need to be circumcised. And there were all these other laws that they would add to it and all these other rules, and you still can't eat that, and you still can't touch that, and you still need to do it this way. And they were adding things to the law.

Here's the thing and why that was such a problem. There was nothing wrong intrinsically with circumcision. There was nothing wrong intrinsically with not eating a certain type of food or a certain type of way. What was wrong is that these were being used as prerequisites for salvation. The only thing that saves is Jesus. Nothing added, nothing taken away. The only thing that saves is Jesus. And when we treat these things and our behaviors, and look how good I am, and look how many Sundays in a row I showed up, and look I showed up to serve this many weeks in a row, and we treat all these things like they have the power of salvation, we cheapen the work of Jesus on the cross. We make his sacrifice less than by thinking that we could somehow add to his work on the cross.

The fancy restaurant

My friend James, when I was in college, we went and had her 21st birthday, and she decided that for her birthday, she wanted to have a super bougie dinner at like one of those really fancy five-star restaurants. So we're like, okay, cool. So that's what we did. We went to this extra fancy restaurant. It was like in a penthouse suite in one of the skyscrapers in downtown Tampa. It was overlooking the bay. It was so nice. We were definitely the youngest people in the room. Everyone in there had to have like owned a whole law firm, period. Everyone in there was fancy. I'm not fancy, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know what fork to use. It's just a spoon. I don't understand why it has a different name. And I just didn't fit it. I'm just going to let you know. It wasn't my cup of tea.

This was not, see to me, let's go out for a fancy dinner means like, let's go to Red Lobster. This was not that, guys. You know, like, I wanted some cheddar biscuits. I wanted them to come and bring me some rolls or something. Do you know what they brought us? They brought these, I'm sure they have a name, and I don't know them, but it's like the little white spoon that kind of sits flat on the bottom, whatever. They brought that out with a single raspberry, a little sprinkled goat cheese, a mint leaf, and some balsamic drizzled on top, and there was one for each of us, and they were like, you go on the house. I was like, okay, that's what we're doing.

I couldn't read anything on the menu. I didn't know what type of cheese it was. It kept telling me what it pairs with, and I couldn't read what it pairs with, or really what pairs with means. So we just kind of ordered on the whim, and then they bring us our food, and it was good. It was good, but I'm going to be truthful with you. When I was in college, my diet really consisted of like three things. Wendy's four for fours, pub subs, you all know about that life because you don't have Publix, but pub subs, and Wawa. You guys have quick trip. We had Wawa. Wawa's better, I'm so sorry, but we had Wawa. Gas station meals, grocery store sandwiches, and Wendy's four for fours.

So this very fancy meal was lacking something that was a part of my regular diet that I felt I needed, and that was excess sodium. It just wasn't in there. So we're all sitting there trying to figure out what to do with this meal, and my friend Asia, she was there. She was prepared. She opens up. She pulls out her purse. She opens it up and starts ruffling through it, and she pulls out those, like, hotel-sized bottles of condiments. She pulls out a little Tabasco, some ketchup, some steak sauce, and then a handful of salt and pepper packets. And we start passing them around the table.

Guys, the waiter was mortified. The waiter was mortified. He was deeply offended. I can only imagine how upset the chef was. If I was the waiter, I would run back and tell the chef about these wild girls sitting in a circle passing around salt and pepper packets. He must have been so offended. And I'm going to be honest, I can't even blame him. I can't even blame him. Why? Because the chef knew what he was doing when he made the meal. He knew that this spice worked with this, blended with that. He knew that the white sauce was supposed to go on the chicken and not on the steak.

So shame on me for pouring my friend's sauce onto my steak because I thought it tasted better. That is no longer the dish that was on the menu. The chef would have been upset and he would have been right. Because what we were eating was no longer what he gave us.

And we do this all the time with the gospel. We do this all the time with Jesus. We're so used to transactional relationships that when Jesus says, I'll give you everything and you don't have to give me anything, we start making up a list of things that we owe Jesus. We're so used to having to earn people's love that when Jesus says, let all striving cease, we amp up to see what we can do to earn the love of God. We're so used to being rejected for our shortcomings that we come to Jesus and he says, approach the throne room of grace with confidence, and we come in covered in shame and pretending and hiding and keeping parts of ourselves away from him because we're used to needing to be shameful so we don't get rejected.

The problem with this lovely dish at this lovely fancy restaurant was not the dish. It was not the chef. It was not the ingredients. It was my broken busted taste buds. I only knew how to enjoy real cheap four for fours. This food was so good, but I needed to elevate my taste buds. I didn't need to add stuff. I needed to get used to it. I needed to lean in and I needed to adjust to it.

The law doesn't save. Only Jesus does. And one of the things we've talked about through this sermon series is that a lot of the teachings were pulling things away from Jesus, and we were watering Jesus down. We were saying, he's not really the son of God. We were taking pieces of him away. Well, here's the other thing we do all the time. We want to add to Jesus, and we want to throw things in there, and we want to say, well, I know I'm saved and I'm in relationship with Jesus, but I can be a better Christian if I do this, this, this, this, and that. And he'll love me more if I do this, this, this, this, and that. And we want to add all these things to the gospel and we teach people, well, maybe if you did this, it would be better. And maybe if you added this and this and this.

Guys, it's just Jesus. Nothing less, nothing more. Only Jesus saves. And when we add things to the gospel, it stops being the gospel. It stops being Jesus. Not watered down, not spiced up. We need him exactly as he is or it ceases to be Jesus.

We need Jesus to help us elevate our taste buds. I do want to be really, really clear though and say that there are things that are rules like we're talking about and then there are things that we teach as disciplines and things that we should be doing in our walks as Christians. I do believe you should be reading your Bible every day. I do believe you should be praying every day. I do believe in the spiritual discipline of fasting. I do believe in the Sabbath and tithing and these different spiritual disciplines.

Here's where the difference comes. When it's a discipline and when it's this legalistic law and religious thing that's binding us. Disciplines mature us and they grow us up. They don't save us. You can read your Bible every single day. That doesn't make you saved. If I told you right now you're saved if you read your Bible ten minutes and then you pray for thirty minutes and then you fast twice a week and then you do this and then you can be saved and believe in Jesus. That's when it's wrong. These other things, they're disciplines that grow us up and they mature us and they teach us. How do we find that line with Jesus and with his grace and what he did for us?

Trust, not performance

I work with babies. I spend all day with babies. And right now all my little kiddos are just turning one. So now I have like little tiny toddlers. And they're learning things. Now it's not stuff like I can hold my head up or roll over that happened developmentally. Now they're like learning different words. Like I taught one of them how to say hi. She goes, "Hi." It's very cute. They now know what no means and they close their eyes when I say no. They go [inaudible]. So like they're learning these little tricks. I'm teaching them not to steal food out of each other's trays. We're working on not biting. There's like all these little things they're learning and it's really fun teaching them these things and I have a lot of fun doing it with them.

But then sometimes I have substitute teachers come in and they'll tell me your kids didn't do any of the things with me that they do for you. They don't. I've had teachers send me videos of my kids being very stubborn and completely ignoring them. Why? Because my kids don't trust them. They don't know them. My babies don't care to learn a new trick if they don't even trust you and they don't know you.

Sometimes I talk for them and I swear one of them just says, "I will not perform for you." Like they don't care to follow the rules if they don't even trust you to take care of them and love them. I have a bond with my kids that I formed with them way before I started trying to teach them stuff. Jesus is more concerned with your heart than he will ever be with your behavior.

So all of these other little tricks and things and learning to be in scripture and learning to fast and doing those things, they're great and you need them. But if you do them and you don't have a relationship with the real Jesus, and the real Jesus doesn't require you to earn his love. The real Jesus doesn't require you to jump through hoops for him. If you're lacking that bond and that trust and that relationship with Jesus, this won't save you. This won't fix you. This isn't the magic number. You need Jesus. Everything else can come later. You need Jesus.

In verse 18, it says, "Don't let anyone disqualify you from your prize. Don't let their pretended sincerity fool you as they deliberately lead you into their initiation of angel worship, for they take pleasure in pretending to be experts of something they know nothing about. Their reasoning is meaningless and comes only from their own opinions. They refuse to take hold of the true source, but we receive directly from him and his life supplies vitality into every part of his body through the joining ligaments connecting us all as one. He is the divine head who guides his body and causes it to grow by the supernatural power of God. For you were included in the death of Christ and have died with him to the religious system and powers of this world. Don't retreat back to being bullied by the standards and opinions of religion."

Three things: warning, challenge, encouragement

I'm going to end today with three things. One of them is a warning. One is a challenge. And one is an encouragement. We're going to come in strong and hopefully take a breather at the end.

The first thing is a warning. And my warning to you is this. It's do not fear man. Do not fear man. You know, so often we know what's right and we could be sitting in a room with someone and we know what they're saying isn't right and we don't say anything because we're more concerned with the opinions of people and we're more concerned with being liked than with being obedient.

We know the right thing. The Colossians had been taught the right thing from day one. How did they go astray? Well, maybe because nobody stood up and said, "Hey, that's not right." Do not fear man. Paul said, "Stop being bullied by people who act like they know what they're talking about but actually have no clue." The loudest voice in the room is not always the right one.

Maybe you've experienced this. Maybe you've heard of other people's experiences with this, but I just want to let you know that the most dangerous kind of liar is the one who knows the Bible. The most dangerous kind of liar is the one who knows scripture. Because if you don't know the Bible, you will believe every word they say. Because they used a credible source. You'll believe every word they say.

Let me remind you that the devil knows scripture. Let me remind you that the first lie in scripture is the devil repeating God's words to Eve. Let me remind you that when Jesus was tempted, Satan did it by reciting scripture. Just because it sounds right doesn't mean it is right. And you need to stop fearing man more than you fear God, which leads to my challenge.

My challenge for you is this. It is time to get to know Jesus for yourself. It's time to get to know Jesus for yourself. If you've ever taken vitamins without eating first, you know that that will tear your stomach up. That is not a good feeling. Vitamins are supplements, not nutrients. When you use supplements but you don't have food, you get sick.

Some of you are sick and you feel like you do all the things. You check all the boxes. But you still feel far from God. Allow me to submit to you that maybe it's because you're using supplements as a meal. It's time to get in the word. It's time to pray. It's time to get to know Jesus for yourself.

My love language, tied at number one, is words of affirmation and physical touch. Tell me you love me. Give me a hug. I'm good to go. And my sister knows this about me. And when I was 16 she moved out and she moved away. And the way she remedied this for me, she couldn't give me a hug, but she used to write me letters. She would like write me snail mail so I could have all the words of affirmation and I could keep them forever. And I have them. They're sitting in my closet.

Let me tell you something. You could forge my sister's handwriting. You could put her signature on the bottom. You could do a whole thing with her address. Tell me it's from her. And you will not fool me because I know my sister. I know her words. I know what she says. I know how she says it. I know what nicknames we use. I know what inside jokes we have. I know how she goes in and out of Spanish and English and when she does it. I know the curl of her letters because I've read so much of them.

I know my sister and you can tell me the exact same thing that she would, but I know it's not her. You need to know Jesus the way I know my sister. Better than I know my sister. You need to know what his voice sounds like when he speaks to you. Because you need to know when someone is telling you about God from the Holy Spirit and when they're coming out of a spirit of error. You need to know the voice of God. You need to know Jesus for yourself.

And my encouragement to you. Abbie's going to come up to lead us into another time of worship, but my encouragement to you today is this. Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough. We don't talk about taking away these other things as if it's taking something good from you. All the goodness in the world is in Jesus. It's in Jesus. He doesn't need anything added to him. With Jesus you lack no good thing. With Jesus you have time to learn.

Sometimes there's a learning curve to this thing. I don't know if maybe you grew up in church so when you decided to like follow Jesus it was almost like natural. I grew up in church and then I got real ratchet, so there was a learning curve when I came back to Jesus. And like, how to do this and how to talk and how to walk and how to do it. Can I tell you Jesus is so patient? You don't have to have it all figured out on day one. With Jesus you have time to learn. With Jesus, his grace covers your mistakes. You're allowed to mess up. His grace covers you. Jesus is more than happy to go through the process of raising you up and all the messy parts involved in it. Jesus is more than enough.

I want us to get up on our feet. We're about to go into a time of worship and prayer. And as we do that, I really want us to meditate and to just think on and reflect and invite the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what we've been missing. Where we've been lacking. Have we been taking things away from Jesus like we've talked about the past couple weeks? Or maybe have we been riding on this spiritual pride of "look at all I do and all the places I serve and all the boxes I check off" and we've decided to make that our salvation and taken that away from Jesus?

And more than anything I want us to take the time to ask God to reveal himself to us. Jesus wants us to know him. Why? Because that's what a good relationship is. The power of relationship is not just in being known. It's in knowing the other person. And Jesus wants you to know him. So I want us to take some time to ask Jesus to begin to reveal himself to us. And more than anything, I want us to rest in the confidence that Jesus really is enough.

Holy Spirit, I pray that you just come and be so present right now. That you begin to move and shift hearts and bring revelation and bring comfort and bring peace and just reveal yourself in full force in this time. Jesus we need you right here right now. We need you. Jesus we repent of all the times we've made other things God and we've taken you off the throne. And in our pride we've put our to-do list on the throne of all the things of how great we are.

Lord we cast that aside because we need the real thing. We need you and we need to know you and that is our deepest desire to know you. We thank you Jesus. Amen.

Worship time

[Worship song]

Closing prayer

Jesus, thank you because your love for us is perfect. It's perfect and it lacks nothing. Thank you because we're found in you and because you chose us to abide in us as your temple. Jesus, I pray that as we move through this week, that we just be marked by the revelation of a God that loves us so much that he gave everything and asked nothing of us, but that we trust him.

So Jesus, I pray that this week we just might have a renewed desire to seek you. That we might just have a new fire to pursue you and to know you. Lord, thank you. Lord, I pray above all else that in everything we do, in every way, we might just know you and show you to everyone else because that's why you came so we could have a loving relationship with you and we could bring others into a loving relationship with you. I thank you Lord and we worship you and it's in your holy name we pray. Amen.

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