one question, one answer.

We need that. We need that in Badgerland. Gotta be a team, you know. Football wasn't a big deal when I was going to school here. It was in 1983 to 91. So if those of you who know sports and Badger football, we just went there for the band and for the fun. So get used to it, have fun with it. It's gonna be a good time. Amen. Nobody's saying amen to that.

Okay, all right. The culture definitely shifted, and the expectation of winning was paramount. And I hope we don't lose our sense of humor through it, because that's what Wisconsin is. One of the most attractive things to me whenever I come home to this state. I was raised here. I was born in Milwaukee, southern part of Milwaukee. By the way, my name is Sean. If you don't know, my name is Sean Steinke, and my wife Christy is here. We have four kids spread out all over the United States. One's in Denver today mixing for a church, Cherry Hills Community Church. He's their front of house person. And my daughter from Minneapolis is visiting him. But I have two in Minneapolis, one going to the same school Abbie went to. And then we have two in New York State, Syracuse, and their doctors, downtown training young doctors and running a clinic for the single moms and all of that downtown Syracuse.

So they're all spread out around and we get to visit them in our band. So today I'm thinking about them a little bit while I'm reminiscing about the Badger.

So let's pray and we're going to get into the Word of God. Thank you, Father, for your grace upon us. Thank you, Lord, for calling us together in this place. And now, Lord, we just open up our hearts to you. We open up your Word with an expectation of faith in our hearts. Lord, your word is active. It's living. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. It's able to divide today between our thoughts, even our intentions of our heart.

And Lord, it's able to give us our daily bread today so that we can partake of you and with you and through you, from you, through you, to you are all things. To you be the glory in the church, both now and in the age to come. Lord, we thank you so much. In your name, Amen.

One Question, One Answer

We've been going through the book of Colossians, so if you would open up your Bibles, if you have them, or your phone Bible, to Colossians chapter 2. We're going to finish that today as we go through just one question and one answer. So I'm going to try and stay very focused today on just one thing that we're going to ask and then one thing that the Holy Spirit can help us with in our walk as we walk out of here today.

David said it this way in Psalm 27. One thing I ask of the Lord, one thing I'm going to seek after, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him, or to meditate in His temple. And that's a verse that has been a life verse for me. I used to sing that when I was a boy in the Jesus movement. I was not an adult in the Jesus movement. I was a little kid, and I would fall asleep under the piano as they worship, like we did this morning. But they would just go and go in my living room, and I had all kinds of people that would seek the Lord.

And so that verse kind of came to me. It was like, oh, I've got to do one thing, seek the Lord and in this temple. But the testimony from today's message is this: that he took someone who had the desire to seek the Lord and had that verse as like a life verse, but was never able to live in that.

Throughout my schooling years, my junior high and high school years, it was like the Christian roller coaster, you know, where you're seeking the Lord and you just take these dives and seeking the Lord and you just feel like you're on that ride. And you just don't have the inside-out oomph or power or dunamis, it's called in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit, to be able to overcome, to be an overcomer in life, and to live as Jesus lived and to walk as Jesus walked. And that is why he left his Holy Spirit.

And I didn't receive that until I came to the UW in a full way. What happened was somebody confronted me with my sin. I said yes, spent a couple hours repenting of everything I could think of just across the street here in a house on Bedford. And then a couple weeks later, after a service, we used to meet in the union and we had porta church. So our office was above the college club. And we would have a cart, even through the winter, and we put all our sound equipment on. And we would go through there to the college club, go up a couple of stairs, and that was our place.

But we had a horse trough there. Why did we have a horse trough? For baptisms, of course, during the winter, right? So Christy got baptized right by Memorial Union, right in that area where the cement pier is now and all that. It wasn't as developed back then. You just go in like this and you get baptized.

But it was winter when I was feeling, God, I've got to follow you in this step and I need to receive your Holy Spirit. I need the power of God in my life so I can live on this campus and through these next four years the way that you want me to live. And he did it. Just a few people were there, the ones that were pushing the cart and putting all the sound equipment away. They were there at the baptism, and it was after church. My brother was there with a guitar and he prophesied. I can still hear the song in my head that he sang. It was about God's call in my life, that I was supposed to be like a shepherd after God's heart. And it was just this experience. He filled me with his Holy Spirit.

I came up out of the water and I wasn't very verbal. I was just receiving everything that everybody was sharing with me and praying with me. But then I went to the basement of Humanities, and I started to get out my Bible, and I put it on the little piano there. And I just started to play these chords and just sing the Word of God. And the Holy Spirit just started to come in my heart and my life. And I just felt the sense of the grace of God and the power of God, that it was going to be okay, number one. And then number two, that he was going to give me everything I needed to walk out this faith for the next four years.

And I did kind of a dumb thing. The next thing I did was I called my then-girlfriend. I said, we got to break up. And then I just, that was it. You know. And so that wasn't very nice. I repented later. Okay.

You know, she was down in Arkansas at a Christian university there. And I just took all my old stuff, all my bad albums and everything, and I just put them down the garbage chute of Woody Hall. I'm not kidding you. I just took everything. I just cleansed it all out. We're talking, I don't know what the garbage person thought, but here's all these pictures and things and albums and just the lifestyle that I had. This mix. I was a mix. And what that is, is you're not living to love the Lord your God with all your heart. You've got a mix. You've got other gods in your heart.

And so the altar of God was not just him alone. It wasn't one thing. It was one thing plus this or this or this or this or this. And so that was the baptism of the Holy Spirit for me, was God's process and his grace in my heart.

And he showed me a picture later on that cracked me up as I was a young dad. He said, this is what you'd probably do if I didn't give you the grace that I gave you at that time. And it was this guy on a piano in a small little bar somewhere in Wisconsin trying to get tips. He said, that probably would have been your life. I don't know if that's funny or sad, but that's, you know, just like, here's this life. But now there's four kids serving the Lord all across, you know.

God has a baptism for you, but it might not be fireworks. It might be like the Holy Spirit giving you what you need to overcome in that moment. It's called dunamis. It's the power of God. And it's not just for a one-time salvation. It's for your whole life.

And I can tell you that I drew on it all this week, the same way I drew on it in those years. And God is faithful because it's not us.

This is the verse God gave me as I graduated out of college. Nate shared it in the prayer time this morning before church. We were all praying for you and he had John 15:16. And it says this: you did not choose me but I chose you and I appointed you that you should go and that you should bear fruit, and that that fruit should remain.

And I knew that when my dad wrote that in that graduation card for me, that that was God's call and that the same grace and power that helped me through was going to continue to help me through for his glory. And I'm here to say he is faithful and he will fill you as you're needed. And one of the ways he fills you right at the end of this message, which I promise is not going to go on forever, is that you're to be not just filled, but continually filled.

Colossians is going to tell us next week. And this is one of the ways you're continually filled is that you're speaking to one another, like I'm doing to you right now, in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and singing with thankfulness in your hearts. Thank you, right? Thank you to the Lord. And that's the way you let the word of Christ richly dwell in you by faith, is that same way.

So what we just did was not just an exercise, and oh, that's cool. I saw this at the upper room or somewhere else. No, this is where you are singing to one another psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, and you're being continually filled. So the Holy Spirit was already here today in the worship. You were receiving him afresh in your heart as your voice sang out. Because how did God create the world? He said, let there be, and he spoke out. So as you're singing out, you're filled up, and God is there with you and that will sustain you through your life. He is good and his love endures forever. Amen.

One, two, three. Duct tape does not fix all. Okay. So I was looking at slides just to make this simple for you, and one had a duct tape theme. And I want to tell you that this is one of the greatest inventions that we have right, duct tape. Some people think it holds the universe together but it does not. And it can't build anything except for maybe a pretty duct tape rose that somebody might have given you or a duct tape creation right.

So this is what the Judaizers on one hand, the people who wanted the Colossians to follow the law of God, were tug of warring them with this duct tape. And then on the other end they had the Gnostics, then we've been learning about that with pastor Abbie, and we've been reviewing what are the Gnostics. And so it's like this tug of war between these two. And the Colossians are in the middle just being tugged back and forth between these two extremes.

Of the New Testament church in its infancy, there were these testings right away. The same way the enemy did not want the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus and the coming judgment of Jesus, didn't want any of that to happen, is the same way he did not want the church to understand the truth and to grow. And so what's he going to do. He's not going to come and just brashly go, I'm the enemy and I'm going to destroy you, church. He's going to do the same thing he did with Eve. He's going to come up and say, here's this beautiful thing. And did God really say. This is such a beautiful thing, right. You have this. And did God really say. Oh, no, you will not. That won't happen to you.

So that's the subtle duct tapes that he has in there. And by the way, this Bible, I found this recently again. This is the duct tape Bible, so it does hold some things together. But this is not figurative of duct tape holding the word together, okay. Just. That would be a heresy, okay. The duct tape heresy of the 21st century.

We're going to start in verse 11 today. I'll read the context for you. It says, alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile towards us, and he's taken it out of the way. Having nailed it to the cross. When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through him.

Here's the ending now. Therefore, let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or festival or new moon or Sabbath day, things which are a mere shadow, duct tape, right, of what is to come. But the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement or the worship of angels by taking his stand on visions that he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees such as, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which all refer to things destined to perish with the using, in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men. These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion, self-abasement, severe treatment of your body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

So there's one question today and one answer. Paul in this whole section usually has quite a few questions. But he just has one. And that's why I kind of focused in on that. And it's right in the middle.

So far we've looked at the heresy or false teaching of Gnosticism. You know, knowledge is knowing God. It's all in your mind in your spirit. Body doesn't matter. Or how Paul sets a root system of abiding in Christ to help us avoid the disasters of empty philosophy and subtle deceptions. The enemy comes to steal the truth, kill or deaden us, and destroy, to tear down the work of Christ, his body. That's his motivation.

So Paul brings up in the midst of this baptism as a sign of death and resurrection. And then he asks this one question. Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belong to the world, do you still submit to its rules. You ever ask yourself that question just randomly through your day. Right. Why am I submitting myself to this rule. What am I doing right now.

And this will give you a grid to understand why sometimes we do the things that we do. But focus on the question that Paul has for us right here, and let's see what the answer is that God will give us. Okay.

There's a promise in the Old Testament. My Old Testament reading has been in Ezekiel lately, and I have to admit, he's my current favorite. And it's not a very common favorite maybe to have, because Ezekiel is very harsh, he's very black and white. There's more judgments in Ezekiel than I think any other book. But he's very science fiction too. I mean, these. He gets taken up by his head and in the heavenlies and dropped in different places to see what's going on so he can prophesy about it. And he sees these visions that are like the book of Revelation but in the Old Testament. And it's pretty amazing.

But right in the middle, almost of his whole ministry and his writings, God has a promise here. And this has to do with the baptism and the circumcision that God does in that. He says in chapter 36, verse 26, moreover I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe all my ordinances, and you will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers, so that you will be my people and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness.

I needed to hear that. I needed the promise that God would give me a new heart, that he would take away a heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. It's easy to get calloused when there's been things in your life. And David prayed out in Psalm 51 in his repentance. Lord, you've got to do something new. The same way you created me, please now create in me a new heart. I know you created me. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. But right now in my life, I need you to create in me a heart that's clean before you.

And so the promise and that plea, both the promise to Ezekiel and the plea of David, are fulfilled here in what we're reading today in Colossians. That there is an actual cutting away or a circumcision of the old so that the new can come forth. Baptism is that sign, Paul says, of the new circumcision made without hands by faith. It's a wonderful new picture. And that's why the early church, they said to the Gentile believers, you don't have to be circumcised, men. You don't have to be circumcised because your baptism is the sign of your faith in Christ.

Paul says that there is an appearance in these arguments from the Judaizers and from the Gnostics on the other side. There's an appearance of wisdom. So duct tape has the appearance of wisdom. It has goodness. It's actually kind of beautiful, isn't it. I think it is. I like duct tape. I mean just look at this Bible. It's all put together. It's just. It has the appearance of wisdom but it can't build anything. It can only put a band-aid on it and keep it together. If we could all just come together. If we could all just, you know, have that glue of the duct tape and underneath we're forsaking God's ways. We're forsaking his law. We're forsaking the head. We're not holding to the head of Christ. But if we could all just still come together like the duct tape. We want duct tape. We don't want surgery. We don't want circumcision of heart. We want the duct tape. We want the good feeling. That's what we want. We want the indulgence. It has an appearance of wisdom.

It has a false humility. And then there's the other end where some of them were actually harshly treating their body, doing things to their physical flesh so that their soul might be saved or so that they might be able to focus more on the things of the spirit. They have to treat their body harshly. And that's the other extreme that was happening in Colossae.

But the good news is here. It says, your whole self ruled by the flesh, right, was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. It's like a central truth as we lead into this portion of Colossians. That's the old circumcision. That's the flint knife, by the way, in case you're wondering what it was. That's the instrument that used to do the circumcision. Okay. But the new circumcision is here. That's the picture.

And what did Jesus hear when the dove is there. Anybody know. Say it out. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Yes, he had come in the incarnation. He had not grasped onto equality with God as something to be grasped onto but made himself nothing. True humility, not false humility. He made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. And then he hears this. Well done, my son. That was before he started his ministry. But it was after his obedience in incarnation.

When you were kind of a bad person in your sins. No. You're all fearfully and wonderfully made. You're all beautiful, period. Awesome. You look great. But you're dead without the Lord. You are a walking beautiful zombie. You are just. You're dead in your uncircumcision of your flesh. Because the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. He made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins.

Here's the legalese here, right. Having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. So I'll use this duct tape. Okay. So here's, we're in the courtroom now. Paul has us here briefly, very briefly in the courtroom for this part of Colossians.

And he says this. That there's an accuser of the brethren in the courtroom, and he's using these things to accuse and to condemn in that courtroom. And the judge, by law, has to put his gavel down and says, yes, guilty as charged, right. Totally guilty as charged. I was. I say it's a roller coaster Christian, but it was a dead deadness that I was living with. I didn't have the power of God. The life of God flowing by the filling of his spirit.

And so the gavel comes down. But there's another gavel that's going to come. And it's going to pierce with a nail through the hand of Jesus. And it's going to be nailing those accusations to the cross and saying, it is finished. And he's going to proclaim that now forgiveness can flow to you if you receive his forgiveness in your heart. If you look up and you believe on the cross and you believe that his grace can flow to you at that point in time in your life because it's an eternal love that gave an eternal grace to us that can be accessed at any time.

And that's what was happening in this repentance and filling in our hearts, right. It is finished and you rest in the work of that. The gavel turns into the hammer that puts the spike through for your forgiveness. He nailed it to the cross.

And then, not only that, but while he's hanging on the cross, what conqueror hangs on a cross. But that's exactly the picture we have right here. Jesus, while he's on the cross, there's a parade going on in the heavenlies. And it's how they used to parade those who were conquered through the streets after the conqueror comes. You know, in the old times where they would say and here's all the people we conquered and here's their king and they're condemned at the last part of the parade. They're the condemned ones, right. Jesus is here and he's saying he is what. Disarming them. He makes a public spectacle. That's that word. Triumphing over them by the cross.

That the greatest humility is winning the greatest victory at that moment for us. And we're included in this by grace, through faith. You're included as you look up at that cross and you say, yes, you not only saved me, you're disarming my enemies and you're triumphing in the cross.

So therefore, Colossians who are stuck between two ducts right, two duct tapes here's the Colossians. And this is a very dangerous phrase in our day nowadays. Don't judge me, right. Quit judging me. I'm free. Don't judge me. I'm me, right. Don't let anyone judge you. He says, he doesn't say it that way. He says therefore don't let it happen. Why. Because the price was paid for you by the Lord Jesus. Don't let anyone judge you for these things.

Actually, we'll get to those in a second. In Galatians he says it's like you're running a race and somebody cuts in on you and causes you to go over the line and disqualifies you. And he's saying these Judaizers and Gnostics, they're coming in and they're gonna try and knock you off of God's track. Okay. Who cut in on you and did that. These people. These are the ways they would do it in the church services and then house to house. They would go and they go into great detail of things they seen.

I don't think they were just verbal processors. I think they were just trying to say over and over again these things because the more you say something, the more it's believed. And so they would go into great great detail about the angelic visits, about the important prophetic word that came that maybe didn't line up with scripture, right. Or about something that happened in a dream or a vision. They go into really specific details and say, this is what we must follow to follow Christ the accurate way. But they were doing it so that they could bring them back under the laws or bring them into a sensual indulgence. Those were the two things. They were puffed up.

Just think of pufferfish. That's what that's like. Puffed up in their imaginations, in their idle notions, and they had an unspiritual mind. Which I think for Paul, that's kind of like an opposite because they were saying, no, we have a very spiritual mind. He's saying, no, actually, your mind is unspiritual.

Paul does three groups of three that are repeating, actually, of what they did. They're celebrating these religious festivals. That's not just the Old Testament ones, Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, all of that. It's the ones associated with the idols too, religious festivals.

So on the one hand, there's these idols that are drawing, and then the regular Jewish festivals over here. New Moon's Feast, special Sabbaths. And then they have rules like, do not handle this, don't taste this, don't touch that. Otherwise, you won't be holy, or you won't be sanctified. You can't handle, taste, or touch this, right. And what is it. In the end, it's just self-imposed worship or self-defined worship. I'm going to define my own way of worship. False humility and then harsh treatment of the body.

Reminds me of the prophets of Baal. There was a showdown with these idol prophets and the prophet Elijah, and they had harsh treatment of their body. They were cutting. The actual word in the Greek there means to just start cutting off things off of your body. Like you're just. Yeah. Harsh treatment of your body so that you can appease your god that's not the true God. Okay. Harsh blood flowing for a false sacrifice. A false humility. And then Elijah just calls on the name of the Lord and the fire comes and even licks up the water.

Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. That's the power. That's the power of God.

They lack any value in restraining the sensual indulgence because they have no dunamis or no dynamis. Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God is coming. So the judgment of God is coming in this life and in the life to come. There's a judgment awaiting for that. And in them, you were also walked when you were living in them. But now put them off. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive speech from your mouth. Don't lie to one another since you laid aside the old self and its evil practices.

And look at this. Here's the good news. And you have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him. And then he goes on. It's there's neither Greek nor Jew.

I said one question and one answer. And here we are at the end. The last thing. The one answer really is one answer. So here's the one answer. Go to 2 Corinthians 5:17, please. And worship team, you can come on up because we're going to trust him to fill us afresh as we sing with all this in mind.

Let's start with verse 13, 2 Corinthians 5. And we'll start with 13. Our one question was, why are you subjecting yourself to these things. The one answer is, be filled with Him. Be continually filled with His Spirit. Not a one-time event with a one-time gift, but continually filled.

It says here in verse 13, for if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died. And he died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf.

Therefore, here's the one answer. From now on we recognize no man according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we recognize him no longer this way. Therefore if any man is in Christ, anyone, they are a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come.

So we're going to pray and we're going to allow the Lord to fill our hearts. Lord, you see us, you see the ways that we're either trying to please others or please you. Help us to receive you refreshed today so that from the inside out we can love you, we can love you. Thank you for the hope of that, that you triumphed in the cross over all of them. And you did say, it is finished.

Lord, I know you're just washing us today through your word. You're washing away and you're creating something new. If anyone is in Christ today, you're a new creation today. The old is cut away, the old is gone. Behold, the new has come. Lord, we thank you for that promise. Thank you for making a way for that promise, Lord.

If you've never received Christ, or if you've received Him and you have that same sense in your heart that it's like that continuing cycle. And the Lord has illuminated something of Himself or His Word to you today. The response of our heart is worship. We just say, yes, Lord. And we say, come, Lord. And we say, here I am, save me. Save us, Lord, save me. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your provision. Thank you that you're making a new creation in our hearts, in Jesus' name. Amen.