March 1, 2020
Morning Service

This letter was written to strengthen the church at Colosse against the false teaching that was spreading that lessened the importance of Christ in the Christian faith.  Paul has done a great job so far showing us the deity of Jesus as not only Creator of all things that are seen and unseen, but also as the One who is preeminent in our reconciliation and redemption back to God.  He not only wrote the story of our salvation, but He played it out as well making salvation available to “whosoever will” through His life, death and resurrection.  In writing this is to us Paul’s goal is to “present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” (Col. 1:28) As we began chapter 2, Paul began to now challenge us who “have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in the faith.”  (Col. 2:6-7) To move on to perfection, we need to keep walking with Jesus and allow our roots to grow deep into Him drawing up nourishment from Him to grow in our faith. We closed with these two verses and it is there we will also begin.

 Col 2:9-10 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; (10) and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

            Paul fully assures us again about the fact that Jesus Christ was fully God and is in total control of all things and in Him we are complete; lacking nothing, whole.  Last week we used Romans 8:1, “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,” to build our faith that being complete in Christ frees us from any condemnation or judgement.  Our sins have been completely forgiven and now as we confess our new sin, He will forgive it as well restoring to a right relationship with Him. (I John 1:9).  This is the process God has put in place for us to follow.  When we fall (not if), we are to confess our sin, stand up brush our self off, and keep on walking.  Our salvation and forgiveness of sins have been completed by Jesus upon the cross; never doubt His work.  Our job is to believe that by faith and then apply that to the path God has called us to walk.  Paul now begins to unpack even more of what it truly means to be “complete in Him.”

 

Col 2:11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,

            As a sign of the covenant with God, Jewish descendants of Abraham would circumcise their male children at the age of 8 days.  This would represent their entrance into the same covenant with God.  That circumcision of the body has now been replaced with a circumcision of the heart.  Our commitment to follow Jesus is written now upon our heart, not our body.  The physical bodily operation is now replaced with a spiritual one.  God is a heart surgeon and He changes us spiritually not physically upon our choice to follow Him.  Jesus completes us by circumcising our heart; changing us from the inside out and it begins with baptism.

 

Col 2:12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

            Here Paul reveals to us that baptism replaces the circumcision as the NT sign of entering into a covenant with God.  It is a physical act that shows a spiritual decision to accept the invitation to follow Jesus; a simple act of obedience.  We love Him, so we obey Him.  Paul describes the spiritual side of baptism as our own death, burial and resurrection.

 

Rom 6:4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

            Baptism is the beginning of our walk with the Lord, just as circumcision was with Abraham.  This act of faith also comes with a promise that our sins are forgiven and we arise to “walk in the newness of life.”  We are completed in Christ through our obedience into baptism as we are buried in the waters of baptism to arise to a new life.  Paul now begins to unpack that even deeper.

 

Col 2:13-15 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, (14) having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (15) Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

            Before we came to Christ, our nature was evil as we openly disobeyed, rebelled and even ignored God; we were certainly not loving Him with our whole heart.  The world revolved around me not God.  The wages of this sinful lifestyle is death. (Romans 6:23) We were dead in our sins before God; guilty as charged.  It was that person (the old you) that died in the waters of baptism with your sins being nailed to the cross.

 

  Rom 6:6-8 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.  (7)  For he who has died has been freed from sin.  (8)  Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

            Through our spiritual death in the waters of baptism, the “handwriting of requirements that was against us has been wiped out.”  This means that all the sins that once separated us from God, have now been erased off of our record.  Our spiritual death has freed us from the bondage our sins held over us.  Jesus “disarmed” all the principalities and powers that once controlled us by “nailing them to the cross” triumphing over them one time and forever paying the debt we owed and could not pay.  That sinful nature does not totally disappear for our lives, as we will battle that until we die, but the difference now is that we are no longer “slaves” to that nature; it does not control us.  We have become “slaves” of our Lord and choose allow Him total control of our lives knowing it is Him who completes us.  The story does not end there as after our spiritual death but it just begins as we are “made alive together with Him;” moving on to perfection. 

 

  2Co 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

            Because of the entrance of the Holy Spirit into our lives we are a “new creation” in Christ.  Things are no longer the same, but we are changed.  We have not been reformed, rehabilitated, or reeducated we have been reborn.  We don’t merely turn over a new leaf, we become a new tree!  We now live constantly in the very presence of God; allowing Him to be the Lord and Master of our lives; He is in control.  We die to ourselves only to be reborn to live to God.  It is that process that completes us; “all things have become new.”  It is not what we are doing, but it is what God is doing in us.  We are complete and perfected in Christ.

 

 

 

Do we clean up so God can accept us?  No, He accepts us and begins cleaning us up.  Grace is God as a heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart-poisoned as it is with pride and pain-and replacing it with His own.  His dream isn’t to get you into heaven but to get heaven into you.  What a difference that makes!

           

Heavenly Father, we ask for the true understanding of the mystery of the faith; “Christ in us the hope of glory.”  Thank you for loving us.