Transcription
For tonight, we're here in Colossians chapter 1. Let's have a word of prayer first.
Father, thank you for your love and your grace. Thank you for meeting us here. We know that your word says where two or more are gathered, there you are in our midst. So we pray that you will be honored and glorified in every way. And as we study through Colossians, that you would open our minds and our hearts to your truth. Thank you, Lord, for your word. And I thank you for all those who are here, a part of the Bible study tonight. And it's in Jesus' name that we thank you and praise you. And everyone said, amen.
So last week, the section that we left off with was between verses 15 and 20. And just going to kind of recite again the main points between verses 15 and 20. All related to Jesus, because the first two chapters of Colossians are all about the supremacy of Christ. And so Paul writes here that Jesus is:
1. The image, that is the exact manifestation of God.
2. Number two, he talks about how he's the firstborn, meaning having authority and privilege over all creation. Not that Jesus is a created being. He is co-eternal and has co-existed and is co-equal with God, because Jesus is God. But Paul uses that word firstborn to communicate privilege and authority.
3. Number three, he's the creator of all things. We learned here from Colossians 1 that Jesus, the second part of the Trinity, was the one responsible for creating all things.
4. And number four, he's the sustainer of all things. He holds everything together.
5. Number five, he is the head of the church.
6. Number six, he is the first among the resurrected from the dead.
7. And number seven, he ends by saying in verse 18 that he's basically just supreme over everything.
So if we'll pick it up here in verse 21 of chapter 1, Paul writes, "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior." Okay, is that not the testimony of any of us who have come to know Christ? We once, before we came to know Christ, we were alienated from God. We were strangers to him. We were downright enemies of God because of our evil behavior.
But verse 22, "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." Amen to that. And so he has reconciled us. That's the word that Paul uses there in verse 22. And we can appreciate that word, especially in the context of a marriage that is in in trouble. When when a couple is separated because they have issues or trouble or problems in their marriage, but then they're reconciled, that reconciliation is bringing two hostile parties together and bringing peace where there once was hostility, to bring unity where there once was division. And this is the kind of thing that Paul is saying about us. Before we came to know Christ, we were basically hostile to the Lord. Whether you were outwardly hostile or inwardly hostile, when we live a life that is contrary to God's standard, then we are by default living a life of hostility towards God. We are enemies of God. Our behavior exemplifies it.
But because of what Christ has done for us by dying on a cross, his physical death, his sacrifice, the shedding of his blood has brought two parties together that once were estranged because of sin and the human heart. We've estranged ourselves from God. And so Paul writes here to remind us that through the death of Christ on a cross, Jesus's sacrifice has brought two parties that were estranged back together in fellowship, that we might have relationship again with God. And and then check this out, that we are now holy in his sight. That's good news, right? Without blemish, okay? And free from accusation.
And he says in verse 23, "If you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel." Okay, again, the Bible is both God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. So he gets through emphasizing the sovereignty of God, that God has initiated this plan to reconcile you and me to him. We were estranged, Jesus dies on a cross. But then he adds, in verse 23, "But there's some some responsibility on us. If you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel." This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
A servant. That's how he sees himself. He doesn't try to assert his authority, doesn't try to come across as being somebody who is in charge. He realizes, "I'm just here to serve." That's what ministry is really all about. Now, he finds himself again, as we mentioned last week, he's in a prison in Rome when he writes this letter to the church at Colossae. But he realizes that in his condition of being, you know, in prison in Rome, he's really a prisoner of Christ. He belongs to Christ and he's a servant of the body of Christ, so the church is in general. He just wants to serve.
And he writes in verse 24, "Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you." Now talking about his own suffering here. "And I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the Word of God in its fullness." And so that part there just basically means, you know, Christ experienced suffering for the sake of the church. So here I am in prison, I'm a little afflicted myself, a lot less afflicted compared to what Christ endured. But nevertheless, I'm suffering, and I'm suffering for the sake of the church.
And he says there in verse 26, "The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints." Now he's going to use this word "mystery." It's *mysterion* in the Greek. He's going to use this a few more times in the passage here. He doesn't mean it as we think in English. We think "mystery," we think "riddle," we think "something that must be solved." In a biblical sense, a mystery was always something that was always clearly known, of course, always to God, but then understood by revelation. And here is something that is revealed to us. He says it's been hidden in times past. So even the Old Testament prophets, they pointed to it, but the fullness of this was a mystery until revelation came to our understanding. And it's now been disclosed to the saints.
And he says in verse 27, "To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Amen. It's not just, you know, a concept of Christ around you. It is the reality of Christ in you. That when you surrender your life to Jesus, that by his Spirit, he actually comes within you and takes up residence in your life. And so this is what he speaks of. He says, "Now, before this was somewhat of a mystery. This was not fully revealed. The Old Testament prophets pointed to Messiah." But he says, "In our time now," and he's writing in the first century, and on, of course, even applicable to us today, but he says, "Christ in you, the hope of glory."
And he says there in verse 28, "We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ." Or in other words, literally complete in Christ. We're not going to reach perfection until we're with the Lord. Look at the one next to you, they're not perfect, right? None of us is. But we're made perfect in Christ. That is to say, we are completed in him, we're made whole in him.
And he says, "To this, I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me." It's interesting, he uses this phrase "struggling with all his energy." It's actually a Greek term that refers to athletic competition. He's drawing on kind of an Olympic metaphor here. He's basically saying, "I'm struggling, I'm running this race, I'm working hard, I'm disciplined like an athlete with all this energy that comes from the Lord, which is powerfully at work in me."
And into chapter 2, he kind of keeps on the same theme. So look at chapter 2. He says, "I want you to know how much I am struggling for you." It's that same athletic imagery. "I'm struggling for you, I'm laboring, I'm working out here for you, and for those in Laodicea, which was a nearby town, and for all who have not met me personally." Again, last week we talked about how Paul did not plant the church at Colossae. Um, many of the epistles Paul wrote were written because he planted those churches and then he writes a letter to encourage them. This is one church he did not plant. In fact, he did not even know them, not one-on-one. He never met them. And that's the reference here in verse one, because he talks about him struggling for you and for all in Laodicea and for all who have not met me personally.
So again, we have a mention of the pastor of this church, back in chapter 1, verse 7, a pastor, Archippus, who is the one who apparently goes to visit Paul in Rome in prison and basically starts to tell Paul that his church back home in Colossae has a problem. And the problem is, there's heresy that has crept in. And so Archippus appeals to Paul as a spiritual dad and says, "Paul, can you write a letter back to my congregation and and encourage them and who Christ is and warn them about these heresies and things that they're falling into, so that they, they, they'll reject the heresies and stay on the straight and narrow with Christ?" And so that's why Paul's writing this letter. He's never even met these people, but with the love of Christ for the church of Christ, Paul writes here.
And he is going to talk about some unnamed heresy. Now, I'll talk a little bit more about it. We mentioned it last week, but I'll talk more about it today through chapter 2. But here he goes in verse 2 of chapter 2. He says, "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, here's that word again, the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
Verse 4, "I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments." Okay, so here's this allusion to they, they're they're dealing with some heresy in their church. There's there's some things that aren't true that some of these Christians are buying into. So he's warning them here. He says, "I'm telling you all this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments."
"For though I'm 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, I mean, he's not buttering them up with false flattery. I mean, he's being genuine here. He's saying, you know, "Listen, I've heard, even though I'm not with you, I've heard how orderly you are. You know, you're very methodical, you're doing things in in order, and how firm your faith is in Christ." But now he's going to go on on the rest of this chapter to say, "But, but there's some problems, and and and you folks need to give attention to these problems because you've been deceived by fine-sounding arguments."
And so again, last week I mentioned that there's this heresy in the church that seems to have been a combination of several philosophies. And these four philosophies are: humanism (that's verse 8), legalism (verses 11 to 17), mysticism (verses 18 and 19), and then something called asceticism (verses 22-23). Now, we're actually going to unpack these four different heresies, these four different philosophies that have led to heresy in the first-century church. And the reason we're going to unpack these is because they still have, in various forms, unfortunate influence in the church today. Not necessarily our church, but just in the body of Christ today, that these things, these four things, humanism, legalism, mysticism, and a, you can find in some aspects of Christianity today, which in some sense makes them not so Christian after all, if they buy into these different philosophies, which are really heretical in form.
So here's, here's where he goes with this. Verse 6, "So then, just as you received Christ 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." 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 on Christ."
All right, so this is verse 8, and this is humanism. So this is the first one we're going to talk about. He talks about the human tradition, that's human influence, and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. So let's take a look at this first one, which is humanism. And here's kind of a working definition: Humanism originated from Greek influence, and it is as a result of Stoicism and Platonism and Epicureanism. I'll just briefly touch on those things, which basically teaches, in a nutshell, that man is the center of his universe and the solution to all his problems. That man is the center of his universe, man is the chief end of all things, and is the solution to all his problems. And I mean, man in a universal sense here, right? Mankind. So it's when it's when mankind is esteemed, there's really no place for God in this equation, because it's all about mankind, mankind being esteemed. Man is the center of the universe, man is the center of life, and therefore man is the solution to all of his problems. So this is humanism.
Now, again, there were three main philosophies that influenced humanism in the first century, and these philosophies date back to the 3rd and 4th centuries BC. So you have Stoicism, that's 3rd century BC, which basically taught that logic and reason were supreme. You know, any Stoics today who really think that logic and reason is supreme, and they esteem knowledge, logic, and reason more than they do God. And then then you have, of course, Platonism, which is the philosophy of Plato. Plato was the student of Socrates. Aristotle was the student of Plato, see, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, you know. And and they, they basically, you know, there's a lot of spirit talk. Plato, Plato talked about God or gods, because there was a lot of spiritual talk, but the emphasis was on mankind and not on certainly the God of the Bible. Again, you know, Plato's like the 4th century BC. But but what he's emphasizing is not the God of the Bible, but that spirit is good, matter is evil. So it's that philosophy of spirit talk, but it's really, again, man is the chief end of things. Have you ever noticed how those kind of thinkers have one name? It's like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Oprah. You know what I'm talking about? Just like, I don't know, maybe Plato ran for president, I don't know. You know, Bono, Madonna. You know what I mean? It's just people have one name seem to have this kind of philosophy that man is the chief end of things. And you know, it's all about logic and reason.
So, so you have that. And then you have Epicureanism, but philosophy started by Epicurus, 3rd century BC. And and he basically taught that pleasure is the sole interns are good, but it has to be simple pleasure, like friendship, knowledge, and tranquility. We know we don't want to overindulge. And so it's just simple pleasure. But these kind of things were floating around. Now, it's it's obviously morphed a little bit over the ages. And so now humanism, we actually have secular humanism today, which is not just a concept, that's actually a recognized religion in our country. And secular humanism basically teaches that there are no supernatural beings, that we only live this life, there is no afterlife, that human beings derive their moral code from life lessons, past experiences, and thought. The idea that we have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to one's own life, no other outside authority, and that human experience and rational thinking provide the only source of both knowledge and a moral code to live by.
If many of you have done, you know, your homework in this area of humanism and secular humanism, in 1933, there was the Humanist Manifesto I. And then it was revised in 1973, the Humanist Manifesto II. And then in 2003, it was a document written called the Humanist Manifesto III, otherwise known as Humanism and Its Aspirations. It was subtitled Humanist Manifesto III. There are a lot of secular humanists in our world today who actually identify as secular humanists, not just today, but over, over the past, you know, last century. And we have people like Walt Whitman, the poet, Mark Twain, the author, they identified as secular humanists. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, he identifies as a secular humanist. And the doctrine of the Humanist Manifesto III has seven bullet points. And I'll just read them to you. Here's one: "Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis." That's how knowledge is gained. Number two: "Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of evolutionary change, an unguided process." They make that point. Number three: "The ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience." All about that. Number four: "Life's fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of human ideals." Number five: "That humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships." Number six: "That working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness." And number seven: "Respect for differing, yet humane views is an open, secular, democratic, environmentally sustainable society."
So again, it's all about experience, knowledge, reason, logic. It's devoid of God or any kind of spiritual sense of authority or a moral code outside of one's own ability to think and reason that, okay, for himself or herself. So this is humanism. So, you know, even though Paul's writing in the first century, we we see this kind of philosophy that has crept into our culture, both secularly and religiously. We have, unfortunately, in some churches where they've adopted more of a secular humanist approach to life and and elevated the view of man and devalued scripture in the view of God. It's it's happening in in churches, and it's tragic. And so what Paul is warning about here is something that we don't need to read here and think, "Well, that was a problem of the first century." This is a problem still in our world and ever-increasing so. And we need to be mindful of this in the church. We've elevated man, we've elevated knowledge, we've elevated all this reasoning, we've elevated the environment, we've elevated even the animal kingdom, because now we have more value in the spotted owl and the porpoise and whales, and we do the unborn baby. And so when this begins to be inverted, what we have now is man as the chief end of all things, man is the center of the universe, man is the solution to man's problems, and it's absent of God. And that philosophy has unfortunately, in little doses, even crept into the church. We have to be mindful of this. Humanism is still a potential problem that we must be on guard against.
He says, "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 on Christ." There are a lot of principles of this world rather than Christ that seek to form your way of viewing things and shape your ideals and ideas. And we have to be really vigilant about this kind of thing, because there's various ways that our culture will just creep in with little philosophical and and traditional ways of thinking, and then they'll lay the guilt trip on you because if you don't go along with this, you're a hater, you're bigoted, you're all these other kind of things that they'll tell you as a Christian, because you stand by a moral code that is not some internal thing, it's it's it's God. Well, I mean, it becomes internal when you know Christ as your Savior, but it is given to us by revelation of God through His Word. And that becomes the compass by which I navigate my life and this messy world. And so we aren't to be given to this to the basic principles of this world and the traditions of man. And we have to be wise to this kind of thing, church. We have to be wise to this kind of thing.
Now, he goes on in verse 9 and 10, and and particularly into verse 11 through 17, and he's going to talk about now another potential problem, which is legalism. So let me read this. Verse 9, "For in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form." Okay, so Christ is God. "And you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority."
"In him you were also circumcised, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in Baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 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 of them, triumphing over them by the cross."
"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."
So here's the second thing that he's going to emphasize here, it's a problematic in the church, and that's legalism, which which really came about in the early church through Jewish influence that really emphasized this, that it's about rules and regulations that one must follow to be right with God. It's about rules and regulations. Now, he starts out with one of the regulations that he references, circumcision, here in the beginning of this passage. And he talks about how you were circumcised, but he says, "You, you know what? You weren't circumcised in a literal physical way. You were circumcised in a spiritual way by the cutting away of that sinful part of your heart when Christ came into your life." That God did this wonderful surgery in your heart by cutting away things that were wrong and sinful. So Paul says, in a spiritual sense, we've all been circumcised when you come to know Christ, because God does his wonderful surgical work in our hearts.
But this is very similar, you don't need to turn back there, this is very similar to the problem in Acts chapter 15, when the early church was, you know, people were starting to get saved and coming into faith in Christ, and they were wrestling with this whole idea of, well, what's the proper place of the law in the life of a believer? Because we don't throw out our Old Testament, the moral code is still preserved for us so we can understand the character and the standard of God. But in Acts chapter 15, the council to Jerusalem gathered together some of the early apostles, and they, they were deciding, you know, what are the important things we need to talk about? And one of the things, one of the reasons that they met about this was because Acts 15, verse 1, says that "some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers this: 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.'"
Now, they were called in the first century Judaizers. And Judaizers taught, "Yes, it's about Jesus, if you want to get saved, but it's also about Jesus plus the Jewish rituals." And they emphasized one of those Jewish rituals, circumcision. But further down in Acts 15, it talks about in in verses 10 and 11, it says, "Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the backs of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No, we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." So the Jews actually began to realize that Gentiles who were coming into faith did not to be, did not need to convert to Judaism in order to really be saved. That Jews who were born Jews can believe in Christ and be saved. Gentiles who were born Gentiles can believe in Christ and be saved too. That the pathway to salvation is Christ. It's not any other ritual or becoming like or converting to. It's just, it's just knowing Christ, what he's done. It's by grace are we saved through faith. This not of ourselves, not of works, lest anyone should boast. We can't take credit for this. This is what God did for us. It's His gift to us.
But the problem that was still in the first century church, and still exists in some circles today, is this guilt trip that you've got to still do things in order to be right with God. And you've got to add to this work of salvation by performing certain rituals and festivals and feasts and rites and practices and traditions in order to really be right with God. And friends, the moment you add anything to what Christ did on the cross, you've just made it a works-oriented approach to God. And any works-oriented approach to God nullifies the cross and totally misses that salvation is a free gift. And you cannot work your way to heaven. And once you, you, you begin to believe that and think to yourself that this is a, this is something to do in order to get right with God, the only thing we have to do is respond. That's it. Is respond to what God has done for us by offering us on Jesus on a cross.
Now, I want to do good works. And James talks about this. I want to do good works in response to this salvation that's a free gift. But my motivation now is to do what is right to please God because I love Him, in response to His first loving me. It is not so that I can get into His better good graces, so that He might like me, right? Heaven is not something we gain because of our good works. It is a gift we receive because of the finished work of Christ on the cross. All right, amen. And that's a free gift. So we buy into this legalism stuff when we start to think, "I got to do this, you got to do that."
Now, the problem here was, we got to be circumcised. And Paul's like, "No, no, no. Listen, you've been circumcised in a spiritual sense because God cut away that part of your sinful heart when you came to know Christ. So you've been circumcised. So don't, don't get all hung up on the idea of rituals and all these things." And he mentions here, as part of kind of dismantling legalism, he said there's three things that stood opposed to us. Number one was our own sins. Look at verse 13, "God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins." Our sins stood opposed to us. And then also, so did the law. Verse 14, "having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and stood opposed to us."
How was it that the law stood opposed to us? How is it that the law of God is against us? Because the law points out the righteous standard of God, and the law makes us realize we can't live up to this righteous standard. It's too hard. And God knows that. That's why He offers a Savior. That's why Jesus comes to die on the cross. What had Paul write to the church in Galatia? He said, "The law was put in effect to lead us to Christ." See, the law should serve to be like a mirror to expose in our own hearts, "Wow, I'm really messed up." We read the law, "Wow, I'm messed up. God's perfect, I'm not. So how can I compensate for this problem I've got? How messed up am I?" And legalism trips in and says, "We just got to work harder and try to do this and try to do that, try to better yourself." Okay? But the problem is, that's not the solution. That's the problem with the Pharisees back in Jesus' day. They thought, "If I just work harder and keep the letter of the law more perfectly, then I'll be in good standing with God." And they totally missed the point of the law. The law was to expose my sinfulness and make me cry out for a Savior. The law was intended for to expose in me how messed up I am and then make me realize why I cannot live up to this. This is too perfect, and God is too holy and perfect. I need help. Yes, yes, you do. And so God, knowing that, sends on Jesus as a Savior to us.
You know, when you and I are sick or have the flu or whatever, and and we take our temperature with a thermometer, the thermometer does not make us well. The thermometer just simply exposes that we're sick. That's the law. The law cannot make us well. It just exposes how sick we are and how much we need a Savior. So legalism is a heresy because it's a philosophy that says, "I'll just try to work harder to get to God." Paul says, "Please, please don't. Please don't try to do that." Sin was opposed to us. The law was opposed to us. And in verse 15, demonic powers were opposed to us. Because in verse 15, part of what God, what Christ did on the cross was not only did He forgive all our sins, not only did He cancel the written code, verse 15, "having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."
Now, please note the word "disarmed." Satan's not defeated, not yet. But he's rendered powerless. He still is active in our world today. Not until Revelation 20 does it speak about how he is bound for a thousand years during the Millennial Kingdom. But at the end of a thousand years, he's released again. But then at the end of that time, he's thrown into the lake of fire along with the false prophet and the Antichrist. And so that's when he will be ultimately, completely defeated. That's Revelation 20, right? Right now, he still roams the earth, and he still has influences in our world. But for Christians, he's been rendered powerless by the cross, and Christ has triumphed over them by the cross.
So that's why he adds here in verse 16, "So don't let anybody judge you by what you eat or drink." It's not about rituals, rules, festivals, or regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration, or Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. Those, those things in the Old Testament were pointing. They were just a shadow. They were pointing to who was the one who was to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ. Found in Christ. Okay? So don't, don't buy the legalism trip.
Verse 18, he's going to move into the next heresy here, the philosophy that's crept into the church, is mysticism. Verse 18, "Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize." I mean, there's strong language. I mean, the ultimate prize is heaven. We can be disqualified. Why? Because we're led astray by heresies. And he talks about this heresy is something that delights in false humility, the worship of angels. He says, "Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the head, capital H, its Christ, from whom the whole body supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews grows as God causes it to grow."
So here, between verses 18 and 19, he's referring to a philosophy that that is referred to as mysticism. Mysticism is influenced by Eastern thought and it emphasizes supernatural mystical pursuits, including the worship of angels. He specifically mentions that one, but it can be other types of really supernatural, spiritual, mystical things. Now, let me, let me say this upfront. Let me qualify what I'm about to say. I think it's clear in scripture that God still works in supernatural ways. God still works in miraculous ways, even as it relates to the things of the Spirit. I believe in all the gifts of the Spirit. I believe they're still available today. God distributes them as He wills. So I don't want to for a moment discount the supernatural working of God and the miraculous ways that He is still at work in our world today. But there can be a preoccupation with that, and people can be pursuing the supernatural, and they want signs and wonders, and they want all this mystical stuff, not as much as they really want Jesus. And I've and I've known people, and I've talked to people, and you probably, as well, know people that are all about the mystical, they're all about the supernatural, they're all about the latest and greatest and and the most nifty way that God is at work today.
Look, I was taught this years ago, and I thought this, and I believe this is good advice. That is this timeless truth: If you want to test whether something is really legitimate in terms of its supernatural reality from God, you have to ask yourself three questions. Number one, did Jesus teach it? Number two, did the early church practice it? Number three, do the epistles support it? Did Jesus teach it? Did the early church practice it? Do the epistles support it? When it passes those tests, embrace it. Because if you know Jesus taught it, the early church practiced it, the epistles supported it, the other writings of Paul and the other writers of the epistles, inspired by the Holy Spirit, give credibility and lend veracity to those supernatural things. Embrace it. Pray for it. But if you are seeking supernatural things that have no biblical basis by which to judge those things, you're dangerously seeking things that in fact may not be of God. And Christians need to be warned about this, because I've seen Christians who seek, because they're into the supernatural stuff, they have the discernment of dirt. And they're all about, "What is this? Look, God's moving in this way." What have you discerned that that's really from the Lord? I mean, did Jesus teach it? Did the early church practice it? Well, no, no. But, "I know God's moving." That's dangerous. That's very, very dangerous.
Well, there's this really great book written about it. I don't care. There's there's a better book written about it right here. And so if, if you don't use scripture by which to assess things and test things and judge things, it's dangerous. First John 4:1 says, "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." So we have to be careful that some of the signs and wonders and supernatural things that we think might be from God are not necessarily from God. If it doesn't match up with what scripture teaches, Jesus did it, did he teach it? To the early church practice it? Do the epistles support it? Then otherwise, we need to reject it. And I, and I know, and I, please, if you come up to me afterwards and you say to me, "Yeah, but let me tell you my experience." I'm not interested in your experience. I'm interested in the authority of scripture. If you can back up your experience with scripture, I'm all-in. But I've had people come to me and say, "This, this supernatural thing happened to me." And I've said, "Do you see that anywhere in scripture?" "Well, no." "But I know it's from the Lord." "How do you know it's from the Lord then, if you don't have scripture as the basis by which to test these things?" How do you know? Because let us not be deceived. Satan works in supernatural ways too. And there are different kinds of signs and wonders that demonic principalities can counterfeit. And we have to be wise to these things.
And so Paul is writing here, he says there's some in the early church that were worshipping angels. There are people today who worship angels, not understanding that angels are inferior beings. There's two passages in the book of Revelation when when John gets caught up in, he sees these visions and revelations, and and angels are being used by the Lord to show him some of these things in the book of Revelation. And it talks about how how John falls down and and starts to worship these. It's Revelation 19:10 and Revelation 22:8. He falls down and starts to worship the angel that shows him these visions. And the angel says to him, "Get up! Get up! For I am a servant like you. You must worship Christ." And even the angel corrects John. I mean, John's just caught up in the moment, like, "Wow, this incredible revelation. Thank you for showing me this." And he falls down to worship this angel. And this angel says, "Get up! God's gonna see you doing this. You must worship the Lord, not me." And so there are all these kinds of mystical kind of just, you know, supernatural things that that people pursue.
Now, look, again, this this has crept in. We have to be mindful that when Paul writes this, it's 1st century AD. Five centuries earlier, 5th century BC, the same time period that in your Bible is covered by the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Do you know what else was happening in the world? 5th century BC, when Ezra and Nehemiah were were in in operation, you had at the same time, 5th century BC, you had Gautama in India, you had Confucius in China, you had Socrates in Greece. So for five centuries up into the point now where Paul's writing here in 1st century, you've already had the influences of Buddha, you've already had the influences of Confucius and of Socrates, and now even, you know, Plato and Aristotle as well by the time you get to first century. But I'm only pointing this out because we have to understand the roots of mysticism go way back. Eastern mysticism goes way back and influenced and infected the church. And even still today, in our own culture, there are Eastern mysticism things that it's not just impacted the church in terms of a supernatural fascination with things that are mysterious, but we even have mysticism, Eastern mysticism, impacting our world today in our culture outside the church.
Let me share an actual picture of an article from The Washington Post. This was in 2015. This article came out, and I'll read to you in case you can't go, well, I guess you can see it up there. Here's the picture of these students here. Mackey Boone, age 9, closes her eyes and focuses on her breathing during a "peace class" where kids learn mindfulness techniques at Lafayette Elementary School in the District. The District of Columbia. Now, they call it mindfulness techniques. It's meditation. You know, it's so it's so incredulous to think that in the '60s, we can't pray anymore, but we can do, we can do mindful techniques, which is just Eastern mysticism. So we have religion in schools today, but it's under a different guise. And we don't want to call it meditation because that has a connotation of Eastern mysticism. So we'll call it mindful techniques. This is actually the subtitle, the the caption, rather, to this picture in the Washington Post in 2015. School in our own backyard in DC. Here's another picture of students. This is The Atlantic that published this story. Same, same story. This is these are kids in a school in New York, in the Bronx. And here's the, the title of this article: "When Mindfulness Meets the Classroom." "Many educators are introducing meditation into the classroom as a means of improving kids' attention and emotional regulation." You see this kid right here? He's in the yoga position. You see him with legs crossed and and forefinger to the thumb? That's the yoga position. Yoga is Eastern mysticism. If you're into yoga, it's Eastern mysticism. You ought not to be. You want to spend quiet time in meditation? That's a word in the Bible, by the way. Meditation. Pray and pray to the Lord. But you don't need to make a blank slate and start thinking about things to entertain all these other, you know, objective kind of things. This is this is Eastern mysticism that has actually come into our schools now. From The Atlantic, let me read part of the article here, because at least they were bold enough to say what the root of this is. So in the article, The Atlantic published it says, "Quote, 'It may not be the typical way to start an English class, but Gonzalez's students were familiar with these five-minute mindfulness exercises, from counting breaths and focusing on the sensations of breathing to visualizing thoughts and feelings that he uses to help train their attention, quiet their thoughts, and regulate their emotions.'" Jon Kabat-Zinn, the biologist who first coined the term mindfulness in the '70s, defines it as a state of mind, the act of, quote, "paying attention on purpose," and quote, "to the present moment with a quote, non-judgmental attitude," end quote. And then The Atlantic writes, "But mindfulness is really a secular philosophy and set of techniques adapted from thousands of year old Buddhist meditation traditions, ones that only recently landed in mainstream Western consciousness." Some kudos to The Atlantic for at least saying, "You know what? They're calling it mindfulness and these five-minute times of peace, it actually has its roots in ancient Buddhism." And it does. So be mindful of this, because there's this fascination of things spiritual in the church that may not always necessarily be able to be attributed to God. And there's this fascination of the mystical, even in our culture today, with with things like like this in our classrooms that's already 8:15. I got one more to get through. All right, can I press you one more? All right, one more to get through. Thank you very much. Let's and those of you didn't like the ones applauding will quietly leave while I'm reading. But let me, let me just quickly read them from the last section, which is verses 20 to 23.
"Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, though you still belong to it, do you submit to its rules? Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch! These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body. Note that! But they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence."
The last thing on our list that he addresses here is, in a word, asceticism. And that's really based on religious influence, people who have, you know, just want to spiritualize everything. And it's really the doctrine that a person can attain a higher spiritual and moral state by practicing self-deprivation and self-mortification. Or what does all that mean? Well, in short, it's the renunciation of things physical, which has been deemed of much lesser worth for the spiritual. So it's the idea that if I punish myself physically, and that's the extreme of asceticism, the extreme is basically inflicting punishment on yourself on your body to make sure that you never enjoy anything, so that therefore then pleasure would get in the way of my walk with God. So I have to, you know, self-flagellation and and and self-mortification and self-deprivation, all this stuff to my body and to myself so that I'm closer to God.
Now, let me make this clear. The Bible talks about denying self, talks about dying to self. There are things that we need to actually die to and deny ourselves. But asceticism basically teaches that you can get closer to God if you punish yourself, if you do things to yourself that actually will inflict injury and remind yourself that you really shouldn't like anything except God. So make your body and your life as miserable as possible. That's the extreme of it. But there are shorter forms of it, and they've crept into the church. The idea that, you know, "I need to do something to keep myself in check, and that'll help me to be closer to God." Quite honestly, you see a lot of this rooted in the monastic movement, because monks would get themselves in their monasteries and actually, as a part of depriving self, would even experience on some level some self-flagellation.
To try to feel better about crucifying the flesh by depriving themselves in different ways and inflicting even injury on themselves. Now, when I mentioned monks in a monastery, immediately, obviously, that's going to translate a little bit of asceticism rooted in the Roman Catholic Church. You, you even have Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul the Second, who intentionally slept on the floor, not in a bed, because they wanted it to be a stark reminder of the need for self-mortification. It was that concept that I got to be uncomfortable in, in order for me to really feel like I'm closer to God.
I'm going to read something to you right off of it's called religious vocation dot com. It's a Catholic website that espouses the value of penance and mortification. And it, and, and the part I'm going to read to you is talking about the history of it. I'm not suggesting that Roman Catholics live like this today, but I just want you to know a little bit of the history of it. And so here's what they say. It's just, it's a short paragraph.
It says, "From the prophets of the Oh, they're going to twist a little bit of this, and I'll explain him. From the prophets of the Old Testament who frequently fasted and wore a cloth to save their people." Okay, they did fast often, and they wore sackcloth. That is true. "To the apostles who imposed severe fasts on their bodies." Okay, well, they fast as part of a spiritual discipline. It's not to try to, you know, mortify to get, you know, in God's better graces. "To the Saints and religious orders throughout church history, such asceticism." They even, the word on the website, "such asceticism has been a mainstay of Christian life." Well, that's not really true.
But here's what they quote by history. St. Francis DeSales, for example, was known to use the discipline, and parentheses, they talk about self-flagellation, using a whip, a rod, or a lash. So St. Francis DeSales would actually whip himself, okay, as well as an iron belt and hair shirts. What is a hair shirt? A hair shirt is a garter with metal points. So he'd wear it to feel like I'm inflicting injury on myself so that therefore I feel closer to God. And then they quote historically about St. John Marie Vianney, was known for his austerities and fasting, as well as frequent use of the discipline. Same kind of thing, self-flagellation, whipping himself. St. Josemaria Escriva often wore what something called a Solis, which is a band of chain links with small prongs, typically worn around the upper thigh. In more recent times, we have the example of Blessed John John Paul II, who often slept on the hard floor, or Mother Teresa, who with her sisters voluntarily lived in extreme poverty.
To us today, these practices may seem foreign. And indeed, the idea of penance and mortification as all but died away in the West. Yet such austerity and self-mastery has always been part of the Christian life and even commonplace among many religious orders throughout history until the mid-20th century. Okay, commonplace, but not, not something that is supposed to be part of the Christian community. So in that particular website, they talk about historically of some of the like, it's, it's not that bad of a thing because Christians did this. Well, Christians who were misguided did that and didn't understand that asceticism is not a way that you bring yourself closer to God.
Even, even Martin Luther. For you Lutherans, you'll like this. Martin Luther, who of course was a Roman monk and left the Roman Catholic Church after reading the book of Romans and then posted his 95 Theses, which was his list of objections to the Roman Catholic doctrine on, on the chapel door of the Wittenberg Church. Martin Luther even still struggled with asceticism because of that background that he'd grown up with, thinking that pleasure's wrong and I got to, you know, inflict injury. So he, even after he left the Roman Catholic Church and then could marry, he married an ex-nun. But what's so funny is she, she used to be a nun. Now, she wasn't. And so he married an ex-nun. But Martin Luther did not hold sex in a high regard because it conflicted with the idea of asceticism and injuring yourself, and it's pleasurable. So I don't know if I should enjoy this.
And this is what Martin Luther said, "Had God consulted me on the matter, I would have advised him to continue the generation of the species by fashioning them out of clay." And quote, as Martin Luther. So there are some who believe that if I just injured myself, this is the whole idea of asceticism. And this is what Paul is referring to. He's like, you know, you have all these rules, don't handle, don't taste, don't touch, don't enjoy anything. And he says, "Their self-imposed worship, false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body." He says, "But it, it doesn't really work in restraining sensual indulgence." Why? Because you can do all these external things, but if you don't have the heart right with the Lord, you can have all these external mechanisms, and they won't really work. And likewise, if you have the Lord, you don't need all the external mechanisms because you have the power of the Spirit to help you in those areas that that are fleshly. Better fleshly. Amen.
So let's pray. These four, these four areas are still something that some struggle with today, from from the legalism to asceticism, to humanism, to all these different isms. And so we just need to pray and ask the Lord that if these things are in our lives, we just need to get rid of these things. Lord, we just come to you and thank you for the cross. Thank you, Jesus, that you died for us, that you paid the price in full. And we pray that any of these areas, any of these fallacies that have influenced our lives, Lord, that we would purge ourselves of these things. If there's any humanism, that philosophy of this world that has crept into our hearts, Lord, we just renounce those things. If there's legalism, we're trying to work our way to heaven, Lord, we would just renounce these things. Any mysticism, if we're fascinated by the supernatural, but but those things haven't been tested by your word and failed the test, we renounce those things. And asceticism, Lord, we don't, we don't have to punish our bodies. Thank you that we can enjoy pleasurable things. May we deny those things, Lord, that are interfering in our walk with you, but may we not think to ourselves that if we punish our bodies, somehow we're going to be more spiritual. Lord, thank you that you did it all for us in Christ. And we love you and praise you and thank you. In Jesus name, and everybody said, amen.