I was in Chicago this week for a conference for two days and brought home a souvenir right down to my throat, a bad cold. So I'm going to use this mic this morning in case I have to cough, I can save your ears from listening to that. Whenever we have a special event here, things get all moved around. And one of the things that we have misplaced is the clock for our service this morning. Now I would ask some of you to be a timekeeper, but I'm not sure I can trust with that.
We looked all over the platform before the service to see if we could find it. And as I was sitting here in the front chair, I see something hiding right underneath this green plant over here. I found some time. Look at that. And I'm going to have to quit on time. I'm going to ask you to open your Bible with me to Colossians chapter 2. I believe the complacency is the most dangerous condition of the human soul. I think it's more dangerous than denial or blasphemy.
Complacency is the most dangerous condition of the human soul. To be self-satisfied in a mistaken religion is really the devil's anesthesia. We have thousands of people who are going to places of worship this morning, most of them with the title church on them. But in those places they are not hearing the word of God, many of them. And yet the people who are going to those houses of worship are very complacent and think that everything is okay.
And what I'm saying to you is that that is the most dangerous condition of the human soul, to be complacent in a faith that is wrong. You see an admitted pagan makes no pretense of a religious belief and often is easier to persuade to come to Christ because of his need than the one who is self-righteous and content in a false religious system. Religious works can act like an inoculation, giving a person enough of a spiritual experience to prevent him from getting the real thing.
And it's extremely dangerous. I'm referring to these sorts of beliefs as self-made religion this morning. Self-made religion is fabricated out of one's own ideas about God or about life or the future or it's based upon another person's concoction of theology, philosophy and ethics. But ultimately self-made religion finds its source in the powers of darkness.
Colossians 2 and verse 8 suggests that the elemental spirits or what it says in my translation, the elementary principles of the world, originate systems of religion and rules and beliefs that lead men away from the knowledge of true salvation in Jesus Christ. These cosmic spirits, which is what I believe that language refers to, these fallen angels, these demons, encourage self-made religion.
But someone says, well aren't these people sincere though, even though what they have learned to believe is wrong, aren't they sincere? And the answer is yes, many of them are. But sincerity is not the test of whether beliefs are right or whether those beliefs are adequate to make a person acceptable to God. Sincerity is not enough. Neither is popularity. You don't find out what the truth is by taking a vote on it or a poll. Ancestry is not enough.
It is not enough to say, well I believe what I believe because my parents or my grandparents have believed it. If what they believed is wrong, it's still wrong for you too. Experience is not an adequate test, for one can have a genuine experience and it not be an experience that flows out of truth. The only test as to whether a belief system is true is whether it is based upon Jesus Christ, the character of His person and the sufficiency of His saving work on the cross of Calvary.
Jesus Christ stands as the judge of all man-made religion, for He alone is appointed by God to be the mediator between God and humanity. And so my basic thesis this morning is this, that Jesus Christ is supreme. He is exalted above all self-made religion. Whenever you examine a man-made, self-made religion, you will inevitably find that there is a deficiency regarding their opinion of Christ. Either in some respect to who He is or what He did on the cross, they will fall short.
Paul in this text before us today helps us understand the contrast between true biblical religion and self-made religion. For example in verses 16 and 17, we see this, that self-made religion may involve the shadows, but it deprecates or depreciates or devalues the Son, S-O-N.
Therefore, says the apostle, let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, things which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Paul is illustrating to us here that there may be elements of truth in human religions, but human religions do not connect with the living Christ, the only Savior of the world.
They may appear on the surface to be biblical, they may use biblical terms, but if you look closely at how they define the terms or how they're using the language, you will find error. And he gives us an example of this cult that was undermining the church and Colossi. They drew upon some of the Old Testament concepts, such as the rules that God laid down for the Jews regarding food, there were many of them, and drink, there were not so many of those.
They incorporated into their man-made cult, their religion, some of the Old Testament festivals, those were the annual feasts of the Lord that God set up in ancient Israel. They drew into their belief system the monthly observances of the new moon, and even the weekly observance of the Sabbath. You see, and all of these things would perhaps cause one to think that they were biblical, that what they were promoting was right.
But the apostle says, look, all of these things had their place at one time, but actually those things were shadows in the Old Testament. You know, a shadow doesn't exist by itself, does it? If you see a shadow, you know that there's some object or some body that is projecting that shadow. And Paul says all of those things, those regulations regarding food and drink and the annual, monthly and weekly observances, all of those were shadows of the substance, of the person, of Jesus Christ.
They all pointed to him. He is the image behind those shadows. He's the one who cast those shadows pictured in the Old Testament rules. He's the fulfillment of what was foreshadowed in the Old Testament. And so he says, why go back to the shadows when you already have the substance in Jesus Christ? And the point I'm drawing from this is the self-made religion may involve the shadows, but it always devalues the sun.
There are contemporary religions that likewise include bits and pieces of truth or incorporate rituals that hint at the truth, which are like shadows in a certain respect. But these contemporary religions fail to proclaim the genuine gospel of Jesus Christ. I think, for example, of one cult that says it believes in the Bible, it preaches from the Bible, it draws upon the Bible, and yet it adds to the Bible the keeping of the Sabbath.
And they say that you must worship on the Sabbath, and if you don't, you're the anti-Christ. Did you know that you are considered anti-Christ by them because you worship on the day of the resurrection, the first day of the week? You see, they are incorporating the shadow and failing to understand the significance of the sun. Who's the fulfillment of the Sabbath? I think, for example, of the Roman Catholic Mass, which incorporates similar elements to what we use, bread and wine in their case.
We use grape juice. Well, those are the elements that are biblical. And yet, when you look closely at what they say about the Mass, they say that those elements are actually changed literally into the body and the blood of Jesus, and that you must eat and drink the body and blood of Jesus in order to receive grace from God. They teach that offering up the Mass on Sunday is offering up the body and the blood of Jesus Christ afresh and anew every week or every time a Mass is offered. That's false.
That's false. So, you see, there's a ritual there that has truth behind it, but there's incorporated with it error. That's what I'm saying. The self-made religion involves things that are familiar. It involves the shadows. But self-made religion will always devalue the Son of God. I think of some of the fundamentalist churches that are legalists who add rule keeping to faith to the point that they depreciate and miss the wonders of God's grace. I grew up in a church that was in that direction.
It wasn't as extreme as some churches. But there are some fundamentalist churches that are cultic. And in my opinion, the problem is that they are involved in shadows. They are involved in things that are man-made. And they depreciate Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross of Calvary. You see, true religion is all about Jesus Christ. It comes from Him. It fixes on Him. It points to Him. It exalts Him. It relinquishes the shadows for the reality of the Son of God.
True religion ultimately is a personal relationship or a union with Jesus Christ that results from faith, not rule keeping, not by going back to the shadows and participating in them, but by focusing on Jesus Christ the Son. The second thing I want to say this morning is that self-made religion may offer spiritual experiences, but it will not engender spiritual growth. Self-made religion may offer spiritual experiences, but it will not engender spiritual growth.
Look at verse 18. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head from whom the entire body being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments grows with a growth which is from God.
The false teachers of Colossi offered spiritual experiences to those believers to persuade them to follow them, but these experiences were not of Christ. They offered self-abasement, a false kind of humility which was artificial and external. It was only a perversion of the genuine Christ-like humility. It was an outward show of humility that was not genuine, and it was apparently especially tied together with their worship of angels.
These Colossi heretics were encouraging communion with the angels. One could not commune directly with God, they said, because God is pure spirit and we're part flesh. This goes back to their dualism that I talked about last week. So they said, we've got to go through the angels, we've got to worship angels, and so they made contact with spiritual beings as part of their cult.
These spiritual beings deceived them and attracted attention to themselves, which is what evil spirits always want to do, to deceive and to get attention and worship for themselves. So you see, this cult was involved in experiences people were having. I mean, they made contact in the spiritual world that was genuine, but it was the dark side, they just didn't realize it. Furthermore, they had new and sensational insights and revelations that they claimed were from God.
They took their stand on visions they had seen. And so they said, well sure, there's Paul and all of that, but hey, we've got a later word from God. We've got something that God said to us. And so they took their stand on those visions. They had experiences, but those experiences would not engender spiritual growth because they were cut off from the head. They were not holding fast to the head, which is Jesus Christ. Paul warns about these heretics.
He says that the body grows because it's united to Jesus Christ. It grows with a growth that is from God. Spiritual maturity, you see, comes from a genuine connection with Christ and fellowship with Him as our life source, not from spiritual experiences such as these cultists were promoting. I want to say to you today that we need to be aware of those who promote various kinds of spiritual experiences that claim to be something more that you need as a believer.
My friend in Jesus Christ, you have all you need. You need nothing more. And yet there are many people, and they're on television, and you see books in Christian bookstores written by them that are heresy, that say you have to have something more. You need this new experience. You need something additional to what you have in Christ. These self-made religions offer spiritual experiences, but those experiences will not lead to spiritual growth.
It only comes when one is genuinely united to Jesus Christ in communion with Him. The third thing I want to see in our text is this. The self-made religion may foster external confirmation, but it will not affect internal transformation. False religions may get a person to change on the outside, but false religions cannot affect internal change.
The Colossian heresy promoted asceticism, which is a notion that one can reach a higher spiritual state through rigorous self-discipline and physical self-denial. Notice what he says in verse 20. If you've 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?
He's quoting here the cultists who were saying to these Colossian believers, don't handle that, don't taste that, don't touch that, 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 and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.
Let me repeat, self-made religion may foster external confirmation, but it will not affect internal transformation. Now, this asceticism apparently derived from the dualistic philosophy again. They said the body is evil, therefore we need to deny the body, we need to punish the body. Curtis Vaughan says, for ascetics, the body is a thing to be buffeted and punished, a thing to be treated like an enemy.
They see the body as evil and conclude that the way to holiness is to deny all the body's desires, refuse its appetites, and cut its needs down to an irreducible minimum. Don't do this, don't do that. This is the source of monasticism, of monasteries and monks who go to these isolated places and deny their bodies. This is the source of the Catholic teaching that priests must not marry. Peter was married, at least he had a mother-in-law, why would you have a mother-in-law if you weren't married?
Why go through all that pain if you're not going to be married? You know I'm kidding. So they're not following Peter's example. You see it goes back to the same kind of error that Paul was pointing out in the call to Colossae. That you get more spiritual, you're more holy if you deny the body, asceticism. These are man-made rules. And Paul says these rules deal with matters that are only temporary and they're insignificant. Now to be sure these kinds of rules can produce an external conformity.
There may be an outward show, an appearance of spirituality, but he says they don't do any good in changing the heart. The flesh is still the flesh. They don't affect an internal change of the heart. Rules cannot control the flesh. Only the genuine activity of the Spirit of God in us can deal with the flesh and change our character to be like Jesus Christ. So the key here is not a religion with rules, but a relationship with Jesus Christ. The living Christ producing change from the inside out.
Let me again quote Curtis Vaughan in the Expositors Bible Commentary. He says Christianity is not a religion of prescriptions, but a living relationship with Jesus Christ. This of course does not mean that once we are in Christ everything is permissible. That would amount to moral and spiritual anarchy. A thing contrary to the very nature of the new life in Christ. It does mean that the controls of the Christian life spring from within. That's the point.
Now in this paragraph, as Paul concludes really his exposure of the false teaching of this cult, he gives two warnings to the church. These follow after the one in verse 8 where he says, see to it that no one takes you kidnapped or captive through human thinking and reasoning. First of all in verse 16 he says, let no one act as your judge.
In other words, don't allow someone to take you to task for not keeping their rules, for not following their religious system, or for having their experiences. Have you ever had that experience? Boy, I have. And I know that many of you have too. You get jumped on because you've not had what they have. Because you haven't experienced what they've experienced. Because you're not following their rules. And the apostle says here, don't get upset by that. He says don't accept false guilt.
Don't be tempted to desert your biblical faith. That some religious leader or some college professor or some talk show host or some visitor at your door tempts you to leave what you learned in Christ. Don't do that. Don't let anyone take you to task because of what you believe. And when Paul says don't let anyone act as your judge, this does not mean of course that there's no basis for judgment or correction in the body of Christ. We are to admonish one another. We are to warn one another.
We're to correct one another based upon the word of God. But what he's talking about here is man-made religion. He says don't be tempted to leave what you have in Jesus Christ and follow after some person who comes along and says look, you don't have enough yet. Secondly, we see the warning in verse 18, let no one keep defrauding you. Apparently that was happening from Paul's perspective. And so he says don't let it keep going on. Don't be robbed of your prize. What does Paul mean here by this?
Well one writer puts it this way. This is Norm Geisler. Those who turn believers from the reality in Christ to the shadow of the law disqualify them for the prize. That is they rob believers of their spiritual rewards. As a judge disqualifies those who turn the wrong way in a race, so believers who turn from faithfully following Christ will be robbed of their rewards from him. That's the point.
And so keep your eye on the prize, the reward at the judgment seat of Christ for being faithful, for standing true, for keeping on in your belief. And don't allow anyone to defraud or to rob you of what is yours at the judgment seat. My friend, faith in Jesus Christ is not a negative, legalistic religion. Faith in Jesus Christ is a vital, life-transforming, positive relationship with him. The apostle says we died with him. He's going to go on to say next that we've been raised with him in life.
And therefore set your affection on things above. Now listen, if you're here today and you're involved in a man-made religion and your faith is not in the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to turn today to him. Leave those things that are the shadows and come to the substance, come to the Son of God and trust him.
And if you're a Christian living in a world as we are that is filled with all kinds of error and false teaching from many directions, stay in the word of God, stay in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and don't allow yourself to be taken off course and don't be robbed of your prize at the judgment seat of Christ. Keep believing what you know to be the truth, however reasonable the false teacher sounds.
However enticing the experience seems to be, understand that in Jesus Christ you have it all. You don't need anything more. Let's pray. Father, today may our hearts rejoice in this truth as it's found in the text of Colossians 2 and may we see Jesus as our all in all. And I pray that you will make us wise against the popular false teachings that are in our world. Oh Lord, I pray that none of us will lose our prize.
I pray that none of us will listen to someone who comes along and takes us to task because we haven't followed what they want to say. Help us to see that Jesus Christ is supreme, exalted above all human religion. In His name we pray, amen.