Sermon Manuscript: Useless Philosophy vs. Biblical Wisdom

Included here is the sermon manuscript for the message preached at Bethany Place Baptist Church in N Chesterfield, VA, on December 29th, 2019, by Alexander Renner. Feel free to comment.

Useless Philosophy vs. Biblical Wisdom

Colossians 2:1-9 ESV (December 29th, 2019 – Bethany Place Baptist Church)

- Thankful for the opportunity to preach. Something I love to do, to look into the Word of God together and gaze at the glory of God and his awesome holiness. To meditate on rich spiritual truths that our souls are hungry for.

- I just want to point this out. Today is my mom’s birthday, can we give it up for her? Check-in on her after this and give her some love, this is her day.

- Update: College life at Southeastern. Made best friends already. Read article I just wrote. Learned much, translate that head knowledge into practical service is the tricky part.

- Quick note before we begin, about 3 months ago now, I was fortunate enough to travel to Portland, Oregon, where a team of about 8 served a few church plants for a week. When I was there, I was exposed to the capital city of Leftism, or Postmodernism, and my heart burned to serve them and show them the truth of the Word of God, to show them the awesomeness of this Jesus that I follow. So, this summer I will be going back. As you can imagine, however, it is expensive to live in a large, popular city like Portland. That being said, I am fundraising for the trip. I will speak more on this later, filling you a bit more with details about how much it will cost and what exactly I would be doing while living there.

- Halting from current sermon series, Why Did God Become Man? To dive into Colossians 2.

- Text this morning, Colossians 2:1-9. Let us stand out of respect for the perfect holiness of God’s Word. Read along with me.

- Pray.

Context

+ Paul was imprisoned at the time of writing this letter.

+ Audience was the group of believers, or the church, in Colossae, a small, now uninhabited city near the coast of present-day Turkey.

Martin, Ralph P. Colossians: The Church’s Lord and the Christian’s Liberty. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972.

(pg. 3) – The church at Colossae may have been young. Created within a matter of a few weeks to perhaps a few months. Only a matter of speculation.

(pg. 4) – Paul’s purpose in writing to the Colossians was to quickly address the false teaching that the church was exposed to.

(pg. 5) – In fact, this letter could be seen, as the commentary says, as the first “apologetic” or defense put forth for the Christian faith up against other worldviews that were being promoted at the same time.

- There was some sort of extra-spiritual philosophy being pushed by people who didn’t know God.

- In the prior chapter, chapter 1, Paul states deep theological truths about God and the Christian experience, things such as the Divinity of Jesus, God's work in justifying sinners, and overall displays these wonderful images of restoration.

- In this chapter, chapter 2, Paul shifts slightly by laying out his relationship with his audience, the Colossians, and the plans he has for them as well as the churches in the surrounding Greek cities.

- Later on in the letter, Paul will address things like the new identity of the believer and what that means for practical living (freedom from tradition, extra-biblical laws, etc.)

What I would like to do with you all this morning is to go verse-by-verse, just plainly looking at what the Father is communicating to us. This is why we should listen to preaching. Looking at what God is saying to us, plainly in His Word, and then relying upon Him to help us apply it. If you find yourself in a pew for any other reason other than to get help living for Him, and seeking to obey Him in a deeper, more worshipful way, check yourself. Today we are being bombarded by sensationalist preachers today that look to entertain more than to charge, encourage, and aid in the pursuit of God and the killing of sin. That is not healthy, yet it is rampant. Make sure that is not your motivation.

Alright, verse 1.

1 – For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you

- Right off the bat Paul is showing his heart for the churches he has helped plant. Other translations, instead of using the word struggle, use words like conflict, or agonize, signifying that Paul wasn’t physically working or raising money or anything of that sort for the church, but had an emotional/spiritual burden for these people he saw as his own. “For I want you to know how great [an inner conflict I have, or how great I agonize] for you.”

1 – For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face,

- It wasn’t only the church in Colossae that Paul saw as his spiritual children whom he loved; it was all of the churches in Ancient Asia Minor. From this passage and others in the NT, we can assume that Paul at-least helped plant these mentioned churches, if not founded them.

- As I look at this, I think about my own life, and the believers I’m looking at right now, and I ask myself: Do I see you all this way? Perhaps not as my spiritual children, but as people to be constantly prayed for from a distance? People that I long to see? How do you view your church family?

- I confess that as Brooklyn and I have been away at school I have missed you all. Have I constantly prayed for you though? Have you constantly prayed for me? According to the text, we should be each other’s joys! You should be the apple of my eye, and vice versa. God puts Paul in front of the church as one of the greatest role models, aside from the Lord Jesus, for living faithfully. One of the marks of faithful living, as shown here, is a deep love for and connection with other believers. We are members of the same family in God. We have been adopted by the same Father, and therefore should treat each other with brotherly love and affection (Romans 12:10). This attitude is one that not only blesses the Church internally, by strengthening the bonds we have with each other, but blesses the world externally! Jesus said in John 13:35 that the world will know that we are His disciples by the way we treat one another. May we have the same heart as Paul towards our brothers and sisters in Christ, and may we lean on Christ to have that heart! Without his aid, we are doomed. This image of church unity does not come about by our own strength.

2 – that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of Gods mystery, which is Christ,

- Paul continues his sentence and reveals the desires he has for these churches. It is clear he wants them to be how I just described. But for what? What is the ultimate purpose of this, though (other than evangelism)? The key word here is “to.” Paul wants these believers to “be encouraged, being knit together in love, TO reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of Gods mystery, which is Christ,” What does it mean to reach this? Not completely clear. There are some who might say that this second part of the verse, “to reach all the riches…” is a subordinate clause.

- First, what does he mean by full assurance of understanding? Well known historical determinist John Calvin, in his commentary on this passage, notes that Paul always calls full assurance what he means by a faith that is consistent, trustful. So, Paul could potentially be saying here that believers are to be knit together in love so that they attain an unwavering faith that isn’t ignorant, one full of understanding. This would make sense, for to live is to live by faith according to the Scriptures, and Paul charges believers’ countless times to seek to increase their faith in the Lord, as is right, and as God deserves. That word understanding, though, doesn’t make sense until this next section is added on.

- So we have this full assurance, or this faith, that isn’t ignorant. It holds understanding. But an understanding of what? In this case, the proper question is not what, but whom. This is where it gets meaty, this is where it gets rich, this is where it gets precious. Open your spiritual eyes with me.

- We are to have a faith that understands this mystery. The word for mystery here means secret, or hidden thing. Something that isn’t revealed to the wise or understanding. Something that isn’t plain to those who think themselves intelligent and clever. It is a humble, yet utterly bright and amazing truth.

- What does that mean? What does it mean that Christ is a mystery? As Pastor Gene helped me discover, by looking at other passages like some in Ephesians as well as Colossians 1:27, and which reads, “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory,” it seems to mean that God, instead of being this distant Being that humans have to somehow earn themselves towards, has come to live within the hearts of believers through the acceptance of the Gospel. This opens it up to all of humanity. Before this, it was believed that only ethnic Jews could be saved by being obedient to the Old Testament Law. But now, as Romans 3 tells us, “But now the righteousness of God is manifested apart from the Law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” The humble are those who see it. The wise cannot. It is through Christ, his Deity, his ministry, his death and resurrection, it is through the Gospel message that people are made right before God, their sins are forgiven, and the Holy Spirit comes to live within them. This is the mystery because its contrary to what we would naturally think about God. To us, he is out there, unreachable. God, however, has shown his awesome character by not only becoming one of us, suffering with us, and eventually taking the wrath of God for us, but by living within us. Praise be to God.

- When believers take Him at His Word, washing ourselves in this truth, that God is alive within us, the more we are able to live the Christian life with confidence. When you constantly live with the thought that the God of Heaven, He who created the entire cosmos, lives within you, it is hard to live foolishly as well as shyly. For one, you can have confidence that He who lives within you will empower you to step out in faith and live for Him, therefore making it easier to do those things you know you probably should do, like share the Gospel with your co-workers or have patience with those who may annoy you. But there is also a sense in which, because GOD lives within you, being intimately aware of every action, motive, and thought you have, it is harder to live as if he is not there, and therefore it is harder to commit sin, because you know that he firsthand is right there, sharing in your every experience.

- Paul wants the believers then and now to understand that the ultimate mission of the Christian is to love Jesus more fully, and in doing so increase in submission to Him (as those two are inseperable, submission to Christ and love to Christ, same thing), growing in knowledge of God and the gospel. That is the ultimate purpose of our lives, and God has given us this great tool to help us fulfill that purpose of serving him; namely, himself, empowering us with his Spirit as he abides in us.

- What does the world have to say about this? Well, in our pluralistic, postmodern world, this is ridiculous. The pinnacle of human existence isn’t submission to God, allowing him to live inside of you and work through you selflessly, giving him glory all the day, it is the exclusion of God, and the idolizing of individual happiness, preference, and autonomy. The wisdom of God is thrown aside, instead embracing the wisdom of the world, which essentially says “you do you” or “you choose your own truth.” Which is overtly contradictory to the next verse here.

3 – in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

- Or, in other words, Christ, his Word, is the only place one can find the ultimate truth about the Universe. Coexist adherents don’t like this verse. This is a claim of absolute authority over truth. This is an exclusive claim. He is where all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found. In order for the world to fully make sense, in all of its complexity, one must look through the biblical lens. All other lens are cracked or blurred, and end in irrational, error-shot conclusions about the way the world works, about the nature of humanity, about ultimate purpose in life, etc. This is not a popular statement in the ears of the world. Nevertheless, it is true, and we complicate things by trying to wash it down.

- Jesus is where all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.

- Why does Paul feel the need to say these things? Outside of the fact that it gives glory to God to do so? Well, as said earlier, there was a certain extra-biblical philosophy being preached that Paul opposed.

4 – I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

- To many of the believers at Colossae, that other worldview being pushed could’ve potentially been attractive. It seemed to be similar to their faith, but different in that there may have been limitations not necessary for salvation that might have been pushed as necessary. This is all just speculation, as we don’t know what this other view consisted of exactly, but there was most likely some promise of deeper connection with God than what the current believer’s faith could provide, which is really what many people promise now, isn’t it?

- It wasn’t only this one particular belief that they needed to be worried about, however, as is our case as well. Ancient Greece in general was a large mixing pot of answers to universal questions, some closer to truth than others, but all futile without Christ at the center. Arguably the two greatest philosophers in the history of the world, Plato and Aristotle, came from ancient Greece, as Brooklyn and I learned this past semester. We, in 21st century America, face the same dilemma. Day after day we are bombarded with another philosophy, another revelation of some uncovered knowledge.

- This isn’t restricted to the cults in any sense, but as John Macarthur has noted, the cults especially love to exploit this tendency in human nature. They always promise a deeper knowledge, a truth about reality that no one else knows, that in order for you to understand you must obey and submit to the tribe. You might ask, but isn’t that what we as Christians assert? That in order for people to know the truth, they must become a Christian? No, in order for someone to know the truth, they must be saved by God and have their mind and heart renewed. They don’t need to be loyal to a church, to an ideology, or to a people. They need an outside party, God, to infiltrate their evil mind and change its nature so that they have the ability to see truth. I hope you see the distinction there. When we preach the Christian message, what were not saying is, “join our clan, try to be a good person, and make sure you have a high view of this historical man named Jesus.” What we are saying is “God wants you to be reconciled with him, and your sin is what has severed that connection. And if you accept that reconciliation offer, through faith, he is sure to give you complete restoration, purpose, and a place in his family.”

- Those answers though, that were being pushed then and are still being pushed now, those answers that exclude Christ and attempts to come to sane conclusions that parallel with reality, end in death. Human nature is corrupted. Our thinking capacities are twisted and our reason, flawed. What does this mean for us? Does it mean we are completely blinded to the truth, that we can’t know it at all, as many, many people would say today in the spirit of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who pushed a view of the world where you are literally your own God who could mold your own reality? Which, by the way, is the philosophy of a majority of young people today, a people that hold to a gross, selfish view of the world named Postmodernism. It is eroding our country and is pervading our lives at an increasing rate. How do we deal with it? We must simply do what our general has told us to do. Share the Gospel and continue to try to draw people to our God.

- No, humans can know the truth… partially. As mentioned earlier, Romans 1 tells us that everyone that has ever existed can know that a Great God exists. They can come to true inferences about the nature of the world, but not fully. No person, in their own evil nature, has the ability to come to the whole truth about reality. God must intervene.

5 – For though I am absent in body, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

- He’s not saying these things, charging this church to fight the spiritual battle against these false creeds for the sake of asserting his moral authority or because he hates the people that do hold to these other creeds, but because he loves the church. His spirit is with them, he wishes to be right next to them, serving with them and for them. He rejoices in them. He loves them and is encouraged by their faith.

- In the same way, I rejoice with you when spiritual victories occur. My spirit is with you. I love you as the church, because many of you, not all of you, are a part of the church. I don’t mean a part of Bethany Place, I mean you are a Christian, you love the Lord. In saying these things, I don’t say them because I want to show people how cool I am, how well I can speak. I want to see radical faith in this church. I want to see God glorified among us! I want to experience the firmness of your faith in Christ. Not how well we can perform this ministry or that ministry, or how many people we can convince to come in the door, but how much we can consistently preach the truth of Gods Word in an ever-increasing Anti-truth world. That is what will prove our faithfulness. That is what God wants! Not many churches are into doing that now. Many people want to side-step the Bible to try to attract more people to come and sit in the pews. What is the measure of our success though? In the eyes of God, because, listen, all other voices don’t matter; in the eyes of God, what is the measure of a church’s spiritual success? Is it how cool their setup is? Is it how many people attend? Is it even how many people they can materially provide for? No. It is how consistently and rightly they preach what the book says! In the midst of all these opinionated, flesh-originated views circling the globe right now, how will the church defend itself? By standing on the foundation of the faith, the Word of God. This isn’t only true on the church level. Us as a church striving for this. This is true on an individual level. In order for your faith to withstand the onslaught of spiritual darkness that the world throws at us on a daily, through the media, through entertainment, through day-to-day conversations and influences, you must cling to the Word of God. It is not an option! Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

- How does Paul instruct the church to fight against these ideologies exactly?

6, 7 – Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

- Paul says, “The only way you can defend yourself against the attacks of the enemy, the only way you will prevail and not be seduced by this (in the end) useless wisdom that the world promotes, and which sounds nice, is by leaning into Christ and dwelling on his awesome character displayed in the Gospel.”

- Meaning, stick to the Word! Stick to the truth about God like a bug on a light. Stick to the light and hold on for dear life! He knows the wisdom of the world sounds correct; they sound nice, they sound fluffy! Some sound biblical, if anyone has any knowledge of Jordan Peterson, you know what I mean. But without Christ, the real Christ, as the centerpiece, as the Lord of all creation and without the Gospel untainted, it is useless. It is trash. So, treat those views that way. That doesn’t mean we should disregard them; but we should recognize them for what they are: ultimately worthless and unfit to depend on. Is the Psalmist wrong when he says in Psalm 119:104, “Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore, I hate every false way.” “Oooo, he said the word hate…” I confess that in the past few months, as I have been consistently exposed to these different worldviews, being given an in-depth look into each of them, they look attractive. To be able to form my own reality without any morally binding laws, which is the view called Postmodernism, sounds, fleshly speaking, nice to me! My immediate reaction is, yes I want to do that! Or Atheism, which is similar to Postmodernism in that there is no absolute morality or God to identify, my flesh would like that. Even this form of Christianity (that really isn’t Christianity) that we like to play now, where we like to get all emotional during “worship” and we speak about how God is so loving and good but then we don’t live like its true at all, and Gods wrath just doesn’t even exist, and we just want to get all emotional and pretend that’s what God desires. That is trash too! But in the end, as I’ve learned, it ends in spiritual decay and death. Yet, our country in particular is leaning more and more into these philosophies, and as expected, we will see even more spiritual decay as the days push on. Count on it.

- In order to win the battle against these ideas of the world, we must lean on the Word, and the God behind that Word, Christ. But we must lean on the right Christ. What do I mean by that, the right Christ? Well, there are many different Christs out there right now. Two I will mention here.

- First, we have the Christ that 21st century Americans love to hold on to. This is the Christ that I just slightly alluded to. This is the Christ that preaches the Gospel of Selfism. This Christ wants you to realize your full potential, he wants to motivate you to excel on the path that you are already on and doesn’t hate sin hardly at all. Sure, he gets agitated when you don’t do what he wants you to do, but ultimately, he understands. He is a purely loving God, who doesn’t punish, and his main focus is you! All he thinks about is you! Listen, my friends, this is not the Christ of the Bible. This is a rampant view of Christ in the church today, sadly, and one that cannot be allowed to prevail, as it is a misrepresentation of our Precious Lord. Many preachers today love this view of Christ, and they paint a picture of man as different than how the Scriptures paint man. About a week ago, I went to go see the new Star Wars movie, which unfortunately I was disappointed with. But that’s a whole other discussion (why it had to end that way, I do not know). The way many preachers want to paint the Gospel now is like Satan is the First Order, or the Empire, and the oppressed people that are being subjected to the tyranny of the Empire or the First Order is man. We are the victims, and to some extent, that is true. The Scriptures do speak as if mankind is oppressed by the dictatorship of sin and Satan, but the Scriptures speak of humanity much more in relation to a storm trooper, someone serving the Evil Side. Someone obedient to the Conquest of the Evil One. That is much truer to the picture of us found in Scripture than the victim. Yet God, in his perfect Holiness and mercy, has changed those of us who know Him from an evil, immoral stormtrooper, into a defecting rebel. If you are in Christ, you are a Finn, who used to be an FN-2187 (explain reference).

- The second Christ, the Christ of the Scriptures, is a God of Power and Mercy and Holiness. He loves those he has chosen to be in his family, yes, but he does not overlook their evil deeds, or the evil deeds of those who aren’t his children, in the slightest. In fact, the Scriptures are clear that God is pleased to do his job as Judge of the Universe. Christ isn’t sitting up there like “Well, I guess I have to…” He is in his judgement seat repaying evil, because it is right, and his very essential nature is righteousness. He is not uncomfortable judging and convicting! In fact, when you sense God trying to get you to change your behavior, he doesn’t hate you! Those who preach to convict love you more than those who preach to entertain or inspire! Without the judgment of God, there is no love of God, if you really think about it. The Gospel that is presented in the Bible is the message that all of humanity is headed for hell, an everlasting separation from God (the only good thing), washing around in their own sin; yet God, even though humanity absolutely deserves that punishment, intervenes and takes that punishment for us, so that we can be reconciled to God and live how he designed us to, giving him glory as our ultimate purpose and finding that joy that we so long for, in the process. Without that judgment, that love we sing about so much doesn’t make any sense. This is the Christ that we must hold onto. One who is in love with his Church, his Bride, the collective body of believers, but One who will repay the evil that humans create.

- What attitude should we have when fighting this battle? It is so easy to fall into either despair, thinking no one will hear and turn towards God, cowardice, where we are afraid to represent God, and finally, ingratitude. If you have been redeemed by Christ, if you’re heart has been resurrected, and you have been saved by Him, what other rational attitude could you hold other than thanksgiving? If you are in Christ, it is pure mercy that you know Him. You have not earned anything. You do not know God because somehow you had a better heart, or you were raised better, or you were somehow more moral than the next person etc. You know God because it was his divine plan to choose you, and upon recognizing that fact, that God is the sole Giver of everything you have, especially your salvation, your attitude towards Him, towards your fellow people, and towards your life in general should be one of absolute thanksgiving. Thank you God! Thank you for blessing me though I don’t deserve it in the slightest! You can so easily identify people that don’t see life this way. You can tell when someone isn’t living in the truth that everything they’ve been given is from God, because if they are wronged in the slightest way, they backfire. May we not have that attitude brothers and sisters! You are not your own, don’t deceive yourself into thinking otherwise. Matthew Henry says, “God justly withdraws this benefit (speaking of an increased faith that can stand on its own) from those who do not receive it with thanksgiving; and gratitude for his mercies is justly required by God.” If we are to survive in this spiritual war, thanksgiving must permeate everything we do. God commands it so.

8 – See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

- The key phrase in this verse here is “the elemental spirits of the world.” Any worldview, no matter how pretty it may seem, must be rejected if it does not cling to Christ. Why? Because it will take you captive without you realizing. “See to it…” Paul says. “Make sure this doesn’t happen to you!” Make sure you do not start believing in or allow yourself to be influenced by groups and identities that are outside of Christ! They will hurt you in the end, even if the opposite seems to be the case. Jesus said in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

9 – For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily

- When writing this sermon, I could’ve left these two verses out, 8 and 9, but these two verses are amazing verses, that will end us with some holy thoughts here. Verse 8 warns us not to flirt with anything that doesn’t submit to Christ, and verse 9 tells us why. “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” In sort of mysterious, yet beautiful wording, Paul says here, “Why should you look out for people and movements that deny Jesus as the Ultimate Importance? Because He is God.” Jesus is God, says Paul, and there isn’t anything better than Him! He is the only person that can fulfill that heart of yours, he is the best Entity in the Universe! He is the Greatest thing, and all other things pale in comparison. What could you possibly find in human wisdom that God couldn’t provide ten-fold? Nothing. Why would you trade in the Living God of the entire Universe for garbage? Why would you give up the endless riches of being a Son or Daughter of the King of Creation for a spot among the pigs, though the pigs may look pretty? There is no comparison!

- We would be wise to heed Pauls words here in Colossians 2. The world isn’t going to get better in regard to truth. Who will be our comfort? Our strength? Will it be the culture that will continue to pressure the Church to compromise on its stance towards the truth of Scripture? Or will it be the Mighty Jesus, the Everlasting Father and Wonderful Counselor? The One who will strengthen us if we will submit? What will we choose? Garbage or the Holy and Good God who adores us?

- Let’s Pray.

- AJR, 12/30/19