Shadows and Diversions<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Col 2:16 -19<\/p>\n 16<\/sup><\/strong>Therefore no one is to\u00a0act as your judge in regard to\u00a0food or\u00a0drink or in respect to a\u00a0festival or a\u00a0new moon or a\u00a0Sabbath\u00a0day\u2014\u00a017<\/sup>things which are\u00a0mere\u00a0shadow of what is to come; but the\u00a0substance\u00a0belongs to Christ. 18<\/sup>Let no one keep\u00a0defrauding you of your prize by\u00a0delighting in\u00a0self-abasement and the worship of the angels,\u00a0taking his stand on\u00a0visions\u00a0he has seen,\u00a0uninflated without cause by his\u00a0fleshly mind,\u00a019<\/sup>and not holding fast to\u00a0the head, from whom\u00a0the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and\u00a0ligaments, grows with a growth\u00a0which is from God.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes, I look at a passage, am I\u2019m not sure how to summarize it with just a brief phrase. \u00a0The first part of this appears to be exactly what I used in my title, but the second part, I might have to revise that.\u00a0 Let\u2019s have a look at what Paul refers to as shadows.\u00a0 The first thing we want to notice is that Paul is continuing to build on what was said previously.\u00a0 In the previous portion of this passage, you might remember he was writing about what Christ had done and how Christ had disarmed the rulers and authorities by forgiving us our certificate of debt.\u00a0 We were in debt because of our own sin. Not someone else\u2019s sin, but our own sin.<\/p>\n Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day<\/strong>.\u00a0 Now, the first part of this passage is meant to set the topic in place. \u00a0Paul has grouped some things together, and unless we understand what that grouping is, we could miss the intent of the passage.\u00a0 I mean, what is the purpose of studying the Bible if we can\u2019t seem to understand it as God intended us to do?\u00a0 What does it appear to you was going on around this church?\u00a0 What were other people \u2013 outsiders doing \u2013 to the members who attended Colossians Community Church?\u00a0 That\u2019s correct, they were judging them.\u00a0 What is the purpose in this kind of behavior?\u00a0 Why would people be acting as a judge in regards to others?\u00a0 What are some of the reasons we see people judging others?<\/p>\n People were standing up, pointing their bony religious fingers at the believers who were challenged to walk in a manner worthy of their calling in in Christ to let them know that the new found freedom from slavery to religious behavior was not right.\u00a0 Outsiders were upsetting the faith of the faithful.\u00a0 That is usually the case, it is people who are not in the mainstream, who drift from one philosophy to another that come into a church and attempt to lead others to follow their special truth. Something doesn\u2019t feel right, but the longer they argue about it the weaker their conviction gets.\u00a0 Do you know why it is so hard to argue against some of these false teachers?\u00a0 Because they have been going from place to place and have heard most of the arguments that believers might use to resist their blabber.<\/p>\n What was the topic de jour?\u00a0 It was that they were telling people that they were not really of God if they didn\u2019t do their new religion according to the old rules.\u00a0 The old rules had laws about food and holidays.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t want to let go of their investment in the religion of yesterday.\u00a0 They believed they had earned a special place by all the obedience they believed they had shown, but obedience to a shadow was not the equivalent to following the real thing.\u00a0 But Paul had declared in the previous section of Colossians that Jesus had cancelled the certificate of debt to the old things.\u00a0 Colossians tells us that He took it away.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just merely dead, it\u2019s really most sincerely dead.\u00a0 \u00af\u00af Now there is a call to return to the shadows from the light.\u00a0 When you say it plainly, it sounds easy to resist.\u00a0 But know this that people who want to again enslave you to the things you have been freed from never speak plainly.\u00a0 They attempt to confuse us and confound us with subtle truths.\u00a0 Things that sound right but they are attempting to have us voluntarily place ourselves back under the rulers and principalities that Christ died to free us from.\u00a0 Even those things that were of the Law were good in that they gave Jews the understanding they would need in order to comprehend what Christ did on the cross, but they were never intended to be the reality.\u00a0 They were a shadow or the reality that disappears when the full light arrives.\u00a0 All these things were to point those and us to Christ.\u00a0 To show that this was God\u2019s plan all along.<\/p>\n This in fact it the truth that Paul shares in the very next verse – things which are mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ<\/strong>.\u00a0 The Passover, the Sabbath, all the feasts were to point the nation of Israel to Christ.\u00a0 And yet, when Jesus came not everyone was ready to accept the real thing over the shadows.\u00a0 They preferred the darkness to the light.\u00a0 They wanted to continue with what was familiar and what they had grown used to through the years.\u00a0 If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that Christ overturns anything religious that we thought we knew before we came to Christ.\u00a0 It\u2019s all on its head.\u00a0 It is revolutionary.\u00a0 It changes things right down to the core.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care if you are a PK like me (Pagan\u2019s Kid) or a PK like Judi (Pastor\u2019s Kid), when Christ gets a hold of your heart, your world changes radically.\u00a0 And the old shadows pass into the past because of the light in your life and heart.\u00a0 As a parent and grandparent, this is one of the things we can help our children and grandchildren to understand: That you can\u2019t get into heaven by doing what your parents do because what they do is actually a little like the old shadows.\u00a0 Trying to get to heaven by following the behavior of someone you admire won\u2019t work.\u00a0 And one other thing that I know is also true \u2013 sometimes we try to make the habits of our present life into the reality of the Christian life.\u00a0 We go to church not because we are acting out of love for Christ, but we go to church because it is expected of us, or even because we expect it of ourselves.\u00a0 We must resist the shadows, not matter how they are brought before us.\u00a0 We must have a real and active relationship with our Lord.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 18<\/sup><\/strong>Let no one keep\u00a0defrauding you of your prize by\u00a0delighting in\u00a0self-abasement and the worship of the angels,\u00a0taking his stand on\u00a0visions\u00a0he has seen,\u00a0uninflated without cause by his\u00a0fleshly mind,\u00a0– <\/strong>in this passage, Paul is challenging them by letting them know that they have earned a \u201cprize<\/strong>\u201d and they are in danger of having it withheld if they cannot walk right. What is that prize?\u00a0 This can\u2019t be our redemption or salvation because God holds that.\u00a0 Is it our liberty in Christ?\u00a0 I think it is.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s one of the crowns of the Christian life, of which there are five different crowns if my memory is right.\u00a0 But since the topic is our liberty in Christ, that makes the most sense to me.\u00a0 Here is a short list of the kinds of things people used to take away the liberty of other believers.\u00a0 Self-abasement, worship of angels, visions and being pumped up in his own fleshly mind.\u00a0\u00a0 I am not so sure we need to understand all the nuances in this list but we can look at their source.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 19<\/sup><\/strong>and not holding fast to\u00a0the head, from whom\u00a0the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and\u00a0ligaments, grows with a growth\u00a0which is from God.<\/strong><\/p>\n The people who were living like this were not hold fast to the head.\u00a0 They were in fact, breaking away from Christ\u2019s leadership and starting out to make themselves their own little following.\u00a0 You see, we all function as we should when we are holding fast to Christ.\u00a0 \u00a0IN fact, we are of course, less likely to go astray when we are holding fast to Christ.\u00a0 But the question comes up, what does that look like?\u00a0 What does it look like to hold fast to the head, which is Christ?\u00a0 Is going to point out some things, but if you want to keep this simple point in your head it will clear up a lot of things:\u00a0 True Christianity doesn\u2019t come through legalism.\u00a0 Legalism is one of the elementary principles of the world.\u00a0 These people were taking legalism just a step further by saying that Christ was not enough.<\/p>\n 20<\/sup><\/strong> If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, 21<\/sup> \u201cDo not handle, do not taste, do not touch!\u201d 22<\/sup> (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)\u2014in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? 23<\/sup> 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n To hold fast:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All these things are of no value against the fleshly indulgence.\u00a0 There is not a connection with true religion. They are no connection with the true spirit of the gospel by keeping man\u2019s laws.\u00a0 Faith (and a relationship with God) isn\u2019t achieved through this means.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just as we are told that we can\u2019t submit to such decrees, we should fight the tendency to evaluate others based on such external actions.\u00a0 Just like we shouldn\u2019t let others evaluate our spiritual walk by what we do or don\u2019t do, and what we eat or don\u2019t eat. But let us remember this; God has called us out to be different.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have a relationship with God because we are different; we are different because we have a relationship with God.\u00a0 The answer to legalism is in this chapter as Paul declares that we have everything we need in Christ. \u00a0Legalism is the religious higharcy telling us that Christ is not sufficient.\u00a0 The truth is we have all, that Christ is sufficient.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shadows and Diversions \u00a0 Col 2:16 -19 16Therefore no one is to\u00a0act as your judge in regard to\u00a0food or\u00a0drink or in respect to a\u00a0festival or a\u00a0new moon or a\u00a0Sabbath\u00a0day\u2014\u00a017things which are\u00a0mere\u00a0shadow of what is to come; but the\u00a0substance\u00a0belongs to Christ. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[83],"tags":[51],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1596,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions\/1596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hobart-community-church.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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