©2004 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

08/29/04

Enemy Among Us

Unmasking the Enemy Among Us

For the past month an a half

we have been involved in a study

in which we are looking at the few basic principles

that form the foundation of the Christian’s life with Christ.

Each of these principles build upon one another,

and if you are new with us this morning,

or if you’ve been away for the past few weeks,

I would encourage you to visit the PBF web site and read the notes from the past month,

or, if that isn’t an option for you,

to talk with me after the service and I’ll help you get a hold of a printed copy of where we’ve been.

True freedom does not come either quickly or easily into our lives.

In our American culture

we have deceived ourselves into believing

that freedom means having the right to live any way we choose.

But the truth is

such a definition is simply a place to hide

from the real bondage that consumes our lives.

We find ourselves trapped in slavery to habits,

and systems,

and forces we cannot break free from,

and we hide from our slavery

by frantically waving our banner

proclaiming “I have the RIGHT to live any way I choose!”,

while we know deep within us

that we are enslaved to the very things we claim to be doing in the name of freedom.

But our Lord loves us far too much

to allow us to remain enslaved.

He died to make us free,

and He now works to bring that freedom into our lives.

And last week we looked at one of the key principles

upon which our freedom in Christ is based.

We saw that, when we come to Christ,

we are not called to try to live the Christian life for Christ,

but rather

we enter into a remarkable relationship between us and our God

in which He lives in us

and then lives His life out through us on a daily basis.

He begins by creating within us a new heart

in response to our simple trust in Christ as our Redeemer,

a new heart that loves God and longs to please Him.

Then He places His Holy Spirit within each of us,

and, as we saw last week,

tells us that it is now “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.

It is His presence within us

and His commitment to live His life out through us

that is the basis for everything He seeks to do both in and through us as His children.

But then I ended last week

by mentioning to you

that there are two major forces used by Satan

in his efforts to undermine this process of Christ living His life out through us.

We are going to look at the first of those two forces today,

and what we’re going to see may surprise you.

A little background from Christ’s comments in Luke 5:33-39 will help.

In this passage

Christ began to prepare His men

for what was to come in the years ahead.

At this point in His work on this earth

it was obvious to everyone

that He was making a huge impact on everyone He got near.

There were serious discussions taking place throughout the nation

about whether or not He might indeed be the promised Messiah, Savior for the Nation of Israel.

But there was a problem -

in a number of huge areas

Jesus was simply not following the accepted rules of religious conduct,

the rules that every Jew knew

governed a truly devoted life with God.

For one thing,

He kept messing with the Sabbath,

frequently showing total disregard for the cultural restrictions that governed this sacred day.

And then, too,

when He finally chose His 12 disciples,

He chose the wrong men.

Rather than selecting men from those who were diligently studying

and preparing themselves for religious leadership,

He selected fishermen,

and tax collectors,

and political agitators,

none of whom could offer any of the proper credentials.

And then, once He got a hold of these men,

He failed to train them properly.

He didn’t teach them about the importance of daily devotions,

or lead them in formal religious training,

He just hung out with them,

lived with them,

built friendships with each of them.

These obvious errors frustrated those who were watching Him so much

that they finally confronted Him on His failures.

LUK 5:33-35 And they said to Him, "The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers; the disciples of the Pharisees also do the same; but Yours eat and drink." And Jesus said to them, "You cannot make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? "But the days will come; and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days."

OK, now He begins His response by answering the specific question He was asked

about why He wasn’t playing the devotional game the way they thought He should.

Basically He told them

that fasting wasn’t some little religious tool

with which a person could earn points with God.

It was the natural response of a heart filled with pain,

a heart crying out to God for healing, for deliverance.

As long as He was with His people

there would be no such pain.

But the time would come

when His death and the pain it would bring

would bring about this response in His men.

But He didn’t stop there.

He went on to answer

not the specific question they asked,

but the real, greater question that troubled them.

Why didn’t He follow the rules???

36-39 And He was also telling them a parable: "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, 'The old is good enough.'"

Now, there are four symbols given to us in this wineskin illustration.

First, there is the old wineskin.

Jesus uses it to picture the established Jewish religious structure of the day.

Second, there is the old wine,

used by Him to picture the spirit of religion

that fueled that religious structure.

Simply stated,

the heart of that religious spirit

was the belief that devotion and faithfulness to God

can be measured by rigid adherence to the accepted religious rules of the day.

These two obviously fit perfectly together.

The system provides the rules,

the religious spirit gives them life and power in society.

Then, third, there is that new wine,

that dynamic life of God’s Spirit

living out moment by moment through each of God’s people.

He presents it only in this picture form here, hinting at what is to come,

because, prior to the day of Pentecost,

no human being had ever experienced what He was talking about.

But all throughout His teaching

He kept dropping hints,

giving His people glimpses of what He would bring to His people following His resurrection.

We saw Him doing the same thing in John 7:37-39.

JOH 7:37-38 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'"

And then, in the next verse,

John offers his own editorial comment

so that there is no misunderstanding about what Jesus is talking about.

JOH 7:39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

OK, back to our wineskin illustration, there is one final image used by our Lord - that new wineskin,

the new system revealed to us in the New Testament,

that system given to God’s people through Christ,

the system that would free the believer to experience life in the Holy Spirit moment by moment.

And in His wineskin parable

He tells His listeners

that there is simply no system of religious rules and duties in existence

that can contain the life of the Spirit of God within us.

It will tear it apart.

Now, there is absolutely nothing Satan can ever do

about the presence of the Spirit of God within the believer.

It is a given,

an inalterable certainty of life with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul says simply ,

Rom. 8:9 ...if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”

So, what Satan seeks to do

is to inhibit the Spirit’s ability

to effectively express Himself through our lives.

And the two key tools Satan uses to accomplish this

are man-mad religious systems

and seeking to deceive the believer

into moving outside of God’s protective moral framework.

And the first one Paul deals with in Colossians

is Religion.

He does this in Colossians 2:8-23

In 2:8 Paul presents the central issue:

“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”

There are two distinct,

opposing sides presented in this passage.

On one side we have the human religious philosophy

that is based on the elementary principles of this world.

He defines this approach more fully a little later in the letter,

but basically he is talking about that fundamental human belief

that assumes that if we establish a system of rules

and then urge people to keep them

it will make us better people and more acceptable to God.

This is that old wineskin and old wine.

Then, in 2:9-15

he offers God’s alternative to this mentality,

Jesus Christ Himself.

For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.

And what I hear him saying to the Colossians in this contrast is this.

“You dummies!

Don’t you realize that Christ Jesus Himself

is living in you,

seeking to express Himself through you?

And you want to trade Him

for your little religious system?

You would rather exchange this living, dynamic, moment-by-moment partnership between you and Christ Jesus

for a rigid, powerless, stagnant, inflexible list of religious duties?

My friends!

Do you have any idea at all

what you have entered into when you entered into Christ?”

And then, so we clearly understand this whole religious thing,

and we understand why he so violently opposes it in the life of the believer,

he goes on to reveal to us

the three characteristics

of all man-made religious systems.

The first is given to us in Colossians 2:16.

“...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...”

In this statement Paul is warning us that religion reduces the calling of the Christian life to the careful observance of a prescribed set of religious duties.

In their earnest desire to live a life that honors Christ

the Colossians instinctively looked around for a list of duties

that would “prove” their devotion to Christ.

It was only natural.

It was all they ever understood from their past religious experiences.

And as soon as Satan saw this within them

he seized the opportunity

by providing the Colossians with a few leaders

who would provide them with what they thought they wanted.

And, I know this takes us just a little bit off the subject,

but I find it fascinating to realize that there were such leaders in the first century church,

and there have been such leaders within the Body of Christ ever since.

They come from several different sources in the religious world.

There are some who preach their little systems of rules

because of their own flesh-driven desires for success and prominence within the church,

men and women who have discovered that there is no quicker,

no easier way to prominence and control over others

than through preaching a system.

It appeals to the basis religious nature within all of us.

“If you just do these five things,

you will be guaranteed success in your walk with God!”

And there are others who preach their rules

because it is the perfect way to hide their own immorality from their followers.

When Paul was writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:5-7

he warned his young friend of such leaders.

He says,

But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

I love that statement so much,

because it simplifies and purifies what God is really doing in our lives.

He is not trying to create mighty religious empires in His name,

He’s simply changing lives,

one person,

and one step at a time,

teaching us how to love,

how to live consistently in moral purity,

and how to trust our God in more practical ways each day.

But then Paul goes on to warn Timothy

that there will be some within the religious community

who seek leadership because they like the power,

or for financial gain,

men and women who use their positions of leadership

to hide their own inner corruption.

And listen to what Paul says about them.

For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.

They don’t become teachers of the grace of God,

they become teachers of the law,

spewing out their little lists, and systems, and rules,

urging the people of God to try harder and do more for God,

while they themselves live lives steeped in corruption.

There is strong indication

that it was this type of corruption

that was driving at least some of the leaders of the Colossians,

because we’ll see in just a few verses

that Paul describes them as being “inflated without cause by their fleshly minds”.

And, of course, there are many other leaders in the family of God

who preach lists and rules not out of corruption,

but simply out of ignorance and immaturity,

because it was what was taught to them,

and because they have not yet grown in grace to the point

where they can communicate that grace effectively to others.

But whatever the cause,

Paul begins his warnings to the Colossians

by warning them that religion reduces the calling of the Christian life to the careful observance of a prescribed set of religious duties.

And it’s important to note here

that Paul does not attack the specific things ON the list,

he attacks the whole concept

of the list itself.

He is not attempting to purify their lists,

he is seeking to remove them altogether.

And, of course, the same battle has raged within the family of God ever since.

What’s on our lists today?

The life of Christ within us

causes each of us to hunger for an effective walk with Him.

When we first come to Christ

we have no idea what that means,

and the natural religious nature within us

causes most of us to look around for “the list”,

for the things we need to do

in order to develop the kind of walk with our King we long for.

If we are not prepared for it,

we can easily fall victim to one of Satan’s most effective strategies

in his efforts to deprive us of the kind of walk with Christ we long for.

He will seek to take the gifts God has given to us through Christ

and then convince us that they are really duties, obligations we must give back to God.

Take our relationship to the written Word of God, for example.

The Christian’s relationship to the written Word

is designed by God to be one of the most precious and powerful gifts He’s given us.

He knows that none of us bring with us into our walk with Him

an understanding of how life really operates.

Our minds are filled with lies,

and with beliefs and fears and doubts that rob us of the kind of life he wants us to know.

So what does He do?

He gives us the truths we need in clear, written form,

and then places within us a hunger for the Word

and a willingness to trust and submit to it’s authority.

Satan knows that, if we ever discover what we’ve been given

and begin to integrate those truths into our lives

it will literally transform us forever.

So he takes this remarkable gift given to us by our Creator

and twists it into a religious duty

that we believe we must fulfill in order to please God.

Have you had your DAILY DEVOTIONS?

Have you read your Bible today?

God is pleased with you when you read His Word each day,

and He is so disappointed with you when you do not.

And the Christian life is reduced

into the careful observance

of your devotional duty.

And once this religious mind-set is in place,

our natural hunger for the Word of God

is replaced by a pathetic cycle in which we feel good about ourselves when we fulfill our duty,

and feel guilty when we do not.

Satan uses the same technique with every gift given to us by our God.

God has given us the incredible gift of prayer,

the open invitation to share ourselves and our lives with Him

literally on a moment by moment basis.

Satan says, “All good Christians WILL HAVE A PRAYER TIME EVERY DAY.”

God has give His people

the great gift of the Body of Christ,

our fellow believers who encourage us,

who become the means through which God teaches us and strengthens us in countless ways.

So what does Satan do?

He creates a religious rule - “Good Christians GO TO CHURCH EVERY WEEK!”

And once the law is in place

rather than growing together as God intended,

we keep focused on how well we are fulfilling our duty.

So there it is,

Paul’s warning against the first rule of religion - religion reduces the calling of the Christian life to the careful observance of a prescribed set of religious duties.

The kind of religion that Paul opposes here in Colossians

is founded in a subtle but highly destructive attitude toward the Christian life.

God offers us His presence within us

and His commitment to live through us.

Our role is to grow in our ability to hear His voice

and then follow His leadership moment by moment.

Religion, on the other hand,

offers us a neatly defined list of what appear to be reasonable and logical religious duties.

Religion, then, assures us success

through the careful performance of those duties.

Though the external appearance

of those trapped in religion may look very good indeed,

the end result is a pasted-on conformity to an external standard,

and the adherent is ultimately deprived

of both the willingness and the ability to truly worship God in spirit and in truth.

Next week we will take a look at the second and third rules of religion

given to us by Paul in his letter to the Colossians.