©2004 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship
|
09/05/04 |
Enemy Among Us Pt. 2 |
|
9/5/04 Enemy Among Us Pt. 2
We are currently involved in a teaching series
in which we are looking at the basic principles
that form the foundation of the relationship God offers each of us
who come to Him through faith in Jesus Christ.
If you have shown up here this morning
thinking that my primary responsibility as the guy up front
is to attempt to urge you to try to be better people
so that we can then, hopefully, make ourselves a little more acceptable to God,
you have severely misunderstood the nature of true Christianity.
There is, of course, a great deal of religion
parading around under the “Christian” banner
that does just exactly that.
But not only is such an approach not productive,
it’s not even Christian.
We are created beings,
created by God for God.
We all enter this world with spirits that are separated from Him,
in rebellion against Him.
There are two distinctly different
and absolutely separate possible ways
in which we can seek to bridge the chasm between us and God
and restore our relationship with Him.
The first way is through attempting to improve our performance
to the point where we can, hopefully, make ourselves acceptable to God.
All man-made religious systems seek to offer guidance
in how this can be accomplished,
offering their followers lists, and duties, and responsibilities
that, if fulfilled, will bring the followers into fellowship with God.
They fuel the mentality that says,
“If I just stop doing this, and this, and this,
and if I just start doing that, and that, and that,
then everything will be alright between me and God.”
The problem, though,
is that the only kind of performance
that can ever qualify us to stand before God
is absolute moral perfection
from the day of our birth
until the day of our death.
When, in the first three chapters of Romans,
Paul talked about our efforts to bridge the gap between us and our God
through improving our performance,
he said simply, “There is none righteous, not even one; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...” (Rom. 3:10, 23).
Simply put, no human being can ever improve his or her performance
in any way
that will ever make them acceptable to God.
We cannot get there that way.
But there is an alternative,
one given to us by God Himself,
one based not upon our attempting to reach out to Him,
but rather by His reaching out to us.
It’s not complicated,
it’s just so different from anything we would ever have expected,
and so different from anything we deserve.
It involved God
taking onto Himself the punishment for all the sins,
all the immorality of the human race throughout history,
and then paying the debt for that immorality in full
with His own death in our place.
And then what does He ask of us in return
so that we can share in what He has done?
Just two things -
our willingness to recognize our sinfulness before Him and our need for His forgiveness,
and then our simple trust, faith that Christ’s death was a full and complete payment for our sins.
EPH 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
ROM 5:1-2 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand...
And when I stand before you each week
I have no illusions about my trying to urge you to become better people
so that you can than be more acceptable to God.
You cannot get there that way.
I cannot get there that way.
I understand my responsibility as being twofold,
first, to continually remind us week after week
that it is indeed by grace alone through faith that we stand accepted by God in His presence each day,
and second, to then share with you,
to the best of my ability,
those principles that govern our relationship with God through faith in Christ.
For the past two months, now,
we have been looking at the handful of principles
that form the foundation of a faith-based relationship with God.
And most recently
we have been talking about one of the most remarkable aspects of this relationship,
recognizing that, in response to our faith in Christ,
our God does not just forgive us,
but He also establishes between us and Himself
this amazing union in which He places His Spirit within us
and then lives out His life through us moment by moment,
step by step.
COL 1:27 ...God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
And then, from there,
we have been listening to Paul
as he goes on in the book of Colossians
to reveal to us the two major tools used by Satan
in his attempts to prevent the life of Christ from being lived out through us as God intends.
Last week we started looking
at the first of those tools, religion.
Paul’s comments concerning the power that religion has
to destroy the life of Christ within us
are found in Colossians 2:8-23.
In that passage Paul begins by laying out the battlefield.
In 2:8 He said,
COL 2:8 ¶ 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.
On one side we have the elementary religious principles of the world,
rooted in the belief that human behavior can be changed
by writing rules, and religious systems,
and then urging people to be more faithful in keeping the system and obeying the rules.
And on the other side
we have Christ Himself -
His presence within us
and His commitment to live through us.
And then,
because of the incredibly deceptive nature of religion,
and because of Satan’s strategies to blur the lines
between destructive religious systems and true life in Christ,
Paul goes on to share with us
the three characteristics of destructive man-made religious systems.
We looked at the first of those three last week,
religion reduces the calling of the Christian life to the careful observance of a prescribed set of religious duties.
Now, this morning,
we’re going to pick up our study where we left off
and look at the last two characteristics
of those religious systems
that war against the life of Christ within us.
The 2nd rule of religion is given to us in
Colossians 2:18-19.
Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting
in self-abasement and the worship of the 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.
I do love the way Paul phrases that.
“Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize...”
Have you ever won a prize?
This past year Sandee and I flew into Kenai on Era after visiting Matt and Joni.
We flew in, but our luggage did not,
and a day later I had to drive back over to Kenai to pick it up.
While I was standing at the counter,
waiting for the agent to bring out our bags,
I saw this form for a drawing to win two round trip tickets to Anchorage,
two nights hotel accommodation,
a free dinner for two,
and free tickets to every game of the great Alaskan Shoot-Out.
I filled it out,
stuffed it into this box that was already crammed full of other little pieces of paper,
took my luggage and went home.
Two days later I received a call
telling me I’d won!
I got all of this really neat stuff for free.
Paul says each of us have been awarded a prize as well,
a prize given to us by God Himself,
the prize of true freedom in Christ,
freedom forever from religious systems,
the prize of Christ in us,
living His life out through us.
And, when he writes to the Colossians,
he says, “Don’t let anyone cheat you of your prize.”
And then, as he goes on to talk about the second rule of religion,
he aims his attack at the key characteristic used by those religious leaders
who are used by Satan to promote those destructive religious systems.
And he tells us that the second characteristic of false religious systems is that those who introduce them base their authority upon some source of Divine revelation that is not accessible to other Christians.
Now, it is important to note
that Paul is not suggesting that the visions themselves were the problem.
He himself, at critical points in his own Christian walk,
had been given specific visions from God.
The problem was that those in leadership
were using the visions they claimed to have had
as the basis for exercising authority over others.
“God has spoken to me
and told me to tell you...”
It doesn’t work that way in the family of God.
All true Biblical authority
always rests upon Divine revelation
that is accessible to both those who exercise the authority
and to those who are called to submit to it!!!
Our great and infallible security in this whole thing
is the written Word of God.
And I will tell you something now
that, if the concept is new to you,
some of you will likely be reluctant to believe.
Without the Written Word of God
it is impossible for us to tell the difference
between Satan and the Holy Spirit.
That is why John offered us his warning in 1 John 4:1
“Beloved, 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.”
God's Spirit will not ever contradict Himself.
He will never give us personal communication
that in any way violates the written communication He has already given us in Scripture.
This truth is our great security
when it comes to our relationship
with those who exercise authority over us in the body of Christ.
Every true believer is given both God's Spirit and God's Word.
Never are we called to blindly submit
to a person simply because he or she claims a spiritual revelation
that they alone have received,
or who asserts their authority
solely on the basis of the position they hold.
God protects us against false religious leaders through Scripture in two ways.
First of all, in Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus,
God gives us a list of character qualities
that must be a part of a person's life
before he or she is qualified for leadership in the family of God.
Paul's instructions are clear:
only those who meet these qualifications
should be placed into positions of leadership within the church.
And then, second,
Scripture as a whole provides us with a clear presentation
of spiritual truth and error.
Any beliefs or ideas that contradict statements in the written Word are to be rejected.
Satanic religious systems
depend upon people's blind submission to men or women
who claim some form of divine revelation
that is accessible only to themselves
or to a chosen few.
Paul warns his readers to be on guard against such
deceivers.
Then, in Colossians 2:20-23,
Paul offers us
the third characteristic of destructive religious systems.
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, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (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.
And before I share the principle
being offered to us in this passage,
a little background and a couple of diagrams will help.
One of the many gifts our Lord gives us through Scripture
is the clear presentation
of the protective moral framework He has designed for us.
Do you remember last week
we were talking about our Lord’s illustration
of our life with Him being like new wine contained within a new wineskin?
The new wine is the life of His Spirit within us,
perfectly matched to His understanding of our unique personalities, needs, and purposes in life.
And this protective moral framework is a significant part of the new wineskin
designed by Him to house the life of the Spirit within us.
I picture this protective moral framework like this:
It is universal in nature.
By that I mean that it applies perfectly
and equally to all people,
all cultures,
all circumstances.
We can apply it to ourselves,
and at the same time pass it on to our children,
and our children’s children,
knowing that it will never become outdated or incorrect because of cultural changes.
When I was living in Trinidad so many years ago,
I could give it to my Trinidadian brothers and sisters,
knowing that it was equally applicable to their culture
as it was to mine.
It is designed by God to protect the believer,
and to free us to discover
the full life of the Holy Spirit within us
without fear that our actions or choices will ever become destructive
to ourselves or to those we work with.
Before we finish this series
we’ll take a week to look carefully
both at what is contained in the universal moral framework
and what is not.
But then, in God’s design,
if His Spirit is able to accomplish what He intends,
He then takes that universal moral framework
and expands it and applies it in an ever-changing way
for our unique personalities,
and cultural settings,
and personal strengths,
and unique areas of weakness,
and specific ministries given to us by Him.
That wineskin illustration of our Lord’s
is so perfectly matched to this concept
because it must stretch and flex to accommodate what’s going on inside it,
just as our internal structure must change under the leadership of the Spirit of God.
The first year I spent in Trinidad,
several weeks after I arrived on the Island
and began spending time with my new Trinidadian friends,
I found within myself a growing conviction
that I should stop wearing my watch.
At first I couldn’t understand what was going on.
Why did this watch seem to be such a big deal?
Then, as I began to build friendships
and adjust to the distinctive Caribbean culture,
I saw the problem.
I had just come out of an American culture
that was intensely time-oriented. All of society started and ended on a schedule.
But the culture into which I had now entered was radically different.
Few of my new friends even owned watches.
They spent a great deal of time talking,
walking,
sitting on the street corner,
just being together.
If I wanted to enter this culture effectively,
and especially if I wanted to build relationships with the young people on the island,
I would have to give up my addiction to time and schedules.
During those months
God's Spirit expanded my basic moral core
to include a new boundary: “Larry, you shall not wear a watch.”
At that point in my life,
that directive was every bit as applicable as “You shall not murder”
or “You shall not commit adultery.”
The only difference
was that the boundary “You shall not murder”
applied to all Christians,
in all cultures,
at all times,
while “You shall not wear a watch”
applied only to me during those few months of my life.
So, with that as background,
let me now offer you the third characteristic of man-made religious systems.
The third characteristic of religion is this: it
introduces laws that are not included in God’s universal moral framework,
declares them applicable to all believers, and then evaluates the quality of a
Christian’s life on the basis of how successfully he observes those laws.
When Paul talks about the “elementary principles of the world”,
as I mention earlier,
he is talking about that natural human belief
that human behavior can be changed
by our writing and attempting to enforce rules.
The problem, of course,
is that rules are powerless
to bring about any lasting change within us.
“These are matters that have the appearance of wisdom but
are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
But then, how about my rule in Trinidad not to wear a watch?
And right here
is the heart of what I want us to see
with this third rule of religion.
My “rule” not to wear a watch
came from the Spirit of God inside me,
as He helped me to understand what it really meant
for me to love the people I was with.
The rules of religion, on the other hand,
come from outside,
from the external religious system,
imposed on us by the structure.
As such, they bring a sterile, rigid confinement,
rather than fluid freedom in Christ.
So, when it comes to this third rule,
here are the three essentials.
1st, we are to be rock-solid in our understanding of
and commitment to the universal moral framework given to us by our God.
2nd. we are to actively cooperate with the Holy Spirit
as He seeks to expand and apply that framework to our unique life settings.
And 3rd, we are to offer absolute freedom to one another
for each individual to apply that moral core under the Holy Spirit’s leadership.