Good morning. Let's be turning to Colossians
chapter 2. Now the gospel of Jesus Christ
is the good news of our God to sinners. It declares the message
of the good hope that we've been given of God. a good hope for
all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the manifestation
that God has chosen you and called you and blessed you in Christ. He gives faith to his children,
faith which looks alone to the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Christ, He tells you that,
you that believe, He tells you that all your sins are forgiven. They're put away forever. They're
not coming back. And in Christ, He gives you everlasting
life, eternal life, in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. In our
Lord, He tells us that all your enemies have been defeated. They're
all put down. They cannot rise up and do you
any harm. What they say has no standing
before God. They cannot tear you down or
make you look bad before God because Christ is your mediator. He is your intercessor. And our God tells us that Christ
is our King. He's our King. He put down all
his enemies and all your enemies and they have nothing more to
say to you. They don't rule you. You don't
listen to them. You're not subject to them. You're
subject to Christ the King. But now, here in Colossians,
we see that a mixed message has entered into the churches. There's a mixed message coming
in. And this is right here when the
apostles are yet speaking on the earth. The apostles here,
and these, this mixed message has already come in. And we see
the mixed messages in our day. We see them to this day. They're
still here. From the Judaizers, there's a
blending of the law. There's a bringing in of the
law to subject the people of God to the law of Moses. And then on the other side, with
the pagans, there's philosophies. There's churches that are community
churches about doing good works and about being good citizens
in the world. And they bring in a false gospel,
a false message, which is no gospel at all. And other pagan
churches, they bring in the worship of angels. That is, they speak
of other mediators in addition to the Lord Jesus Christ. other
mediators and other wicked works, other man-made ideas and things
that cannot save but damn those who believe them and trust in
them. Paul, therefore, is showing the believers the sufficiency
of Christ. He's never even been to Colossae,
but he's equipping them with the knowledge to withstand and
to not go along with these false, wicked ideas. And he's telling
them of the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ, telling them
in verse 10, ye are complete in him. And he speaks of the
circumcision which Christ works in the heart. You don't need
the law of Moses. You've been circumcised, you
that believe. You've been circumcised by the
Lord Jesus Christ. A circumcision made without hands,
verse 11. And in verse 12, he tells us
you are risen with Christ. You've been raised from the dead
with Christ. And in Christ, verse 13, God
has forgiven you all your trespasses. You don't need the law of Moses
to guide you, to be your rule of life. He's written his law
on your heart and minds. And that's not the law of Moses
that he's written there. He's written his law, the law
of faith, the law of liberty, the law that walks after Christ
by faith and trusts the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't need
fleshly ordinances to constrain sin. You have the love of Christ
in your heart. and the love of Christ constraineth
us, and the new man, to love Christ and to love our neighbor
as ourselves. You don't need another mediator
with God. Christ is your intercessor. Christ
is the one who speaks for you and stands up for you. So Paul
is teaching us that Christ is all. Christ is all. I've titled
this message, Who is Your King? Who is your king? Paul is presently
here. He begins addressing the Judaizers,
the Jews who came into the Gentile churches saying the likes of,
except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot
be saved. That's what they're saying. Except
you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be
saved. And that's what people in our
day are saying when they tell you the law is the believer's
rule of life. Look to the law of Moses. That's
how you know how to live before God and before men. You look
to the law. They're turning you away from
Christ and they're turning you to the law of Moses. And when
you say, wait a minute, I'm walking in Christ by faith, they're saying,
you're wicked. They accuse you of wickedness,
of wrongdoing. And they try to trouble you with
words and saying, that's not enough. That's not sufficient.
They're not believing the gospel which tells us that Christ is
sufficient. So Paul tells them, you've been
circumcised. You don't need to be circumcised
after the manner of Moses. You've been circumcised with
a circumcision made without hands. And Christ has put off that pollution
of the flesh. He's removed that enmity which
is in our hearts and minds by nature and Adam. Christ has cut
it away. Christ has removed it. He's all. Follow Him. Believe Him. Trust
Him. What fleshly cutting of the flesh are we going to do
that God Himself has not worked in us by His Spirit? You that
believe Him and follow Him and trust Him in sincerity and in
truth, desiring for Christ to rule in you. You want Christ
to rule in you. You love Christ. You believe
Him. There's nothing more that you can do in the flesh that's
going to make that more effective unto you. Trust Christ, believe
him, walk by faith in him. Now Christ did give us two ordinances. We do have two ordinances. He's
given us baptism and he's given us the bread and the wine at
the Lord's table. Both of these testify, these
speak of what the believer testifies publicly of their hope in Christ. We testify by these ordinances
that, yes, we believe Christ. We walk in him. We trust him.
He's all our righteousness. And our God assembles his church
where he meets with his people. And there he testifies of the
gospel. That's the true breaking of the bread with one another.
Every time we meet, preaching the gospel, where he feeds you
the bread of life, the bread of heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. and so we preach the gospel and
we worship God in song and in prayer and in the reading of
the scriptures and the preaching of the word we worship our God
and we maintain some level of order so that you know what to
expect so that there's just some order but there's There's no
overbearing ordinances. There's no overbearing ceremonies.
There's no things that we have to adhere to for us to be saved. We walk in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is our salvation. He's our hope. Now our, our Lord,
if you notice, he purposely never gave us any ordinance that ties
us back to the law of Moses, baptism and the breaking of bread.
at the table, that's not tied to the law of Moses. There's no ordinances from that
law of Moses. Why? Because whatsoever things,
or what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that
are under the law. And you are not under the law. You've been delivered from the
law. He tells us in another place, you also are become dead to the
law by the body of Christ. You're dead to the law. You're
not under the law. You're not subject to the law. You're in
Christ. You're in Christ. Christ delivered
us from the law of Moses, along with delivering us from the curse
of the law of Moses. He tells us in verse 14, now
Colossians 2 14, that our Lord blotted out the handwriting of
ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us and
took it out of the way. nailing it to his cross. You and I cannot keep the law
of Moses. Don't go back to it. Don't go
back to Sinai. Don't try to come to God keeping
the law of Moses. Don't add anything to what Christ
has done for you. Do not look to the law for some
part of your righteousness. If you go to the law of Moses,
you might as well be picking up sticks on the Sabbath day.
and then be drugged before the congregation to give an account
to Moses, Aaron, and the congregation. And what did they do with that
man who was picking up sticks on the Sabbath day? They put
him to death. They stoned him without the city,
without the camp. That's what you get when you
try to come to God in the law of Moses. You put yourself under
the curse of the law of Moses. That's not your righteousness.
Jesus Christ is all your righteousness. Those who go to the law have
left Christ. They've turned from Christ. They've
submitted themselves to that curse of the law to do it all. Otherwise, death. Death is what's
given to you. Christ took the law of Moses
with all its ordinances and removed them from having any authority
over God's people. Christ is all our standing before
holy God. He's all our standing before
our God. It's not that we're lawless.
It's not that we have no law. We have the law of faith, the
law of liberty, the law of love in the Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham didn't have the law.
And he worshipped God faithfully. Now, Abraham didn't go down and
party with the Sodomites. He worshipped God. He trusted
God. But he didn't need the law to tell him not to do that. He
had the Spirit of God in him. He walked by faith, trusting
the Lord. And so our Savior delivered us
from the law of Moses and its curses, having fulfilled the
law perfectly. He fulfilled it all, and we have
the righteousness of Christ that clothes us and is our standing
before holy God. Paul tells us that Christ took
it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. What does he mean
by nailing it to his cross? Well, what did the Father have
Moses, what did he move Pilate to do when he crucified Christ? Pilate wrote a title, and he
took that title and he nailed it to the cross that Christ was
on. Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
the Jews. Your God is telling you who your
Lord and who your King is, and it's not Moses. It's Christ. Christ is your King. He is our
King. The Jews, when they saw that
title, they said, you need to change that. We want you to change
that. And that man who did everything that the Jews wanted him to do
up to that point said, nope, that's it. What I've written
is what I've written and I'm not changing it because God insisted. God determined what he should
write, that what he wrote was exactly the reason why Christ
was crucified, because he is the king of the Jews. He's the
king of his people, and as our king, he laid down his life to
deliver us from all our enemies. to deliver us from death. He's
our triumphant King, our glorious King. He's wonderful, and it's
why we love Him, because He showed us, I've defeated all your enemies. No one can stand against you.
Get behind Him. He's the Savior. He's the mighty
King. He's the glory of His people. There it was as a glorious crown
fixed above the head of our Lord. That's his crown, I'm the king
of the Jews. And I've given my life to save your life, to deliver
you from that law and that curse which you could not keep and
save yourselves by. I've nailed it to my cross. Jesus
of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. And so he's the triumphant
king of his people. Look at the next verse, Colossians
2.15. And having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in him. Just like a glorious battle. in whom the victor reigns triumphant
and spoils the enemy of all their goods, so our Savior conquered
his enemies. And he spoiled the strong man
that was too strong for us, and he delivered us out of his house,
taking the precious things, those things which the Father hath
chosen and given to him. He delivered us. from that death,
glory to his name. Christ won the great battle at
the cross. That's where he triumphed over
our accuser, that old serpent that accuses us and brings up
our sins and shows our sins to our eyes and says, look at that.
You're filthy. You're no Christian. You're no
child of God. Christ says, silence. You had
nothing to say to them. Those words have no bearing to
your father. He doesn't hear the accuser.
He looks to his Son and is well pleased with him in whom you
trust for all your righteousness. There on the cross Christ overcame
death in the grave. We can't deliver ourselves from
the grave. We try to cheat death. Christ overcame it. and he delivers
all his people from death so that it has no more bearing,
no say over you, it cannot keep you. When he returns, he shall
raise you from the dead just like he promised and you shall
forever be with your Lord. There on the cross, he ransomed
his people from the hands of God's justice. Now, God's justice
is good. It's right. He's righteous and
holy and perfect, but you don't want to be on the receiving end
of that justice. And so Christ paid our debts. He paid the debt of our sins
which we owed to God. Our righteousness that we owed,
Christ gave it all. He paid it all and delivered
his people out of the hands of God's justice. So that we that
believe in Christ shall not stand before God and receive that justice
in ourselves. We died with Christ. And we've
been delivered from that justice by Christ Jesus. And so having
established for us the covenant of grace through the shedding
of his own blood on the cross, he obtained the forgiveness of
our sins. And he gives us life and fellowship
and reconciles us to holy God so that we're not enmity against
God. He's put that away. He removed
that through the circumcision of the flesh. He removed that
enmity and he restores us to the fellowship with God, reconciling
us to holy God that we may know Him and worship Him and rejoice
before Him, no longer laboring in fear and worry and doubts
and struggling and striving and spending that which we don't
even have to spend because Christ has fulfilled the law and He
is our righteousness and our hope and we follow Him. The will of the Father on the
cross, the will of our Father who sent Him is all finished. He finished it. He finished it.
Christ is the king, having defeated his enemies and ours, and he
justified us in perfect righteousness. You know, Paul, speaking of the
law, when he was writing to Timothy, he said it this way in 1 Timothy
1, verses 9 through 11. He said, knowing this, that the
law is not made for a righteous man. and you that are in Christ
Jesus are righteous men and women. And it's not for the righteous,
but the law is for the lawless and the disobedient, for the
ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers
of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers,
for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men-stealers,
for liars, for perjured persons, And if there be any other thing
that is contrary to sound doctrine. The grace of God doesn't teach
us to practice these things. And to go on doing these things. As I said before, Abraham didn't
party with the Sodomites. He left them to themselves. And
he followed God. He worshipped God. It's according
to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed
to my trust, Paul says. So you're dead to the law. You're
dead to the law with Christ. You're married to Christ who
is your husband. Moses is not your husband. We
don't bear fruit unto God by serving Moses. That's a perversion. That's a perversion. We bear
fruits unto God by our husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. He bears
fruits of righteousness in us. The fruit of faith, and love,
and joy, and peace, and kindness, and gentleness, and forgiving
one another, walking in faith, that's the fruits of Christ in
you, not the fruit of Moses. That's a perversion. He's not
our Lord and Savior. Believers bear fruit by Christ. Hebrews 10.16, this is the covenant
that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I
will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write
them. He's speaking of the new birth. The giving of the Holy
Spirit that regenerates the dead sinner, giving us life, that
hears the voice of Christ, that follows Him in faith, that's
a living soul. A living soul does that. Dead
people don't do that. They lay there dead. That's all
they can do. And so we serve and follow our
Lord, now being regenerated by the Spirit in newness of life
by Christ, born again by the seed of Christ. We were born
of Adam's seed, and it's corrupt, and defiled, and ruined, and
dead. And it shall be that way till Christ raises us from the
dead and gives us a new body. But now, in the new man, we worship
Christ. We worship our God. We serve
and follow Him. And He defends us from all the
accusations and the fiery darts and the arrows that come and
are slung at us, because they do come. And the world tells
you, you can't talk like that. You can't tell people that they're
not under the law. They're going to go and do what
they want to do. Well, yeah, that's true. And you that have
the Spirit of God are going to do what you want to do, serving
God. following Him, trusting Him,
walking in faith before Him. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe Him. He is the sinner's
righteousness. He is the salvation of God for
sinners. It says in Romans 8, 33 and 34,
who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is
God that justifieth. So when the enemy comes hurling
his fiery darts at you, those big spears that would knock people
over, It's not your works that have justified you. That will
take you out. It's the justification of God
in Christ for his people. He's justified you. Who is he
that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession for us. He's our defender. And your enemies can try and
tear you down and ruin your hope in the Lord, but Christ is your
intercessor and Christ is your strength. And though you are
weak in the flesh, that's a good thing. Christ is your strength.
He's your strength. Continue, faint yet pursuing. We are faint in this flesh, but
we are pursuing the Lord, looking to Him, going after Him, following
after Him because He's our all. He's our all. He's our King.
So, whose voice are we to heed? Are we listening to our King?
Or are we listening to those who speak contrary to Christ?
That's what Paul is getting at here. Whose voice are you listening
to? Are you going to go with the religionists, the self-righteous,
who are telling you how to live by their traditions and philosophies
and vain deceits? Or are you going to believe the
gospel of God in the Lord Jesus Christ that tells us He's your
righteousness? Stay in Him. Look to Him. Believe
Him. Rest Paul encourages believers
in Christ in verse 16. Look at verse 16. He says, let
no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect
of an holy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days. Men get all caught up in the
Sabbath and trying to worship God and show that you're holy
by your keeping of the Sabbath. Some on the Saturday, some on
the Sunday, some on this day. Christ is our Sabbath rest. He gives the rest to his people.
That's where we cease from all our labors, is resting in Christ. Anything else is actually picking
up sticks on the Sabbath day, trying to come to God in our
keeping of the Sabbath for righteousness. No, we come to God in the Sabbath
rest, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our rest. So Paul's saying,
don't heed the Judaizers. Don't listen to what they're
saying. They want to put you under the
law of Moses. And you're not under Moses, you're under Christ.
Verse 17, those things of Moses, they are a shadow of things to
come, but the body is of Christ. And that's what the law of Moses
is. It's good and it's very helpful. I'm thankful for the Old Testament.
That's what Christ and the apostles preached out of was the Old Testament. They saw Christ in it. And the
law shows us types and pictures and shadows of Christ and how
he is all our righteousness. It's to turn our eyes on the
Redeemer, to look for the Redeemer just like the faithful of Israel
looked for redemption in Israel. They were looking for the same
Redeemer. They were looking for His coming,
and now He is come. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment
of all the law, all that the law pictured and spoke of. All
that the prophets wrote of, Christ is the fulfillment of it all.
I'd rather have Michelle. I'd rather hold Michelle and
be with Michelle and spend time with Michelle than having just
a picture of Michelle. A picture is great when she's
not around, but when she's there, I want to spend time with her.
I want to hold her. And that's how it is with Christ.
Why would we go to the shadow of a thing? Why would we run
to the picture and the type when you have the substance right
there, the Lord Jesus Christ, the very one of whom those shadows
spoke of and were a reflection of, they were reflecting him. And so we don't trust, it's the
same thing with Christ. Men today would rather have the
form and rather have a dead letter faith. They want their structure
and their ceremonies and their robes and all that they're trusting
in rather than depending on Christ, rather than begging God for mercy. They'd rather do a form of a
thing and the practice of a thing to feel good about themselves,
rather than walking by faith, which says, Lord, save me. Have
mercy on me, Lord. Keep me, not in form and ceremony,
keep my heart ever looking to you and trusting you. That's
walking by faith. And so to those that had not
the spirit, Christ is the shadow. And they want, they've got to
touch something. They've got to do something because
that's the substance. But you don't want that which
your natural eyes see. You want to hold Him and be held
by Him who your eyes of faith see and behold. Because He's
reality. He's reality. And we'll see that
probably next time we come back to Colossians. That we're there. We're seated now in the presence
of God in heavenly places. were in Christ even now. And then the opposite to the
Jews, there were Gentile philosophers who incorporated pagan worship
into Christianity. Look at verses 18 and 19. Let
no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping
of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen
vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the head
from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment
ministered and knit together increaseth with the increase
of God." In other words, our God is doing all things. Just
like our bodies are functioning and working and we don't know
why it works, but the brain's firing and doing what it does,
well, our God is doing what he does and it's all working. It's
all being kept and fed and nourished and provided for and strengthened
as God feeds and nourishes and provides for it. as he sees fit. And so the sense here with these
pagans is that they were looking to other sources of mediators
with God. They were adding to those who
gain us an entrance with the Father. They didn't believe that
there's one God and one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus. They were worshiping the creature.
And we see strong examples of that, not in a good way, but
examples of that today, even in the Catholic Church. They
make Mary to be a mediator. and an intercessor between you
and God. Or they put a man as a priest
between you and God. And they pray to saints, right?
Saints that they tell you have special abilities in certain
areas that, you know, if you lose something, you can pray
to this one, or you want something over here, you can pray to that
one. And it's all just another mediator. They're setting up
other mediators between you and God. And then they use fleshly
props. grand ornate buildings, magnificent
engineering works of art with stone and accents of beautiful
wood and things like that and stained glass and raised ceilings
and arches and things like that to create awe in the people and
they provide little stations that they set up with either
a painting or a statue and they walk through with with incense
that smells and they swing it and there's a procession going
down the aisles and with things on top of tall sticks symbols
that are religious and whatnot and robes and hats and all kinds
of things and chants going on and candles you can buy to deliver
your loved ones out of the fires of purgatory that they speak
of. There's no purgatory. But it's all just this arrangement
of religion to create a sense of awe and wonder in the flesh
because they have not the presence of the Spirit. And the Spirit
gives us all that awe and that love and that affection for our
God so that we don't need those things. This won't do for most
people. This isn't engaging of the senses
enough. They want something more than
what you have here. But you have the substance, not
the shadow, not the picture. You have the Lord Jesus Christ,
you that hope in Him. And that's exactly where our
God is putting our eyes. on Him, on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's sufficient. To others He's
not sufficient, but He's sufficient to you. So the question is, who
is your King? Christ is the King, not Moses.
Who is your mediator with God? Christ is our mediator with God. You believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and you shall not be ashamed in that day when you stand before
God. You trust Him because He is the
salvation the Father has given to us to deliver us from death
and to give us life and fellowship evermore with Him. Amen. All right, let's pray. And I'll
just give you a little announcement after this. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you for your grace. Lord, we thank you for this glorious
salvation in your son, Jesus Christ. We thank you that he
is the king, that he is our mediator. Lord, help us to take that home.
Help us to see that in your word here. In the Lord Jesus Christ,
it's in his name we pray and give thanks. Amen. Now, just
so you brethren know, my mother, who does, she listens online
and she contributes to the work here. Well, she hears the gospel
too, and she asked me to be baptized. And so she's coming out, she'll
be out here for about a month. I think four Sundays about, well
I'll get to the details, but yeah about four Sundays at worth
and maybe Tuesday nights as well. So she'll be here during that
time and she's looking forward to meeting you all and spending
time with you. It'd be nice to have a meal together
and on one of those The one weekend where it won't be is on the Halloween
weekend because that weekend Michelle and my mother will be
going to Kentucky that weekend because my mother's never met
my oldest grandchild. She's never met Addie and things
so she's going to meet them and the new baby and so she's looking
forward to that and so anyway. She'll be gone that weekend,
but the other three weekends she'll be here. And I've spoken to Joe
and we're going to do the baptism. I'd like to do it there in the
barn. That's what, you know, we can't
really bring it here and set it up and whatnot, but I like
to do it there. And so pray about it. But what
we're thinking is have one service here and then we'll head over
for the second service. And it'll be, uh, uh, you know,
just a nice, uh, good service there. And then we'll do the
baptism and have a meal together there. So let me know if there's
a weekend that won't work. So she's getting here, I think
the 11th of October. So it could be that first weekend
on the 15th-ish or something like that, Michelle tells me.
I'll check it out on the calendar. But it could be that first one.
Then she's gone the next weekend. So another option is right in
November. We could do it as well, like
the first weekend in November. when we would normally have our
meal here. We could definitely do that as well. So, let's do
that. I don't want to put it off to
the last weekend, because sometimes things happen, but we'll do it
that way, Lord willing. And so, if anyone else has never
been baptized, and you love the Lord Jesus Christ, and you believe
Him, and you want to be baptized, believers baptism, then come
and talk to me. And maybe we could do it all
together. All right, so let's be dismissed for 15 minutes.
We'll come back.