Archive for October, 1998

This morning we’re going to be talking about gainsaying. This is part three of our series on subverting the Gospel and let’s start with prayer.

Lord we come before You this morning in the name of Jesus the one who You have set apart to be our Redeemer and Lord and King. We ask for Your help this morning that somehow through this feebleness of preaching You might make clear Your Word and that there might be fruit Lord that reflects the very nature of Christ in us. We ask in His name amen.

I received some real encouragement last night. I always enjoy kind of reviewing my message with Sally whenever I can because it tends to give me one more crack at it in terms of thinking through it and articulating. And just to give a little bit of time and space focus, we’re in Thessalonians theoretically chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians and we noticed in that verse that there was a discussion of the faith of some being overthrown or something to that affect. Be soon shaken in mind. And so we really stopped to discuss the concept of how does the believer get soon shaken in mind? How does the believer get shaken in mind at all? And we’ve been talking about issues relating to subverting the Gospel. The first Sunday we discussed this we talked particularly about subverting the Gospel, what that means and looking at some Scriptural context relating to that. Subvert means to overthrow the foundation, overthrow by the very foundation and so it’s to change that which is critical and absolute as it relates to our salvation. Last week we spent some time talking a little bit about the obligation that we have for each believer to become fully persuaded in their own mind relating to circumstances and practices relating to their faith. We spent most of the time talking about the picture and illustration of grace alive as it related to thoughts I had to share about the morning. There were quite a few passages of Scripture that I was looking forward to getting into and I had to leave them with you as a means of just discussion, reference. But Romans ended with a warning, “Whatever is not of faith is sin.” And this necessity of being fully persuaded in our own mind backs up against the necessity that we walk by faith and to create a standard of measure for ourselves that whatever is not of faith is sin. Now it’s important for us to recognize that what we’ve come to this far then is the understanding that the primary obligation of the believer is to establish their own faith, to be responsible for being fully persuaded in their own mind. The Scripture says plainly in Romans that we are able to stand and indeed Christ Himself will cause us to stand. But the significant issue is the necessity of believers to be establishing their faith in a very direct and personal manner before the throne of Jesus Christ, before Christ Himself. Now in that particular discussion we acknowledge or at least pointed out the fact that generally speaking when you have that kind of a standard, then to one person something is not permissible to their faith and to another person that very same thing is permissible and so we find ourselves acknowledging that the vital Christian church is going to have individuals at differing places of faith and there were some rules of practice that those things call us to, namely those rules call us to a recognition that what someone else believes is not my responsibility either to change or to explain or correct but rather my exhortation needs to be along the lines of seeking after Christ and being fully persuaded in Christ. We also noted in Romans 14 that we recognize that there may be a difference of faith that we may be able to categorize a weak faith versus a strong faith. And a strong faith perhaps is a faith that has a greater sense of liberty in certain matters. And a weaker faith perhaps might be a faith that does not have a greater sense of liberty. And so there’s a rule of operation, those that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please themselves. That’s the first part of Romans 15 and therefore in that context we have an obligation to be considerate one of another. I will say that establishing who’s the weaker brother in any circumstance is not an easy situation. And I have seen much abuse in my own experience where someone who wishes to impose their view on someone else cries, “You offend me. Your belief offends me, your practice offends me.” And the rule of offense ought to be fairly simple to us but I believe it’s probably a little more interesting because we are suspect sometimes to false and wrong motives. But if I could just offer in this introduction a brief statement about what would constitute a weaker brother. It would be a brother who has a strong sense of compelling whereby his inability to follow through with what is necessary to him would cause him much difficulty in feeling guiltless before the Son of God. That sense of guilt of sin in not following through and not accomplishing something, that would be the measure by which the pressure was brought to bear and someone might always be considered the stronger brother but they don’t have that same compulsion of necessity and in that general context of not having that compulsion that they grant some space and room to those that perhaps have that sense of compulsion. Two more comments. Number one, generally speaking, the stronger brother honors the weaker brother by not behaving in such a way, Paul says by eating meat, by not eating meat, if it offends my brother or causes him to stumble. So I show consideration usually by withholding my liberty in a case where somebody else doesn’t have that same liberty. What happens when people have two opposing views in a particular matter and both of them perhaps feel a tremendous sense of lack of liberty and operating out of their view. How do you handle that? And I think that’s the time that you just learn to not judge your brother and follow through with what is necessary for your own compulsion. There may be an occasion when two brethren doing exactly the opposite things might both be technically categorized as weak brethren and therefore the necessity is the weak brethren need to be obedient to their conscience and in that context then we give a little bit of space and we provide room and we don’t do what the Scripture says, we don’t judge one another. Now judging one another is a theme that we’re going to discuss this morning a little bit. But primarily judging one another implies that I hold an expectation out against somebody else’s conscience that they would comply to my expectation and hold them accountable to my expectation in a general context of fellowship etc. And I think that is the nature of judgement. When I have reached the faith understanding myself and I have a certain liberty or a certain sense of ought about my faith and my obedience in faith, I’m judging a brother if I begin holding out my expectation upon that brother as if to insist and hold them accountable to my expectation. That is all just a brief remembrance of the topic that we were addressing last week. And you might say I didn’t hear any of that last week and I acknowledge that that was a summary of what we talked about with different words but still I think adequate to move forward this morning.

Now as me move along this morning, we’re going to talk about gainsaying and I guess the question might be, “Well what’s the difference between gainsaying and subverting the Gospel?” And the answer is gainsaying is the cause of subverting the Gospel. And in that sense they’re directly related. But as we look at gainsaying in particular perhaps my motive this morning is to bring some practical warning and some practical guidance by which you and I might take stock of ourselves and also protect ourselves from others who may be indeed gainsayers. I think that two disciplines emerge for the church and that is, number one, the individual members of the body, each believer, needs to recognize that the standards of obedience that the Scripture caals us to is called to upon you and I individually. So there’s always an obligation for us to answer a good conscience in any matter as it relates to our obedience to the Lord. But there’s also been this other matter that you and I singly do not entirely make up the framework of God’s work in the church, of God’s work in our own lives and we relate to one another in this institution or in this organism that we call the church. And so there’s a corporate nature to our fellowship and there’s a corporate nature to the means by which we bring doctrine and truth upon ourselves. So I want to suggest and encourage perhaps this morning the necessity that we have as a group and as individuals to hold one another, to hold ourselves accountable to some of these issues that relate to gainsaying and subverting the Gospel. I guess what I might say boldly in terms of summary we have an obligation to corporately ostracize gainsayers. Let me say that again; that sounds pretty threatening. We have an obligation to corporately ostracize. That is shun, avoid, have nothing to do with gainsayers. That’s an obligation that we have. It sounds to me potentially contradictory that on the one hand we’re to learn what it means to walk out our faith with each conscience answering back to God in faith not judging one another and then to come to this place where we recognize that there are occasions when the whole group necessarily must ostracize an individual in the group because they are in some way, shape or form subverting the Gospel, they are gainsaying. And the necessity of our corporate practice is to do away with that type of thing. Now I’m working up to my introduction. This isn’t my introduction, this is the pre-introduction. The introduction is yet to come.

Most of you might be aware that October 31 is commonly known as Reformation Sunday in at least evangelical type circles. It’s the date that Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door at Wertenberg and thus began the Reformation and the liberation of the Gospel from the bondage that it had been held in up to that point for many many years. I had a visit this week, a new mom is enrolling in our program and she was in for testing and review with Becky and there was a particular personal matter about her family that I felt needful of addressing to her privately so I took some time to do that. And in the course of the discussion with her, I discovered that as she tells it she has recently had a broken relationship with the church that she had been attending for five or six years, the church that she had felt significantly helpful in teaching the Gospel and undergirding her with the sound faith. But it appears that a fallout occured over baptism and the long and the short of it if I can just keep it as short as possible she, this is her perspective, she felt that the sense of conviction of sin was clear enough in her son’s heart that when he prayed to receive Christ that he understand and he was praying because he needed a Redeemer and that Christ was a satisfactory Redeemer and that the only means of avoiding God’s judgement was to bind one’s self having received that payment through Christ’s blood. And so this young boy, I think he was four or five I’m not sure exactly the age but it’s somewhere in that range, but this young boy made a clear profession of faith which the parents acknowledged as sufficient and adequate and when the church offered baptism to new believers they wanted their son to be baptized. And the pastor upon interviewing the son felt that it was inappropriate to baptize him at this time for whatever reason he felt it was an inadequate testimony. And without getting into the actuality of whether or not the lad knew as much as the mom thought he knew or whether the pastor perhaps was offbounds without getting into that issue it began to be obvious that when she asked questions about the nature or the reason of the child’s lack, the pastor became rather authoritative and an authoritarian and told her to leave the church if she didn’t like his opinions and within three days called her and told her that she was removed from the roles. And that was the end quick result of that matter. And what strikes me in that context is the fact that the liberation of the Gospel through the Reformation brought about an end to an authoritarian hand whereby truth was bottled up under a pretext of special and select authority. And what we find today however is that with the manifold structure of the church with all different kinds of churches, small churches, small church governments etc. etc., we are perhaps often in a case in our day whereby there are pastors or preachers or churches, small ones or perhaps multiple ones who are truly subverting the Gospel in their manner of operation, in their manner of presentation, and yet due to the nature of things, they really have no accountability. They basically kick people out or people leave and that’s the only accountability but I may be wrong at this point but in my understanding I’m not certain that I have ever seen in my observation a group of believers in a Christian community approach a pastor or a church that is in gross error and deliberately and directly deal with that issue as a Christian community. And as I’m thinking about the ideas of our obligation to preserve the Gospel, one of the things that strikes me is the question, “Is it perhaps time that we as believers learn the necessity of holding the Gospel so dear that we are willing to hold those accountable who subvert it?” And that perhaps that we would risk the discomfort and perhaps even the difficulty of confusion that might emit[?] but perhaps set forth as a community a simple and a high standard holding forth the Gospel. Oh I dare say if we would get to that place it would be because we had a very clear and a very strong sense of exactly what it means to subvert the Gospel, exactly what it means to be a gainsayer and we ourselves would be well trained in avoiding that discrepancy in our own lives.

Where am I going with all that? That’s the pre-introduction, I’m warming up to the introduction. As I prepared for this message, by the way just in case you are wondering, I’ve got a written copy of the message that I was going to give in case I never get to it, I’ll pass it out at the end. But I started with trying to be a little bit more substantive and distinct so I have something to pass out at the end. But as I was thinking about these things, I was forced to go through Scripture at kind of a high rate of speed. I was in Colossians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, those are the primary places I was at, but I’ve also been jumping around to some of the other Pauline epistles, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Galatians as well and the thing that began to strike me as significant as it relates to the Scripture is just how simple the New Testament teachings are that relate to the walk of the Christian life and the nature of the Gospel, incredibly simple. I’m not saying it lacks profoundness, not at all, very profound. And it addresses and touches every aspect of life that we could possible imagine. But the thing that stands out so significant to me is the fact that the Gospel itself is simple and the exhortation in the Pauline epistles to believers is incredibly simple and narrow as it relates to what it means to walk by faith and to live the Christian life. One of the things that stands out with the Pauline epistles is the fact that Paul is writing to Gentiles and with the exception of the book of Hebrews if he indeed is the author of Hebrews that’s the only exception where he’s writing to the Jews. But the rest of the epistles are written to Gentiles and it’s interesting to notice that this highly trained Pharisee is so incredibly consistent in every single epistle with keeping clear and keeping distinct the lines of faith and obedience to Christ and what that really means. And there’s a constant pattern that he has in his epistles and that pattern has to do primarily with establishing the nature of the Gospel and who Christ is and then we move from there to warnings concerning those who he calls vain talkers or deceivers, those Judaizers those who would go beyond and bring the law back into some formal instruction to the church. And then he always addresses how the believer handles sin. And it’s incredible, he always starts out it appears in my short study, it appeared that he starts out clarifying who Christ is, clarifying the issues relating to vain talkers and deceivers and then he addresses issues relating to my personal and practical walk and he always deals with sin. And the amazing thing about it is he always deals with sin without getting entangled in superficial structures to keep me from sin. He’s starting out attacking those who would misuse the law and then he brings in exhortations regarding holy living. And so lastly he ends up just giving models of what it means to walk like a Christian always ending those models with the capstone of the believer as one who is looking for the glorious appearing of their God and Savior Jesus Christ. And so that large thrust of Paul and all of his epistles primarily is boiled down to how do we as Gentiles walk by the nature of our salvation that we have in Christ. And how do we avoid in that walk things that would detract and take away from that.

So with that we’re going to launch out in a discussion of gainsaying. There’s unfortunately quite a bit of Scripture that we’re not going to be able to get into that I would like to. To begin with I would like to suggest that we define gainsaying briefly. Gainsaying is, this is just one definition you’ll get another one perhaps in the context as we go along, but gainsaying is what Paul would call “unlearned questions.” And I say what’s an unlearned question? An unlearned question is a question that promotes strife and discord between those who are engaged in discussion. Now that sounds like a real narrow definition but it’s really practical. In fact it’s really effectual because it gives me something practical to be paying attention to in my life as I’m dealing with these kinds of issues. There are automatically going to be those who are going to say, “Wait a minute, we need to defend the faith, we need to stand up and speak truth and,” blah blah blah blah blah. And you’re right that’s true but there’s a higher standard that first gets brought into focus and that higher standard centers around this particular issue, what does it mean to generate strife? What does it mean to generate strife? If I’m generating strife by the manner in which I approach any doctrinal issue, I’m a gainsayer. I’m involved in unlearned questions. So it’s necessary for us to recognize exactly what gainsaying is so that we can identify it and deal with it in our own lives and if necessary in the lives of others that we have responsibility to and for. Now I want to do an exercise with you and I have the overhead for this exercise only. I’m probably going to be tricking you, I’m trying to put you in a trap. I’ll give you that upfront so you can be real careful. What I would like to do if you can help me I have some blanks here and I would like us to list what we might call useful Christian disciplines for the believer. What are some disciplines in our lives that would be useful to us as Christians? And just so I can be the first to put something down, prayer is spoken of in Scripture, it’s a useful Christian discipline. Give me some others, help me out. What are some others? (Reading the Word, Bible reading.) Reading the Word. Charlie, you had one. (Worship.) Mike (Fellowship.) You guys are going to give back to me the recent teachings. (Christian service.) Christian service, might we call that ministry just for a word. (Fasting.) Fasting, o.k. fasting. In our family we do slowing, we do everything real slow. (Witnessing or sharing.) Charlie (Memorizing the Word.) O.k. I’m going to stop here because this is meant to be an exercise not a complete discovery. Looking at these issues here, we have eight listed, the question is how do these become effectual to us and the second question is is it possible that any of these things could be detrimental to us? I have another question, what discipline, thinking of these Christian disciplines we mentioned a minute ago, what discipline is adequate in itself to completely and entirely sustain and direct the believer in spiritual growth and discernment in all things? That’s a big statement isn’t it? What one discipline is adequate in itself to entirely sustain and direct the believers’ spiritual growth and discernment in all things? One, only one shot, only one thing. Charlie – (I don’t think there’s any.) I disagree. Dan (The Word.) Yes and no, it depends on what you mean by the Word. (Scripture.) Thank you the answer is no. (Seeking the Lord.) We’re kind of getting close. Mike (I was going to say complete death of the old man.) Yes but that’s kind of like just a part of it and we can use a shorter phrase. Imagine me using a short phrase for anything. Mark (I think of an old illustration where Christ is the hub and all those things written up there were spokes if we are obedient.) You got it, bingo. You’ve got it. Turn to Colossians 219 if you would for a second. And I want us to read some Scripture here together and I want us to get some context holding fast the Head is the key by which we can walk in everything in our Christian life without any exception and without any worry and without and fear. It’s adequate, it’s complete, it’s entire, it’s lacking nothing. And you’re going to end up at the end of this hopefully you’ll end up saying well how do you do that and that’ll be a good start. Let’s start out by reading. I’m going to read the whole chapter if you’ll read with me. “For I would that you knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of the Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Let me start at this point I just want to draw attention to a few things as we go along so we don’t miss out on what we’re reading. The significant issue is that there is a fellowship that’s private and a fellowship that’s corporate within the body of Christ. And he says it there, “That their hearts may be comforted,” that’s the individual experience of Christ causing the individual believer to thrive, to be sustained. “Being knit together,” that’s the corporate body, those who are thriving in Christ separately are knit together in that which they privately are pursuing in Christ themselves. “Being knit together unto all riches and full assurance of understanding.” What does that mean? Simply this, I am going to be comforted and knit together around that which is being provided for me in the riches of Christ, but there has to be an understanding and an acknowledgement of the mystery of God. Notice that there’s an acknowledgement of the mystery and this mystery of God and the Father and of Christ, this mystery is discussed in the next verse, “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Now the question of in whom is all this hid and the simplicity of the language the implication is in Christ is hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Christ is hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now we have this picture of riches that gives us a full assurance about what we understand and where we’re headed. And that sense of understanding gives me the capacity to acknowledge God appropriately and properly. This might seem perhaps a little bit difficult for you to understand, but I need to say emphatically that when I acknowledge that which is by God’s provision, I am making myself available to it. It’s a very personal and a very significant natural response. I am letting myself connect with what God Himself has provided. And it begins to be a very personal absorption of me when I begin acknowledging. Acknowledgment is a very significant word as it relates to my faith because it is me standing firm on that which is, that which is revealed by God and that which is for me because of His provision. So these are very substantial and hopeful kinds of statements. It’s interesting to note here that it says that in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I don’t mean in any way to create confusion and I don’t mean to play with you in an inappropriate manner but a few minutes ago we listed things that you and I recognize to be Christian disciplines that are beneficial to our walk and faith. And what I want to make clear this morning is that it is possible for me, it is possible for you to take any one of those disciplines or to take all of those disciplines and to in such a way exalt them, hold them up as primary as the significant or singular focus of my life that I do not access what I have as a believer. I instead create some artificial religion that has no acknowledgement and no access to what was provided for me in the riches of Jesus Christ. And I want to say that I purposely picked on Christian disciplines that we readily acknowledge that are things that we should do, prayer, reading the Scripture, etc. etc. I purposefully picked on those things because they’re the most natural and the easiest things by which believers initially get astray and go off on something other than Christ. Now this I want to say, is there something that I can get of value and significance in my life, is there something that I can get outside of Christ? And the answer is no. There’s absolute nothing. I can’t attain, I can’t acknowledge, I can’t get anything outside of Christ. And it’s significant and important for you and I to recognize that we must, we absolutely must deal with what it means to lay a hold of Christ. That is the significant substantive issue. Notice that if I have Christ I’m going to be accessing hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I’m going to be accessing things that I want for my life. They’re hidden means that they can’t be accessed by the natural man, they’re treasures meaning that they have great value. And what are they? The treasures of wisdom and treasures of knowledge. Charlie did you have a comment? (Yes. The initial question was which one of these disciplines of the eight you had written out,) Oh no I’m sorry that wasn’t my question. I asked for some disciplines that we commonly acknowledge and then I asked what is a discipline that is universal? Let me get back to that for a second. What discipline, I didn’t intend it to mean of those that we listed, what discipline is adequate in itself to completely and entirely sustain and direct the believers’ spiritual growth and discernment in all things. And the answer is holding fast to the Head which is Christ. And I’m getting to that discussion of holding fast to the Head by looking into Colossians. (So that discipline of holding fast,) Holding fast to the Head. (I think we understand all these disciplines have to be grace motivated; in and of themselves they don’t lead you to salvation. But when I hear holding fast to the Head which Mark suggested and I see it here, you’re going to tell us how to do that.) Yes. (I guess I’ve mostly been thinking don’t those disciplines in combination together allow us to hold fast to the Head?) Not of themselves, no. Of themselves they have no capacity whatsoever to provide anything for us. Here’s the problem with disciplines, this is a common thing that I try to recite again and again and again whatever can be done by my flesh and blood can be done by anybody’s flesh and blood regardless of their spiritual state. An unregenerate man may memorize Scripture. An unregenerate man may read Scripture. An unregenerate man may pray. An unregenerate man, let’s go back to the little list here, an unregenerate man may “worship,” they may fellowship with others of like mind, they may get out there and minister. I remember Washington Bible College, they had required Christian service and it seemed like every year there was a case where one of the students who brought the most frequent testimonies of people getting saved, somewhere in the course of the years that they were at school finally got saved themselves. Unregenerate people can do ministry. Unregenerate people can fast and etc. etc etc. (Pharisees did all eight of those. My concern though is that as a Christian, a person gets saved and they practice those disciplines. I thought those were disciplines practiced by a Christian person that they would gravitate to.) What I’m hoping to communicate is that it is not possible for a believer to lay a hold of those disciplines and simply through the process of laying a hold of those disciplines gain in any attainment a spiritual advantage at all. I am trying to say that. And I’m hoping to explain that as we go along. Maybe what I should do is finish this overhead.

When is any discipline vain and deceitful in its use and application? When is any discipline vain and deceitful in its use and application? When we submit to any of them under pressure by the judgment of men and not holding to the Head who is Christ. In other words what I’m trying to say is that it’s possible for me to embrace any spiritual discipline that we listed as a believer but it’s possible for me to embrace that under a sense of expectation given to me by men, whether it be myself whether I created that expectation or whether it be someone else who in their loving kindness wanting to encourage me and exhort me have put that pressure upon me so that I’m laying a hold of something. I had it spoken to me on more than one occasion as a new believer, “Have you lost your joy of salvation? Go out and witness. Witnessing always returns your joy of salvation. So just go witness.” And there’s often occasions, I had another guy tell me once when I was a brand new believer, he said, “Make a covenant with God that you’ll not go to bed ever on a single night without first having shared the Gospel with one person that day. Make a covenant to do that.” So there’s this exaltation and this advancement of disciplines in such a substantial manner that they are sent out as if to offer blessing. What I really want to point out is if you’re creating an offer of a blessing for a discipling, you’re at risk of not holding the Head but rather holding forth a vain and deceitful offer of something other than Christ. You’re guilty of potentially being a gainsayer, subverting the Gospel. Bear with me as I get through the, what do we call any teaching that does not properly hold the Head of Christ, we call it gainsaying, I think I’ve already mentioned that. And quoting from Titus 19-11, he calls them “gainsayers, unruly and vain talkers and deceivers especially they of the circumcision whose mouths must be stopped who subvert whole houses teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre’s sake.” That verse is substantial in the way it outlines some of the issues relating to gainsaying and I’ll mention them real quickly. The concept of unruly vain talkers, the idea, and deceivers, the idea is these people are always advancing their pet doctrines, their means, their little packages, they package up the Christian life and they advance it through whatever venue possible and they’re constantly setting those things up as significant and as priority. It’s important for us to understand how easy this is to get a hold of when we see that Paul keeps coming back and beating up on especially they of the circumcision. Paul’s got it in for those of the circumcision. Why? Interesting to notice. The Jews have a law, the law came from God. It was received of angels by Moses on the mount. It cannot be stated in any way, shape or form that the law originated from men, the law originated from God. But the warning about gainsayers has to do with those who would take the law in any of its sense of pressure or ought or expectation, who would take that and press it in a manner that is inappropriate and press it in a manner by which someone might look for blessing, for grace or what have you from the application, from the use of the law. It’s interesting to notice Paul’s construction here, “Their mouths must be stopped.” That perhaps will be some of our discussion this morning or maybe another day, but their mouths must be stopped. In other words what they’re saying has to be silenced. The corporate body of Christ cannot endure that kind of teaching without it subverting the Gospel. (tape turned here) …in its effect.

The second thing is this unruly talking subverts whole houses. I think it’s important for us to understand the common effect that a false teaching has on a group of individuals. I want to point out two things. First of all, a whole household generally represents the fact that we tend to corporately in our own houses lay a hold of truth together in a common way, especially as we come into faith and our household comes into faith and we press after Christ. There’s a corporate effect in our household but beyond that remember that in some cases in the days of the apostles the households themselves what? They had other believers meeting and it was called the church in their house. And so there was a corporate effect even beyond just the house persay but it’s in effect into the whole body of Christ. And part of Paul’s concern here is not that it’s just a small matter that we want to draw your attention to but that it’s a major matter that must be put an end to because it has significant impact in corrupting the faith of many. What I want to say is isn’t it something that we could expect that Satan would want to subvert the Gospel in such a way that large groups of people getting together are all together in one accord perverted, that they’re off track, that they’re somehow not holding fast to the Head and they go beyond that, they’re somewhere else? Of course it seems that could be the primary tactic of Satan. If Christ is the source of life and godliness, then he’s the one that must be clouded and covered over. I remember the simple teaching that Jesus gave concerning Himself. He said, “If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me. If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto Me.” THere is something extrememly simple about sound doctrine. The proper exaltation of the person and work of Jesus Christ is adequate in every case and in every circumstance to bring forward the means of salvation and discipline and spiritual growth. And what I might say here to help you kind of fit together what I’m thinking, if I am going to properly bring Christ forward, if I’m going to hold fast to Christ properly then I have a motive of exalting Christ and that motive spills over so that the disciplines of faith just by their very nature spring forth from the pursuit of Christ. It’s going to happen, you don’t need to tell anybody to pray. When they realize that they have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous, they’re going to acknowledge Christ as their advocate, their heart’s going to spring to action coming to the Throne of Grace begging the Son to intercede on their behalf in their condition. And all the sudden that believer is taking hold of what we might call a spiritual discipline because he’s laying a hold of the Throne of God through prayer. But prayer is going to be approached by laying a hold of Christ. So it’s going to have its propriety, it’s going to be at the right understanding. And we’re not going to focus on prayer, we’re not going to focus on the aspect of prayer in its primary sense, we’re going to focus on Christ in the throne room and how do I get a hold of it? But that’s why when we were in Hebrews we learned that we have boldness, seeing that we have this High Priest up in the heavens, we have boldness so that we might come before the throne of God and find grace to help in time of need. There’s this substantive reality, all that which is fruitful and useful to me as a Christian springs forth from my fellowship with Christ, every bit of it.

The little phrase I have highlighted here, “filthy lucre’s sake,” that phrase is a little difficult perhaps to persuade you of its simplicity and its significance. Very few people will conceive that something that they’re proposing that might be guilty of gainsaying is that they’re doing it for filthy lucre’s sake. Think about what filthy lucre is. It’s an advantage. It’s an earthly advantage. Money gives me an advantage and it corrupts my motives. When I’m looking for an advantage in the affairs of this world that is filthy lucre. That’s what filthy lucre is, it gives me that edge, it gives me that sense that capacity to make things happen in the realm that I want to have control over, namely in the realm down here. And so what I want to suggest to you that filthy lucre extends well beyond literally money in terms of an exact exchange in time and space. But it extends in its motivational sense to any gain that I might have. And I find it interesting that the whole term “gainsayers” is such a natural definition for this kind of person. It’s someone who is taking their operational Christian life and using it for an advantage, using it for their gain. And their whole manner of instruction and teaching and what have you springs out of that. There’s one thing that’s a little bit of a concern to me when I suggest that people do this for filthy lucre’s sake and that is the temptations for you and I to let ourselves off the hook really quick, “Ah it’s not me then because I’m not doing that.” And I really don’t want us to get let off the hook that quickly. I don’t want us to get off the hook that quickly why? Because I don’t think that you and I have yet properly understood just how vile our subtle motives are. We have extremely extrememly vile motives. The heart of man is deceitful above all things. There is nothing else more deceitful than yours and my human heart. And that deceitful heart is desperately wicked. Now someone that’s desperately wicked is an ambitious person. A desperate person has an agenda. They’re motivated, they’re ambitious. And the nature of my natural heart, the desperate wickedness of my natural heart is something that I cannot know, who can know it? And I’m afraid that we too easily dismiss ourselves and are gainsaying, hoping to simply categorically paste it on those who by our estimates clearly and obviously are falling into that pit. But I think the benefit of this discussion this morning would be very small if we didn’t leave here with the strong sense of fear and a strong sense of warning that brothers and sisters it is extremely easy for you and I to go about walking in gainsaying because it is extremely easy to conduct ourselves in the midst of the brethren in a way that is to my advantage, in a way that serves some earthly and self conceit end that I have. It is extremely easy. And I’m not meaning to be judge because God is judge, but I wonder if it’s not possible at this day and age of the church in America, if perhaps the question might not be exaggerated that asks is there a church around, is there a fellowship of saints around that is not somehow significantly hampering the genuine growth in Christ because we’re going about so casually and so candidly in gainsaying one with another? I believe this is a very serious matter and a very significant question to raise and I don’t think that we should raise it lightly and I don’t think that we should answer it quickly.

Let’s go back to Colossians and let’s pick up a couple more verses here. Back in verse 3 again the context, in Christ are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Everything that I need is hid in Him. Peter says that all things that pertain to life and godliness are found in this glorious redemption provided for by the Father through Christ.

Let’s get to some practical pictures of gainsaying. Verse 4, “This I say lest any man should beguile you with enticing words, that though I be absent in the flesh yet I am with you in the Spirit joying and beholding your order and stedfastness of your faith in Christ.” Notice one thing that is always true with the apostle Paul, he always rejoices in people’s faith taking hold and standing firm no matter what the cost. He always compliments faith; he doesn’t compliment other shows, he compliments faith, faith, hope and love. Verse 6 says thus, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith as you’ve been taught and abounding therein with thanksgiving.” Those two verses, verses 6 and 7, perhaps can easily be the motto for the Christian life. “As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord,” when we were looking in Galatians the last couple weeks, what’s the model? How did we receive Christ Jesus the Lord? How did we come into the faith? How did we receive Christ? Everybody’s afraid to answer now. We received Christ by faith. “As we received Christ Jesus the Lord,” which is by faith, simply laying a hold of His work and accepting it and receiving it by faith into our own life, “as we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.” So there’s that rule of faith that we mentioned from Romans 14, whatever is not of faith is sin.” So as we’ve received Christ in faith so my daily Christian life is a walk of faith. And I might say categorically and simply that anything that I do today that is not out of faith is sin. And it doesn’t matter what it looks like. It doesn’t matter if it’s Bible reading or prayer or ministry or witnessing or any number of things that might be called disciplines of the Christian faith, if I’m not doing those things out from the very reality of faith, it’s meaningless and it has nothiing to do with holding fast to Christ. So I’m going to hold fast to Christ by faith, that’s the manner in which I lay a hold of Him. In the beginning that’s the manner by the way I continue laying a hold of Him throughout.

Look at the next verse then, verse 7, “Rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith.” “Rooted” perhaps might refer to the point of our salvation where we get grafted in and we get rooted into Christ. “Established” has to do with our growth, with our daily walk, the expansion, the multiplication of our Christian life and walk. “Rooted and built up in Him, as you have been taught and abounding therein with thanksgiving.” I want to ask a quick question, why would abounding therein with thanksgiving have such an important place in this discussion? I am to abound in faith and when I’m abounding in faith my only response to God is a response of thanksgiving, why? Because God has provided everything for me. All the riches of His glory have been provided for me in Christ Jesus. I have an access to God, I have an access into His wealth and He has made it available to me. My response is to be abounding in this faith and abounding in thanksgiving. In other words, my primary response as a believer is I believe and I say “thank you” in the process of receiving that which God has provided for me.

Let’s go on. Verse 8, listen careful to this. This warning us about gainsayers, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.” This is an easy verse to read; it’s not aneasy verse to grasp though and understand. First of all he tells us to beware. Now whenever the Scripture tells me to beware I should take upon myself a kind of attitude that is distrustful concerning the possibilities of that which I’ve been called to beware of. What I do find in Christian circles is we fellowship so seldom truly in Christ and our fellowship so frequently is on some other form of mutual enjoyment and benefit and encouragement and appreciation that we don’t even know when we’re being spoiled because we don’t have a clue about being aware. Let me illustrate, this is a powerful illustration and I’d like to make it back to you and I in our ordinary fellowship one with another. There was this story of a boy who was kidnapped from a mall and by grace of God they recovered this boy and found him some weeks later and he was alive and some man had picked him up. After the son was returned his parents being very grieved quizzed him as to why he got in this car with a stranger because the parents had taught this little tiker from the time he was knee high to a grasshopper, “You don’t ever get in a car with a stranger. You don’t ever except candy from a stranger, you just don’t ever do that.” And so they said, “Why did you do this? You were taught and you were trained.” And you know what the child’s response was, it was an incredible what his response was? “He wasn’t a stranger.” And the mother said, “What do you mean he wasn’t a stranger? He’s not a friend of the family, he’s not a family member, we’ve never met him before; he’s a stranger.” “No he’s not. Mom, you let me go down to the mall on a regular basis and play video arcade ganes and that man was there for five months. I saw him everyday and he was kind to me and friendly to me, sometimes he gave me quarters. But he wasn’t a stranger, I knew him very well.” That’s a picture of the spiritual warning that you and I need concerning the command to beware lest any man spoil you. Here’s the problem, brothers and sisters, we so quickly get an affinity in human relationship that we lose our capacity to evaluate what’s going on in the relationship and there’s where the danger lies. As awkward as it may make you feel at this instant, it is far more superior of a responsibility that I hold back myself from intimate acquaintances until that acquaintance is firmly established on Christ and on Christ alone, nothing else being the significant aspect of motivation and activity. I need to beware. But what happens is this, we get familiar with one another, we get friendly with one another, not on Christ just on relationship and activity and interactive fellowship etc, and when it comes time to rebuke and exhort and encourage and hold one another accountable to the truth we don’t have a clue because our mind says, “They’re good Christian people, they love the Lord,” and we just go through this little bullet list of deceit that we’ve already fallen captive to. Some of you may be getting uncomfortable and saying, “Are you asking me to be rude and have no friends at all?” No, but I’m asking you to be wise like Christ is, like Christ was on earth. How was Christ wise on the earth? Go to John, look at the miracle that He did at Cana. And the Scripture ends the discussion of the miracle at Cana with this little statement, it goes something like this, “Now this was the first miracle which Jesus did and many of his disciples believed on Him.” Now listen carefully, “But He did not give Himself over to them for He knew what was in the heart of man.” Now does that mean that Christ cut off His disciples and pitched them out in the dark and had nothing to do with them ever again? No, it means that He was on guard. He means that He was alert. Another illustration of this was Peter. This is probably a better illustration becuase it show just how subtle the necessity is for you and I to beware. But there was this occassion when a lot of stir was happening about who Christ was and Christ asked the disciples, “Whom do men say that I am?” And they went through the sayings of the people of the time and then Christ said again, “Well who do you say that I am?” And Peter spoke up and said, “Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said this, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah for flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee but my Father in Heaven. Therefore thou art Peter and upon this rock I’ll build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” Then He began to show them that He should suffer and die and be raised again the third day and Peter said, “Not so Lord, not so Lord.” And Jesus said back to Peter, “Get thee behind me Satan for thou desirest not the things of God but the things of man.” I tell you that is an incredible picture of what it means to beware in our Christian relationships one with another. Here we are walking down the road having relationships centered around Christ in a general sort of way and issues pop up like hot cakes. Here comes this issue. And one minute I’m being told that God Himself has revealed to me the truth and I am praised and patted on the back and given encouragment, told the whole church is going to be built on that statement that I made, and one minute later I’m off in hyper pride, “I’m really spiritual, got it together,” and I’m suddenly wanting to take a hold and manipulate the truth for my own advantage and I’ve got something in mind, I’ve got a plan, I’ve got an agenda. And immediately it’s spoken of me that I’m walking in the shoes of Satan, that I’m not desiring the things of God at all, I’m desiring the things of man. Brothers and sisters, that’s what it means to beware. Beware. Can you imagine for a minute what kind of a glorious fellowship we might have as believers if we like Christ conducted ourselves so entirely, so consistently, so that whenever a word came out of our mouth that was motivated out of abyss, a brother would rebuke and say, “That’s not of God, that’s of man,” and that correction would come with gentleness, with meekness but it would still be a rebuke. It would still be the stopping of a mouth that’s gainsaying. This is good stuff.

Let’s look at the verse, “Beware lest any man spoil you.” I want to talk about this little word, “spoil you.” This is one of Paul’s common terms throughout all of his epistles. What it refers to is you and I becoming somebody else’s bootie. You and I becoming somebody else’s bootie. And it works like this, if I can convince you to walk after me, I have arrived and my pride is served and I can set myself up as someone who knows something. And it is a natural tendency when you talk about these gainsayers, these guys who are after filthy lucre’s sake, it’s the natural tendency of man to promote themselves and to gather after themselves disciples. In Acts 20 in the King James, Paul says that’s a perverted man. A man who would draw disciples after himself, that’s perversion because we are not to draw to ourselves anyone. We’re to have the heart of John the Baptist aren’t we? “He must increase and I must decrease,” and my whole Christian walk is a process of largely laying a hold of and understanding that yes Christ must increase and I must decrease. When he talks about spoiling you he’s talking about making us somebody else’s bootie, somebody else bringing me into their camp. That’s the whole nature of this whole concept of gainsaying, filling up people in our camp, honoring our camp. He says that these people are going to spoil us through “philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.” Five things are mentioned there, five things. Four are in opposition to one. Philosophy. What is philosophy? Philosophy is the crafty use of words to promote my agenda. I had a very, actually this whole talk came out of a magazine I was reading yesterday and I was very disappointed. It was a magazine that would asay to be an exceptionally truthful and useful magazine for those wanting to walk in the true faith. And in this magazine I found that one particular author spent the whole occasion with nothing else than to spend his incredible capacity to manage words to debunk somebody else’s statement and to promote his own conclusion and exalt himself. I’ve never read an article that had such a non-end. It just went no where. It’s just, “Let’s look at how smart I am gang, let me show you.” What I had in my mind was, “I never want to get in a tangle with that guy because he’d tie me up in my words in a knot and if it was in public I’d be devastated and humiliated to be sure.” But the reality is men’s logic promoting men’s agenda, that’s what philosophy is. Going on to vain deceit. Vain deceit is easy to decribe. Vain means empty, it means without proper focus and something that’s not on Christ is vain, it’s without proper focus, it’s without reality, it’s just something that’s meaningless. But deceit is that which takes the real thing and twists it just enough to end up with nothing. This is where you and I really need to be careful because there are useful things that we do as believers, those disciplines we talked of earlier, those are useful things as we are walking in Christ and fellowshipping with Christ. Those are useful things and those useful things can be grabbed through deceit and twisted just enough so that they have a meaningless use and a meaningless end and there’s no benefit and there’s no fruit and we’re robbed of that which is our very lifeblood, as a very heritage. Philosophy, vain deceit (twisted words), and then he says, “after the tradition of men.” What does that mean? This is the biggie. It kind of follows like this, “Well it’s the way we’ve always done it in this church. There’s other churches out there that you can join, but here we do it this way.” And we get caught up with where we’ve come to, how we’ve arrived and we’re impressed with that and we want others to be impressed as well. And then he says the last one, “after the rudiments of the world.” What are the rudiments of the world? I don’t have time to prove it to you if you’re not sure but look carefully and you’ll discover that the rudiments of the world is the Old Testament Law; it’s the foundational law, it’s those most elementary things that Paul referred to in Hebrews 5 when he said that those things are to be set aside for Christ because now Christ is come. And in chapter 6 of Hebrews he says let’s go on, let’s go beyond these rudimentary things and let’s lay a hold of Christ. Those are the four things that are used to spoil people. Crafty philosophy, vain deceit, traditions of men and the law, twisted use of the law and not after Christ, not after Christ. I want to say this, it may not be easy for you and I to grasp this morning in the context of our sharing, it may not be easy for us to grasp what it means to pursue Christ to follow after Christ in every matter, but I want to say to you that it is absolutely possible, it is absolutely something that can control and influence every single thing that we do. It’s a measure, it’s a standard, it’s a point of reference that we have. We’re referencing everything based upon the person and the work of Christ. And there’s some theology that relates to recognizing who Christ is and when we see the all sufficiency of Christ, that’s when we recognize where we access Him by our acknowledgment of all things that are in Him. First of all he says in verse 9, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” So there we have this picture of His divinity, Christ is completely full of the very Godhead in the flesh and we call Christ the incarnate one because He’s God in the flesh. Verse 10, “Ye are complete in Him which is the Head of all principality and powers.” We’re complete in Christ. See it’s important for us to understand that statement because this is where we get off into rudimentary theology and to gainsaying practices. We are complete in Christ. Christ has accomplished for us everything that needs to be accomplished on our behalf. Not only has Christ accomplished everything that’s on our behalf, but He has made alvailable to us through Him access to all the things that pertain to life and godliness. Tozer said something, I wish I could give you the quote, but I’ll have to just kind of botch it along the way, Tozer said that there’s three essential realities that relates to our fellowship with Christ. He said first there’s the present reality, that is there are certain aspects about my salvation which are a completed and finished work based on Calvary, nothing can be added to it, it is finished, it is over and it is mine, I presently hold those things. And all of those things relate to the possession of the work of Christ that He did on Calvary and the satisfactory payment of that sin of mine in His blood before the throne of God. It’s finished, it’s complete and I possess it fully now. Then he said that there are some future things that are yet to be laid a hold of concerning my salvation. In the future I’m going to be given a glorified body. That’s not today. Today I don’t have a glorified body and I have to deal with life in spite of that or without that. In the future, I’m going to receive perfect sanctification in every respect. There will be no vestige of sin in me at all. I can’t imagine what that will be but I certainly look forward to that day. In the future I’m going to have perfect and complete knowledge as compared to the partial incomplete knowledge that I have now. And there are just certain things that relate to who I am in Christ there are things that I’m waiting for. I am waiting for that blessed hope and that glorious appearing of God in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There are things I’m waiting for in the future. I did it wrong. The first thing I was supposed to say was the past. There are things in the past that are finished and that’s the work on the Cross and all that that has bought and the future is what is yet to be. But then there is that which is present and today in the present I need to be laying a hold of Christ in every ordinary circumstance and I need to be expanding and expounding on my own personal sanctification. I need to be increasing and growing in Christ. “Now grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and that’s the present tense of what things are going now. I want you to understand something, God isn’t asking you now to demonstrate perfection in your life. What God is asking you to do now is to learn how to lay a hold of Christ in practical ordinary ways, to learn how to live in the abiding presence, He’s there, to learn how to access the riches that are yours today when you have a need. And there is a present tense continuous relationship and experience by which I am laying a hold of Christ from day to day and in all circumstances. And that’s a part of what the Christian life is all about. And it is at this place that this false concept of gainsaying where people’s faith are overthrown comes in where people begin to think, “Well I began by faith but now I have to demonstrate, I have to do something to gain more access; I have to increase and abound by doing these things and then I’m going to get these blessings back,” and that’s not so. The blessings are ours as an inheritance, the process is learning how to walk in your inheritance, learning what it fits like and feels like and how it responds and how it deals with in circumstances that hithertofor I only knew once in the flesh to walk as the Gentiles walked. And so I have this completeness in Jesus Christ who is the Head of all principality and power. The thing about being head, there are two things important about it. Number one, it’s important from a standpoint of substance because I can be assured that absolutely no authority is superior to that of Christ and no one can say, “But,” to Jesus when He claims me as His because of my faith in His shed blood. He has the absolute final say. And when the Son says to the Father, “He’s mine,” the Father acknowledges that without exception in every case. And so principality and power has to do with the reality that Christ is supreme above all and in all. But secondly this concept of principality deals with you and I on a very practical basis because this is one of the practices of how we keep getting back to the question, “Am I following after Christ, am I holding fast the Head? Am I? Am I doing that?” And as I ask that question and as I evaluate my walk, that question runs me back to authority and I say, “There is none else that I have to answer to.” “But mommy said,” no there’s no one else you have to answer to. Maybe I shouldn’t have used “mommy” because children might not understand what I was trying to understand. “The pastor said,” no, God, Christ is the one you answer to. The reality is you have a freedom to directly acces Christ and to align yourself up under Christ and you don’t need something else. Now often these spoilers, these vain deceivers, these gainsayers, often they come to us with the sense of ought, “You ought to do this, you really should consider this.” And they bring that sense of ought and then they promise you something, “If you do this you’ll live.” But let us remember that the day of promisary behavior is over. The Law had a promise and the law had a curse and cursed is everyone that does not continue in everything that’s contained in that Law and thus we are all cursed. But Christ Himself became a curse for us being hung on a tree for it is written, “Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.” And therefore the curse that is mine because I cannot perform is removed and the hope that I have of access to God is established not in me or in something that I might do before or after I come to Christ, but it’s established solely in Christ. So laying a hold of Christ means acknowledging His preeminence and His source and His resource to me so that I learn to train myself to come back to Christ and to bring my concern to Christ and to seek Christ in the matter of which I am concerned with.

I would like to finish reading the verse and then we’re going to have to quit. I apologize for the time. Let’s go on, verse 11, “In whom ye are also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands and putting off of the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” That’s an illusion to the circumcision of the Law but it’s intended to establish a fact that positionally there’s a completion that has occured in Christ. And that has been done by Christ and it has been resolved by Christ. So that circumcision is permanent and it’s finished. “Buried with Him in baptism where also you are risen with Him through faith of the operation of God who raised Him from the dead and you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of the flesh hath He quickened together with Him having forgiven you all tresspasses.” Here’s the important understanding of why the case is rested and why practically I need to pursue nothing else. I was dead, I have been made alive, I have been forgiven my trespasses, why? Verse 14, “Blotting out the handwriting of the ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us and He took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.” What is he saying? All that which was rightfully an accusation against me in unrighteousness has been taken out of the way because Christ has satisfied that judgement on the cross. And it’s important for us to understand brothers and sisters that it is taken out of the way, it is gone, and there is nothing that we might allow anyone to bring back over us and insist upon us that by these things we might somehow improve our lot or gain riches without simply laying a hold of the Head.

Verse 15 says, “Having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly triumphing over them.” We need to understand something here in terms of authority as it relates to our sin. Principalities and powers most likely in this instance is referring to the demonic world, namely Satan, who by his understanding of the Law and his understanding of God’s righteous judgement brings forward to God the accusation against the people of the earth continuously accusing us before God’s throne night and day. What happened is we were once bootie of Satan. We were once his to own when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, but Christ spoiled the enemy. In a battle you know that when you go in and you defeat the enemy you take his goods, that’s spoiling the enemy. We were the goods. We were the ones bound in trespasses and sin headed for judgement, we were owned by Satan. And in that bondage that we once were, Christ came and spoiled Satan; He snipped the chains of his power over us and his right to our death and He liberated us and He made a show over me triumphing over them. What this means isn’t that you and I can perceive it but the spiritual world openly understands and knows that Christ has triumphed and that His blood has satisfied. And there is an end to the spiritual authority; you might find this strange but until Christ died, there was a means by which Satan could hold God accountable for the death of every person on earth because the wages of sin is death. And Satan had the means of reminding God of His righteous judgment. Remember the story of the Medes and the Persians when whenever they passed a law it could never be changed. According to the law of the Medes and the Persians it could not be changed. Remember they made a trick and they made a law that said if you worshipped any god but the king, you’d be thrown into the den of lions. It was a trick to get the king’s favorite person, Daniel. But they knew he would do it and he did it and he obeyed and prayed to God and the king could not change his law and so here were these accusers happily and joyfully saying, “Ah ah he’s guilty, he’s guilty, he’s got to carry out the sentence.” And the king was bound by his own law and he threw his favorite governor into the lions. And that’s the picture of the authority world, the supernatural world and what Christ did on the cross was He came and when Satan was saying, “Ah, ah, ah, these are all mine, are these are death, these all deserve death,” Christ triumphed over them making an open show. And that is why he premises the next verse this way, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat.” I want to point out this word “judge you,” again. I mentioned it at the beginning of the discussion. If you are going to beward, part of being aware or the necessity of being aware is recognizing when a man judges you. When a man judges you he’s presenting to you a sense of ought, something that you must do in order to gain that which certainly His approval and of course there’s a sense of which we’re posing as if we can tell by God’s approval. “Let no man judge you in meat or in drink or in respect to an holy day, or in new moon or in Sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come but the body is of Christ.” I want you to understand that that list in verse 16 all relates to Old Testament things, Old Testament law, Old Testament requirements. And He says that we are not to let anyone judge us in those matters. No one can open up the Old Testament and say, “Thus saith the Lord, you better do this or you’re going to be cursed and if you do this you’ll get a blessing.” Don’t let them do it. That is a judgement that takes me away from Christ. These things from the Old Testament were merely shadows of things to come but the body is of Christ. When we were in Hebrews we went through this so I want go through it again. But we understand one clear thing a shadow is simply a vague general outline of something but it is not the real thing. And you never go down and you never hug the shadow when you see the shadow of your Grandma coming by. You see the shadow of Grandma and you hug Grandma. Listen to the next verse, “Let no man beguile you of your reward.” HEre’s a warning, if you allow yourself to carry out these little games that people press on you, if you allow yourself to do that, you will lose a spiritual reward that God has for you by faith. You actually jeopardize your spiritual heritage by falling prey to this ignorance and to this vanity, to this gainsaying. “Let no man beguile you of your reward,” listen to this, “In voluntary humility.” I love it, I love it, “voluntary humility.” We get so focused on the little occasions, “Let’s do this and now let’s do that.” “Worshipping of angels.” What does it mean by “worshipping of angels?” I don’t have the time to discuss all the possibilities that people have said, but let me say in the context of principalities and powers having been showed openly, the worship of angels implies the acknowledgement of the law superior to the acknowledgement of Christ. When we went through that in Hebrews it was very clear that the law came to Moses through angels but Christ came Himself and He was superior to angels and superior to Moses. So in this context by granting greater credence to those things that are the shadow, we are worshipping angels, we are giving angels a higher place of significance in our practical Christian walk than Christ who is the Head. (new tape starts) part that’s important for us to understand. It’s easy for someone to say something to you , impress you upon you as if there’s going to be some benefit. But the truth of it is, they don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re ignorant; they haven’t seen anything, they’re just parreting something out of the vanity and the deceit of their own mind. They’re vainly puffed up in their fleshly mind and all this thing emits from the flesh. And verses 19, our text, “And not holding the Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.” This is interesting to see the effect of a vibrant church. When we are holding the Head we are holding the Person who is effectual and bringing to us all that pertains to life and godliness. And when the Head is properly held then you and I who are the members of the body which he speajs of all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, when we hold the Head properly then we function in a way that nourishes one another. And I might say in an exaggerated sort of way if you are properly holding the Head Jesus Christ, the things that you say and share and exhort and encourage and rebuke by those things are going to nourish and encourage people in their Christian walk. When you’re holding fast to the Head you’re going to be able to communicate encouragement and it’s that simple picture, we’ve been called to lift up Christ. Paul said, “I didn’t come in the wisdom of men’s words, but I came preaching Christ and Him crucified,” preaching the crucifixion of Christ, preaching the cross of Christ, exalting Christ in His singular work, in His satisfactory work, that is the ministry of one believer to another and that’s how we build up the body by properly holding to the Head and exhorting one another to Him. We’re going to see ourselves ministered, knit together, unity, increasing with the increase of God, we’re going to have spiritual growth. So we need the growth, we need to get from here to there, that’s the place that we’re in, but that doesn’t come by any other means except by holding fast the Head. “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances, taste not, touch not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and the doctrines of men which indeed have a show of wisdom in will worship and humility and neglecting the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.” What is the bottom line? There is definitely a benefit to participating in the rudiments and the ordinances of the world. There’s definitely going to be an attraction, there’s definitely going to be a benefit. It talks about it here, “a show of wisdom and will worship,” and that’s what it is. I remember when I was a boy I had a misunderstanding about the will of man, about how our will works and I thought that by my practice and by my effort, I could improve my will so that eventually my will would choose good things, so that eventually my will would choose to please God. And I didn’t know back then when I was thinking those things and trying to see God on those premises, I didn’t know that I was involved in will worship. I was involved in advancing and advocating the strengthening of the human character so that the human character is pristine in its appearance. That’s what these things do, they’re external manifestations by external practices and they’re substitutionary to Christ. They have a benefit because they have a show but they never satisfy the flesh. What does that mean? That means this, the basic reprobate nature of my flesh which needs redemption in Christ and needs sanctification and growth, that flesh will never be corrected or ministered to or improved by focusing on any external activity whatsoever period. There is no exception and there is no benefit.

This message is real heavy on my heart. I see the years and years and years and years that I’ve been a Christian where carelessly and callously we continue to promote spiritual growth as if it comes through some means of some little practice, of some little system, of some little process that we lay on ourselves and you simply aren’t going to get anything of eternal substance and value through that route. We need to hold each other accountable; we need to be more alert as it relates to what we espouse and what we accept and what we promote. We need to be like Christ who is brave and willing to point out a heart that’s chasing after vain things, point it out to as it was. I just didn’t have the time to get through everything and all the things I wanted to say are in this little pamphlet. You can take that home with you. But let me something, in 2 Timothy 223 through the end, Paul gives us a little bit of a model as it relates to how we affect one another in this process. And he says that we’re to avoid unlearned questions, we’re to avoid unlearned questions. I don’t know what it takes for you and I to develop a sensitivity to have an aversion to unlearned questions but we need to develop a sensitivity when we see it coming and the first fragment of an unlearned question begins to trink against our ears we recognize it for what it is and we back peddle out of that when we see where that’s going. One of the things that I mentioned in here as an illustration is the fact that you can have accurate doctrine be the source of gainsaying teaching. In other words, you can believe something accurately about God or about His Word or about some doctrine. And you can adhere to that doctrine and you can set it forth among men but the very means by which you adhere and the very means by which you set it forth is a gainsaying tactic and it has no benefit. It’s an unlearned question. And I think that it’s important for you and I to understand this. Far too often the pride of man gets caught in this understanding that if I have truth, if I know truth, if I can tell you truth, then I’m truth or spiritual or I’ve arrived. No, righteousness is the issue. God is after our very character, our very nature. And unrighteousness can lay a hold of anything and defile it and that’s what it does. You and I need to recognize that when there is an occasion of gainsaying going on and there’s an unlearned question that’s beginning to gender strifes that we learn to avoid it and then we learn to do something else, to turn around and we learn how to teach with a gentle and a meekness those that are what Paul says in Timothy there, those that oppose themselves. That’s an interesting thought but when I’m a gainsayer I’m opposing myself. I don’t know what that means in any kind of great depth but on the surface it seems to me that it means that that which really I desire which is salvation and life I strike down by my very opposition to those things that bring life and I lay a hold of those things that bring death and thus oppose myself. And the whole picture is this if I learn how to gently and mildly rebuke, now I don’t mean that it might not mean to be firm or significant – Christ was gentle and meek and yet He was firm with Peter, but if I learn how to rebuke and correct and instruct then I provide opportunity and the Scripture says in Timothy that perhaps God will grant repentance, perhaps God will grant repentance. And I just want to close with that idea in mind. The purpose of truth is to bring men to repentance, no other purpose. When truth gets preached and Christ gets lifted up, it brings me to the end of me, I see myself for who I’m not and I see myself largely in the context of what my need is and God is anxious to help needy people. And repentance is the acknowledgement of my personal need and proper correction, proper instruction when I was doing this study the word “sound instruction,” and “sound doctrine” occurred again and again and I was amazed because sound instruction and sound doctrine is that which properly advances the work of Christ and that’s all it is. The glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ is what is sound doctrine properly advancing so that people repent and God is the one that grants repentance. That ought to help you and I when we’re trying to hold fast to truth to maintain gentleness and meekness because I can’t convince you of the truth in such a way that you’ll become righteous. I might overwhelm you and pin you down and make you say, “Give,” in a moment when I tied you up in a know with my better arguments than you had but I can’t affect you for good. I want to close with a story I told once before. Years ago when I was teaching school there was this Catholic girl in our class and this particular class was largely Baptist type kids who were vigorous and energetic, many of them wanting to witness and share the faith. Well what happened as the year wore on the first few months, these believing kids began to pounce on this Catholic girl day in and day out and just shred her to pieces and just devour her false teaching etc. And she began to get more and more frustrated and one day I made a mistake when they requested the possibility of having a debate to hold up the Gospel versus Catholicism. I made a mistake and agreed to that debate. I don’t know what purpose a theology debate had in Biology lab but that’s what we did. And I remember as the debate wore on this girl would come back to me and she said, “Mr. Cox can you tell me any verses that say this? Can you tell me any verses that say that?” And she clearly didn’t know the Scripture and I didn’t know what it would say or how it might say. And these had prepared and they were well intentioned, they wanted to lead her to Christ, but by the end of this class we had completely devestated this girl, we completely devestated her. She was so discouraged, she was weeping, she went up in the choir loft and just hid, she was angry and all the sudden a little bit late but it dawned on me that we had been gainsayers with the Gospel. We had been bantering about human words about the very precious Gospel of Christ. And I was sickened and in desperate need and I remember knowing that there was another teacher that had a similar background and I said, “Could you help me out, we’ve really blown it?” And explained the situation and went with her back to the girl to try to see if there was any way to just recover something that we had smashed in the process. And I’ll never forget the little exchange that took place as soon as the teacher was there the girl just rose up again with her adversarial attack trying to protect and defend and save her face and save her father’s understanding which is basically what her faith was. And of course it was not the time any longer to be debating or arguing and this teacher did an amazing thing, she looked the girl in the eye and she said, “Can I just ask you a question? If we could sit here for the next ten minutes and prove that everything that you say is true without a doubt I want to ask you a question, would you have peace inside? Would you know the presence of God? Would you be any better for it?” And with those gentle and reproving words this girl burst into tears just weeping and in a few minutes this girl prayed to receive Christ and was mightily transformed. And what a lesson. Here we are wanting to save someone from the pit of Hell, wanting to lead them in the way of life, but what were we doing? In proud arrogance of our superior doctrine we were simply trying to get her into our camp and annihilate her camp. But it was all in the flesh, it was all in the puffed up vanity of our minds. We were not serving Christ, we were not doing His work even though we were using the words of the Gospel. Brothers and sisters that’s the call to Christ, that we recognize that He came to save sinners to transform their hearts and to give them a heritage that they do not possess without Him. And all that we do in the name of Christ must be done in conformity to that simple premise, holding fast the Head.

Last week I was at this Frederick fair and I was hoping for a chance to share the Gospel with people there and we had prayed as a family for occasions and towards the end of the week there was an occasion granted and talking to this man who was interested in talking to my wife first and then me and he was very very troubled in his spirit about just wanting to be a good man. He started just volunteering how he’s really trying hard to improve, he’s stopped drinking and he’s starting to go to church now. He just had a little list, stopped smoking, all these little things and then he went on to the things he was already doing well, he already had some good things going for him, he was faithful to his wife, never lied and those kind of things. As we went along in the discussion, he began to say false doctrine. He began to say, “It doesn’t matter what church I go to, I know that it just matters that you’re really trying to do your best because God’s happy as long as you’re trying.” And of course that’s the hardest thing for me to ever listen to, somebody tripping over the truth and just kind of anihilating it all over the place. And I made a couple minor attempts to just tweek his teaching, “Well it’s not true.” All the sudden the Spirit just spoke to me, “You’re gainsaying, get off the gainsaying, stop it. All you’re doing is combating.” I wasn’t being rude, I wasn’t being harsh, I wasn’t even feeling combative, but the Holy Spirit just spoke to me, “Get back get back.” And the Spirit just gave me a different angle and I said to him, “Do you read the Gospels much? Do you have a chance to read the Gospels?” And he said, “Actually I’m so busy I don’t have a chance to read.” And all the sudden the Lord just opened up a door. I said, “Can I encourage you to take some time to read the Gospels. The Gospels speak of Christ so simply and so plainly and Christ is the One who is in the business of helping us become righteous.” Within two seconds I was completely off of this banty of trying to set one doctrine against another and correct his doctrine and little shades of this or that and the Lord was permitting me to exalt Christ, lift up Christ, lift up Christ, lift up Christ. And I was just amazed at the open door, the freedom of spirit and the sense of continuity. And as I was able to exhort him and encourage him and lift up Christ and the conversation ended positively and I actually sensed that with God’s grace there’ll be opportunities to follow this up for good in the future. But it’s necessary, can we learn to hold each other accountable to this high standard? Exalting Christ, Him crucified, the work’s finished, let’s hold fast to Him, let’s learn what it means to walk after Christ and not substitute anything for Him. Let’s pray.

Father forgive me if I ‘ve attempted at the end here to be more persuavise than I have the ability to. We thank You for the great and finished work that we have in Christ. We thank You Lord that all things that pertain to life and godliness are completely found in Him and there’s no possibility of us missing out on something good or important if we lay hold of our head, if we learn to acknowledge in all His fullness. Lord we thank You that that’s your desire and we thank you that that is achievable by Your grace and we do ask Lord that You would help us, help us to beware of those who would make us their spoil, those who would through deceit and vain glory attempt to simplify the process of growing in grace to the mechanics of activities that may perhaps be a part of our lovely relationship with You. Lord grant to us too that we might recognize our own pride and our own tendency to feel comfortable when we have a common sense of agreement with those that we’re around. And Lord that we might not be careless and reckless in our own ministry, in our own speech but that we would be an example of the believer in faith and in doctrine. We thank You for Your Word, how complete it is, how wonderful it is and ask that You would use it to minister to us life as it in Christ. We ask in His name amen. (end)