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For this morning, we're going to be Colossians Chapter two as we continue in our book study through the book of Colossians. So if you would please turn to Colossians chapter two. I'm going to read verses one through 10, and then we're going to jump to verse 20 and we're going to read verses 20 through 23. So a little bit of reading today, but I want you to get the whole context of what Paul is writing about here in Colossians Chapter two. If you're new to our study, if you're new to the church, welcome. We're glad you're here. Welcome to our online viewers as well. We just go straight through the Bible here at Cornerstone, and the Lord's going to speak to us through the pen of Paul here in Colossians Chapter two. Start at verse one. For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you. And that word conflict is actually in the original Greek. It's an athletic term. He means I'm competing for you. It's a good term. For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged being knit together in love and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now notice verse 4. Now this I say, lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. And then notice verse 8. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power. Now jump down to verse 20, verse 20. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations? Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, which all concern things which perish with the using according to the commandments and doctrines of men. These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self imposed religion, false humility and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. Well, we'll unpack all this today. Let's first have a word of prayer together. Father in heaven, it is good to be in your house. It is good to just settle ourselves now and open up our Bibles and just hear what you would have to say to us today. We thank you for your word Lord. We thank you for truth in a very chaotic and confusing world that you would cut through all that chaos and confusion and just help us to understand some things today. What is true, what is right, what is godly, what is pure. For that's our desire to walk in step with your spirit. So teach us, instruct us, encourage us, challenge us where we need it today Lord, and we give you praise and glory. It's in Jesus name we pray and everyone said amen. Well in this section of scripture that we just read together, Paul has both a word of encouragement and a word of warning for the church at Colossae. First his word of encouragement is in verse five, if you'll notice in your Bibles again verse five where he writes, for though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see two things, your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. Now if you've been here for our study in Colossians, you will remember that Paul did not plant the church at Colossae. He has never met these people. Remember, he is in a prison in Rome awaiting trial before Emperor Nero when he writes this epistle. But nevertheless he has heard of their reputation, he has heard some good things about them and he commends them for these two things. The first one is that you're an orderly church. He says, rejoicing to see your good order there in verse five, which is important because God is the God of order, Satan is the God small g of chaos and confusion. And that's why he brings disorder of every kind. But a church should be orderly and and so he commends them for that. And he also commends them that they have a steadfastness in their faith in Christ. That's also verse five. In other words, that they are consistent in their walk with Christ. They don't waffle. They are not one way in public and one way in private. They're not hot about Jesus one day and cold about Jesus another day. They are consistent and so he commends them for these two things. They're an orderly church, they are a consistent church. And because of this, Paul urges them to continue doing what they're doing. And that's verses six and seven, verse six. He says, as you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. So that's his word of encouragement. But then he spends most of his time here warning them. He warns them individually to say, look, there are some things that potentially can threaten your personal walk with Christ. But he also speaks more broadly because he has great concern for Christianity overall, that there are certain things that are threatening the church, capital C, and he wants to warn them about these things. And basically what Paul is going to tell them is you have to be on your guard against worldly, trendy, modern kinds of influences and philosophical ideology. In fact, again, verse eight is just really key to this whole verse, to this whole passage. Look again at verse eight. This is his warning. Beware lest anyone cheat you. Okay, now you can circle the word cheat. It is in the original Greek language. It is the word. And sulagogeo literally means to carry one off as a captive, like a slave. And it figuratively means to lead one astray from the truth so you can put them both together. What he's warning here is the potential for any of us to be led astray, taken captive, like a slave, away from the truth. So he says, I warn you lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. Wow. I mean, is this not a contemporary warning to us as well? If there were ever a time when there was such secular thought and kind of this worldly quote, wisdom, trendy philosophies that are false and deceptive. It is now we're living in this time, and sadly, there are many in our day, including Christians, who have been taken captive and led away like slaves to the cultural lies and worldly philosophies of our time. But before we get into all of that, let's first talk about context. What was Paul dealing with in his day? This is 1st century Roman Empire at 60 to 62 A.D. when he's there in prison, what is he talking about? When he twice uses the phrase basic principles of this world? He uses it in verse 8 and again in verse 20. And he also mentions the phrases tradition of men, verse 8, and doctrines of men. So he's talking about this whole worldly impact and influence, the potential that threatens us in our walk with Christ and more broadly as Christians in general, the church in general. Well, in Paul's day, there were two predominant philosophical ideas and doctrines of his day in the first century, and both were counter to Christianity. And here's the reason they were both, both of these philosophical views, and I'll explain what they are in a moment, why they are both contrary to Christianity. Because both philosophical ideologies have man at the center and not God. And thus when man puts himself at the center of everything to the exclusion of God, well, then you're living a life that is contrary to God's design. And so Paul's going to address some of these things because both of these philosophies are about managing the material and the physical reality realm completely apart from God. God has no role in any of this. And one of the philosophies of his day was Epicureanism. Epicureanism was something that was started by the guy that the name was. It was named after Epicurus. Epicurus died around 270 BC, so Epicureanism had been flourishing for a few centuries by the time Paul has to address it here in the first century AD And Epicureanism is basically the idea that pleasure is the sole intrinsic value and good of life. But Epicureans were only about simple pleasures. You can't indulge pleasure. You can't enjoy anything more than just a very simple kind of tepid enjoyment of certain pleasures like knowledge or friendship or tranquility. They had to avoid anything in the pleasure extremes. So, like, they always frowned upon things like even rich food. So, like, Krispy Kreme donuts would be a no, no to Epicureans. Okay, so clearly I'm not an Epicurean, all right? But they even downplayed sex because they said that's too pleasurable. So sex only out of necessity, but never for pleasure. In fact, Epicurus felt, famously, was quoted as saying, quote, sex never did anyone any good. And one ought to consider himself fortunate if it didn't do him any harm. End quote. Sex never did anyone any good. Well, he should thank his parents, you know. So Epicureanism was one philosophy of the day. And then there was this other philosophy of the day called Stoicism that was also born around the third century B.C. and Stoics believed that logic and reason were supreme. Again, both Epicureanism and Stoicism were absent any God in the equation. So it was all about Self and man and what we can do to control our world, our environment, our motives, our ambitions, our pleasures. And so with Stoicism, it taught that you should only focus on what you can control, like your thoughts, actions and reactions, while peacefully accepting the things that you cannot control. Okay, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean there's some truth and wisdom in that. But if you try to manage all of that to the exclusion of God, you're on your own. And that's going to be always an exercise in futility. Because when you remove God from the equation, man cannot help himself. But the Stoics believed that one could. And so it was a self help tool to develop inner peace and emotional control. But again, God is not in the equation. Man is at the center of his own, of his own solutions. Now it's interesting because Paul encountered Epicurean philosophers and Stoic philosophers in his visit to Athens. And it's recorded in Acts chapter 17. Now you don't need to turn there. I'm just going to briefly summarize his encounter with them. He goes to Athens, Paul does, as part of, you know, he wants to advance the Gospel anywhere. And here he is in the first century. And Athens was known in the first century as the intellectual center of the world. Plato and Socrates and Aristotle, they all lived there. In fact, Plato started a school called the Academy of Athens in 387 BC. So it was a really scholarly philosophical capital of the world. And Paul goes there on one of his journeys. And Paul meets some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. They are, they're gathering together, having daily discussions on the Areopagus. The Areopagus was a small hill there in Athens. Those of you who went with me on our Footsteps of Paul tour, what was it, a year and a half ago or so we went there, had Bible study. Areopagus is a small hill. They're in Athens. It's also known as Mars Hill because Areopagus is named after Ares, the God of war. Or the Roman version is Mars. So Mars Hill, Areopagus. And these guys would get around on this hill and they would just contemplate life, the Epicureans and the Stoics. And they would talk, they would be like, you know what, you know, let's contemplate things. Let's just sit around and talk about philosophy and how the world runs. And so these guys, you know, they'd get together, they just, you know, they examine their navels, they would just, you know, they just to kind of use modern language. They would just, you Know, they'd be rolling joints and listening to Bob Marley playing Red Red Wine, you know what I'm saying? And they'd be sitting there contemplating stuff like, well, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it really make a sound? You know, that kind of thing, okay? And so Paul encounters this group of guys and they're sitting around having all this philosophical discussion. And he uses their own religious and philosophical viewpoints, which. This is a good and important tactic if you want to reach people for Christ. You got to find their worldview, and then you have to enter that way to really help them understand the Gospel of Jesus. This is what Paul does. He does it brilliantly. Because back in the first century, when you have this Greco Roman culture, the Greeks and the Romans were polytheistic. The Romans worshiped and believed in more than 300 gods and mythical creatures that they worshiped, okay? And they were so hyper concerned that they were going to neglect a God that they didn't recognize, and then that God would be mad at them that they actually had a statue there in Athens and it was etched in the statue to an unknown God. We just want to cover our bases. So we don't know if we've left any gods out. But here's a statue. We're going to worship an unknown God. And Paul sees that and he uses that as a catalyst to bring the gospel. And he says to these Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, I see that you guys are scholarly, you're religious, you have a lot of icons here in the town. You got one statue to an unknown God. Let me tell you about that one that you don't know. And he introduces Jesus to them. Now, it's interesting, the reaction after he shares with them in Acts, chapter 17, you can read it on your own. But there are three reactions among the philosophers. It says some mocked, others were curious and wanted to hear more. And then there was a third group that believed. And by the way, you're going to get the same three reactions when you share the gospel to people today, okay? Some will mock you, some will think it's ridiculous. Some will be curious, they want to know more, and some will outright believe. And so this is what Paul encountered here with them. And some believed. But here's the deal, everybody, look, this is a little bit of a side note, but I just want to remind us our duty is sharing Jesus. God's duty is the result. We don't save anybody. All we can do is either plant a seed or water a seed that somebody else planted, but it's God who gives the increase and God who gets the glory when people get saved. Okay, but Paul understood this. My duty is to share Christ and then God's duty is the results. And so some did believe, but those were the two main philosophical ideologies of the day, Epicureanism and Stoicism. Now there was a third one that was rising and, and this third one I'm going to mention actually took root within the church. It wouldn't become full blown until about the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, but in its infancy it was there in the 1st century AD and it was called Gnosticism. Gnosticism after the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge. And there were Gnostics in the church who believed that they had supreme knowledge, they had inside information, and that they believed knowledge, which was actually the pathway to salvation, not faith knowledge. So they really elevated knowledge. But as part of this they also believed that the material world was both evil and didn't matter for anything and only the Spirit mattered. And the Gnostics even went so far as to believe that Jesus did not appear in a physical body. They believed he was a phantom appearance because they believe that the body in the material world is too evil. So Jesus couldn't have had a physical body. So they dismissed the physical body of Jesus, thought he was just a phantom. And this also led to great immorality in the early church because if you think the body doesn't matter and that the body itself is immaterial compared to the Spirit within you, then a lot of immorality happened because people did whatever they wanted with their bodies, thinking the body didn't really matter, it was all about the Spirit. You see all this? So all of this now is festering in the first century. Epicureanism, Stoicism and Gnosticism. And Paul says these things that are worldly principles, the basic principles of this world, doctrines of men, philosophies and stuff, they're creeping into the church and they threaten your walk with Christ and they threaten the church, capital C. Now let me transition and apply this. Everybody there is modern Epicureanism, Stoicism and Gnosticism. Today it just has different labels, it's just, it's just dressed up differently. But we are seeing the same kind of man centric approach to life, to the exclusion of God in our world today, where man defines God, not God, and man determines what is right and wrong, not God and man says what is truth, not God. So we, we know more than God does. And so this is the philosophical trend of the world. It's a combination of epicureanism, stoicism and Gnosticism because it's filtered into the church. And now you have people in the church talking about, I got higher knowledge, I understand things that you don't. Inside track, inside information. It's all this stuff that has crept into the church now. I don't have to tell you about all the craziness in the world, okay? If you just open your eyes, you can see it for yourself. And we're pretty outspoken here at Cornerstone to mention things about the craziness of the world. And here's the reason I do it. Not to just bash on the world, but to make us aware that you're not going crazy. I got an email one time from a guy in the church and he has. He and his wife are raising four daughters. And he said, you know, one of the reasons we love to come to Cornerstone is just to be reminded that we're not going crazy. No, seriously, because you can look at the world system and the world trends and the philosophical things and the traditions of men and you can think, maybe I'm just going nuts because if that's normal out there, then I must be naughty. But if it's not normal, then you can realize, okay, you're still sane. And so what we always try to do here at Cornerstone is we talk about life and culture and everything through the lens of the Bible, which is important why we teach through the Bible because we want you to navigate the world with an understanding of God's perspective of things and how God defines things. What God says are right and wrong. And so that's why this is important. So I don't need to like beat a dead horse and talk about all the social ills, okay? You know them. But I am going to just highlight one thing, one thing that happened this week, okay? And maybe you saw this in the news. New York State, the New York assembly and Senate just passed legislation, okay? It's awaiting Governor Hochul's signature. And it's cuckoo land, everybody. Okay, Here's a short little video from the news station in New York. It's only three minutes long. I want you to see if you haven't already heard about this, here you go. In. The New York State legislature has many people scratching their heads tonight. It all has to do with replacing the words mother and father with gender neutral terms. Morgan Mackay is here to break it all down. So what are we talking about, Morgan?
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Hey, Steven, Natasha. So the bill actually passed to both houses of the state legislature. And now it awaits Governor Kathy Hochul's signature if she decides to sign it. But the bill passed so fast and with no debates that several lawmakers were privately shocked when they learned it passed both the senate and Assembly. If Hochul signs a bill, the words mother and father will be removed from family court law and replaced with gender neutral terms. Mother would be replaced with gestating parents and father would be replaced with non gestating parents. The bill's memo argues that this new language is more inclusive, and it takes into account that a biological parent doesn't always mean that they are an actual mother or father in a child's life.
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Okay, we don't need to see any more of that right now. We're two weeks away from a special holiday here, by the way. So I just want to give advance congratulations to the non gestating parents who are here. Happy Father's Day. No, no, no non gestating day. I think we're gonna have to change that. Now, Governor Hochul hasn't said whether she's gonna sign it or not, but this has passed the New York state legislature. Everybody. Okay, so that's just another taste of the insanity in our world. And listen to me, please hear this. Christians must not become slaves to worldly wisdom and and cultural group think that is contrary to the basic truth of God's word. We just must not allow the culture to shape our hearts and our minds. We must respectfully refuse to be part of the madness or coddle people who are. Don't lose your mind just because the world has know what you believe and why you believe it. And love people who disagree. But loving people who disagree includes not playing their games. It includes not playing their games. Don't deny reality or buy into redefined terms because words matter and truth matters. So love people enough to speak the truth into their lives, and if you don't, who will? And this worldly nonsense and humanist philosophy has crept into the church along with other doctrines of men like Paul says there in verse 22 the that are contrary to scripture, which are really what Paul writes in 1 Timothy 4:1, Doctrines of demons. I mean, it's just all this misguided nonsense. And so in the last few minutes we have left, I'm going to bullet some of those things that have crept into the church because, look, it's easy to point out what's wrong with the world, but what about the church? Where has the church veered off course? So I'm going to give you A crash course in some of the worldly philosophies and aberrant doctrines that have slipped into the church. And I truly believe with all my heart that if Paul were living today, he would be writing a letter to the church addressing these things. I'm going to bullet with you and I'm going to mention nine things, but I'm going to just go quickly. You can do your own homework on some of these things. I'll give a basic explanation or definition for some of these things. You'll be already familiar and some of these things will probably be new information to you. But this is the kind of stuff that has crept into the church, largely shaped by worldly philosophies and the doctrines of men and the doctrines of demons. Okay, this one is very familiar. But here's a word of warning to those churches flying rainbow flags, flying rainbow flags celebrating Pride Month instead of helping same sex attracted and transgender people to find true freedom and forgiveness and identity in Christ. Another thing that has crept into the church is the promoting of social justice that has clear ties to Marxism instead of promoting biblical truth. Number three, you might have heard or noticed various Christian clergy or quote, Christian activists who are wearing and displaying the Palestinian keffiyeh as a statement of opposition to Israel. When in reality what it really does is it communicates ignorance and a lack of compassion for the Palestinians. Because if they really cared for the Palestinian people, they would be outraged and they would be protesting against Hamas, which is the true cause of Palestinian suffering, not Israel. There's also a movement that maybe some of you are familiar with. It's called the Third Way. It's a movement that stays neutral in the church about everything on political and social and cultural issues. We don't want to offend anyone. So the Third Way people take middle ground and they don't have a strong opinion about anything. So pastors who lead a church that is given to this movement, they don't have a strong opinion. So they avoid uncomfortable topics of our day, trying to placate everyone. But really it's a slow drift towards a progressive ideology. That's all it is. You don't take a stand for anything and you don't have people, you know, understanding how their Bible applies to everyday issues of life, then you're not helping people. And so that's the Third Way movement. There's also a movement called the New Apostolic Reformation. Nar this is the idea that the church should be run by new apostles and prophets who have special knowledge, new insights and new revelation outside of the Bible. This is just Gnosticism repackaged. It's a bad thing. Number six, there's also a attack on the validity of the Bible which has been ongoing. But in recent days we've gotten a lot of emails here at the church, people asking nicely because they're just curious about a lot of the Internet buzz as it relates to the Ethiopian Bible. And the Internet buzz is that the Ethiopian Bible is the true Bible and that our Bible with 66 books is not the original manuscripts and historical. Like the Ethiopian Bible, which by the way has 81 or 88 books, depending on how one counts them. Our Bible has 66 books. So the buzz on the Internet is the 66 books. That's inferior to the Ethiopian Bible because the Ethiopian Bible is a more ancient and reliable manuscript. So we hold to, you know, Protestantism in general holds to the 1647 Westminster Confession, which believed in the 66 books of the Bible that we call the Canon of Scripture. There are other historical books, rich books that might be, you know, nice to read, but they are not considered divinely inspired. And so thus we would disagree with the Ethiopian Bible because it has additional extra biblical texts than the 66 books that we have in our Bible. And. And while the Ethiopian Bible is rich in tradition, contrary to myths on the Internet, can you believe the Internet might be wrong sometimes? Contrary to myths on the Internet, it is not the oldest manuscript or most historically accurate version available. Not by far. If you want more information about it, I wanna point you to a theologian and an ancient manuscript scholar. He's gotten a lot of traction of late. His name is Wes Huff and he has some things to say about the Ethiopian Bible. You can look at Wes Huff and watch videos on why he would say exactly what I just said to you. But it's just another attempt to kind of undermine the Bible. You don't really have the real Bible. You don't really have the full text of God's counsel here. Let me run through three more real quickly. Number seven, the belief in universalism. This is the belief that all paths lead to heaven and God is not going to send anybody to hell. That this is taking, getting traction in churches. Universalism, everybody just ends up in heaven. God can't possibly send anybody to hell. And kind of a companion false doctrine with universalism is annihilationism. And that is the idea that, okay, unbelievers don't go to heaven, but God just annihilates them because he would not allow them to have to suffer in a literal hell. So they deny a Literal hell at least, as the ultimate punishment for unbelievers. Last one. And you might think this is silly, but this actually is also gaining a lot of traction in Christianity in some circles today. And that is the belief in a flat earth. You laugh. I'm telling you, there's this resurgent resurgence among a minority of Christians who believe the Earth is flat. Now, I, my first encounter with this was about two years ago. I was speaking up at the Bridge Bridge Fest in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, where I'm going to be again this summer. This is about two years ago. And I was there and this guy came up to me and he goes, pastor Gary, you know, I, I follow your ministry and love your teachings. He goes, but I, I got, I got one problem with some of your teachings. And I was like, okay, here we go, what's that? You know, and he says, your teaching's in Genesis. I said, well, what part of Genesis? And he goes, the part about creation. He goes, you talk about how the world is round, it's a sphere, and really what the Bible says is that it's flat. I laughed out loud. I thought he was kidding with me. And he looks at me and goes, I'm not kidding. And I could tell he was serious. And I said, well, here's the deal. Besides from the fact that Isaiah 40:22 talks about how God sits above the circle of the earth, you know, we've actually been to outer space. I said to him, and you can actually kind of look back and see like a circle. He says to me, oh, you think we've walked on the moon? Oh, don't get me started. Okay, so there are some people you just can't reason with. And I think I loaded them up with Krispy Kreme and left. But anyway, I just, it's like, you know, by the way, I got connected from a mutual friend with Captain Butch Wilmore, who an astronaut. He has spent over 400 days in outer space. Okay. He went on an eight day mission to the International Space Station. And you remember this in the news, it ended up being a 286 day mission that he spent in space. Captain Wilmore is a strong believer and he goes around lecturing. In fact, the reason why the friend connected me with him is because I might get him here at some point. But Captain Wilmore said, quote, the Earth is not flat, it's round. And every time I went around it, it was round, end quote. It's like, okay, anyway, these are some things though that are threatening the church. You say, well, what does it matter if somebody believes in flat earth? Or what does it matter if somebody believes in annihilation? Here's the thing. If you start to embrace doctrines or the teachings of men or things that are inconsistent with scripture, you're now going down a trail where you are invalidating the word of God and you were deciding you were the center of your own intelligence. Here's the takeaway, everybody, from all of this, okay? There's cultural madness and then there's doctrinal influence that is corrupting the Church. We have to be very careful about this. Here's the takeaway, everybody. We have to be vigilant to defend the truth inside and outside the church. That's the first thing. We have to be vigilant to defend the truth inside and outside the church. And then the second thing is we must guard our own hearts from deceptive philosophies and the traditions of men when it's not in accordance with Christ. And so here's our charge, and I'll just want us to read again the few verses from our section here. This is Colossians 2, verses 6 through 10. This is the charge Paul wrote in the first century. It's just as important today. I'd like us to say this aloud and together. Okay, put it on the screens for you. Let's say this aloud and together. Here we go. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware, lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power. This is our prayer. Lord, we accept this charge that what Paul wrote in the first century is just as vital today. This is your word, and we pray we would not be persuaded by philosophies of this world or the traditions of men that are contrary to your word. But may we always defend truth inside the church and outside the church for your glory. Strengthen our hearts, Lord. Strengthen our hearts that in this generation, in this age, we would not become prey to the various doctrines and ideas, but we would stand firmly on your word and who you are and who we are in Christ. We thank you together in Jesus name. And everybody said amen and amen. God bless you, everybody.