Thank you for joining us as we study God’s Word together. No matter where you come from or what you have been through, we are confident the Bible speaks to you right where you are. The Holy Spirit, through God’s Word, can speak to you and guide you. It is on us to have a heart that is in tune with God’s heart, and with God’s help, this will happen as we study Colossians today.
Bible teacher J Mark Horst will teach from Colossians 2 on “Don’t Be Disqualified.”
Rules or qualifications constrain many things in life. Failure to observe and obey the rules leads to disqualification. Many things have varying degrees of importance, but one area of life where you and I must be sure we’re not disqualified is our faith journey with Jesus Christ. Disqualification in our spiritual journey has eternal consequences!
Our previous message focused on our being “Complete in Christ.” In Colossians 2:8 to 15, Paul explained the essential reasons that reassure us of this completeness: the person of Christ, the power of Christ, and the provision of Christ.
However, some did not agree with Paul’s teaching. They established their qualifications for what was required of Christ’s followers, including extra-biblical requirements. Because of his love for them, Paul clearly warns about the false teachers and their influence. So, let us study together Colossians 2:16 to 23 under the title “Don’t Be Disqualified.”
16 So let no one judge you in food or drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,
17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase from God.
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—
21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,”
22 which all concern things that perish with the use—according to the commandments and doctrines of men?
23 These things indeed appear as wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
In these verses, Paul sets forth several possible WAYS in which we could be disqualified from our relationship with Christ and His church.
The First WAY is,
By Deception
Paul begins verse eighteen, saying, “don’t let anyone deceive you and cheat you out of your reward.” These false teachers said, “If you don’t follow our guidelines, then you are unworthy of your reward.” They said, “You need Christ – plus – what we’re telling you.”
But Paul had stated earlier in verses 13 to 15 that the Mosaic law had been completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The record of debt that stood against us with its formal decrees had been cancelled! It was a judicial act. Jesus nailed it to His cross.
Paul begins this section by reminding us that since the handwriting of ordinances has been cancelled, we mustn’t let anyone belittle our position in Christ. Food, feast days, and keeping the Sabbath were no longer the criteria by which one measur...
