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The Matrix of Liberty (Colossians 2:13-23)
34 Plays2 years ago
The Matrix of Liberty (Colossians 2:13-23)
Colossians: The Preeminence of Christ
Sunday Message recorded 20 August 2023
by Pastor Victor Morrison
First Baptist Church
1700 Milam
Columbus, TX, USA 78934
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Reflections
00:00:06
Speaker
Good morning. Hope you're enjoying your weekend. Hope all the kids are making okay in the school and everything and the teachers. Appreciate all that y'all do. And I know that it's hard sometimes when life changes, isn't it? I mean, you want to kind of freeze everything and make everything stay the same, but life changes. I know some of you are aware that I had eye surgery on my left eye.
00:00:33
Speaker
And so the eye doctor said to me the other day, she said, how come you're still wearing those glasses? And I said, I don't know. I just always have. So I just thought I would. So anyway, today, if I take them off, I can see better without them. So anyway, just try to figure that one out.
00:00:50
Speaker
No wonder they call me Mr. Vanilla. I go in the ice cream shop and I always order the same thing. So anyway, we'll see. But I'm so glad you're here. And you know what, Jesus? He wants to change us from the inside out. That's the good news that we have to share with you today.
Freedom in Christ: Historical and Biblical Insights
00:01:09
Speaker
I want to share with you a message the Lord has placed on my heart from Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2 beginning with verse 13 is where we'll start. I want to say a few things by introduction because what we're going to look at today is freedom.
00:01:25
Speaker
freedom in Christ, freedom in Christ. You know, Jesus said in John 8.32 that the truth, the truth will set you free. He went on to say, if the Son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. Have you been set free by the Lord Jesus Christ? You know, Romans 8.2 says that we are free in Christ Jesus
00:01:48
Speaker
from sin and death, from sin and death. That's such a blessing. Galatians 5.1 says, for freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. You know, that's how America started. That's how everything got going.
00:02:11
Speaker
I read a quote about the pilgrims, and it said, the early settlers of New England are for Alexei de Tocqueville, the key to understanding America's particular culture mores, a blend of equality, liberty, and religious faith. In his masterpiece, Democracy in America, Tocqueville argues that like Adam to the human race,
00:02:40
Speaker
Like Adam to the human race, the entirety of America's destiny can be traced back to the first men and women to make landfall in modern-day Massachusetts. We don't realize how significant, what the pilgrims believed and what they did, what they stood for. We don't realize how much it's impacted us and all the freedoms that we have today.
Matrix of Liberty and Principles of Freedom
00:03:07
Speaker
You know, speaking of spiritual freedom in Christ, Peter wrote these words in 1 Peter 2 16, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God. That's the proper use of freedom.
00:03:26
Speaker
You know, the pilgrims and the Puritans who came to this land came in search of a place to live out freedom in Christ. That's what they were looking for. They were not trying to find a place where they could be free from religion. They were looking for a place where they could be free to practice, to implement their faith in Christ, to implement the standards of God's word. They were looking for liberty of religion.
00:03:55
Speaker
And so I want to share with you something that some have called the Matrix of Liberty. I want us to go to this next slide and it'll show you this monument that is located in Massachusetts today. Some refer to this monument as the Matrix of Liberty.
00:04:14
Speaker
You know, matrix is an environment or let's say the materials in which something develops. So something comes from the matrix. It's the surrounding structure. What was the blueprint of freedom that we have here in our country?
00:04:32
Speaker
Well, the construction of this particular monument was intended to portray that. It began in 1859, and it was gonna be 81 feet tall. The monument in Plymouth, Massachusetts was dedicated August the 1st, 1889.
00:04:50
Speaker
You know, it honors the pilgrims Christian values and principles, and it offers a visual reminder to every generation and to each generation of Americans how our liberties can be preserved.
00:05:06
Speaker
faith is right at the top that's the prominent figure that you see standing right there at the top in the middle so faith is supported by four other principles or values morality and law and education and liberty and what it's doing it's pointing us back
00:05:26
Speaker
to the biblically based republic, it's pointing us back to the timeless principles of those who came here saying, how can we have a place where we can live out freedom in Christ? You know Colossians chapter two verses 13 to 23 to me, what we're about to read, it's like a biblical monument, a scriptural monument to our freedom that we have in Christ.
00:05:55
Speaker
It's amazing how freedom in Christ, if I were to compare it to something, I would compare it to like a river, a strong and a powerful river that sort of branches out into all kind of tributaries. For example, I read where the Mississippi River has 250 tributaries. So powerful. It goes in so many different directions. So I want you to listen as I read Colossians 2 verses 13 to 23.
00:06:25
Speaker
You can read along with me silently, you can follow on the screen, or you can pick up one of the copies of God's word that's provided there in the pew, or perhaps you have your own Bible. That's what I hope happens the most, is that you have your own Bible, you bring it, you open it, you follow along as we go through these passages together. But what I want you to do is to keep your eye on liberty, keep your eye on freedom, and how that one current
00:06:53
Speaker
flows in so many different directions. For example, in verse eight, we're not gonna read this verse, but he says, see to it that no one takes you captive.
00:07:04
Speaker
So if we're not careful, something can take us captive from the freedom that we have in
Spiritual Freedom and Forgiveness in Christ
00:07:11
Speaker
Christ. So let's stand together and let's see, what do we need to remember about the freedom that we find in Jesus Christ? I'm gonna begin with verse 13.
00:07:25
Speaker
and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us
00:07:37
Speaker
all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in hint.
00:08:02
Speaker
Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance
00:08:17
Speaker
belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions and puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with a growth that is from God.
00:08:47
Speaker
If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why? As if you were still alive to the world, do you submit to regulations, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they're used according to human precepts and teachings. These have indeed an appearance
00:09:16
Speaker
of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Let's go to the Father in prayer. Lord, deep within us, when we trusted Christ, when we repented of sin and put our faith and trust in what you did on the cross, when we choose to follow
00:09:44
Speaker
the Lord who's risen from the dead. Lord, you placed within us a river.
00:09:51
Speaker
And it's the river of your Holy Spirit, it's the river of freedom, of freedom that has biblical morals to it, of freedom that causes us to be free of man-made things and to say, I'm gonna serve my maker, I'm gonna serve my redeemer, I'm gonna honor him with my life. And it just sets us free in so many ways. So Lord, speak to us today about the matrix.
00:10:19
Speaker
of liberty. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. The new disciples in Colossae were being confronted by false teachers.
00:10:34
Speaker
who were insisting they needed more than just faith in Jesus. You need more is what they were saying. So that's why in chapter one, remember we went through that chapter? In chapter one, the apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit said, oh no, you need to revisit the supremacy of Christ. He's over all of it.
00:10:59
Speaker
But now as we enter into chapter two, he's going to write on another level, not just about the supremacy of Christ, but about the sufficiency of Christ. Do you need anything more than Christ?
00:11:16
Speaker
Colossians 2, 9, and 10 says that there's nothing missing. There is nothing missing. When the cult say, you need this experience, whenever the false religions say, you better be doing this and that and this and that.
00:11:30
Speaker
You need to say, there's nothing else I need but the finished work that Jesus did for me on the cross. So really, he says, you've been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. It's almost like you could take all the religions of the world
00:11:50
Speaker
And you could bowl it all down to two systems, two systems for being accepted by God. One system is based on human achievement. One system says, we're going to try our best to reach God.
00:12:06
Speaker
But the other system is not based on human achievement, it's based on divine accomplishment. And it's not about us trying to reach God, it's about God saying, I come down to reach you. God wants to reach each one of you in this room.
00:12:24
Speaker
But these Colossians, they knew that originally, but they were being so confused.
Challenges of False Teachings and Christ's Triumph
00:12:30
Speaker
They were being moved off of center because there was Greek philosophy and Roman polytheism. There was Jewish legalism. There were the cults. There was asceticism and mysticism and everything else. And what was it all trying to do? Well, back to verse eight. He's trying to take them captive, trying to say, Jesus isn't enough.
00:12:53
Speaker
Don't you know you're going to have to do this and that. You need to see a few angels. You need to worship angels. They're far better than Jesus. So what I want to do is I want you to listen as the Holy Spirit answers a lot of the questions that maybe you or someone you know may have about freedom, but freedom in Christ.
00:13:17
Speaker
The first thing I think that Jesus does for us in terms of freedom is he sets us free, get this, from the penalty of sin. He sets us free from the penalty of sin. We can see this in the first two verses that I read, verse 13 and verse 14. Free from the penalty of sin. You know, he talks about how we are dead in our transgressions in verse 13.
00:13:44
Speaker
You know, Romans 6 23 says the wages of sin is death. Do you know that out there in our community, our people, it's like dead men walking. People are walking around and spiritually on the inside in their spirit. They're dead.
00:14:03
Speaker
and they cannot find their way to God. They can only come to God through Christ. Why is that? Because only Christ can bring them back from that spiritual death. But there's spiritual death because of one reason, a spiritual debt. Do you know that each one of us were racking up a spiritual debt before we trusted Christ?
00:14:28
Speaker
and all that we've done wrong, every time we disobey God, it's all being written down, it's all being recorded. That's why at the great white throne judgment, there's gonna be the books that are opened and people are gonna insist, I was so much better than so and so, I was a good guy, I was a good girl. Look, I was really trying to do the right thing. And so God's gonna say, open the books and let's just see how good you were. And I think every person on the planet is gonna hit the deck.
00:14:58
Speaker
And they're going to say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Don't read any more from that book about my life. We're going to realize the debt was true. It was a spiritual IOU. And we owed God. Does God owe us anything else? Tell me, would you please? What does He owe us? He already gave us life. He already provided air. He already provided water. He already provided salvation so that we can be forgiven of that debt.
00:15:28
Speaker
He doesn't owe us. The truth of the matter is we owe Him. But guess what? There's good news. There's really good news. Because you know what Jesus did? Look at verse 14 carefully. By canceling the record of debt that stood against us, with its legal demands, this He set aside, nailing it to the cross.
00:15:55
Speaker
man, that's spiritual deliverance, that we do not have to stay in bondage to our past, in bondage to all of our mistakes and all of our sins and all of our rebellion. Do you know that when Jesus died on the cross, he said, it's finished, it's finished. It's the word, tetelestai in Greek, but it refers to Jesus' perfect and complete work on the cross. You know what he was saying?
00:16:24
Speaker
Nothing else is needed. I've already done all the heavy lifting for you. That's why the pilgrims knew this. That's why when they had that statue up there, when the man remembered what they believed, he said, you know what, pointing toward heaven, lifting up one finger, there's only one way to heaven. And in the hand of faith that's represented on that monument was a book
00:16:52
Speaker
It's the word of God. The Bible says there's only one way that people can have their sins forgiven. Christ's freedom also powerfully flowed in another direction, not just the freedom from the penalty of sin, but also it flowed in the direction of the power of the enemy, the power of God's enemy, the devil.
00:17:18
Speaker
You see in John 8, 31 through 59, it's a long passage, but you ought to read it through slowly sometime. And you'll see that Jesus was speaking to the Jews and he said, spiritual slavery is a result of one thing, sin.
00:17:35
Speaker
But then he goes on to say, but spiritual slavery is also related to a second thing, Satan. And here's what he says to those, and these were religious people. Maybe he's saying, I'm religious. I'm trying to do the right thing. But to them, Jesus said, you were of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. John 844.
00:18:00
Speaker
You see, the truth of the matter is we are not stronger than the devil. None of us, but Jesus is, because Jesus is supreme, because Jesus is over all the rulers and all the authorities. And that's why we move from verses 13 and 14 and talking about freedom from the penalty of sin, and we start looking at freedom from the power of Satan. Freedom from the power of Satan.
00:18:28
Speaker
You see, that's why another value cherished by the pilgrims and the Puritans was liberty, was liberty. It was depicted on the national monument to the forefathers as a warrior sitting in triumph.
00:18:46
Speaker
He's not fighting. As a matter of fact, he's vigilantly watching with a sheath sword. His sword is not out. His sword is laying across his lap. It's in the sheath. It's covered up. But if you'll look closely at that thing,
00:19:03
Speaker
In his left hand, he holds broken shackles because at one time he was a slave. And across his back, you'll see a claw. It's a lion's claw. If you look on the seat, he's sitting on the lion. So the imagery is that the lion, Satan is the lion. He roars like a lion.
00:19:28
Speaker
to seek who he might devour. But that carcass of that deadline is behind him and it's beneath him. Why? Because of faith, faith in Christ. That's the only way that you and I will ever be free of addictions or free of Satan's power that's trying to destroy your family, trying to destroy your life, trying to store your witness and your testimony, your reputation.
00:19:58
Speaker
How did that happen? Well, look at verse 15. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. You see, at the cross, the enemy was disarmed. At the cross, the enemy was defeated. At the cross, the enemy and his defeat was also displayed.
00:20:28
Speaker
And God said, my son perfectly, perfectly obeyed me in his life. That's why addictions are broken through the finished work of Jesus Christ. His victory gives you and I liberty that we could have never won, we could have never achieved on our own.
00:20:53
Speaker
Jesus sent his disciples out, 70 of them one time, not just the 12, 70 on a mission trip. They come back, they were so excited. You know what they were excited about the most? They said the demons are subject to us. They were so excited. But you know what Jesus said in Luke 10, 17? He said, I'll tell you what,
00:21:19
Speaker
You should be rejoicing not that you have authority over the demons. You should be rejoicing that your name is written for eternity in the book. That's where our joy is, is that we have not only victory in Christ, we have liberty in Christ. And we will enjoy that liberty forever and ever and ever in heaven.
Critique of External Rituals and True Morality
00:21:45
Speaker
I want to move to a third freedom, freedom from the pull of religion. Freedom from the pull of religion, verse 16 and 17. And then if you drop down, I would put verse 23 in there. You know that someone has counted over 10,000 different religions that are across the world, over 10,000. So I can guarantee you, if they've not pulled on you yet, they will be pulling.
00:22:12
Speaker
They're gonna try to pull on your kids. They're gonna try to pull on your grandkids. They're gonna try to pull them away from faith in Christ.
00:22:22
Speaker
And so what are they gonna be pulling them toward? Toward external rituals, that's what they'll pull them toward. Look at verse 16, diets and drinks and days. But you go down to verse 23 and what is it all about? It's all about appearance, appearance. See what it says in verse 23, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom.
00:22:48
Speaker
looks like on the outside. But then you keep reading and you realize, but you know what? They're of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. You see, only Christ can slay the old man and create a new man within us. That's only Christ. You see, the problem with religion is it's void of internal renewal. Oh, it's got all the external rituals
00:23:17
Speaker
but the internal renewal is what's missing. Where is that found? Well, let me read verse 17. It's pretty succinct, puts it right on the point. These are a shadow of things to come, but the substance, yeah, belongs to Christ. If you wanna be free, if you wanna be free from all of these other religions pulling and saying, you gotta do this and you gotta do that,
00:23:45
Speaker
You just need Christ. He is the substance. Notice verse 23. Sometimes religions go off the rails, don't they? And they tell you to do terrible things to your body. But verse 23 tells us the truth about that whole scenario. Yes, they can be severe, severity to the body, but there's no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
00:24:15
Speaker
You see, the pilgrims knew if we put our faith in Christ, if we put our faith in Christ, then religious liberty will give us in our nation civil liberty. I know that some people say, wait a minute, you're not supposed to talk about national things and Christian things together in the same, really? Wait, let's go back to chapter one.
00:24:41
Speaker
If Jesus is supreme over all the heavens, over all the earth, over all that ever was and is, over all the powers and authorities, why is it that we're supposed to be silent?
00:24:56
Speaker
and not bring up anything about Christ among those that we love the most in our country? Something's not right when Jesus says, I want you to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations.
00:25:12
Speaker
No, wait a minute. Don't buy into that because it's the spiritual freedom that gives us the civil liberty that we're looking for. That's why we have it here now. And if we throw away Jesus and we throw away the Bible, we may not realize it, but we're going to throw away civil liberty as well. That's why we have to say, wait a minute. These people believed you start on the inside.
00:25:40
Speaker
Internally, you receive liberty in Christ, and then externally, it starts showing up in your morality. It's biblical morality. And so I thought, oh wow, thank you, Lord. You know, Matthew 15, 10 through 20, Jesus taught that morality
00:26:00
Speaker
It begins in the heart. Remember when we were going through Galatians? Galatians 5, 16 through 26 says that the best way that we can limit vices in evil things and so forth is to walk in the Holy Spirit. As we allow the Spirit to fill our lives, it pushes out. He pushes out evil.
00:26:26
Speaker
from our lives. It's simple. It's right here in Colossians too. He's saying, don't let them tell you, pass judgment on you saying you need this and you need that. Know all those religions, they're going to pull, they're going to pull. They're going to say you need more than just faith in Christ. But faith in Christ is the only thing that will push out all of those things that are trying to bring us into bondage.
00:26:53
Speaker
Well, let's go to the fourth thing, freedom from the pride of the cults.
Pride, Cults, and the Pilgrims' Educational Commitment
00:26:58
Speaker
Freedom from the pride of the cults. As you go down into verses 18 and 19, you realize that there's a spiritual pride about whatever cult it was that was trying to shake up the Colossian Christians. There was some kind of spiritual pride there because he begins in verse 18 with these words, let no one disqualify you.
00:27:22
Speaker
There's a lot of canceling going on in the country, isn't it? Let nobody disqualify you. Wait a minute. You've got a message. You've got a place at the table. You better speak up. I better speak up. We better give the truth. We better point people to Jesus. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions. Here it comes, puffed up.
00:27:51
Speaker
puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that is from God." See, these people were arrogant. They were saying, all right, man, you're still hanging out with Jesus.
00:28:15
Speaker
You were so early AD 60. This is late AD 60. You ever feel like people are telling you that? Man, you're so old school. It's like, really? And they say, yeah, you're like early 2023. You need to get with a program today.
00:28:34
Speaker
But you know, I'll tell you what these people were proud of. What were they proud of? If you slow it down in slo-mo, I tried to do that this week. And so here's what the cults are gonna tell your kids. Here's what the cults are gonna tell your grandkids. Here's what they're gonna tell all of our kids across the United States. They're gonna be telling them these things. They're gonna say, we are so proud of our devotion to a human.
00:29:00
Speaker
as the authority, because he starts out saying, let no one disqualify you. You know, if you were to trace it back, a lot of cults begin with one man, one woman who says this and says that. But they're also proud of their deprivation, of what they can leave out, their abstinence from different things, their deprivation of food as a sacrifice. That word asceticism means that you're denying yourself
00:29:28
Speaker
Many times people deny themselves. It's incredible. I mean, people in other parts of the world, they nail themselves to crosses to get rid of sin. But they're also proud of their demotion of Christ for angels. Did you catch the word insisting? They're insisting on worship of angels.
00:29:50
Speaker
for they're also proud of their dreams and their visions. He says they like to go on in detail about the visions they've seen. About the visions, oh, here's what, hey, I don't care what the Bible says, here's what I saw. This is what I believe we need to do. And so they want us to walk away from the objective, eternal word of God to go with something they saw in a dream, something they saw in a vision.
00:30:16
Speaker
They're also very proud of their disengagement from the body of Christ. As far as they're concerned, all the cults, all of us are losers. We don't know the right way.
00:30:29
Speaker
But given enough time and eternity, they will one day know, they will one day know that Christ was the only one who told us the truth. And so here they are, they're so proud that they are not holding fast to the head, that's Jesus, from whom the whole body, that's us, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, that's our Sunday School classes, our Bible studies, that's our fellowship together, grows with the growth that is from God.
00:30:59
Speaker
So they make fun of us and they say, hey, you guys are missing out. You need to be in our group, our little cult, man. But you know what? The pilgrims believed in teaching their children the principles of the Bible, the principles of the Bible and the principles of the gospel.
00:31:19
Speaker
and the life skills. The men would teach their boys their life skills. The women would teach their little girls life skills that the women that their girls would need, their daughters would need later in their lives. Well, I want to end with one last thing and that's Christ also sets us free from the