Colossians 2:16-23 - Jesus Is Lord Of The Conscience and What Does Inestimable Mean?

Well, welcome back to Strength for the Day.

I am here with the inestimable Pastor Dennis Fountain.

What does that mean?

You can't be estimated.

Does that mean I can't be bought? Or they can't label me as an estimated price? What does that mean?

It just means that you're inestimable.

Okay.

All right. Well, thank you. We are back at Strength for the Day, and we are continuing our study through Colossians.

Yes.

And what a great book and a great challenge that we've been having over the course of the last, let's see, is this number seven?

Seven.

This is number seven.

So hopefully you've been helped and challenged by it. Whether you're watching or listening, we would encourage you to, if this podcast has been a blessing to you, to like it, share it, let somebody know about it.

We have been extremely busy at church. Always. At our church.

Yeah, it seems like we never, are we ever not busy?

We aren't.

I had a day off yesterday. That was a good day.

Great.

Yeah.

And I'm headed to a far away place.

The East Coast.

Gonna do some things and have some fun and enjoy time with family. So should be good.

Yeah.

And then I get back and we get crankin with our Into the City Outreaches.

Youth rally.

And it'll be a good time. You'll be busy. I'll be busy.

And hopefully we'll keep on doing what we talked about last episode. And always bounding in the work of the Lord and overflowing with gratitude. And all of that in our work.

So looking forward to today's discussion. We are continuing in chapter two of Colossians, of the Book of Colossians.

And we've been going over, if you'll recall, Paul and Timothy, they write this book to the believers, who are undergoing some theological attacks from a lot of different isms.

People that were coming into the church saying, hey, like this gospel Christianity stuff is great, but what if you added my thing to it?

And Paul and Timothy write this book to tell the believers there to continue following and trusting the godly teachers that had given them the gospel and that were continuing to preach the gospel to them, to tell them not to listen to the false

teachers and instead have a focus and a grounding on Christ and Christ in his work and his person was really kind of the antidote to a lot of what these isms were espousing. So we've mentioned asceticism, legalism, pantheism, polytheism, a lot of

Gnosticism.

Gnosticism.

All of these things that said hey have Jesus, have your Christianity and have super secret knowledge that only we can give you. Have Jesus and a bunch of these other gods that we worship in our area.

Have Jesus and this list of rules from the Old Testament or additional rules that we're adding on. And so there was all of those things happening. And last week, we talked a little bit about Jesus and being rooted in him.

He tells them to be careful, beware, lest any man should beguile you or trick you with these enticing words.

And Pastor gave a great explanation of that, of where you would have your defense lawyers that would try and convince people of someone that they knew on the onset, this person's guilty, but the defense lawyer was so good, he convinced them that they

were not guilty, and even how that was super prevalent in Greek culture in general. Great orators, especially ones that could convince you of untruths, these are the people that you lift up.

And Paul is telling the believers there, like, don't listen to those types of people. Just because someone can speak really well doesn't mean that they are always right. And so he gives them the truth of God's Word.

And this week, we are diving into kind of this next section in Chapter 2, and we'll go through the end of the chapter for this particular lesson. Any of the thoughts you had?

No, I was just going to say, when you talk about the orator and someone being very good, like, it was so prevalent in the culture. It actually, this is interesting, it actually impacted all of the isms.

So there was a main leader for Gnosticism in the day, Mysticism in the day, Legalism in the day, and all of them were leaders that could just speak. And you can go to Paul's Message on Mars Hill in Acts 18.

Yeah, one of those two places, but he even begins quoting from the authors of that day, and he would basically like saying, you already have all of these things that you're doing, but you're missing Jesus, and all the isms, all those leaders that did

that. Anyway, it's just interesting to study, but we can jump in to today. So verse 16, right? Verse 16 of chapter two, down through verse number 23, and you wanna read or you want me to?

Let's do it.

Paul says this, Therefore, don't let anyone judge you in regard to food or drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of what was to come. The substance is the Messiah, is Christ.

So, let no one disqualify you or cheat you out of, one second, let no one disqualify you, insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his unspiritual mind.

He doesn't hold onto the head from whom the whole body nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons develops with growth from God.

If you died with Christ to the elemental forces of this world, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? Why do you submit to regulations? These specific ones that they mentioned, don't handle, don't taste, don't touch.

All these regulations refer to what is destroyed by being used up. They are commands and doctrines of men.

Although these have a reputation of wisdom by promoting ascetic practices, humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.

And here in this passage, he basically goes right at a couple of these isms, specifically asceticism that he mentions a couple of times, as well as legalism.

Yeah, well really, and mysticism too. And I think, and you can correct this if I'm wrong on this, but when you look at asceticism, mysticism, and legalism, they're all, it's all kind of the same thing.

Now, not the same thing in what they say, or how they say it, but it's the same thing in what they're saying at the core, right? So legalism, all right, let's bring rules into this, okay?

Asceticism was bringing regulations and, what's the word we're looking for?

Here's all the things you can't have.

Yes, yeah, here's all of the, yeah, here's all the do nots.

Yep.

And then mysticism was, here's all the things, if you do these things, then you'll have extra, you know, you'll have the extra spiritual health or whatever. Yep. And so they're all three tied, and here's what I think is interesting.

When you look at verse 16 down through verse number 17, he says, let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of a holy day, the festivals and all of that, or a new moon or the Sabbath days. Why?

Because those were a shadow of things to come. But the body is of Christ. Like the thought even is all of these things were to show you Jesus, right?

So we think about the Pharisees. Like to me, when I think about mysticism, asceticism, and legalism, I think about the Pharisee because it was additives, a lot of do nots, and a lot of, well, if you qualify here, then you'll have this spirituality.

Well, and we see a lot of that with the Pharisees, even with like the Essings and stuff, particularly in mysticism, whereas some of the particular Pharisees that Jesus interacts with were much more along the legalism and asceticism sides, and there

Well, Paul dealt with a lot.

Yes. So that's where I just think it's interesting that, if you look at all of the belief systems of the world, it's either Jesus alone or stuff, things. Oh, you can have Jesus, just what you said at the beginning.

You can have Jesus, but add these things. And so I just think it's really interesting that when you break all of these isms down, and all of them, that's why Paul was so much saying, like, in him, like, hey, you have truth.

Yeah.

It's in him. It's in Christ. Yeah.

Now, let me ask you this.

I assume the people that are listening or watching this today, they are not likely to run into a Pharisee today.

Yeah, they are.

Well, listen, I'm getting there. They're not likely to run into a adamant Sabbath keeper and someone that's memorized all of the Mishnah and Torah and Tanakh. They're not likely to run into that.

So do these commands that Paul gives in here, are these kind of done with, unless maybe you live in Israel right now? Does this have some practical use to us today?

Yeah, completely. And I say, yeah, they are, because every form of Christianity has legalism.

Even yours?

Even mine.

Even mine?

Even yours. Every form of Christianity has some form of legalism. Because, and I was just talking with a friend of mine about this, it's because it's performance-based.

And that makes sense, humanly speaking.

Yeah.

You want a job, it makes sense.

You got to perform.

Yeah.

You want a house, you got to perform at a job.

Yeah. If you want a race, if you're a good student, if you want to be the best on the team, just bring it into any aspect of life.

That's what we do.

So it makes sense that we would bring it into religion. Yeah. I was talking, a friend of mine who works for Amazon, and he's the 121st in rank at Amazon.

Very cool.

So there's only 120 people that have been employed at Amazon longer than him for tenure.

Rank, I don't know what he is, but for tenure. And we were talking about, well, here in Moses' Lake, we have this new temple that's been built. And there's some religions out there that the works side of religion makes sense.

And that's all Paul was dealing with. And so that's all they were dealing with.

And that's why I love verse number 20, when Paul said, if you're dead with Christ, from the rudiments or elements or principles of the world, then why, even though you're living in the world, why do you make yourself subject?

Why do you bring yourself under those things again? It's like all of culture teaches the principle that it's legalism and it's do and don't. And Jesus teaches something totally different.

So you ask the question, do we face that? Yeah, we face it any time anybody brings, works into the conversation of any form of Christianity.

So, well, Pastor, I just, you know, I've been struggling, because I really don't feel like I do enough for the Lord. That's the legalism. Yeah, because it's not about what we do.

Now, should we do things to evangelize? Yes, but I love how one pastor friend of mine puts it when he says, like, we're human beings, not human doings. So I should be impacted by love, and that love drives me to action.

And that's something that we just have to realize, is that we are going to face it with people giving do's and don'ts and lists.

And then honestly, in the church world, I'm not trying to be mean, but in the church world, we have this, and we see it, and I face it.

And it's, well, if your family doesn't watch what our family watches, or if you guys don't dress the way we dress, or if you don't listen to the music that we listen to, then you're not as spiritual as me. Show me that in the Bible.

Like, that's not in scripture, right? And so why are you, who's alive in Christ, bringing yourself back into subjugation to those things? So yes, we face it, and I think our next session, our next podcast will be how do we avoid it and deal with it.

But I don't know, what do you think of it? What's your answer to your own question?

Yeah, we absolutely do. And I think it goes back to some of the principles that we can read about, particularly in Romans 14. Paul deals a lot with this.

He's talking to some Jews and Gentile believers in the city of Rome, that the Jews had been kicked out by the Romans. And then when they came back in, there were all these Gentile churches.

And so then, as you have now these two kind of groups of believers intermingling, they were having a lot of headbutting because the Jews had a lot of things that they believed and that they held in from a lifetime of following the Old Testament and

some of the Pharisees' things that had even come along with, that they didn't view as contrary to Christ. It was just, oh, this is just what we do.

But then, as they started interacting with believers that did not have that background and strictly had the gospel of Jesus and weren't bringing along a lot of other things with them, then you have these headbuttings.

The Jews go, and well, how could you not do this? How could you not celebrate this thing that our people have celebrated for 1,000 years, 1,500 years? And the Gentiles are going, well, that has nothing to do with Jesus.

So you can see even some of Colossians 2 where he talks about, let no man therefore judge you in respect of in Holy Day, a festival, or New Moon, or the Sabbath. And he's speaking directly to that. And I think there's a great thought.

There's an old Baptist document from the 1600s that talks about freedom of conscience. And it specifically says that God is the Lord of the conscience and to allow anyone else other than the Lord through his word.

It's not just some spiritual thing of, unless God audibly says it to you, you don't have to do it. God has audibly said it and you do have to do it.

But to subject ourselves to do anything out of religious love and obedience to anyone else except for the Lord is to say, God, you're not Lord of the conscience. So and so is now the Lord of my conscience.

And so there's a whole big to do that you can read about that. Some wonderful books. If you want a recommendation, I have a great one for you.

But I think the basic gist of it would be, God is the Lord of the conscience. And so anything that he does not specifically outline or say in scripture has to come through our relationship with the Holy Spirit and listening to his voice in our life.

And we can absolutely get advice and things from other believers. We have to have it. Don't shut everyone else out.

But when it comes to what we do out of conscience or out of feeling like, OK, I need to do this, that has to come through the word and the spirit. It cannot come from, Oh, I have no conviction on this from from the spirit or the word.

But so and so says, I have to do it. That is not a good thing. And Paul tells them, hey, like it can look really religious.

It can have those really cool self-imposed religion and ascetic practices. But it doesn't do anything to actually change you. And we'll talk about that in our next episode.

Yeah, and that's where I think, you know, you talked about Romans 14, Romans 14-12.

Every single person is going to give an account of themselves to God. So you, like, you worry about you. And that's, I think, where maybe the challenge is today.

We'll wrap up here in just a minute. But I would, I was just kind of thinking, OK, what's a challenge that we have from this passage?

And from these verses, like, I would genuinely, and I'm going to do it, I'm thinking about myself, like, ask the Lord, God, is there any legalism in my life that I've been trying to impose?

Maybe on myself, of, well, I'm not doing this as good as I could be, so I don't measure up. Like, no, we don't measure up. But it's good that we don't, because Jesus, in His grace, does for us.

And we are free in Him. And so, giving a little taste for next week, if you're in Christ, keep seeking Him. So I think the challenge this week, though, is like, God, help me to evaluate my own heart.

What am I bound by in this legalism, asceticism, mysticism? Like, maybe you need to go and look those up as to what they are. But basically, what am I adding to Jesus in my life?

And recognizing it's all about Him. It all points to Him and my need of Him. And while serving Him with my life is a good thing, it shouldn't be done because, well, it's expected of me.

I got a witness this week, because if I don't, God's gonna strike me dead.

I better make sure that what I'm watching on TV this week is pleasing to Him, because if I don't, then so-and-so might get, you know, no, I'm gonna evaluate my life and say, God, I wanna follow you out of love, and I want everything I believe to be

based upon my love for you and the relationship that you have with me, not based upon a list of dos and don'ts. So, anyway, that's kinda my thought, my challenge is just to evaluate our own hearts. Our own life.

I think that's a great challenge because legalism, the additives, don't come from simply just terrible people.

Right, they need wealth.

It's everyday, regular people that we all start to go, what Jesus did is great, but I think maybe I need to add a couple of things to it, or I think so-and-so needs to add a couple of things to theirs.

Yeah.

And so through his word, continually going back to, okay, how am I living my life? Am I living it based off of my relationship?

Yeah.

Or based off of just rules or religion?

Yeah. And then I'm going to add this. I just had a quick thought.

And that's, it's this. Be comfortable, be comfortable with your conscience and God. Yes.

Here's what I mean by that. If God says to Bryon, hey, Bryon, don't X, Y, and Z. God says that to you.

Be comfortable with that. And don't be pushed by others to do it. Or not do things.

Like that's, that's legalism too, right? Is like, oh, I'm not, okay, well, I'm not comfortable with that. And that's 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

Or chapter 10. Um, eight? Eight, yep, chapter eight.

1 Corinthians chapter eight, you know, of, I mean, having things pushed upon my conscience that are not clear in my head, like, I need to be careful about that too. So the thought, Romans 14, you will give an account before God for yourself. Yes.

So be comfortable with what God gives to you.

Yeah. Um, and I'll say, don't, don't go against your conscience loosely. We'll always have things that we've built up in our conscience that have nothing to do with God and his word.

Right. But don't ever take your conscience for granted. Like scripture speaks about the spirit using our conscience to be able to convict us of right and wrong.

And if you're always silencing your conscience, whenever it tells you that what you're doing isn't right, then you're, you are literally diminishing, quenching, uh, squelching is not a word. Squelch.

Squelch.

Sure. Uh, you are silencing.

Quenching.

Quenching. Thank you. Thank you.

Squelch is a word and quench is a word.

Quelch.

Quelch is not a word.

Let's go with quench.

Yeah. So don't, don't, like, stuff down your conscience's voice lightly. That is something that God has given to you as a gift.

And so pay attention to it. If it says, hey, don't do this, like, yeah, listen. Always bring it back to scripture.

And be willing to be able to say, like, yeah, well, that's me.

Yes. That's me personally.

Yep.

Like, I know it's a preference, but that's my preference because of God challenging me with it. Yes. And, I mean, there's some things that I've been challenged with for my own life and my family that I won't preach at church.

Yeah.

I'm not going to say, you better do this and don't do that because it's not a doctrine.

It's a personal preference in my life, you know? And now I might mention it from time to time, hey, for our family, we do this or I do that.

As an example of, here's how I obey how the Spirit's speaking to me.

Yeah. Well, and that's, okay, so, what time are we at? Well, we're out of time.

So, I'll give you examples for the next time of some things of that, that I've been challenged with, that is personal, that I don't push on people.

But again, evaluate your own heart, see where you're at with God, and we'll look forward to week number eight.

Yes, starting with chapter three.

All right.

Excited. Shake your heart.

Have a good day.