As You Received Christ Jesus the Lord, so Walk in Him

Sermon Transcript

Imagine a new believer asks you a simple question: “How do you walk in Jesus?”

If you’re anything like me, your initial thought when I asked you that question might be related to the spiritual disciplines. Worship with the church on Sundays, read the Bible, pray, memorize Scripture, start a discipleship group, practicing habits of sabbath and solitude. Those are all good things, and some of them are even things that the Lord commands of us.

Or maybe it has more to do with things you need to stop doing, stop cursing, stop drinking, watch your diet and stop scrolling, and then you’ll finally be in a place where you can walk in Jesus.

Or maybe you’re thinking more about the character of the person walking in Jesus. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted, and so on. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see God, right?

While all those things I just said are helpful, on their own they’re not central. They aren’t the fountain from which all of the Christian life flows. But what today’s passage shows us truly is central.

The entire letter to the Colossians, and today’s passage in particular, is Paul’s instruction on how we ought to walk in Jesus. The big idea of Colossians 2:6-23 (and arguably of the entire letter) comes from verse 6 and it is this: As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. As you received him, now walk in him. Don’t turn back, don’t veer from the path, don’t go a new way. This raises the question, how do we walk in him? The Apostle Paul gives us three ways: 1) Be rooted and built up, 2) Resist captivity, 3) Reject judgment. Let’s start with the first way, be rooted and built up.

BE ROOTED AND BUILT UP
6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

EXPLANATION
These two verses are a kind of summary of the entire letter to the Colossians, and they give us Paul’s first instruction toward how we walk in Christ. Note the “solid” language that he uses, rooted, built up, established in the faith. Paul is writing to encourage them and remind them of what has been done to them, so that they would not be easily swayed.

They received Christ Jesus and became rooted in him, so don’t uproot yourselves. They received Christ Jesus and were built up, so don’t tear down God’s work in your life. They received Christ Jesus and were established in the faith, so now’s not the time to waver in your walk with God. Stay the course.

Instead, take that same gospel you believed at the beginning, just as you were taught, and let the Lord apply it again and again, to every area of your life until He returns or calls you home with him. Be rooted and built up by the gospel, just as you were taught, that’s the Christian life and it’s so simple a child can understand it, and deep enough that it’ll take the rest of our earthly lives to explore, abounding in thanksgiving as we see more of our own sinfulness and the Lord’s amazing grace.

Receiving Christ means repenting of our sin (you can think of it as turning in an entirely new direction) and believing the good news of Jesus, the power of salvation to everyone who believes. Not to everyone who performs at a high level, as if we could ever achieve perfection in our own strength. Not to everyone who pretends as if their sin is really not that big of a deal and God can just overlook it, as if we could bring God down to our level of imperfection. Performing and pretending are two ways that we try to sneak some of our own good works into receiving Christ.

Instead of by works, we receive Christ by grace through faith. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-9, “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” We receive Christ by grace through faith, and none of us can boast about it.

According to Colossians 2:6, we are to walk in Christ the same way we received him, by grace through faith, through the gospel. Now, here’s the temptation that many of us face. We have no problem affirming that yes, we are saved by grace through faith. I mean, it’s right there in Ephesians 2:8, you’re reading the same Bible that I am. We go yes, of course, the gospel IS the entry point to the Christian life, it’s how you go from death to new life in Christ, it’s how you get saved, you might even affirm that the gospel is how we are justified, made right with God.

But, as soon as it comes to living as a Christian, we move from the good news of the gospel to good advice, best practices, and techniques. We think that we are saved by grace but what we really need to change our lives or to grow in Christ is law. But law has no power to change the human heart, we need to be rooted and built up in the gospel. Here’s another way of putting it from 1 Corinthians 15:

1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

Here, Paul is encouraging the Colossians not to stray from the path and instead, simply walk in the faith that they were taught.

APPLICATION

So if you’re tracking with me up to now, you’re probably saying: “Okay, you’ve beat it into my head that the gospel is not just an entry door into the Christian life, it’s the whole mansion. It’s not the ABCs of the Christian life, it’s the A TO Z. We need to walk in Christ the same way we received him, by grace through faith.” But what does that LOOK LIKE in the day-to-day? I’ve got a lot of problems, am I just supposed to believe them away?

Well, let’s apply this idea about a particular problem in the Christian life. You can take this same principle and apply to just about any problem you face, but let’s apply it to one that’s especially dangerous and ensnaring in the day we live in, sexual brokenness, specifically pornography use. If you’re a man or woman ensnared by sexual sin in this way, what should you do?

One intuition you might have is to radically lock down access to the internet in all of its forms. I’m talking about deleting all your apps (& the app store), installing accountability software like Covenant Eyes or Ever Accountable, creating time limits on your phone so it shuts off completely after 10PM, choking out access completely to the point where if someone puts your phone in your hand and a gun to your head and says, “I’m going to shoot you unless you pull up pornography,” you would have to just die because you don’t know how. Making it so hard to sin that you basically have to crawl through barbed wire to reach it is a good way to slow you down as your heart bends toward sin (and frankly, if you aren’t willing to take these kinds of drastic measures to fight sin in your life, you’re underestimating how big your problem is), but if the barbed wire is the center of your plan to battle sexual sin, your hope is set in the wrong place.

Here’s the alternative: be rooted and built up in the gospel. You confess your sin freely to a trusted brother or sister because there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because of the gospel, we aren’t condemned, so we can confess freely, no matter what we’re facing. Just like it says in Titus chapter 2, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, so now, in light of that, we can be trained to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions of all kinds. So go ahead and utilize that barbed wire to slow you down as you’re drawn to sin, but let that activity be rooted and built up in the gospel.

Here’s one last question to ask yourself, regardless of the situation you’re facing: “Am I so rooted in Christ that I am abounding in thanksgiving?” When a person is genuinely abounding in thanksgiving to the Lord, that’s a sign that you’re being rooted and built up in the gospel. The opposite is also true. When we’re struggling to be thankful to God, that’s like a check engine light on the dashboard of our hearts. At the end of the day, the person who abounds in thanksgiving is thinking about the Lord all the time, being rooted in Him. What might it look like for you to become a person of whom it could be increasingly said, “this person abounds in thanksgiving!”

As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him by being rooted in him. But what do we actually do when we come across the false teaching that seeks to lead us astray? Let’s move onto the second point, resist captivity.

RESIST CAPTIVITY
8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

EXPLANATION
The second way Paul instructs his readers to walk in him is to resist captivity. Here’s where Paul moves from encouragement about the past faith of the Colossian church to a stark warning about the danger they face. Remember that you’re rooted in him, because there are forces that seek to uproot you and carry you along with the unstable waves of this world. If you don’t “see to it,” you’re going to be kidnapped & taken captive. The stakes are high so let’s hear who’s bringing the danger.

Paul uses the word “philosophy” not as narrowly as we use it today, the kind of thing you’d come across in a college classroom, but rather a way of viewing the world that poses as wisdom but is not in accord with Christ and the pattern of sound doctrine that is laid out in Scripture. Similarly, the “elemental spirits of the world” likely refer to a kind of false teaching that the Colossians were encountering. Here’s how New Testament scholar Doug Moo brings clarity to it:

“The Colossian ‘philosophy,’ by its preoccupation with rules about material things, was, in Paul’s view, treating them as the pagans did, as if they were fundamental cosmic powers that needed to be placated.”

Ultimately, this worldly philosophy is empty deceit and the elements of this world don’t lay out rules about material practices, how we should eat or drink to placate unpredictable gods. Remember what we just learned, self-effort is not the way that we are transformed, we are transformed by the gospel. In verses 9-15, Paul gives a series of examples of how the Colossians are to resist captivity:

1) Remember the fullness of Christ – both that in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and we have been filled in him.

9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority

Here, Paul gets into some beautiful Christology but note that in v.9, there’s nothing new. Really, he’s repeating what he taught earlier in chapter one about the preeminence of Christ – “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (1:19). God, the maker of heaven and earth, in his fullness has taken up residence no longer in a building, like the temple in the Old Testament, but he has taken up a body. That is a dramatic shift and it would be mind-blowing enough, but it doesn’t stop there, we have been filled in him, so we don’t need to look elsewhere. There is no rule and authority, no spiritual being that Christ does not reign over. This year marks 1700 years since the incredibly useful creed of Nicea was drafted, and it uses this language to describe the Son: God of God, light of light, very God of very God. Battles have been waged over this truth and they continue to this day as major thinkers of this world embrace and espouse half-truths about who Jesus is, just a moral teacher or a worthy example. Don’t split your allegiances, resist the captivity that says you need to get your filling elsewhere, because it is in Christ that the fullness of deity dwells bodily and we have been filled in him. Next, we resist captivity in the circumcision of Christ.

2) Remember the circumcision of Christ

Here’s how the fullness we just talked about comes into existence:

11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead

Here, Paul is not speaking of a physical circumcision, but one made without human hands. In Deuteronomy 10, God instructs his people through Moses to circumcise their hearts. This refers to a true conversion, turning from being dead in one’s trespasses and sins and being made alive with Christ. That is when we once and for all put off the body of the flesh, and we don’t need to add to it. Baptism is another way that Paul speaks of the beginning of the Christian life, being saved from our sins and entering into the covenant community. The circumcision of the heart, our putting off of the flesh, and our water baptism, all of these wonderful things are intimately related to our conversion experience. So resist the captivity of worldly philosophy and empty deceit by remembering the circumcision of Christ. Remember how you received Christ. Third and finally, resist captivity and remember the cross of Christ:

3) Remember the cross of Christ

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

This little passage is a wonderful picture of what Christ accomplished. We were dead in our tresspasses and sinful flesh and God made us together alive. We were crushed under the unrelenting weight of our debt, and Jesus paid it all with not a penny left in our balance. He nailed every sin, every act of disobedience and every act of obedience left undone to the cross. And finally, Paul brings back the idea of rulers and authorities, this time showing them to be disarmed, triumphed over and even put to open shame. During his earthly life, Jesus publicly demonstrated his supremacy over every spiritual being and demonically-oppressed person he came across.

APPLICATION
Here’s one thing that I think is instructive about the way Paul approaches this false teaching. Although the Colossians know exactly what they’re facing, he doesn’t do an explicit point-by-point takedown of that doctrine, or even really give us a clear definition (“Colossian church, this is the heresy you’re facing”), or anything like that. Instead, he gives them a rich Christology, a reminder of who Christ Jesus the Lord is, and he reminds them of their conversion and the effects of the cross.

A good place to start wherever you’re at is to go further up and into your study of Scripture so that when you come across something that isn’t in line with it, you’ll be able to identify it right away. What might it look like for you to take your next step in putting the word of God in your heart sot that you can remember the fullness of Christ, the circumcision of your heart, and the cross when you encounter false teaching.

REJECT JUDGMENT
Third and finally, reject the judgement of those who would seek to disqualify you. In this particular case, the Colossian church was facing teaching from those who would impose purely human commands on them. Here’s where this is in the text:

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. (Colossians 2:16)

Remember, these false teachers aren’t the kind that say “no one cares how you live, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” They practice what’s called asceticism and would probably say something more like “discipline equals freedom,” or “eat a certain way to live longer and have a better life, and anyone who doesn’t follow this diet isn’t living right.” These teachers thought that by manipulating the food & drink they ate, along with practicing certain ceremonies and feasts, they could manipulate the world around them and shape it however they liked.

The law at its best, divinely inspired, not even the made-up laws described in Colossians 2 is altogether a shadow. It was always meant to point us to something greater, Christ himself. Laws, while they can teach us how to live, don’t exist ultimately for our own self-effort. They exist so that we would make much of Jesus in our lives.

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. (Colossians 2:19)

The false teachers who seek to disqualify you are themselves not holding fast to the Head, Christ, and thus they are separate from the body. False teaching tends to separate and isolate you from the body of Christ, preventing you from experiencing the growth and blessing that comes from life-giving community. Note that Are you engaging with some kind of teaching that you want to keep secret, that you’d be hesitant to share with the members of your Citygroup? Would you be comfortable sharing your five most recently listened-to podcasts with the members of your Citygroup? Your brothers and sisters are the means by which God will help you to reject judgement that comes from the external world, which is so quick to bring condemnation where Christ has declared you to be free.

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations (Colossians 2:20)

The Colossians would acknowledge that they have died to this world, yet they are still following these false teachers. It is not as if professing correct truths alone is enough to keep us from straying, we need to remind ourselves that in Christ, we are dead to judgement of this world and alive in Christ. .

APPLICATION

These have indeed an appearance 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. (Colossians 2:23)

The asceticism that the world teaches might sound really good to you, and if you’re a certain kind of person, having a checklist to accomplish to the end of an improved life might be appealing, but it has absolutely no power to change your heart.

You might be perfectly in shape, doing cold plunges and saunas, wearing a glucose monitor to ensure great metabolic health, and then come out the other side twice as much of a son of hell as when you started. And even more so, when someone tries to add to the gospel, it only takes away from the glory of God.

CONCLUSION
As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. You didn’t receive him by manipulating God into favoring you. Jesus lived the perfect life, died the death you deserved, and was raised from the grave all before you took your first breath. God knew you before the foundations of the earth were laid, you received Jesus by grace through faith. That’s good news.

So, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, now walk in Him. Be rooted and grounded in him – the gospel is enough to change you. Resist captivity – the philosophy of this world is nothing but empty deceit, Christ alone is enough. And reject judgment – stay tethered to the head who is Christ and don’t take on a yoke of slavery. Put your trust in Jesus today. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we have heard your Word so would you now remind us that Christ is the one who established us by grace through faith so that we might walk in Him.

COMMUNION
Amen. As the communion elements are passed out, the pink-tinted cup is gluten free, I’d like to remind us all that communion is the family meal for Christians, people who have repented of our sins and made Christ our only hope in life or in death, so today if you’re not a follower of Jesus, please let the plate pass you by. Instead, I’d like to invite you to repent of your sins and receive Jesus by faith. There’s a sample prayer at the bottom of your connect card that can give you language for doing that. If you are celebrating with us today, please take the elements and hold onto them, we’ll take them all together in a moment.

For now, let’s take a moment to reflect before we take the elements together.

break
The apostle Paul writes:

“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Let’s take and eat the bread together.

“In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” Take and drink in remembrance of Christ.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

We’re going to stand now and sing three songs of worship. Anytime during the next three songs, there will be folks under the prayer signs in the back who would love to pray for you about anything going on in your life. If you’re a member of Citylight Church the Lord brings a spontaneous word to mind to build up the body, please come up to me and we’ll weigh it according to Scripture and share it as appropriate.

Let’s stand together now and sing praises to our generous God.

CLOSING ANNOUNCEMENTS / BENEDICTION

If this is your first time here, I’d like to remind you to fill out your connect card and drop it in the orange box in the back. I’d love to welcome you and help you discern what your next step is at Citylight Church. And please take the women’s conference home with you and remember that registration opens today.

Receive this benediction from 1 Corinthians 15:58: May you be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Go in peace.