In the sermon 'Self imposed religion of no value in dealing with the flesh,' Steve Hopkins discusses Colossians 2:20-23 and 3:1-2, emphasizing that self-imposed religious practices and external regulations, such as asceticism, are ineffective against indulgence in the flesh. He argues that these practices are man-made and lack divine authority, thus holding no real power in overcoming sinful desires. Instead, Hopkins underscores the importance of union with Christ and setting one's mind on heavenly things as the true pathway to spiritual growth and holiness. The sermon warns against allowing false teachers to impose man-made rules that detract from the sufficiency of Christ, advocating for reliance on Christ's completed work for spiritual maturity. Modern parallels are drawn to certain religious groups that elevate dietary and other restrictions to spiritual disciplines, which the speaker argues compete with the gospel. Ultimately, the sermon calls for believers to trust in their position in Christ and not in earthly means for spiritual growth.
Good afternoon again. If you would turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Colossians, chapter 2. We will be picking up with chapter 2 verses 20 through 23 and going into chapter 3 verses 1 through 2. If you would stand with me for the reading of the Word of the Lord, Colossians 2.20 to 23.3, 1 through 2. 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 and self-imposed religion and false humility and neglect of the body but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Let's pray.
Father, before the mountains were brought forth or ever you formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting you are God. You have established your throne in heaven, your kingdom rules over all. We Thank you Father for who you are. We thank you God for giving us your Son, for saving us and calling us for the holy calling, not according to our works but according to your own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Father, we look to you once again with humble expectation and we pray that you might be pleased to give the Spirit and power once again to teach us and to guide us in the way of truth and to open our understanding as we open your word for we ask it in Jesus name amen.
Let's be seated. The title of the message today is self-imposed religion of no value in dealing with the flesh. Where are we going? Where are we going this afternoon? Well, here's where we're going.
The last verse of our text this afternoon in chapter two ends with these words, self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. And what I hope to do when we get there is to answer the obvious question that then comes to mind. When we get to that last verse in chapter 2, If self-imposed rules, if outward regulation of behavior, if severity of the body, if none of these things are of any value against the indulgence of the flesh, what is? That's where we're going. But first, where have we just been?
In our last session on Colossians, we heard the apostle telling the Colossian believers, don't let anyone judge you. Of course, this isn't the judge not lest you be judged crowd, right? He's honing in on something here. He's saying, in light of all that I've just taught you concerning all that Christ has done for you in forgiving all your sins, in blotting out the debt book of your sins, and setting aside the record of your debt with all its legal demands that were leveled against you, and nailing it to his cross, and triumphing over all the evil powers for you. Don't allow anyone to pass judgment on you with regards to questions of food and drink.
Don't allow anyone to bind your conscience with regard to Old Testament dietary laws. Don't let anyone pass judgment on you because you don't observe the holy days of the Jewish liturgical calendar. All of these things are mere shadows and the shadows pointed to Christ and Christ has come. Christ is the substance of them all. The false teachers at Colossi, as I said in the last session, they were in the fear-selling business.
They produced a mixture of Christianity, elements of paganism, elements of Jewish legalism, asceticism, and angel worship, and mysticism, and they packaged all this together, and they were selling it at a great cost. Fear. Fear of judgment. Fear of disqualification. Paul says, don't allow them to do that.
Don't buy what they're selling. All of these things were mere shadows, and the shadows pointed to Jesus Christ. And Christ has come. The substance or body of all these things is of Christ. He is the substance of all these things.
As I said in our last session on Colossians, a person can cling to the shadows or they can cling to the substance, but they can't cling to both. The shadows have disappeared, Paul said, and the reality has come. Don't cling to the shadows. Cling to Christ who fulfilled them all. Hold fast to Christ who is the fulfilling end of them, in the words of John Gill.
Christ is our spiritual food. He is the bread from heaven that if a man eats, he shall not die. He shall never die. He is our spiritual drink. He is the spiritual rock from which the Christian drinks.
Salvation and spiritual maturity come through Him, not by regulating your diet, and not by observing the Jewish calendar of festivals and new moons and Sabbaths. You are in a living relationship with Christ by grace. Hold to Him. Hold fast to Him. Cling to Him.
Don't let anyone pass judgment on you with regards to these things." And then he said, don't let anyone cheat you of your reward. What does he mean? I think he means Don't let anyone deceive you into thinking you're somehow disqualified or not secure in your salvation or less spiritually mature than you could be or should be because you don't buy what these guys are selling. Aesthetic practices of rigorous self-denial of the body, the worship of angels, the need for these supposed visions. All these teachings are detached from Christ.
They're not holding fast to Christ. They're not holding to Christ, the head of the body, from whom the whole body is nourished with all the nourishment that comes from God. Don't let anyone pass these kinds of judgments on you or con you into thinking you're somehow not qualified in Christ or complete and secure and you're standing before God in Christ. You who are our believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, what has He been saying? What's He been saying?
You are complete in Him. You are full in Him. You who are in union with Him, with Christ by faith in Him, by the powerful working of God, you were buried with Christ. You were raised with Christ. You received the circumcision of your hearts by Christ.
You were made alive with Christ. Paul has been telling them since chapter one, just flip back and look at what he's been saying since chapter one. He's saying Christ is supreme over all creation. Christ is supreme over the new creation. All things were, Christ is supreme over the church.
All things were created by him. All things were created for him. All things are held together by him. You were redeemed by him. You were rescued from the power of darkness by him.
You were reconciled to God through him. And you are now complete in him. You have all fullness in him. You possess all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the treasure chest of wisdom and knowledge in and through him. Your heart has been circumcised by him.
You died with him, you were buried with him, you were raised with him, and you were made alive together with him. All your sins have been forgiven because of Him. Your record of your sin dead canceled because of Him. Set aside because of Him. Nailed to the cross by Him.
All your spiritual enemies have been defeated by Him. Therefore, Given all that Christ is and all that Christ has done for you, don't let anyone pass judgment on your consciences with regards to the observance of any of these things or put any stock or weight whatsoever in them. And as we pick up with verse 20 this afternoon, Paul continues and listen to what he says. Listen to what Paul says to the Colossus believers here and to every one of us who was united to Christ by faith. Listen to his reasoning with you.
If you died with Christ and in a spiritual sense you did the very moment you first trusted in Christ, if you died with Him to all these things and were thereby freed from the rudiments of the world, why in the world would you subject yourself to human ordinances and regulations as though you were still living in the world? That's his reasoning. Why in the world would you want to live in the kind of bondage from which Christ has set you free? You die to this thing of trying to please God by rule keeping. By virtue of your union with Christ in His death, you were freed from all of that.
Don't live in subjection to those things from which Christ has set you free. Don't touch, don't taste, don't handle. Paul says don't let the false teachers fool you into thinking that the exercise of external restraints is the pathway to holiness. Spiritual growth does not come that way. On social media today, we have lots of influencers, right?
Some of them good, some of them not so good. Well, the influencers in around Colossi were really bad, and they were attempting to influence the Christians and sell them on a lot of bad stuff and the Gnostic the Gnostic influencers of Paul's day were some of the worst and their doctrines continue to influence a lot of Christians today, whether we realize it or not. One of the heretical views that was held by the Gnostics and the Greek philosophers was a form of dualism. They said spirit is good, matter is evil. Okay, the spirit realm is good, the material realm evil.
And thus, because the material realm is evil, the physical body is inherently evil. So this was their reasoning. So there was this confusion between the physical human body, follow along with me here, that consists of like our skin, bones, blood, right? A confusion of our physical bodies with the flesh. The sarx in the Greek is a transliterated word, s-a-r-k-s, the physical body soma, s-o-m-a.
But they confuse the physical human body with the flesh, which in the passage before us speaks of the fallen human nature with its sinful and carnal desires. And so the reasoning was this, if the human body is evil, then it must be the seed of evil. It must be the seed of sin. If the human body is evil, then it must be the seed of sin. And therefore the body must be defeated.
Defeat the body, defeat sin. If you overcome the body which is evil, you overcome evil, bad doctrine. So you had this mix of Gnosticism and Greek pagan philosophy mixed with asceticism, rigorous denial of bodily comforts, that was being promoted in and around Colossi that said, punishing the body is the answer. Just be really hard on your body. Starving the physical body of the things that it desires.
Basic comforts, et cetera, et cetera. This is the pathway to holiness. That's what they were saying. Don't touch, don't taste, don't handle. External regulations, which Paul calls here self-imposed religion, or your version might say self-made religion.
I like self-imposed religion. You're imposing these things willingly on yourself that Christ has freed you from. The idea was this, just put a straight jacket on the body and you'll grow spiritually. Just lock down the body and you're on your way on the pathway to holiness. Paul says that's not the way it works.
Aestheticism is utterly useless at defeating the sinful longings of the flesh. Self-imposed external restraints on the body are of no value in stopping the sinful indulgence of the flesh. And then Paul gives us three considerations here. Number one, all these things the false teachers are advocating, all these self-imposed, self-made religious external restraints, they all perish what they're using. OK, you follow what the apostle is saying here.
Things you touch, taste, and handle, they all perish with their using. Every one of these spiritual self help manuals floating around Colossi, all these things are things that perish with their use. Not touching certain things, not eating certain things, not handling certain things is not the answer. Locking down the body isn't the pathway to holiness. And second, Paul says, These things are all manmade.
They are, every one of them, quote, according to human precepts and teachings, and not by divine revelation. This stuff isn't in the Bible. There's no divine authority backing any of these things. And thus there is no power in any of them to assist in the believer's battle with the flesh. And third, Paul says, These things have an appearance of wisdom.
He admits that, okay? It looks really wise, right? The guys who are practicing these things, they appear to be really wise men and really devoted to God, and They look really spiritual because of their treatment of the body and, you know, all of this harshness that they engage in on their bodies. But they are of no value whatsoever in stopping the sinful indulgences of the flesh. All these things being elevated by the false teachers as the pathway to true holiness, Paul says, they're of no value at all.
They're utterly worthless. It's worthless. The commandments and doctrines of men, these passing, fading rudiments of the world. You died to all of that when you died with Christ. Bands on what you touch and taste and handle are utterly ineffective in the battle to defeat sinful longings.
Now, some would say today, well, the stuff Paul's talking about here was only an issue in the first century. Not so. Not only do We have whole denominations like Seventh-day Adventists and Adventists and United Church of God and others promoting sanctification by means of dietary regulations Within sound biblical churches. There are those who promote various forms of food religion Don't eat that don't touch that don't even taste that and And the problem with these groups and individuals isn't that if they choose not to eat this or that for health reasons or just because they want to, that's okay, right? We all need to care for our bodies.
Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. We don't eat this, don't eat that, right? Because of things associated with the body. We wanna take care of our bodies. The conflict with the gospel of Christ, however, the competition with Christ, and don't fool yourselves, it is competing with Christ in the gospel, arises when these groups or individuals elevate their dietary restrictions to the level of spiritual disciplines as though they were matters of obedience to God saying that it is morally wrong to eat this or that thereby binding the consciences of others to man-made food and drink regulations that are not by divine command or appointment." So there's like this modern resurgence, right, of the Judaizers, which Paul everywhere condemns as compromising the sufficiency of Christ.
Paul warned Timothy about these kinds of false teachers in 1 Timothy 4, 1 through 5. Look at 1 Timothy 4, 1 through 5. Now he says, now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith. Everyone will say, okay, that's bad. People depart from the faith.
That's bad. That's bad. In the last days, some are gonna depart from the faith. They said, some of them, they will be giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of men, that's bad. Giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of men, that's bad stuff.
They'll be speaking lies and hypocrisy, That's not good. It's not good. They'll have their consciences seared as with a hot iron. Terrible. It's terrible.
Forbidding to marry. What? That's horrible. And commanding to abstain from certain foods. Commanding to abstain from foods, certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
And if that weren't enough to settle the matter of food religion, Paul went on in verse four, for every creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. The writer of Hebrews warned the Hebrew believers in Hebrews 13, nine, not to go back to those things that never profited anyone. He said, Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. What was he talking about?
Various and strange doctrines concerning things that you eat and drink. He goes on, for it is good, so we heard all the stuff that's bad, right? So here's what he says is good. For it is good that the heart be established by grace and not with foods, which have not profited those who have been occupied or preoccupied with them. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, Romans 14-17, but of righteousness and of peace and of joy in the Holy Spirit.
And brothers and sisters, this teaching of the apostle is not limited to those who would bind our consciences with regards to merely food and drink. Food religion is just one category of man-made self-imposed religion that seeks to rob us as Christians of the liberty we have in Christ. Food religion is just one facet of the myriads of commandments and doctrines of men imposed on believers that seek to bind their consciences to principles and restrictions and regulations that are not found in the Bible for Christians. In our confession and the confession that we hold to, the 1689 Second London Baptist confession of faith that we hold to and here to at Bernadette Bible Church under the heading of Christian liberty and liberty of conscience. Paragraph two, God alone is Lord of the conscience And he has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men that are in any way contrary to his word or not contained therein.
Believing such doctrines or obeying such commands out of conscience is a betrayal of true liberty of conscience." So what's the answer? When I began, I asked the question, if self-imposed rules, if outward regulation of behavior, if severity on the body, if none of these things are of any value against the the sinful indulgence of the flesh what is And you know, I think that chapter two was it was ended too quickly, which is why we went ahead and read into the first couple of verses of chapter three at the beginning. You know, the monk who assigned the chapters and verses so many centuries ago, I think didn't go far enough with chapter two. Chapter three, verses one through 2, Paul answers our question. If then you were raised with Christ, Seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. In a word, don't look to things on earth. Look to Christ, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When you died with Christ, you died to self-imposed religion. Subjecting oneself to the basic principles of this world makes a believer act as though he never died with Christ, was raised with Christ, and is presently seated with Christ in heavenly places.
The answer is not to look to things on earth, but to look up where Christ is enthroned at the right hand of God. All we need is to be found in Him. This thing of straight jacketing the body to keep oneself from sinning, it does not work. Yesterday was Reformation Day. Remember Luther in Rome?
They sent him to Rome, right, because his conscience is bothered. This will help him. It will fortify his faith. He goes there and Luther is appalled at the immorality of the clergy in Rome. And yet they were doing all these things.
Luther had tried them too. Remember isolation, asceticism, locking down the body with man-made rules and regulations, even self-flagellation. And he found them all to be of no value whatsoever against the indulgence of the flesh. The answer is not to seek spiritual growth by self-imposed religion. The answer is not to return to the bondage of those things from which Christ has freed believers.
The answer is found in Christ and in our union with Christ. We who are in union with Christ by faith in Him died with Him when He died. Paul says in Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in this body of the flesh and bones, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
We died with Him. We are risen with Him. If you're a believer here today, we are seated with Him right now in heavenly places. And when Christ, who is our life, appears, then we will also appear with Him in glory. Set your mind on these things, Paul says.
We die to all these earthly means, and our life is hidden with God in Christ. Understanding our position in Christ, that we are secure in Him unto glory, and looking to and relying on Him, who is our righteousness and sanctification and redemption, is the answer. Self-made religion is not the pathway to holiness, and it's of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Leaning on Christ is. Brothers and sisters, leaning on Christ is.
Looking to Christ is. Leaning on Him who came for us and died for us and rose for us and is at this very present time interceding for us and who is coming again for us to take us to glory. The pathway to spiritual growth and the power to say no to the flesh comes from union with Christ and a mind set on Him, not on things on earth. And when we get to our next section here, we'll be looking at Paul talking about the killing of sin. He's going to be talking about mortification of our members upon the earth.
And we've set the groundwork for it. Paul has set the groundwork for it. Paul has laid the groundwork for it. The pathway to spiritual growth, the power to say no to the flesh, comes from union with Christ and a mindset on Him who is above and not on things on earth. And as I close, I'm going to give Scottish Baptist theologian from the 1800s, Alexander McLaren, the final word, the final sentence.
There is only one thing that will put the collar on the neck of the animal within us, and that is the power of the indwelling Christ. Close quote, and let's pray. Father, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, but of him are you in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Oh Father, deliver us from the inventions of men, from pursuing self-imposed religion, deliver us. Deliver us from pursuing self-punishing disciplines, which are according to human precepts and the teachings of men and not according to Christ.
And help us, oh God, our Father, to live with confidence and submission to the Lordship of Christ and pursue obedience and gratitude for Your favor shown us in Christ as we await His return for us from heaven. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You you