Colossians Lesson 14

All right, so Colossians 2, 20 through 23 this morning. Let's just go ahead and read that verse, or those verses, and somebody can do that for us. If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees such as, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which all refer to things destined to perish with use, in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men. These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of lethal and self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. Alright, so this whole passage is part of a larger group of teaching that Paul is bringing to the Colossians. I think that verse 16 through 23 is talking about this whole aspect of religious performance.

If you've been in conversations with unbelievers recently, I mean at any point in time really, the idea of you're religious or you're religion, we use that word. Folks that don't understand the Christian faith often think of us as being maybe religious. I have that conversation regularly. It's like, well what religion are you? Oh, you're religious, you get up and go to church on Sunday, we see you guys driving off and doing your thing, dressing up nice, and you must be religious.

That term really kind of encapsulates a lot of the things that the world understands as what's being covered in verses 16 through 23. There's a lot of different kind of religious stuff going on. And these verses 20 through 23 today are going to talk about one of those things, but verses 16 and 7 talk about religious legalism. And we've talked about that, and we've reviewed those verses, and then we get into 18 and 19 and we talk about religious false spirituality.

So we see that there's different aspects of religion, or the things that replace personal relationship, right? I mean, that's really the difference between religion and Christianity. When we think about religion, we think about what do I have to what? What do I have to do, right? When we think about a personal relationship with Christ, we think about who rather than what.

And in verse 20 through 23 we're covering this whole issue of asceticism. Big word. We're going to talk about what that means today and we'll use the questions to kind of dive into it. We've looked at legalism, false spirituality, and now we're moving to this issue of asceticism. And we'll define that word much more clearly and give a better definition to it.

It's not one that we use very often. So we're moving into this last part of this religious performance that Paul's talked about with the Colossians. And they struggle with it, right? I mean, we too struggle with it. And so we want to understand what is it that Paul is calling us not to do. And here we have all these things that people are telling us to do. So, in this verse we have the very first word, if, and then you have died with Christ. So, who died with Christ? Who's the you here? All believers. All believers? Okay. So this applies to us. It applies to the Colossian believers. Who died with Christ?

This is a review, right? When we've been over this whole identification truth of death time and time again, why does Paul keep repeating the same thing? Why do we have the same kind of questions? I talked to Mike last week, I said, this is going to be largely a review class. And he's like, well, that's what Paul does. He keeps saying the same things. And why is it that Paul keeps saying the same things? Well, that's what we do. He does it so we get it. So we get it. Right? I heard once repetition is the key to learning. It really is. Get it through that thick skull of ours, right? So what does death mean? Separation. Separation.

Not annihilation? No. Do you know what annihilation means? What is annihilation? We're not there anymore. So the difference between separation and annihilation is, in terms of death, is there are a lot of people that think that death means that when you experience it, that's it.

No more. You cease to exist. Right? Separation means that you still exist, but now your relationship to something has changed. You've been separated from something. And so Paul is talking about a separation of something here, and it's very specific. And they were struggling with an understanding of being separated from something, and so he brings up death. Death is that whole context of separation.

So, this word, if, what do you think, is this a question? Is he saying, well, if you did, I don't really know. If you did, it's a first-class conditional sentence, isn't it? You got it. Could you say since? Yup. So this is a first class conditional as you mentioned, and so this isn't a question, this is assumed to be true.

So since you died, it's the fact, the case that you did. Since you died, this is the result of that. It introduces that reality that God dealt with something and separated you from something. So, he moves on and he says, if you died with Christ, then why do all these things, why do you still struggle with these things?

So, the next question we have, number two, Is this death progressive in my life? And we're going to cover 1 and 2 again. I mean, we're not leaving 1 right now. There's a lot of content to be covered here, but I want to, since 1 and 2 are very closely tied together, is this separation something that continues to exist in our life over time?

Does it grow? Or is it a one-time thing? Don't we grow? So we got position and condition, right? What are these things? We talked about it, but we're going to review, right? Repetition. What's position? In Christ. Is that your position? In Christ and seated by the Father in heaven. Okay. So that's the believer's position, isn't it? It's standing, I think. Standing? Yeah, standing.

What does that mean? Does that mean where you are? Ultimately? Once you have it, you can't change it. Okay. Our position is our standing. Once you have it, you can't change it. What's our condition? We're talking about believers now. We'll look at the flip side in a minute. What's our condition? It's how we're living this. I'm God with Christ nevertheless I live, but not I but Christ lives in me. So condition, is it permanent or is it temporary? Temporary. So maybe we'll say permanent standing here, and we'll say temporary condition. Temporary state.

What is it, what is the physical part that is attached to this state? The flesh. So once the flesh is gone, we meet our position of eternity. Is that biblical? Yeah. Okay. So Paul is saying if you've died with Christ, What do you think? Is he talking condition or position here? Condition. Position. I think he's talking position. I think so too. Which one? Definitely position. So does everybody think it's position? Yeah. Well then why does he talk about conditional stuff in the verses that follow? Because we have a sinful nature. It affects your life and how unhappy you are. Because it's based on the first phrase. If you died with Christ, then why are you conditionally doing these things?

That's a good question. Huh? That's a good question? Good question. Yeah, I ask myself that all the time. Well, if this is true, then why in the world am I doing this? I keep asking, or I've asked if it's position or condition. Is it both? Yes, I think it is, because we know that when we became believers, we died with Christ. But if it's conditional, it means that...

Well, Paul says, I die daily. You remove yourself from those things. You separate yourself from those things in the world daily, don't we? Do we do it? Well, we need a lot of help. So one of the things I've been struggling with lately, and this is for discussion, we often look at truths, whether they're position or conditional. I see very often that we separate them in a way that's maybe unhealthy for our thinking.

It's like, oh, that's a positional truth, so it's not conditional. It doesn't have anything to do necessarily with right here, right now. Well, it does. So the thing is that every positional truth has a conditional consequence, doesn't it? And so I like the fact that we're seeing things positionally and conditionally. But I also want to challenge my own thinking into, these are always tied together. There's never a situation where something matters positionally but doesn't matter conditionally.

So if you've died with Christ, why does that matter conditionally? Well, he's about to talk about these taboos and ordinances and decrees and all these things that these guys are struggling with, and we have our own, we'll talk about those. You know, this death. If we look at the question number two, is this death progressive in my life?

Well, the question is talking about condition, right? Progressive, meaning something. Position is permanent, standing, it's a done deal. This question must be dealing with condition. So, the issue is, we've been crucified with Christ. Was Christ's cross our cross? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely it was.

So, what about this dying daily kind of thing? What about this carrier cross daily? Is this whole death something that I have to go through every day or think about regularly? How does it really matter to my life on the here and now? Does Christ's death on the cross matter to what I'm dealing with today?

Yeah. Why? Your sins are paid for. Your sins are paid for. So, over here, we've got the world, right? And over here, we've got, what do you want to call that? Yeah, I was waiting to see. What letter I'll put up there? We're talking about authority here, okay? So this will help. We've got two different aspects of authority. We've got worldly authority, and we'll just call it biblical authority. Did anybody experience the cross? It's in my mind. I haven't experienced it. I'm not on the cross. I mean, nobody nailed me to it, so... So, do we need to experience it for it to be true of us? No. Okay.

So, from an authority perspective, Paul is establishing some thoughts in these believers' minds. He says, there's a world authority, and we've talked about the legalistic aspect of that, we've talked about the false spirituality of that, and now we're talking about asceticism, which simply is these ideas that are being placed on believers in order to control aspects of their their behavior, right? And so, we use the words taboos or, you know, I think taboos is a good idea, or a good term for it, but we have this example of do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.

And so, how does the worldly authority differ from a biblical authority? He's saying, if you died with Christ, and that's not a question, right? It's a, since you died with Christ, why are you concerning yourself with worldly authority? And it comes in a lot of different forms.

I've just talked about several of them in legalism and false spirituality, and now I'm talking about all those degrading negative commands that you get from whatever religion you're involved with that tell you, don't touch, don't handle, don't taste. And it's interesting, in verse 21, he goes into degrees.

So it's like, it's this idea of, don't touch that. Don't handle it at all. Don't eat, in fact, don't even taste it. So don't touch that, don't taste it, and even more, don't even touch it. Don't taste it, don't handle it, don't touch it. And I could add more to it. And it comes from this worldly authority that's meant to do what? Why does he say, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch? What is it that you think the Colossians were dealing with? Those things put you under bondage. What does he call it? You're right. What does he call these, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, what's the term that he uses in verse 20?

Elementary principles. Okay, so what does elementary principles mean? I do a lot of this. Elementary principles, over here in this worldly authority, right? So what does the word mean? Does anybody look that up in their study? Storkia. Rudiments. Some of your translations may say rudiments. Yeah? It's the ABCs of the earth. The ABCs of the world, right? So again, we're going to add more letters in here. Is it all physical ABCs?

In other words, do you think he's talking about the elementary principles such as evolutionary biology? What's he talking about? Elementary principles. If you've died with Christ, too, so you've got death, meaning separation, and we talked about that has positional and conditional consequences, but if you've died positionally and you've died conditionally, in other words, you've been separated, So your separation from the sin nature positionally affects your condition today. If you've died, and you have, then what did you die from, from the elementary principles of the world, then why are you dealing, why are you submitting yourselves, why are you putting yourselves under these ABCs of worldly living? Because the place always wants to do something.

This guy? Over here? Bad. The flesh... Okay, so when we talk about the flesh, we've used the word flesh and condition here. I'm going to say body. Because the body is what is preventing us from being ever consistent with our position, right? It's the one thing that the sin nature is attached to, right? So once the body is separated from this earth, then we no longer have to struggle with the sin nature, and our position is eternally consistent with our condition, face-to-face with Him, as you mentioned earlier. So, the body struggles with the sin nature, and the sin nature is is a deposed monarch.

Do you remember us talking about that? So he's got the megaphone and he's running around as long as this body is still this body on this earth, he's running around with a megaphone like a drill sergeant saying, Hey! What about these elementary principles of the world, buddy? What about the ABCs of where you are today? Hey, don't forget where you are! Don't get your head in the clouds so much, so believer, that you forget about these elementary principles of the world. You're in the earth.

Right? And he's screaming, and he's got this megaphone in your ear, but he's deposed. What does deposed mean? He has no business telling us what to do, but does it stop the sin nature? It doesn't stop it. So, what is it that he's you know, piping through the megaphone.

Yeah, so I was thinking more about these ABCs you're talking about. They relate to how to deal with fleshly indulgence, right? Per 23. So they're ABCs, they're the flesh's ABCs of how to deal with flesh, right? So it's like, it doesn't work. The flesh's ABCs.

I think that's a good way of putting it. Could we say we alter behavior conditionally? We alter? Behavior conditionally. ABCs. I was like, man, that's deep. That's a superstar. Yeah, we can say that. We just did. It's funny. Alter behavior conditionally.

Is the flesh's ABCs our operating system? So, you know, I'm a computer guy. I think that Vern's analogy of our operating system is helpful to me, but when I think about You know, the operating system of the believer. What is the operating system of the believer? Is it the flesh's ABCs? Put yourself in the shoes of a brand new believer. You just came to know the Lord. You just learned about your separation.

Is your operating system the elementary principles of the world? Yeah. No it isn't. But you don't know much about the new operating system, do you? So you've got this new operating system over here. What do we call that? Grace. Alright. So we've got Grace over here. You're a brand new believer. All you've ever known, all you've ever done was listen to the flesh's ABCs. You become a believer, you die with Christ, you're separated from the sin nature, and you enter an operating system of grace.

Do you know much about this? No. Okay, so now you're a believer for 30 years. Yeah. Do you know much about this? No. I should think you would after 30 years. I sure wish that that were the case. What is it that... So a brand new believer or a mature believer, both of them positionally are in an operating system of grace. Doesn't your consciousness tell you when something violates the grace part or what we believe in, even a new Christian, don't they feel guilty over certain things within themselves? Yes. So a brand new believer right out of the, you know, right off the press. Do they have the Holy Spirit? Yes. And what's the role of the Holy Spirit? What's some of the roles of the Holy Spirit? There's many. Regeneration, indwelling, baptism, sealing. Construction, comforting.

So, this brand new believer has known nothing but the day before. Nothing but worldly, legalistic, false spirituality, the taboos that whatever organization or whatever human has put on them in terms of, don't do this and do that and this will gain you favor with so and so. There's all these degrading negatives that are added to what you should and shouldn't do. That's all they've ever heard and that's all they've ever done. only figure out how to perform in the best that they can with the taboos that they're surrounded by.

And all of a sudden, they come to know the Lord, they're separated from the sin nature, and they have all of these things applied to them through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And you're right. They may not have the Word of God in their mind with regards to the operating system of grace, but all of a sudden, now, this megaphone of sin nature starts screaming out these elementary principles of the world to them, and they say, all they have is like a big...

You ever push a button on your computer, and all of a sudden you get this... This thing pops up, and if you're on Windows, it pops up like ten times before you can get out of it. You're like, I'm okay. I agree to agree to disagree, I agree. and you keep agreeing, but it starts with a brr. So they don't know what's behind all the little error alerts, but they get them, right?

The Holy Spirit starts sending these things off, and you mentioned our conscience. When our human spirit is joined to the Holy Spirit, in salvation, it begins with an awareness of what is pleasing to the Lord and what is not pleasing to the Lord. And then, does it stop there or does it require that a believer begin to look at the authority of God's Word in the Bible to understand what is happening with these alert systems in their brain? What if a person never got into the scripture and just said, you know what? I'm just going to go with the Holy Spirit here. I don't know why, but I've got the alert system going off, so I'm not going to do it, but I don't really understand what happens to that person.

No growth. No growth? False is growing grace in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a progressive thing. That's interesting. I agree. Not much discernment, right? I see a lot of A lot of young churches today are embracing socialism because they think that Jesus would take care of the poor. So, they're still teaching. I'll come back to that for sure. Jim, you began with a positional statement that what about that new believer? Is he still tied to elemental principles?

And it's been my experience that in most churches, when you become a Christian, They immediately tell you, well, now you've got to get busy memorizing verses, and, well, you've got to show up on Wednesdays, and you've got to be here Sunday morning. Well, you better be here Sunday night, too. They have all these elemental principles that have nothing to do with grace. And that is what most Christians are taught today. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, do not skip church on Sunday. I like what Vern said last Sunday.

He said, and when we're in heaven, we will continue to learn about grace. Eternal. And so that was comforting. It is. You know, one of the first things I learned at Holly Hills was that grace doesn't have an end. Grace had a beginning, in a sense. I mean, was grace necessary before the Fall? Well, it was necessary, but that's why Jesus came, isn't it? So before the Fall, before sin had entered the angelic and human realm, was grace necessary? No. It was lost. It was already planned. For sure. Retreat! I'll let Courtney answer that next week.

Grace was a necessity to fallen mankind, right? I thought at one point in time, once we get to heaven, face to face with the Lord, why do we need grace? There will be no sin. But I soon came to realize that based on one of the verses in Ephesians, I can't remember it right now. we will continue, while we won't have a guilt for the sin that we experienced on the earth, we'll have an awareness of what Christ did to rescue us for eternity. And so grace will be something that we continue to learn on for eternity. Which is a very comforting thing, I have to say, it really is. So, thinking about the brand new believer who's going to learn about grace for eternity, but they don't know much about it.

They've got all the alert systems going off, but this megaphone of the fleshly ABCs, the rudimentary or elementary principles of the world, keep going off. And Paul asks a question. He says, why do you submit yourselves to these decrees or these ordinances? Now, let me ask you this. Brand new believer or mature believer, maybe like you guys, whatever the case, what are the elementary principles or the fleshly ABCs that are being spoken through that megaphone of your flesh telling you, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. That was the example Paul gave But those aren't the only elementary principles, are they?

There's a lot of them. In fact, it could really be anything. I mean, you think about... We can use the church, like different churches do this, or different churches say that. I want you to think about what do you place yourself under with regards to elementary principles? Don't look at that. You walk by and go, don't look, don't look, don't look, don't look, don't look.

Right? Yeah, there's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. You have a question? I don't have a question, I just want to say it and it makes me laugh. When I was 11 years old, I gave my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I quit sneaking up to the Shirley Temple movies. You quit? Yes, I did. That's awesome. So, the megaphone was like, Shirley Temple! Come see me! I haven't gotten any since.

Do we all struggle with the same elementary principles of the world? Yes, no? I see yeses and noes. Yeah, I was thinking about when I was a kid and I got saved when I was 12 by reading the Bible on my own and some other things that helped me. But right away, practically, I felt like I shouldn't be going to the movies. the drive-in with my parents but I couldn't stay home alone and so I was kind of torn because my step-grandparents were believers and I knew they didn't like movies so automatically I probably shouldn't be going to the movies but my mom and dad were going to make me so you know I was kind of torn Do all of you remember when you became a believer and you had those principles, whatever they were, that you put yourself under? And I remember things like, you know, I think it was, you mentioned memorizing scripture. I wrote down scriptures, tucked them in my wallet, and I felt like if I just had the Word of God in my back pocket at all times, I could pull it out and lay it on whatever it was, and it would be slayed.

It was weird, but that's kind of how I thought. I was like, if I have this verse, and was my heart in the wrong place or the right place? Was your heart in the wrong place or the right place when you said, I don't want to go to the movies? I think it's right because you want to behave and think in a way that is pleasing and acceptable to God. Now what if I said, do not go to the movies.

In fact, don't even get popcorn. And don't even pretend like you're going to taste that popcorn. And never sit next to... A popcorn eater. They're evil, and if you sit next to a popcorn unit, they'll pull you in too. With their wonderful smelling sins. I think we have a popcorn problem over here.

So when you say whether it's a good motive that you do, who's the one wanting to do that? Where's the authority coming from? about the don't go to the movies. Yeah, don't go to the movies or don't, you know, or you've got to have your scripture with you all the time because, and again, this isn't about the Word of God, it was about the physical card, the index cards in my back pocket. If I didn't have those, I couldn't ward off evil. We use, sometimes we use things, devotionals or quiet times to protect us for the day, right? We have these things that we do, and so I'm taking the common taboos of, you know, don't do this, do that, to the very spiritual nuances that new believers and even mature believers get caught up, and they have this authority, this deposed monarch that says, you've got to do this in order to avoid that, and you've got to be here in order to not be there. And there's all these fleshly challenges that the mind starts to go through that the authority is not over here. It's not biblical. It's still taboos, or ordinances, or decrees.

I got saved in a Nazarene church. Pastor Rich and Shirley Powers taught me all about grace and they were beautiful people. But as soon as my wife and I got saved, they gave us this little black book. You don't do this, you don't do that. It's a huge book. Don't swim in the next company. I mean there's a whole book. This is the taboos of the world. You do not do these things. Everybody have a book like that? Don't swim and make, yeah. I don't even have to wonder what, I don't need a megaphone, I got a book.

I got my Bible over here and I got my book, my other book over here. So a couple that are a little tougher are like reading your bible and praying. Because we're talking about what I do to, what my flesh does, what I do, dependence upon myself to make myself holy or to not sin. And if I read my Bible and I pray, I feel better about myself. I'm a little more acceptable to God that day.

Right? That's not true. Has anybody ever felt that way? Yes. Today? Today. And that's what I want to go back to when you say, you know, if these people who did it out of good motive, it's still fleshly. Even though I think it's just like what you're saying, reading the Bible. You know, I've got to do it. Why? Because God will smile on me a little bit more if I do this today. Great motive, you think. But that's the flesh. Under grace it's unmerited. Not what I try and do. When you start talking about it, it's me, I, all these things. I, me, I. Where's the focus? The focus is on me, even though I have a great motive. And I've talked about that, where I felt the same thing on memorizing scripture. It used to drive me nuts, because all these great eloquent men that I saw memorized scripture. And I thought I had to do that. You know, because that's what God wanted.

And that is not it. That was the flesh telling me, great motive, quote, but it was still the flesh. And the unmerited part is the key in grace. It's not what we do, or even if we have a great motive, it's the flesh wanting to do something. We're not going to be any more acceptable for anything we do. That diminishes what Christ did. If we think we have to do any of these rudimentary, elementary things to add to what Christ has already done for our acceptance. And, you know, no matter what our good motives are, it is the flesh doing that.

And that's where, you know, when we do these things, I think it still comes back to the beginning of the identification, this crucified, our separation. And now we're in Christ. That's where you've got to start from to have the growth, because I think a lot of believers start out where they don't know that. And so you get the booklets. You get the, how do I get better at myself? How do I act like a Christian? How do I do all this stuff?

And they don't have that separation that says, you're in Christ now. You're complete. And now it's, you know, the things of the world start to fall away. It's Christ, or as Paul says in Corinthians, that I die daily. Or, you know, in the world, I've been crucified. 6-4 or whatever, 6-14, yeah. May it never be I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. We're done with the world. We're done with this whole thing? We've been crucified to it. We're done. It's done.

And as we understand that, I think it comes down to, again, that fight of the faith. It's what we believe and what we understand of who we are in Christ. That's, again, focusing on where we are now, positionally, in the heavenlies. This world, we're just ambassadors down here for them. And I think people don't understand that. Again, the position and condition. We understand where our position is. our condition, if we understand that, will begin to gravitate to that position as we understand what's true of us.

So that's really... I think that's right on. Some of us have a certain time of day that we set aside to read the Bible and pray. In other words, we should not set aside any time of day. I'm glad you asked that. Okay, so let's go there. You all have your routines, right? Some people like coffee, black. in the morning before they read the Bible. Why? Two cups. Wake up. As you sip your coffee.

I need eggs and bacon before I get into any kind of reading or thinking or whatever. We all need something or believe that this routine is what is going to keep us in shape spiritually. Some of us say, I don't want a routine at all. We don't have one. Is a certain time of day, or a certain routine, or having coffee or not having coffee, is that the issue?

No. What's the issue? It's not what, it's who. Exactly. Who's the issue? Christ. Does He care when and where and how you spend time with Him? No. No, just that you do. Just that you rest with Him. Right. A believer who understands the operating system of grace doesn't have all the do's and the don'ts surrounding their life. I don't have to have a quiet time at this time during the day. I don't have to pray X amount of times a day. But do you spend time in the Word and do you pray? Not because you have to, but because you're in Christ.

He's a person. And those alert systems are not computer dialogue boxes. They're personal. It's like the hand on the shoulder. And it's not like, don't do that! When we look at how Christ, through His Spirit, draws a person to Him, whether they're new or mature, it's out of love, isn't it? Instead of these error dialogue boxes going off, it's more like, son, this is not going anywhere for you.

I've got life, and I've got a relationship that I want you to understand more about. Come with me. Let's spend time together. Let's talk. I've given you so much, and I want you to know about it. A little different. But the fleshly ABCs, the rudimentary principles of the world, man, they just want to add decrees and ordinances.

And what does he say about these things? What's going to happen to them? What does perish mean? You have all these ordinances that you feel are important in your life, and guess what's going to happen to them? Oh, they're going to be burned up. They'll be burned up. Like straw. Like straw. If the destination of these elementary principles of the world are headed, For perish-ment, is that a word? No. Perishing? Perishing. Hey, I like to make up words. Don't tell me I can't, that'd be an elementary principle of the world. So don't ask us if it's a word. Good point. Just assume we'll accept you.

If these things are headed, if they're going to perish, Why are you dealing with them? And again, Paul's question is, if you died with Christ, if you're in Christ, then why are you concerning yourself with worldly authority? Whatever shape, form, fashion it comes in. Whether it's legalism, false spirituality, asceticism, it all comes to a head. It's just a question.

Why in the world would you want to deal with the worldly authority when you have A biblical theory that is based on a person. Why would I? Because I have to grow in understanding where my life comes from and the ramifications of that in regard to my separation from the world. We definitely have to grow on that. And we all have degrees in different areas of our life where this worldly authority is still alive and kicking, right? But think about what that area of your life is really assuming. We've got five minutes here.

When you believe that the worldly decrees, the ABCs, the elementary principles of the world, are what you should be doing, what are you really saying about God's Word? God's authority. What's the bare bones reality of that? The power of His Word. Well, think about this.

If you say, I know what I should and shouldn't do, it doesn't matter what the scripture says, I'm not going to handle or touch or taste this thing. I'm going to go above and beyond what you've said and go ahead and get over here and anybody that wants to join me with these ordinances and commandments of men, just come on over here, I'm going to take it a step further. In fact, you've given me your word and I'm going to put some surrounding elementary principles of the world around it just to protect me from it. The Jews did that, right? We call it legalism, and we've already covered it.

But now we're talking about asceticism, taboos, just the things that you're like, I'm not even, the word says don't do this, I'm not even going to do this, this, this, or this, and I'm going to put myself under these extraneous other types of commandments in order just not to get even close to that.

You're saying that Christ isn't enough to get you. That's what you're saying, isn't it? You're saying, God, you don't really know enough And I need to add some authority in my life that's going to help govern a right walk with you or right behavior. I know better than you. Now, think about that. I mean, at the end of the day, This whole thing has to do with a person, and believing in the authority of that person for daily living. We're talking about sanctification, the walk.

Every situation where the megaphone goes off in our life, we have a decision to make about authority. And when, and we all do, and we have 1 John 1, 9, in order to walk through that and find fellowship with him again. But when we go through this process of abiding with the megaphone of the fleshly ABCs, what we're really saying, and I've always been a big proponent of, let's just call it what it is. And that first John 1, 9 confession, let's call it what it is.

When you're walking and listening to these things, what's really going on is you're saying, God, you're not wise enough for me. I've got a little wisdom of my own here, and it's a little better than yours, and I'm going to go with that today. Kind of putting it just in terms where it says, if you're dead, why are you messing with these things? Trying to put it into common terms today, we put it into all these things they were trying to do about it.

A couple of examples we've used is, if I keel over and die and I'm going down the hearse and the highway and I'm doing 75 in a 55 mile an hour, do they give me a ticket? Am I still under this world and all that? I'm dead to it. I don't get a ticket. If I'm convicted of murder, and I'm due to be executed, and I keel over and die on the way to the execution chamber, do they prop me up and kill me again? I'm dead.

You're dead to these things. The world doesn't mean anything anymore, these rudimentary things. You're dead to it. You're not under a speed limit anymore. If you've died, well, we still have speed limits and all that, but a dead man is not subject to the rudimentary things. He's telling you, why are you still messing with these things? You're dead. It's just like you're not subject to the speed limit anymore if you're dead. Don't mess with these things.

It's insane. Does that make sense? I have to say something. We have one minute. Courtney, if you are as It sounds like you are already gone from this service. I mean, do you ever make a mistake? Oh, I make mistakes all the time this morning. I know. It makes it sound like that we should reach a point where we never, you know, that we just know our position and we don't worry about anything. I'm sorry, I am not able to do that even now. I will never be until I step into eternity.

Okay. Rid of that. That's all I wanted to know. But the thing is, as you grow in the grace, the things that distract you, these bullhorns that say, you know, I've got to do this or I do this or that, as you focus on the person of Christ and where you are positioned, where you are positioned, I understand. that is where you grow in the grace and the knowledge. Okay, I understand. But I am not perfect and I never will be until I step into eternity. It just seems to me like it boils down to the fact that if we respond to all of these pleasure things that ruin the world, we're saying that the real worth of God is not attitude. That's what we're saying. Call it what it is.

And he's saying, why would you go down that path? And I think it's a heartfelt question that Paul's asking. Why would you do this? Because, not because, I would love to see your behavior be such and such. It's because you have Christ. You have a personal relationship with Christ. And so as we part from this class and go into the rest of the day, I think that the real point here is that you have died to the worldly authority. You still struggle with it. I do. Gordon does. All of us do. We still struggle with it, but we're separated from it.

And our position and our condition receives its authority from who we are in Christ and it's guided by the biblical testimony of the Lord. So you're transformed, right? You're transformed because you now have faith but you still have to live in the real world and you can't go through the red light because they'll come and get you. So I'm going to take that real world, the term real world, and talk about that as the first question next week. And I'd like to talk to you after class. I'm just kidding. I'm totally joking.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you that we can get excited about what we read here and that it spurs conversation. And Lord, the reason we ask these questions and spend time together as a body is because we want to know you. We want to encourage one another to a deeper understanding. We know that the understanding is not designed for us to do and have certain behaviors, but to rest so that you do the living through us. And we just pray that whatever place we are in, in terms of our spiritual growth, that we would find ourselves enjoying time with you and learning about you because of how wonderful you are and what you've done on our behalf. to be thankful recipients of your grace. It's in your name we pray. Amen.