Informative Speech On Jesus 1: 1-18

Jesus Is First 5/29/16

Good morning, thank you for being with us here at Gateway this morning. If we haven't met, my name is Don. I’m the Pastor of our Spanish Gathering here at Gateway. And this is Johanna. She helps me translate at our gathering because if you don't know it by now, Im not spanish! Im a coconut, brown on the outside and white on the inside.

How many of you have been pulled over for speeding before? Don't you just hate it when you pass that Trooper on the highway and immediately you look to your speedometer t see how fast you were going and then quickly look in your rear view mirror to see if he’s coming after you? And then all of a sudden the terror that you feel when you do see him coming after you with those lights and

that noise? Oh man, Ive been pulled over several times and thankfully I have a get out of jail free card. My brother in law is a Trooper! But really we have no excuse when we get pulled over because we know what the speed limit is! And then the Trooper walks up to your window and asks you if you know how fast you were driving. You say, well you know 60, 65 something like that. And he responds well you were going 72! And in the back of your mind, you’re thinking, this wouldn't be an issue if we were on the autoban, this is so dumb! I mean many of us have been through driving school so we should know what the laws are. In this state we have tons of laws, not just dealing with the road and driving, but other things as well. Here’s a list of some of these dumb rules . . .

Bigfoot - The harassing of Bigfoot, Sasquatch or other undiscovered subspecies is a felony punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment. So all of you Squatters and Bigfoot hunters out there be careful!
No person may walk about in public if he or she has the common cold. Stay at home!
X-rays may not be used to fit shoes. Why? I do this all the time!
People may not buy a mattress on Sunday. I don’t even know!
It is illegal to pretend that one’s parents are rich. Isn’t everyone’s parents rich?

We’re in a series called Jesus Is First, where we’re finding out what it means to put Jesus first in our lives. The book of Colossians was a letter written by Paul to the people in Colosse. They were being led into some stinking thinking about the divine truth of Jesus and what it meant to live a life in Christ by false teachers. So Paul addresses the church in Colosse t encourage them to not allow anyone to lead them astray with these teachings by assuring them that Jesus is God. For “For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.” (2:9), and that He, “reconciled everything to himself’ (1:20), and He did it by, “nailing it to the cross.” (2:14) referring to our sins.

By allowing this false teaching to creep into our lives it can cause our growth in Christ to be choked out by weeds of legalism.

Legalism can be defined as a strict observation to the law.Specifically as it relates to faith. A legalist will believe that performance is the way to gain favor with God. It’s a human attempt to gain salvation or prove how spiritual we are by conforming to a list of religious do’s and don’ts.

Before we jump into our text this morning, here’s some observations about legalism.

Others are legalistic, but we’re not. The fact is we’re all legalistic by nature. We tend to judge others by our own standards of what is acceptable and what isn’t. Basically we think our sins smell better than others.
Legalism is highly contagious. While it’s less conscious in our minds than it was in the Pharisees, legalism can spread like a bad cold through an entire congregation. That’s why Jesus was very harsh towards these list makers, as He said “They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are from from me (Mark 7:6-8)
Legalism will take a vibrant faith and make it lifeless right away. It’ll literally evaporate your life in the Spirit. Instead of finding freedom in Jesus you become burdened by keeping all the do’s and don’ts.
Legalism produces a heap of self righteousness and condemnation. It majors in guilt and urges people to evaluate their relationship with Jesus based on how they’ve kept the law.
Legalism makes it impossible for people to truly experience Jesus. There’s nothing that pushes people away from Jesus quicker than a list of rules and regulations. It makes Jesus out to be a drill instructor instead of a Savior.

Most of us fall into legalism without even knowing it. How many of us close your eyes when you pray? I remember the first time I kept my eyes open while everyone had theirs closed. And all of a sudden I felt like I was committing some kind of great sin. I thought that somewhere in the scriptures there had to be some kind of rule that said they had to be closed when you pray. Nope, can’t find it. But that feeling made me afraid about what others would think of me if I did keep them open, so I closed them. And then I began to think it was wrong for anyone to have their eyes open during prayer. Do you see how subtle and sneaky that was? It’s like a weed slowly creeping up through the flowers, trying to choke you out.

And that’s exactly what was happening to the church in Colosse. We have to be taught over and over again that we are saved and grow not by works but by His grace lest any man should boast! I believe the Spirit is urging us to pull these weeds of legalism.

Remember Our Legal Standing (Colossians 2:9-15)

The best way to fight against legalism is to remember where we came from.

We need to remember what Jesus did for us on the cross.

9 For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. 10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
11 When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. 12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

Here are 3 things that we can learn from the text this

morning.

You Are Complete In Christ — 9 For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. 10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. 

If you have your bible this morning and love to take notes, circle that phrase “In Christ”. It shows us that Jesus is the center of God’s saving power. When we put our faith in Jesus and make Him First in our lives, we are included in all that He has done. All the fullness of God lives in Him. If you want to know what God is like, then look no further than Jesus. Because in Jesus we dwell with Him permanently. Jesus isn’t just a way to God, He is the only way, because He is God Himself!

Not only does all the fullness of God dwell in Jesus, you are filled with that same fullness. It’s a permanent experience. One translation puts it this way . . . “You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.

If you have repented and placed your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, then there’s nothing lacking in your relationship with God. There’s not some extra blessing or another experience you need to have. You have everything you need in Jesus. That fullness becomes yours when you receive Him.

We Are Alive — One of the many great things about preaching are all the jokes I get to tell.

Sometimes people have asked me “What are we studying today” And Ive responded “Oh you know, the 7 steps to a successful circumcision” and as people look at me like what? really? Then I say . . . In Christ! And they laugh and say of course! And so when the teaching team got together to talk about this series and we were diving up the scriptures and assigning who was going to preach about what, Pastor Tom gave me this passage about circumcision!

Take a look at verses 11 - 13a . . . 11 When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. 12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. 13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away.

God initiated circumcision in the Old Testament as part of His covenant with His people in order to set them apart and identify them as true followers. One of the problems at Colosse was that legalist were demanding that Christians submit to circumcision and obey the OT Law. These false teachers were a bit different than the ones that Paul confronted in the book of Galatians. In Galatia, the false teachers were insisting that circumcision was necessary for salvation. Here in

Colosse they were suggesting that obedience to the OT Laws would help them be more spiritual.

Though circumcision is physical procedure, there was certainly some scared importance. The trouble was that OT followers insisted on the physical act without emphasizing a change of heart.So it became a religious ritual. That’s why Jeremiah 4:4 says that believers were to circumcise their hearts. Physical acts are never meant to be the substance of our faith. Instead a spiritual change from the inside out is what God does in us.

When we put our faith in Jesus, He spiritually circumcises, or cuts away, our sinful nature to prove that we belong to Him. Since we are alive, and no longer dead in our sins, Paul uses the illustration of baptism. 

Baptism has a literal and figurative meaning. It literal meaning is “to dip, or immerse”. The figurative means “to be identified with”.

We have to keep in mind that just as the physical act of circumcision did nothing to change someone’s heart, so too, the waters of baptism itself don't save anyone. When we place our faith in Jesus, 1 Cor 12:13 clearly says that we are baptized or identified with Christ.

Water baptism is a beautiful picture of an inner reality. When we go under the water, we are symbolizing our death and burial with Christ, and when we come up, we become a picot of what it means to be raised into life with Christ. We died with Him, we are raised with Him, and we have life because of Him. Baptism, vividly portrays the death and burial of our sinful way of life. When Jesus died, our old nature died with Him. This is our spiritual circumcision. When we come up out of the water, we symbolize that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too, are raised to new life!

Remembering that the old sin nature is dead and buried in Christ gives us power to resist sin. And we have to treat them as such. They are dead, they are nailed to the cross! We are forgiven!

We Have Victory — 15 In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.