I've noticed that this microphone is real hot.
Let's turn that down.
What I have noticed is that plants can be deceiving and I've picked up on that after a couple
years of gardening now.
For instance, there's this little weed that grows in my garden and it's got a really
spiky stem and some spiky leaves.
Gene probably knows the name of it, I'm sure.
But it's in the garden and it looks really flimsy.
So it looks like you could walk over to this thing and just easily uproot the whole thing
out of the ground and you would be wrong.
Because you go over and you pick at that thing and not only does it prick your fingers, but
you might only pull off a leaf or a little bit of the stem, but you're not getting out
of the ground.
It's because even though it looks flimsy, that plant has some really deep roots.
So you actually have to get in there and shovel it out.
Now you compare that to something like a squash plant.
I think you all know what a squash plant looks like, look familiar?
Yeah?
Look good, everybody think about fried squash now, right?
So yeah, squash plants are deceiving because they grow to be this huge plant and they spread
out really far and you can see there that the branches are pretty thick, right?
So when you look at a squash plant, you would think, man, I bet that thing is super sturdy
and you would be wrong.
I think everybody in here who's ever grown squash can tell you that they've plucked
up the entire plant just by trying to get one squash off of it before.
That's what happens.
It's because it has these really weak shallow roots.
And so when my son, Judah, wants to come out and pick the garden with me, he has free
rain over the whole garden except the squash plants because I know that if he's not careful,
he can easily uproot the whole thing.
And it's interesting that when we come to this passage in Colossians, Paul is greatly
concerned that people are going to be coming into the Colossian church and plucking up the
Colossian Christians.
He is worried that there's going to be some false teachers who are going to come into
their midst and pluck them up.
And you have to keep in mind, Paul has never met the Colossians.
Paul is in prison at the time that he is writing this.
He's never even visited Colossae that we know of.
And yet he has this great concern for them.
In fact, he's so concerned for them.
It's almost like he's losing sleep over this situation.
He's keeping him up at night.
And he even says very plainly in verse four, I say this in order that no one may delude
you with plausible arguments.
So you see, that's what he's concerned about.
He's worried that there's some false teachers who are going to come in and delude the Christians
with plausible arguments and pluck them up.
And I can relate to Paul here because I've told you all before, I really have no fear
that a Muslim or a Hindu or Sikh or anything like that is going to lead you astray.
I really have no concern about that whatsoever.
But I do get real anxious when you text me and say, hey pastor, Jehovah's Witness came
to the door today.
I love those conversations.
Those are my favorite ones to have.
But I get worried when they come to your house because I'm worried that Jehovah's Witnesses
sound just enough like Christians to lead true Christians astray or to lead people down
a path that is actually false teaching.
I mean, this is the same kind of concern that Christian parents have when they send their
kids off to college too, right?
You raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
You train them up in the ways of the Lord.
They're in church their whole lives.
And then when you send them off to college, you're concerned that they're going to get
around some academic atheists and they're going to lead your children astray.
And that's the same kind of concern Paul has here.
And so what he's doing is he's checking the Colossians' roots.
He wants to see how firm their roots are.
And the point he's making here is that disciples with deep roots aren't easily plucked.
Disciples with deep roots aren't easily plucked.
And he desperately wants all Christians to have these deep roots in Christ.
That's why he even says in verses six and seven, therefore, as you received Christ Jesus,
the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith just
as you were taught abounding and thanksgiving.
Now, listen, it's one thing for me to stand up here this morning and say that as a Christian,
you should have deep roots in Christ.
But the problem is we all know of people who claim to have deep roots in Christ at one
point who've walked away from the faith.
They seemed like they were deeply rooted in Christ, right?
They seemed like they were a strong Christian and now they don't even claim to be a Christian.
We know of other people that we thought were deeply rooted.
And then something happened to them in their life.
They had a great tragedy happen to them and it was enough not only just to shake their
faith but it was enough to completely uproot their faith.
You see, we all know that there will be storms in our lives that will test our roots but
you want to make sure that your faith is going to be firm before the storm gets there, right?
I mean, imagine that you were going on a beach vacation and you were staying in a newly built
house in this hurricane season and you go and you talk to the homeowner and you say,
hey, there's a hurricane on the way.
How do you think she'll hold up?
And he says, we'll see.
How are you feeling at that point?
Pretty good.
You feel comfortable?
No, right?
You want to know before the storm hits that the house is going to stand, right?
And in the same way, you want to know that your faith is going to be able to withstand
the storms of life before the storms get there.
And so this is what Paul is addressing here in this passage and the question I want us
to consider is what are the signs that we are deeply rooted disciples?
If we do want to make sure that our faith is going to hold up, that our roots are deep,
that the foundation is sure, then what are the signs that we are deeply rooted disciples?
I want you to see what the word says here in verses one through three.
Paul writes, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those that
lay out to see it and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may
be encouraged, be in knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance
of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery which is Christ in whom are hidden
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
So you notice here what is Paul's aim as he's writing to these Christians?
He's writing to encourage them and specifically he is wanting to encourage them to knit themselves
together in love.
Did you notice that there?
I want you to be knit together in love.
Now the question is, why would this be the first thing that Paul mentions?
If he knows that false teachers are coming into this church and he knows that heresy
is starting to be spread in this church, why wouldn't he just jump straight into sound
doctrine?
Why wouldn't he just jump straight into addressing all of the problems?
Why start here?
I think the answer is because Paul understands that the church's strength lies not in individuals
but in the community that God has placed us in.
You see a house may be made of some incredibly strong materials, but unless those materials
are put together correctly, it doesn't matter how strong they are, the whole house is going
to fall, right?
That's exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 12, 25.
He said this before Abraham Lincoln by the way, every kingdom divided against itself
is laid waste and no city or house divided against itself will stand.
In other words, the church rises together and the church falls together.
The church succeeds together and the church fails together.
The church's strength does not come from a few standout Christians.
It comes from the whole community that God has placed us in.
And it's really interesting that God in his wisdom has given us some examples of this
in creation.
So for instance, here's a picture of a California redwood tree.
We don't have any trees that big around here, but you can see this is a huge tree, right?
And some of you have probably seen them in person.
I never have.
That'd be cool to see one day, but these are some of the biggest trees in America and in
the world, California redwoods and sequoias.
They can grow to be about 350 feet tall.
I mean, they're just massive.
And so you would look at these trees and you would think that in order for a tree to be
this tall, it must have some pretty deep roots in order to be able to grow to this height.
But in actuality, California redwoods and sequoias, their roots typically only go about
five to six feet deep.
And as you can see here, what actually gives them their strength is that even though their
roots only go about five to six feet deep, they go about 150 feet outward.
And what they do is they start intertwining their roots with the roots of all the other
trees in the area and all their roots start to fuse together.
And so when this happens, these trees become an almost immovable object that the tree does
not get its strength from its own root system.
It starts depending on all the roots of all the other trees.
And so that the entirety of that groove is strung together.
Now we can look at this picture and pictures of California redwoods and we can appreciate
God's creation, right?
We can appreciate the beauty of his design.
But when I look at this picture, I see a picture of the church.
I see a picture of what God is calling us to do here because like the redwood trees,
we get our strength from other believers from being rooted not only in Christ, but rooted
together with other believers.
Like these trees, we're called to intertwine our roots with the roots of other believers.
And when we do this, when we are rooted together in Christ and rooted with one another, it's
in the faith, then the gates of hell can do nothing against the church of Jesus Christ.
We are strong because of God's design.
And so the point that Paul's making here is that deeply rooted disciples are deeply rooted
with other disciples.
Deeply rooted disciples are deeply rooted with other disciples.
In other words, church, you were never meant to do life alone.
You were never meant to live out the faith alone.
God did not call a single person.
He called and collected a people.
And that is the church.
We are called and collected by God to knit ourselves together in love, to intertwine our
roots with the roots of other believers and stay in firm against anything and everything
that we will face from the world.
I love the way the great German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it.
He said, it is grace and nothing but grace that we are allowed to live in community
with Christian brethren.
This means that if you're an isolated Christian, you are in danger because it means that you
were not rooted together with other believers, which means you are depending on the strength
of your own faith to withstand all the storms that you will face in life.
It means that you are depending on yourself and your own strength and your own wisdom
to make it through everything.
And listen, you might have done it up to this point.
But what happens when a bigger storm comes?
What happens when a tragedy comes that you didn't expect?
Are you certain that you are still going to be standing even then?
You know, I think one of my favorite parts of our church service together is our time
of fellowship.
Because by the way, that's not something we put in there because we have to.
There's not like a Baptist manual that says, here's the order.
There might be actually, that sounds like something Baptist would do.
Now if it exists, I don't have it.
I don't know about it.
So, but that's not why we put that in there.
We didn't put that in there because we have to.
We put it in there because the Bible says in Acts chapter two that Christians are to
be as devoted to fellowship as they are to the teaching of the apostles.
And so we take fellowship very seriously here.
And we put that in there and this is beautiful time because there's no time constraints.
It doesn't say like we're going to talk to each other for two minutes or three minutes.
I mean, we could do that or we could talk to each other for 15.
Doesn't matter.
Like there's no time constraints.
But it's a beautiful time when we can go around and talk to other brothers and sisters
in Christ and connect with them.
And we can start to intertwine our roots together with other believers.
So let me just give you a warning here.
The absolute worst thing that you can do during the time of fellowship, and I should have
preached this before we had it.
The worst thing that you can do is sit there at your pew or stand there at your pew and
not move at all.
That's the worst thing you could do is just stay right where you are and cross your fingers
and hope that someone comes and talks to you or the opposite.
Cross your finger and hope someone doesn't come talk to you and they just leave you alone.
That's the worst thing you could do.
The best thing that you can do during that time is leave your pew.
That's the first thing you should do.
Whenever Jordan stands up and says time of fellowship, first thing you do is leave your
pew.
You force yourself to go and talk to other people.
Introduce yourself to other people.
Go talk to people that you haven't talked to before.
Go talk to people that you don't typically talk to.
Talk to connect with other believers and intertwine your roots with them so that you can be built
up and knit together in love.
That's how we form this Christian community that God has placed us in.
So one question I think everybody should be asking themselves right now is whose roots
have I intertwined with?
Who's going to help me withstand the storms of life?
I'm personally very thankful for my gospel group because I can say right now that we
have truly intertwined our roots together because we've got this group chat and I can't
tell you how often during the week that goes off 24-7 all the time and all throughout the
week people are texting saying that they need help or they're struggling or they're asking
for prayer and without fail everybody rushes in to encourage, to help, to build each other
up, to pray for one another.
If someone's struggling we rush in to do everything we can to help them.
I mean we are not a group of individual trees.
We are a grove that God has knit together in love and rooted together in love.
And listen Paul is saying here that's what the entire church is supposed to look like.
It's not just individual groups within the church, the entire church is supposed to be
like this.
So listen we can't stand firm against the storms of life and all that is coming our way if
we're busy chopping down the trees and roots of other believers.
How are we supposed to stand firm and be knit together in love if we're constantly hacking
at other believers?
The world is going to do enough damage to us.
Let's not help them and make their job easier by hurting ourselves.
The church will only be as strong as our love for one another.
Paul knows this which is why he starts here but notice his other aim in verses two and
three.
He says not only that but to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding
and the knowledge of God's mystery which is Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge.
Now I want you to notice something interesting here.
Paul is keeping his focus entirely on Jesus.
So before he's getting into all the different heresies that he's heard about and all the
ways false teaching has come into this church he is pointing people to Jesus and setting
their focus on him.
And the question is well why would he do that?
It's very simple it's because Paul understands that if the Colossians can just know Jesus
for who he truly is and how he has revealed himself to us then they will easily be able
to spot every single counterfeit Christ that might come their way.
This is exactly how the FBI dealt with the problem of counterfeit checks.
Back in the 70s and 80s check fraud and counterfeit checks were rampant because checks were one
of the primary methods of payment right?
And so the FBI wanted to do something about this and they were training people on how
to spot counterfeits.
Here's what they didn't do.
They did not make people study thousands of images of all the possible ways that you can
forge a check and make a counterfeit check.
Instead what it was really interesting what they did is they formed this task force and
they gave them all authentic checks and they made them spend hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of hours studying what real checks look like because they knew if they understood
and could recognize the real thing then they'd easily be able to spot the counterfeit.
And Paul is saying the same thing here.
He's saying that deeply rooted disciples focus on knowing the real Jesus so they can easily
spot counterfeits.
In other words church if you will know the true Jesus and how God has revealed him in
Scripture you don't have to know the ins and outs of every possible heresy.
You have to just know Jesus as God has revealed him to us.
So for instance let's go back to Jehovah's Witnesses.
Let's say you're at your house and a Jehovah's Witness comes to your house and you're talking
to a Jehovah's Witness and you're talking to a Jehovah's Witness and you're talking
to a Jehovah's Witness and you're talking to me and you say pastor typically here's
what I do.
I just shut the door in their face and tell them to try the next house or I give them your
address because I don't want to deal with them.
So you're missing a great witnessing opportunity there but let's just say you say pastor I
don't really know what Jehovah's Witnesses believe.
I don't know their theology and so I don't feel like I can have a productive conversation
with them.
Well here's the thing you don't actually have to know everything they believe.
Because if a Jehovah's Witness comes to your door and they say hey we just want to talk
to you about the kingdom of God make sure you understand that Jesus is not God.
He never claimed to be God and that he is actually the first thing that God created.
You could pause right there if you know the real Jesus.
It's very easy for you to say hold on brother I don't know where you're getting that but
that's not the Jesus of the Bible.
That is not what we read in the scripture.
We read in scripture that nothing was created apart from Jesus and everything that was created
was created by Jesus.
So if Jesus was created how could he create himself?
Doesn't work that way.
We read in the Bible that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and
the Word was God.
The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is God in the flesh.
And so you don't have to understand and know everything about Jehovah's Witnesses.
You just have to know what the Bible says about Jesus.
And if you know what the Bible says about Jesus you can have that conversation.
I'd say the same is true for Mormons.
We don't have a lot of them around our area but if you ever go to Utah or Arizona you'll
start seeing a lot more of them.
You might say well pastor I don't really know what Mormons believe.
I don't understand Mormon theology.
That's okay.
I don't think they do either.
I don't think they know what they believe.
But let's say you're having a conversation with one and they say hey the Bible doesn't
teach that there's a Trinity and the Bible says that not only is Jesus not God he is
the brother of Satan.
I think you all know enough Bible to go hold on a second.
Once again I don't know where you're getting that from but that is not what the Bible
says about Jesus.
We're talking about two different Jesuses here.
The Jesus of the Bible has no brother.
It's certainly not Satan who is the enemy of God whom Jesus crushes under his foot.
That is not what the Bible teaches.
So the point I'm trying to make to you here is that I know that we typically believe we
can't have productive conversations with people unless we know everything that they believe
in all the possible heresies.
But listen to me.
As Christians we are not called to be experts in everything.
We are called to be experts in one thing and that one thing is Jesus.
And Paul is saying here if you will just know Jesus for how he has been revealed in Scripture
you're going to be equipped to spot every possible heresy that you could ever come
across.
And this is what he says in verses four through seven.
I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.
For though I am absent in body yet I am with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good order
in the firmness of your faith in Christ.
Therefore as you received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in him rooted and built up in
him and established in the faith just as you were told.
Abounding in thanksgiving.
Now I want you to notice this phrase here plausible arguments.
In the Greek this was used in the ancient world to describe arguments in which lawyers
would try to cloud the mind of jurors by basically getting them to contradict or give a verdict
that contradicted all the evidence.
So basically these lawyers were coming in and they didn't have a credible argument.
They just used fancy language and they used catchy phrases to try to sow a seed of doubt
into the minds of jurors to get them to give a verdict they agreed with.
So if you want a modern example of what this would have looked like back then it's the
ancient equivalent of if it doesn't fit you must equip.
Only three people got that.
Okay that's fine.
No one watched the OJ trial.
That's crazy.
But that's basically what these guys were doing.
They were saying hey ignore all the evidence ignore everything you've heard before.
Here's something new to consider and they wanted to put this new thing before them so
that they would start questioning the roots of their faith and the foundation of their
faith.
And basically this is what was happening in the Colossian church.
Some false teachers had started invading the Colossian church and they were seeking to
corrupt all the believers there.
What they were doing is they were touting something known as Gnosticism.
If you want to know how to spell that you can just it's spelled like it sounds of course.
G-N-O-T-I-C-I-N-S-I-S-M.
So Gnosticism which just comes from the Greek word gnosis which means knowledge.
And basically what they taught is that people needed this spiritual hidden knowledge in
order to achieve true spiritual enlightenment and know God.
And so they were basically saying hey I know you think you know God because you know Jesus
but if you really want to know God and you really want to achieve spiritual enlightenment
you need this secret hidden knowledge.
And this was rooted in the philosophy of Plato.
And Plato basically taught that everything physical was bad and everything immaterial
or spiritual was good.
And so what humans needed to do was they needed to get rid of the physical, embrace
the spiritual and then you have spiritual enlightenment.
This is why one of the first heresies the church ever encountered was people saying
that Jesus didn't actually have a human body.
They said of course God would never take on a human body that's physical.
Everybody knows that's bad that's evil.
And so they claimed that Jesus merely appeared to have a human body while he actually was
just a spiritual being.
And that contradicted the clear teaching of scripture.
So this is what the Colossian church is up against and this is what Paul is addressing
here and the way that he is countering this heresy is by telling them that they don't
need to attain this secret knowledge they just need to know Jesus.
Jesus said the same thing in John 819.
They said to him therefore where's your father?
And Jesus answered you know neither me nor my father.
If you knew me you would know my father also.
So how do you know the father?
Through Jesus.
Sunday school answer guys right?
Yeah.
How do you know the father?
Through Jesus right?
If you knew me you would know the father.
He says the same thing in Matthew 1127.
All things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows the son except the
father.
Listen no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to
reveal him.
That's the point that Paul is reiterating here.
What he's doing is essentially warning against novelty in theology.
These people are trying to introduce something new into classical Christianity and Paul is
warning against that.
The way that I always say to people is novelty in theology is heresy.
Anytime you introduce something new into the old you will end up with heresy.
You can see many examples of that in our day.
Think of someone like Joseph Smith.
He claimed to receive new revelation from God and so what he did was he introduced a
bunch of new things into the faith and we end up with the heretical teachings of the Mormon
church.
Or you can think about someone like Charles Taz Russell.
He also claimed to receive new revelation from God.
He introduced all sorts of new things into theology and then we end up with the heretical
teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
If you want just a modern day example of someone who's still alive you can think of someone
like Joseph Prince who's a well-known preacher and teacher.
He's a false teacher.
So you all got to stop sharing his quotes on Facebook because I see it and I take notes.
So all right you all got to stop that.
So no more Joseph Prince stuff.
He is a false teacher and he is one of the leading voices in what's known as the hyper
grace movement.
Now initially that sounds great right?
We love grace at this church.
We are all about grace so hyper grace just more of it.
That sounds great.
So basically what this movement teaches is that because of God's grace in Christ nobody
needs to repent of their sins.
And nobody needs to ask for God's forgiveness.
Nobody needs to confess their sins.
In fact this movement teaches that obedience to God is not even something that needs to
be part of your life.
You can obey him.
You cannot obey him.
You can go to church.
You cannot go to church.
You can sin or not sin.
You live your life however you want to live.
Basically they teach that all you have to do is acknowledge that God has done something
in Christ by sending him to die on the cross and now you are free to live however you want
and do whatever you want and you will still be saved and go to heaven.
That's novelty in theology and it's led to heresy.
Because I don't know if you remember but Jesus' first ever sermon back in Matthew chapter
4 was repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Jesus also if you remember in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation he told
each of those churches that they needed to repent of what they were doing and turn again
to him.
If you remember Peter's first sermon at Pentecost the crowd asked him what must we do to be saved
and Peter said repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.
Repentance repentance repentance all throughout the Bible but this movement says we're grace
or we're sin abounded grace abounded all the more and we want to say yes of course that's
what the Bible says we're sin abounds grace abounds all the more but you can't stop reading
there because Paul then goes on to say so should we keep on sinning so that grace shall abound
and he said may genuita may it never be of course not.
We should not abuse the grace of God by our sin and so what's happened here is that this
movement has sounded really appealing it's used church words it's referencing scripture
but it's introduced enough novelty to lead people astray into heresy and so what Paul
is doing here is he is saying deeply rooted disciples walk the old trodden paths not
new enticing paths deeply rooted disciples walk the old trodden paths not new enticing
paths you want to avoid anything that is novel now it can be original but it doesn't need
to be novel and certainly you should avoid anything that says there is a new way to God
other than the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus says in John 10 one truly truly I say to you he who does not enter the sheepfold
by the door but climbs in by another way that man is a thief and a robber and he clarifies
just so there's no mistaking what he means in John 10 9 he says I am the door if anyone
enters by me he will be saved and will go in and out and find pastor what is Jesus saying
there he is saying there is no other way to God except through him there is no other way
to eternal life except through him and if you hear someone say that there is that is
a clear sign that that person is leading you astray we actually saw this happen recently
with the pope the leader of the Catholic church he was on a panel discussing world religions
he had people from other world religions they are leaders of those religions and at one
point the pope the leader of the Catholic church said that all of these other religions
were ways to God that all of these other people had legitimate ways to God and that they were
all on their path to the same one true God folks I hope you can see that that is heresy
all paths do not lead to God all religions do not lead to God I know that's not popular
to say in our world where you're supposed to acknowledge that everyone has a legitimate
path to God and you're okay I'm okay we're okay it doesn't work that way the Bible says
there is one path to God and it is the Lord Jesus Christ and you cannot have another entrance
to God in eternal life except through Jesus and so we walk the old trodham paths not the
new enticing ways my point is you're going to hear many new theories about Jesus when
you're going to encounter new ideas and new portraits of Jesus you're going to even encounter
in our day new ways to be a Christian and new ideas about what it means to be a Christian
and how to live the Christian life and I want to encourage you this morning to stick to
the narrow way intertwine your roots with the roots of other believers familiarize yourself
with the Jesus of the Bible stick to the old path stick to the way of the cross because
the old hymn so beautifully says the way of the cross leads home amen.