Overcoming Spiritual Intimidation, Part 3 (Colossians Sermon 8)

Two Great Drives in the Universe

I have learned, over the last five years especially, of the poignancy of this statement, that there are two great forces in the Universe, the drives of the Universe. The drive of God to be glorified in His creation and the drive that each human being has to be happy, to experience pleasure, to be joyful. These are things that are incontrovertible, we can’t deny them, we become sick if we try to, and one of the key issues in your life is where are you going to meet your drive for pleasure? Are you going to find it in the person, in the presence, in the power of Almighty God and Jesus Christ, or are you going to find it in other things, created things. I think that’s one of the key issues of your soul and mine. God created us for pleasure. He made us for that, and he created both in the soul and in the body something you could call pleasure receptors. The body has the ability to sense physical things by sight and sound and taste and smell and feel. We can experience the world around us. And in a set of those experiences, we find pleasure, sensory pleasure, and God made it that way, it’s not an evil thing. The soul also has the ability to experience spiritual pleasure, and God made it that way. It’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. Both of those things are created by God. Look at the tongue, for example. Actually, don’t look at it, but just metaphorically look at it, or shall I say, consider the tongue. Your tongue has over 10,000 taste buds and different ones are assigned with different tasks for sensing the countless flavors that God has made in this physical creation. Some of them you count pleasing to you, and some of them don’t. But God created them all and He created the whole interchange between the taste and the tongue.

And it’s fascinating, and all of the practical advice given in the Book of Proverbs, it’s amazing that He actually commands that we should eat honey. Isn’t that an interesting thing? You find this in Proverbs 24:13, “Eat honey, my son, for it is good.” I mean, that’s a sweet command, isn’t it? Now, I think we have a sense that honey in that verse represents more than just honey. And even if we don’t personally have a taste for honey, we can still obey the verse, right? The Book of Proverbs gives us representational, practical wisdom, that we, through the wisdom of God, through the Holy Spirit, we can apply to different areas of life, so even if you don’t like honey, you still can “Eat honey, my son, for it is good”. I think it has to do with experiencing pleasure in the physical world that God has made, that you can taste and see that the world that God has made is good. And that you ought to do it. You ought to eat, you ought to taste and see that it’s good. But it’s not the only advice that the Book of Proverbs gives concerning honey, you actually have to read on and get the full picture. In Proverbs 25:16, it says, “If you find honey, eat just enough. Too much of it, and you will vomit.” That’s again very good, practical advice. And herein, we find a challenge in dealing with physical pleasure in the world. We’re supposed to eat honey, apparently, because it tastes good, but we’re supposed not to eat so much that we vomit, for that is clearly not good, and so this urges balance. It urges self control in the area of physical pleasure.

And so as you’re driving along the road in the physical world, as you have a physical experience with your physical body, you’re going to find two ditches on the opposite side of the road, one on the left and one on the right. And on one side, there is asceticism, what I would call a hard asceticism, which teaches that we must deny these physical pleasures and not partake in them for they will do damage to us and that salvation consists in getting away from physical, sensory pleasure. That was the lie that the Colossian heretics were teaching to the people in that area. And Paul was specifically warning against it in this text, but on the other side is another ditch called gluttony. And I don’t just mean overeating, but I just mean overindulging in physical pleasure in this world in a way that will damage your soul.

Those are ditches on each side. Now, in the same way, the soul has pleasure receptors. And we have the ability to receive spiritual sensations of pleasure by spiritual truths and realities. And God made the soul that way. And frankly, I think the one is to help teach the other. “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” says the Scripture. Well, we can’t taste God literally, but we know that by eating things that are delicious to us, that God, in a similar way, in a spiritual way, is delicious to the soul. And so often, there’s that analogy of eating or drinking with God, Jesus even said to eat my flesh and drink my blood. And so there’s this sense of really partaking in the goodness and sweetness of God spiritually, and that’s a good thing. This ability of the soul to experience spiritual pleasure and to delight in it is a good thing created by God. But it’s got its dangers too, because not every spiritual influence is a good one, and there are some damaging, dangerous, spiritual influences. Satan is a spiritual influence, and sometimes he disguises himself like an angel of light. And people seeking for spiritual pleasure through meditation, and through self-denial, and through other things, seeking the spiritual pleasures may actually be opening themselves up to Satan’s influences, as he presents himself as an angel of light and they expose themselves to great danger. This is what I would call bad mysticism. And we see both of these things in the text today. Paul is warning about both asceticism and mysticism, because he’s concerned about spiritual health. And the connectings, I’ve meditated on these two, the connection has to do with pleasure. And the right way to experience it, and the wrong way to experience it, both physically and spiritually, that’s what the text is about. And we find wisdom for all of these things in Christ. Amen? And in Christ, we will avoid the ditches.

In Christ, we will avoid the danger. And there are ditches on both sides of the spiritual pleasure as well. There is the ditch of not knowing that Satan comes as an angel of light and you get into bad spiritual experiences that leads you in great danger. But on the other side, there is spiritual deadness, a deadness and dryness of soul in which you really don’t expect to feel any spiritual pleasure at all, haven’t felt it for years. Oh, that we might be delivered from these extremes in the Christian life. And I think it’s only by the ministry of the Word of God, by the application of the word through the spirit, by heeding the warnings that the Apostle Paul gives that we will be kept safe, and we’ll be able to continue to grow as a community in our sanctification.

I. Complete in Christ

Review: The Supremacy of Christ

So let’s look more carefully at the rest of this Colossians 2. But I want to do it, as usual, with, I think, a good sense of the context of the passages that we’re looking at today, the verses we’re looking at. First, in Colossians 1, by way of review, Paul goes through and goes, I think, right to the theological center of what these Colossian heretics, these false teachers were teaching in that region. We don’t know for sure that they had come to the church at Colossae, but maybe Epaphras had come there and was saying they’re coming, “Paul what do I do and how can I get ready?” Etcetera. And so, they were teaching that the physical world is evil, that the body itself is part of the problem spiritually. And that salvation comes from denying bodily drives, denying physical pleasures, and you do this by means of a mixture of legalism, of Jewish laws, rules and regulations, and a harsh treatment of the body. And spiritually, you are on a journey in which these spiritual emanations, these spirit guides could help you by giving you inside and specialized knowledge. And so you sought to open yourself up to these spiritual influences and Christ is one of those emanations, so they taught. Well, that’s heresy, and so in order to get it, he says, “Let’s focus on Jesus Christ, all heresies go wrong on Christ.” So let’s go right on Christ, let’s find out who Christ is, and then we will find healing and that, it’s healing through doctrine. And so he says now, “Who is Christ?” Well, “Christ is the image of the invisible God. He’s the firstborn over all creation, for by Him, all things were made, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.” You see, both the physical world that we’re dealing with in this text was made by Christ, so it’s not evil. And the spiritual world was made by Christ and He rules over it, “he’s the head over every dominion and power.” So all things are found in Christ. And then in chapter two, as he moves over into chapter two, he says, “God was pleased, God the Father, was pleased to have all of His fullness, His deity, to dwell in Jesus in bodily form,” the doctrine of the incarnation.

Christ is Complete, We Are Complete in Him

The “Word became flesh,”  Jesus took on a human body, and “God was pleased to have all of His fullness, the infinitude of the immortal God, the invisible God made flesh, made man. And you have been given fullness in Christ.” Oh, how sweet is that truth, and we spent some wonderful time meditating on that. And so much healing comes from that, and strength comes from meditating on how complete am I in Christ, how full am I in Jesus now that I have become a Christian. Tell me how complete and how full I am, and Colossians 2 will do it. It will tell you right there that you have been given fullness in Christ. And then it unfolds in the middle of Colossians 2, saying we have been fully circumcised, spiritually. The old nature was cut away. We are new people. We are new men and women. We are new creations. “The old is gone, the new has come,” He says in 2 Corinthians 5. We are also fully alive. We’re brought from death to life and we can never die. Death has no mastery over us. We will live forever and we are fully forgiven. He forgave us all our sins. He nailed them to the cross, not partially forgiven, friends, but completely forgiven. And we are fully free from the law. We’re not under the law’s dominion any longer. We don’t have a bunch of rules and regulations that we have to keep in order to be right with God. We’re free from that. And we are fully triumphant over Satan. The powers and principalities and their authority to condemn us, really, on judgment day was nailed to the cross, and it will trouble us no longer. How sweet is that? That’s your fullness in Christ and from that solid ground of doctrine, from that solid ground of biblical truth, you are able to fight any heresy. But this was a unique heresy and along comes Satan’s intimidating voice, saying, “It’s not true, you’re actually incomplete. Maybe halfway there but we need to supplement the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, not enough. What Jesus did on the cross is not enough for you, you have to have more. You need philosophy. You need to have new insights coming from human wisdom and you need legalism. You need to be made right before God by your own or be kept right by your own efforts and your own law-keeping, really.” And in this text, we’re going to see you need to add mysticism, the worship of angels. You know, the secret encounters with spiritual beings that will lead you to the ever-ascending realms of insight and illumination, you need that, and you need to add asceticism, you’re not going to fly spiritually if you’re nailed down by your body. So let’s deny the bodily drives, let’s eat as little as possible. Let’s deny any kind of sensory things and let’s focus on the spirit, that’s what they taught. And it sounded right. It sounded good. It seemed to establish Christ as having died on the cross and all these things, it seemed right but it was wrong. And the essence of it is you need more than Jesus. Jesus is not enough for you.

II. Satan’s Intimidating Voice: “You Are Incomplete!”

Well, that’s Satan’s intimidating voice and the bullies come along with philosophy and Paul warns in verse 8, look at it, “see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition, the basic principles of this world, rather than on Christ.” And then last week, we saw the intimidation of legalism. Verses 16 and 17: “Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day, these are a shadow of the things that were to come, the reality however is found in Christ.” Remember the definition of legalism from CJ Mahaney, we looked at it last time. “Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through your obedience to God.” But I tell you that forgiveness and acceptance are freely given to you by God through Christ. They are gifts of grace. They’re already yours, you can’t earn them, you never could, and they’re just given to you as a free gift. Okay, that was last week. The review is over. Context is over.

V. The Intimidation of Mysticism

Now, let’s talk specifically about the issues that are in front of us in the text and the first is this intimidation of mysticism. Look at verses 18 and 19. “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility,” other translations there have asceticism, we’ll get to that later, but “false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions.” “He’s lost connection with the head from whom the whole body is supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews grows as God causes it to grow.”

The Threat to the Colossian Church

What was the threat to the Colossian church? What were these teachers teaching? Well, they taught a kind of a higher knowledge, spiritual, higher knowledge. The region was rife with what we would call mystery religions. And the essence of a mystery religion is that there were an enlightened few that knew all of the things and that they would guide you up through circles of knowledge and you would get to know more and more about the mystery religion, very enticing, very appealing. And for the enlightened special believer, these keys of knowledge will help you make continued progress. You’re ascending higher and higher in a mystical, spiritual plane, and the angels or emanations, whatever you want to call them, are there as spirit guides to help guide you through this journey, to give you insight you wouldn’t have in any other way. They would give you knowledge, special knowledge. They would help you make the journey. This sounds New Age-ish, doesn’t it? “There’s nothing new under the sun.” God is the creative being. Satan takes what God creates and perverts it, twists it and rearranges it. So he just pulls things out of the freezer and just heats it up, leftovers, microwaves it and serves it as though it’s something new. But here, it’s been all along the same idea of spirit guides and emanations and all that, the worship of angels, really, they’re worshipping these emanations, these spirit beings, of whom Christ was one, so they taught.

And they went into great detail about what they’d seen. They were experiencing some kinds of visions and ecstatic spiritual experiences. They went into great detail with the uninitiated, perhaps because they wanted to do them a favor and help them, but perhaps it was a form of arrogant boasting, basically saying, this is what I’ve experienced and now I am better than you. They might not say it directly because there’s a false humility side here that we can talk about, but there was an essential arrogance and pride here to the ascended ones, the ones who had received this special spiritual knowledge. And it said that their sensuous minds, speaks to their sensuous mind, they actually were not being led by the Spirit of God, it was rather sensory experiences they were having inside their minds and they were leading them astray. These experiences were rooted in the flesh, in sensations rather than in doctrinal truth. They weren’t rooted in the truth of the Gospel. They had lost connection with Christ, the head, who is the head of the body. That was their problem.

Definition of Mysticism

And what these folks were doing is traditionally called mysticism. You’re not going to find the word mysticism in this text. And so therefore, you have to be careful by what you mean. What is mysticism? It’s actually not an easy thing to define. So, when something’s not easy to define, you go to the dictionary and find out what it says. And so, I went to a number of dictionaries, and the theological dictionary that I went to, the evangelical theological dictionary gave about two paragraphs saying how difficult it was to define before they started to define it. So, I figured I’d go to Webster since they didn’t have as much trouble, they just gave me a definition. And it said, “The experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality.” I’ll read it again, “The experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality.” That sounds bad, doesn’t it? Scary and dangerous, New Ages, like you need to get a crystal and kind of sit in the lotus position and chant, “Ommm… ” And you can be connected in a higher consciousness with ultimate reality. Well, that’s Webster’s. It does sound bad, but friends, not so fast, not so fast. What is the ultimate reality? Now, that’s the key question. And if you are somehow connecting with ultimate reality apart from Christ, as He is revealed in Scripture, you have significant problems. It’s extremely dangerous. But if you’re defining the God who created heaven and earth through His Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Spirit as ultimate reality, why wouldn’t you want intimate communion with him? So, you have to define your terms here carefully. And if mysticism is a problem for you, the terminology, if it causes you to stumble, then dispense with it. But don’t judge other people who haven’t dispensed with the term yet. Try to find out what they mean. Just like philosophy. The word philosophy is neither good nor bad. I want to know what you’re teaching and what your source of information is. There’s good philosophy and there’s bad philosophy, and so, there’s good mysticism, if we want to retain the term, and there is bad mysticism.

And I tell you that a mystical experience is at the heart of your conversion to begin with. If that’s what you want to call it. For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6. That is a mystical experience, if you want to use that term, of the greatness of God in Jesus Christ. And it’s so vividly applied to your soul that it’s as though a light is shining where there was darkness before. And that, my friends, is an experience. It’s called being born again, and it’s based on doctrinal truth, that’s called the Gospel. And when you hear and believe the Gospel, then this light shines in your heart. Now, during that Great Awakening in the 18th Century, a great scholar and pastor, Jonathan Edwards, had to sift through all of the religious experiences that people were having as the Holy Spirit of God was being poured out, and people were doing things that they hadn’t been seen doing before. And it was threatening and scary, and it was mixed and it wasn’t all good or all bad, and Edwards very carefully starts to sort through it, and defends the Awakening from different extremes, from the old lights there in Boston, staunch, conservative theological regime that saw all of it as bad, and he said, “There is deadness in the center of your theology there. These are good experiences.” And he preached a sermon saying that it is reasonable for there to be an immediate direct light imparted to the soul. It’s a reasonable doctrine. It’s called conversion. And it can go beyond that, much beyond it, but he’s defending it also against the extremists, who thought, just because you threw yourself on the ground and rolled around and jumped up and screamed “hallelujah” and all that, you were saved. “I never experienced anything like that in all my life. I must be saved.” Not so fast. And so, he was careful and he sifted through it all. Now, he himself was one who had many experiences that many would call “mystical.” If you don’t like that term, then just say they were powerful experiences in his prayer life, in which God revealed himself to him in an incredible way. In his own conversion experience and testimony in January 12th, 1723, he said this, “I made a solemn dedication of myself to God. The sweetest joys and delights I’ve experienced,” listen to this, “have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my own good estate, but in a direct view of the glorious things of the Gospel.” In other words, he kind of forgot himself and saw how glorious were the things of the Gospel itself. How glorious is God, how glorious is his Son Jesus Christ, how glorious that he died on the cross for our sins, how sweet and glorious it is that our sins could be transferred from us and put on our substitute, and he stricken and smitten by God for our sake. His blood shed on the cross. How glorious it is that we can find freedom in that? These truths are rich and glorious. And he said, “Just the things of the Gospel themselves in a self-forgetful way became… “, “I had a direct view of them,” he said, “I have many times had a sense of the glory of the third person in the Trinity,” that’s the Holy Spirit, “In his office of sanctifier, in his holy operations,” listen, “Communicating divine light and life to the soul.” “Many times,” He says, “I’ve had that experience, not just a conversion, many times, as an infinite fountain of divine glory like the sun in its glory, sweetly and pleasantly diffusing light and life.” Oh, that’s a sweet and rich experience, isn’t it? Now, if you want to call that mysticism, then call it that. And maybe that some will stumble over that title, and so therefore, maybe you need to dispense with it. But you can’t dispense with the experience, and you ought to be seeking it if you’re not experiencing it now. Because a certain coldness and deadness may have settled down over your souls, and it’s been a long time since she felt anything like that. And you’ve forgotten just how sweet it is to be close to God and to be richly welcomed by Him and have a sense of assurance in your soul that God loves you through Jesus. It’s been a long time for you. So, forget the term then and ask what is going on here in my experience? Am I really loving Jesus? Am I really following Him? Do I really know Him? Or am I dead?

Bad Mysticism’s Long History

Well, mysticism, bad mysticism has a long history. Lots of attacks on the church through this. Worship of angels itself continued in the Lycos Valley, where the Colossian church was for centuries after this. It’s recorded in the church fathers. They continued to struggle with worship of angels. Other forms of mysticism have always been part of pagan religions. Buddhism started when Siddhartha Gautama had some kind of a vision of something and enlightenment came to him under a tree. And so, there are actually a lot of Buddhist mystics, Hinduism, similar kinds of spiritual experiences, transcendental meditation, all that, astral projection and out of body experiences, part of that Eastern mystic religion. Islam, Muhammad said that he had visions of Gabriel who gave him the Quran, and he had that mystical experience. Mormonism is based on a vision Joseph Smith had of the Angel Moroni who gave him the golden plates from which came the Book of Mormon. And that false religious system came out of that angelic visitation. So, it plagued the church on the outside of the walls of the church. But also, what I would consider bad mysticism has plagued the church within as well and the churches had to struggle and work through these spiritual experiences and some have gone too far, much too far.

Third century Gnostics, they were attacking the basic idea that the Gospel is sufficient and they were always teaching the keys of knowledge, you had to have this ascended experience and there have been many others as well, all the way down to the 17th century mystic Madame Guyon who advocated Quietism. I think it’s good, as we heard in the choir piece to be quiet, calm your heart in the presence of God, but she went too far. She basically said the essence of Christianity is passivity, and you ought to just simply receive whatever is pouring into your soul and you must not fight anything, even sin. And it led them into immorality and excesses. Strange. So, we have to be very careful what we’re talking about.

But there’s been good mysticism as well. I love reading this quote from Blaise Pascal, which I’ve read a few times on this pulpit, but I just love it. I love it. I want to read it again here, because I think it shows the key to good unusual experiences with God, if you want to call them mysticism. This is what he wrote. And this is what happened. Blaise Pascal was 17th Century French philosopher and mathematician who, after he died, they found sewed in his coat, a piece of paper on which these words were written. And why would you take the time to write something and sew it into your shirt or coat, except that it’d been one of the most incredible experiences of your life. And this is what he wrote. This man was a genius and he loved Christ and this is what he wrote. “This day of grace, 1654, from about half past 10 at night to about half past midnight, fire. The God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the wise, security, security, feeling, joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. Thy God shall be my God. Forgetfulness of the world and of all except God. He can be found only in ways taught in the Gospel.” Did you hear that? He can be found only in ways taught by the Gospel. That’s the Bible. So, this man is having a deep, powerful spiritual experience based on ways taught in the scriptures. You see, same thing as Edwards. He can be found in ways only taught in the Gospel. “Greatness of the human soul, oh, righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. I have separated myself from Him. My God, why has thou forsaken me that I be not separated from thee eternally?”

“This is life eternal, that they may know thee, the only true God and Him whom thou has sent,” Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. I’ve separated myself from Him. I have fled, renounced, crucified Him. May I never be separated from Him. He maintains Himself in me only in ways taught in the Gospel. He says it twice. Renunciation, total and sweet.

Wow, what is that? And do you get the sense he was actually writing while it was going on? And so, he knew he was still in the body, still in the physical experience, they would want to remember after it was over. He’s being a historian. He was writing it down. They’ll come a day we don’t need to write it down. We’ll just live it all the time. We’ll be in the presence of God forever and ever and we’ll know what he’s talking about here. And you’ll be able to stand it, because there’s only so much of this that a body can stand. DL Moody had an experience. He said, “I couldn’t mention it for years later in which God so poured Himself out of me. I had to ask Him to stop, to stay His hand, he said. I couldn’t take anymore. But He was good. He was good. I just couldn’t take anymore.”

Mysticism’s Great Danger

Well, mysticism has some dangers traditionally. Worship of angels, obviously, directly contrary to scripture. The Apostle John almost did it, you know that, in the Book of Revelation, falls down in front of the angel and starts to worship. “Don’t do it. Don’t do it. I’m just a servant. Get up. Worship God.” So, angels are glorious beings and Satan, knowing that, he himself being an angel, though a corrupt one, can present himself as an angel of light. There’s great danger there. But learn from Blaise Pascal and say, “I can find this only in ways taught in the Bible, only in ways taught according to the scriptures.” Also, danger is seeking us. A spiritual experience is apart from God’s revelation in the scripture, opens us up to demonic influences, because not every supernatural experience is from God. And even good spiritual, supernatural experiences can make you arrogant, make you prideful, as though you’re somehow better than the next person. And so, the Apostle Paul, he says now, “I know a man in Christ, whether in the body or out of the body, I don’t know, but God knows.” Was caught up to the third heaven,” caught up to paradise. “He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to talk about. But to keep me from becoming conceited, because of these surpassingly great revelations, it was giving me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan.” Okay? So, you could say, “Well, do I really want something like that if I also have to have the thorn in the flesh to keep me from being arrogant?” All I’m saying is, note the danger, pride, and arrogance, and boasting over your brothers and sisters in Christ.

BUT the Danger of Deadness

But there’s also a danger, friends, of deadness, isn’t there? And maybe that that’s more your danger. Not that you’ve flown too high or you’ve flown apart from the scriptures, but you haven’t flown at all. There’s been no elevation in your spirit at all. You just go through the motions. You just go to church. You bow your heads and pray out of habit before the meal, or maybe sometimes you forget. I’ve done that, to my shame. I’d be halfway through this morning, I was halfway through my bowl of Wheaties and I realize I hadn’t prayed yet. Lord, forgive me that I just rolled right in and forgot that this gift of a bowl of Wheaties, with all of its delicious flavor and it must be eaten quickly with very cold milk. My children will tell you I freeze the bowl ahead of time. Make the milk cold. That’s weird, isn’t it? I shouldn’t expose myself to these private comments because you’re going to come and talk to me later about them. But this is a taste treat from God and thank you, God, for it. But the deadness, friends, the deadness. When was the last time you felt moved to tears by something spiritual in the Gospel? That’s a danger too. “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Where is Psalm 63 in your life? “Oh, God, you are my God. Earnestly, I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory, and because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live and in your name, I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods. With singing lips, my mouth will praise you.” Where is that in your life?

Balance Found in Christ

Well, balance is found in Christ. We have been given fullness in Christ. In Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” That’s where our experience is. It’s so important to be submissive to the leading of the Spirit. I haven’t even talked about asceticism yet, and it’s almost 12:10. Next time, friends. Let me just stop. I wasn’t going to do this, but let me just stop and focus on this one issue now. What’s going on in your heart? What is God saying to you today? Where is Psalm 63 in your life and your experience? Are you moved frequently by the greatness of God’s love for you in Christ? Do you have a sense of it, an experience of it or not? Are you just going through the motions? Daily quiet time? I have all kinds of patterns and habits, but when was the last time that the kindling and all that was ignited by fire from heaven? When did that happen to you? Could be that you’re dead in your transgressions and sins. You’ve never come to Christ. Could be that God sovereignly brought you here today to hear the Gospel. You’ve already heard everything you need to know, but let me be clear about it.

God sent his Son into the world to be your substitute, that your sins might be taken off of you and transferred on to him and that he might strike his only begotten Son with his wrath, with hell in a concentrated, kind of laser-like way that Jesus absorbed the wrath of God, that we might be free from it forever. No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Oh, how sweet is that? But through simple faith that exchange occurs, your sins taken off of you and the beautiful, perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to you or given to your account in which you will stand on judgement day. Has it happened to you? Is it happening now as I speak? Is there an eyesight of your soul opening up and you can see beauty in Christ where you never saw it before? Then trust in him. Call on the name of the Lord and he will save you.

But you could say, “Pastor, I know I did all that. I know it. I don’t doubt that, but I have to be honest, it has been years since anything spiritual moved me to tears or to shouts of joy. Doesn’t always have to be tears. I feel dead, what can I do? What can I do?” I think you need to begin by getting alone with God and falling on your face and repenting of your sin. It’s not an accident. It’s not something that happened to you. It’s because you forsook your first love, you made choices in your life to turn away from Jesus. He wasn’t sweet enough for you anymore. And so, that pleasure that you were seeking, and I talked about it the beginning, you didn’t find it in Jesus anymore, and so, you turned to creative things. You turned to hobbies, you turned to pleasures, perhaps, you even turned to sin, to lust, and you filled your pleasure tank with things, and guess what? It’s leaving you empty, it’s leaving you dead. And the time has come for you to turn and to repent, and say, “Lord, bring me back, warm me up.” He will welcome you back. He will welcome you back richly, if you’ll simply take the time to acknowledge how distant you’ve become from him, and stay there until He moves inside you. Isn’t it worth the time? Or you can listen to what I’ve said and just move on, and the deadness will get even worse, if you can imagine that, and it’ll get even harder for you to hear the voice of God. But I consider better things for you. I think God providentially brought you here today, if you’re a Christian, to ignite your soul in Him again. Let him do it. Close with me in prayer.

These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.

Two great drives in the Universe

1)     God’s desire to be glorified in His creation

2)     Man’s desire for happiness… for pleasure

This human drive for happiness is created by God, but it was meant to be directed to HIM as the satisfier

God made our souls and our bodies alike with PLEASURE RECEPTORS… the ability for sense pleasure, to feel happiness, joy, elation, satisfaction

The body has the ability to sense physical things:  by sight, sound, taste, feel, and smell, we can receive what the physical world is giving us

The human tongue has about 10,000 taste buds; designed to receive an almost infinite variety of flavors which God has put in this world… one of them is HONEY

Honey

This golden liquid is one of the most astonishing creations of the natural world

Hardworking honeybees may travel as much as 55,000 miles and visit two million flowers to gather enough nectar to produce one pound of honey

The main attraction of honey is obvious:  it is incredibly sweet to the taste!

God designed the taste buds on the tongue to receive the sensations of sweetness, and it brings delight to eat the golden sticky fluid

As a matter of fact, God actually commands that we eat honey…

Proverbs 24:13  Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste.

But later, he qualifies it with a simple stipulation:

Proverbs 25:16  If you find honey, eat just enough– too much of it, and you will vomit.

Honey clearly symbolizes PLEASURE… and Proverbs urges us to enjoy the good things of this life

But it also urges self-control

BALANCE in the area of pleasure is a rare thing… but it is the focus of a wise Christ-centered lifestyle

Physical pleasure:  TWO DITCHES ON EITHER SIDE OF THE ROAD:  gluttony on one side, stern asceticism on the other

Physical pleasure, like the sweetness of honey, is a good gift from God;  and it is BAD THEOLOGY that teaches it to be a WICKED THING to enjoy honey

But physical pleasure was meant to point to a higher pleasure… God the Creator Himself

In the same way the SOUL has pleasure receptors as well, put there by God, to receive spiritual stimulation, pleasure from the spiritual world

It was made for HIM, to enjoy GOD, to savor Him and experience HIM

But just like there are dangers in physical pleasure, there are dangers in spiritual pleasure as well

FALSE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES (Bad mysticism) on the one hand (“worship of angels”) or spiritual DEADNESS on the other side… having NO SPIRITUAL PLEASURE

In this passage, we’re going to look at the last two threats Paul mentioned:  Already addressed Philosophy and Legalism… today we’ll look at Mysticism and Asceticism

I. Complete in Christ

A. Review:  The Supremacy of Christ

Colossians 1:15-17  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  ¹⁶ For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

B. Christ is Complete, We Are Complete in Him

Colossians 2:9-10  For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,  ¹⁰ and you have been given fullness in Christ

C. Gospel Truths Flow from This:  How Full Are We in Christ?

1. We are FULLY CIRCUMCISED (Spiritually);  We are FULLY ALIVE; We are FULLY FORGIVEN; We are FULLY FREE from the Law; We are FULLY TRIUMPHANT over Satan

II. Satan’s Intimidating Voice:  “You Are Incomplete!”

1. Satan’s goal is to make us feel inadequate in Christ

2. Then we will need to ADD something to Christ

a. Add philosophy… human wisdom and insights

b. Add legalism… human religious works

c. Add mysticism… human religious experiences

d. Add asceticism… human religious self-denial

3. Add them all… and you LOSE Christ, lose assurance, lose joy, lose power

III. The Intimidation of Philosophy

Colossians 2:8  See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

IV. The Intimidation of Legalism

Colossians 2:16-17  Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.  ¹⁷ These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

C.J. Mahaney:  “Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through obedience to God.”  [The Cross-Centered Life, p. 25]

V. The Intimidation of Mysticism

Colossians 2:18-19  Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions.  ¹⁹ He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

A. The Threat to the Colossian Church

1. “Higher knowledge”… mystery religions;  for the enlightened special believer;  keys of knowledge help you ascend higher and higher in spirituality

2. Emanations (angels) would help you make the journey… like New Age meditation, with angelic spirit guides expanding your mind and lifting you into a new spiritual realm

3. “Worship of angels”… really they are worshiping these emanations, these spirit beings, of whom Christ was one, so they taught

4. “Great detail about what he has seen”:  clearly they were experiencing some kind of visions, ecstatic spiritual experiences

5. They “go into” great detail in that they spread reports about their private spiritual experiences… they intimidate others who do not have these experiences and assign them a second-class status

6.  “Sensuous mind”:  they are not in these things being led truly by the Spirit of God;  their experiences are totally rooted in the flesh, in sensations rather than in doctrinal truth

7. This is what these folks were doing… some call it “mysticism”

B. Definition of Mysticism

1. Discernment:  like philosophy, there are both good and bad forms of mysticism

a. Mysticism is a word… and like all words we have to define what we mean

b. Direct experience of higher spiritual world

Webster’s Dictionary:  “The experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality” or “Direct knowledge of God, of spiritual truth, of ultimate reality attainable through immediate intuition, insight, illumination in a way different from ordinary sense perception or rational process.”

c. Sounds bad, doesn’t it?  Scary, dangerous, New Age, transcendental meditation, out of body experiences, sitting in the lotus position and chanting “OM” and receiving your “enlightenment” by an angelic being of light

d. NOT SO FAST

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

e. 1734, Great Awakening, Holy Spirit pouring out His influences and presence on many resulting in extraordinary spiritual experiences

Edwards, in his own conversion narrative, spoke of a powerful experience of the living God through the Holy Spirit:

On January 12, 1723 I made a solemn dedication of myself to God…. The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced, have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my own good estate, but in a direct view of the glorious things of the gospel…. I have many times had a sense of the glory of the third person in the Trinity, in his office of Sanctifier, in his holy operations, communicating divine light and life to the soul,… as an infinite fountain of divine glory… like the sun in its glory, sweetly and pleasantly diffusing light and life (Narrative of his Conversion, ca. 1740).

Edwards said this divine and supernatural light IS…

a true sense of the divine excellency of the things revealed in the word of God, and a conviction of the truth and reality of them thence arising

f. This is actually essential to saving faith in Christ

g. BUT it goes beyond it to an ongoing sense of the greatness of Christ, and a vivid experience of Him

So a working definition of mysticism must divide into two types… Good mysticism and bad mysticism

Good mysticism is an experience given by the Holy Spirit consistent with the Scriptures in which the glory of God in Christ and the truths of His word are made more vivid in the soul;  a livelier sense of the excellency of these things is given;  our hearts are fanned into a flame, our emotions are stimulated, and we can be drawn ever higher into a greater experience with Christ… that’s the GOOD kind

The BAD mysticism is any spiritual experience NOT given by the Holy Spirit, NOT consistent with the Scriptures, NOT focused on Christ

C. Bad Mysticism’s Long History

1. Bad mysticism’s long history

a. Worship of angels continued in the Lycos Valley (where Colossae and Laodicea were ) for centuries after this

b. Other forms of mysticism have always been part of pagan religions

i) Islam:  Muhammad said he had visions of Gabriel who gave him the Koran; whirling dervishes

ii) Hinduism:  astral projections and out of body experiences… flights through the cosmos

iii) Mormonism:  Joseph Smith’s vision of the angel Moroni

c. Even Christianity has had issues with this

i) Some of the modern charismatic movement puts more emphasis on visions and spiritual experiences than it does on the word

ii) Long history of mystics whose spiritual experiences seemed to trump sound exegesis of Scripture…

iii) 3^rd century Gnostics, who sought higher knowledge of Christ apart from Scripture

iv) Manicheanism: MANI was a leading Gnostic teacher who said he received spiritual illumination in his early manhood, claimed he was the physical manifestation of the Paraclete (the Holy Spirit), the last in a long line of religion founding prophets:  Buddha, Zoroaster, and Jesus; taught a dualistic system of good and evil, light and darkness

v) Dionysius the Areopagite, 5^th or 6^th century, a Syrian monk, who taught also a dualistic system called Mystical Theology in which the soul can rise through a cloud of unknowing and find perfect union with God who transcends all being and knowledge and become gods ourselves

vi) Western Mysticism also flourished, influenced by Augustine’s Confessions but lacking his solid grounding in Scripture

vii) Meister Eckhart, 14^th century German speculative mystic, synthesized Greek, Neo-Platonic, Arabic, and Scholastic elements;  he claimed that all creatures are pure nothingness… his writings are of great interest today to Buddhists

viii) Madame Guyon, 17^th century mystic who advocated Quietism, remaining totally passive and letting God fill you with himself… making no effort even to fight sin

2. Good mysticism has a long history too

a. Bernard of Clairvaux:  (1090-1153) – “Jesus the very thought of thee, with sweetness fills the breast; but sweeter far thy face to see, and in thy presence rest.”

b. Blaise Pascal:

 [17^th century French philosopher and mathematician; when he died, they found sewed inside his shirt a piece of paper on which was written the following]

This day of Grace 1654; From about half past ten at night to about half past midnight, Fire.  God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, Not of the Philosophers and the wise.  Security, security.  Feeling, joy, peace.  God of Jesus Christ.  Thy God shall be my God.  Forgetfulness of the world and of all save God.  He can be found only in ways taught in the Gospel.  Greatness of the human soul.      O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee.  Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.  I have separated myself from Him.  My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?… That I be not separated from Thee eternally.  This is life eternal: That they might know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ.  I have separated myself from Him; I have fled, renounced, crucified Him.  May I never be separated from Him.  He maintains Himself in me only in ways taught in the Gospel.  Renunciation total and sweet.

c. Jonathan Edwards

“[I found] from time to time, an inward sweetness, that used, as it were, to carry me away in my contemplations; in what I know not how to express otherwise, than by a calm, sweet abstraction of soul from all the concerns of the world; and a kind of vision, or fixed ideas and imaginations, of being alone in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, far from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, and wrapt and swallowed up in God. The sense I had of divine things, would often of a sudden as it were, kindle up a sweet burning in my heart; an ardor of my soul, that I know not how to express.”

d. D.L. Moody

D.L. Moody:  [He had been a Christian, a minister in charge of a mission; he was seeing people converted, but he wanted more]  “I began to cry as never before, for a greater blessing from God.  The hunger increased;  I really felt that I did not want to live any longer.  I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit.  Well, one day in the city of New York—oh!  What a day!  I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it.  It is almost too sacred an experience to name.  Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years.  I can only say, God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand.”

D. Mysticism’s Great Danger

1. Worship of angels is directly contrary to Scripture

2. Seeking of spiritual experiences apart from God’s revelation in Scripture opens us up to demonic influences

3. Not every supernatural experience is from God… Satan is a supernatural being who masquerades as an angel of light

4. Even GOOD supernatural experiences can make people arrogant, as if they are a superior order of Christian

5. The Apostle Paul had extraordinary visions

2 Corinthians 12:2-4  I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know– God knows.  ³ And I know that this man– whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows–  ⁴ was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.

6. BUT THEN:

2 Corinthians 12:7  To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.

7. The Colossian heretics used their unspiritual “idle notions” to intimidate “lesser Christians;”  they were steeped in arrogance though they tried to cover it with false humility

8. Sam Storms lists other dangers of GOOD mysticism:

a. Minimizing Scripture in the life of the Christian, or interpreting it allegorically

b. Putting experience over Scripture as authoritative in the life of the church

c. Overemphasizing God’s immanence and forgetting God’s transcendence

d. Forgetting Christ’s OBJECTIVE work for us on the cross as the foundation of our relationship with God… He is not pleased with us because we have this or that experience, but because Jesus shed His blood for us

e. Forgetting the infinite difference between Creator and us as Created beings… some mystics tended to so emphasize union with God that they forgot this:

Isaiah 40:12  Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?

Isaiah 40:22  He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.

f. Spiritual elitism:

g. Disengagement from the local church

E. BUT the Danger of Deadness

1. For all of those dangers, there is an equal and opposite danger of spiritual dryness or even deadness

Matthew 15:8  “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

2. We go through the motions… church attendance, prayer before meals, daily quiet times… but there’s little sense of intimacy with God

3. This exposes us to a GREAT DANGER… seeking pleasure and fulfillment from created things, from earthly things, rather than from Christ

4. Learning to seek God as a man dying of thirst in the desert seeks the living God is GOOD in the Christian life, not bad!!

Psalm 63:1-5  O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.  ² I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.  ³ Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.  ⁴ I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.  ⁵ My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

F. Balance Found in Christ

1. We have been given fullness in Christ

2. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge

3. We don’t need any angels to tell us more spiritual things… Christ is the creator and king of the angels, and none of them are the Son of God

4. The quest for mystical enlightenment apart from Scripture begins in falsehood (as though Christ is insufficient) and frequently ends in heresy (in which the mystic arrogantly disdains church leaders who have not experienced what they have experienced)

5. We should seek the face of God in prayer, and God may reveal Himself to us in powerful ways… BUT

6. Whatever insights Christ reveals to us about His Father or Himself should HUMBLE US, not make us arrogant

Matthew 11:25-27  At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.  ²⁶ Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.  ²⁷ “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

VI. The Intimidation of Asceticism

Colossians 2:20-23  Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules:  ²¹ “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?  ²² These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.  ²³ Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

A. Definition of Asceticism

1. Asceticism is the harsh treatment of the body for spiritual purposes, specifically in the denial of good gifts of God (like food, clothing, shelter) in the assumption that such self-denial will make us more pleasing to God

2. “False humility” =“Asceticism”:  part and parcel of their visionary experiences was a denial of food and other forms of asceticism;  the word here is “lowliness” or “humility” and is everywhere else used positively in the Christian life… but the context here is negative, so NIV gives us “false humility”… perhaps the showiness of fasting

a. Word usually used positively

Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

b. Here it must be negative…

Matthew 6:16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

3. Intrinsic to the Colossian heresy was the idea that the body was evil and that material things themselves were evil… therefore, to avoid feeding the body anything (food, clothing, sleep, comfort of any kind) was somehow well pleasing to God

4. See the statements

Vs. 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”

Vs. 23  Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body

a. These display the Colossian hatred for physical life

b. The desire for spiritual ascendancy through physical pain and suffering

B. Asceticism’s Long Sordid History

1. Almost every false religion in the world has had its ascetics…

2. Hinduism is full of “holy men” who fast for weeks on end, who sit motionless and deny all pleasures to the physical body… Buddhism seeks enlightenment the same way

3. Even Christianity has had its share

a. Certainly Moses fasted forty days, as did Jesus Christ

b. Elijah lived in the desert and ate tiny amounts of food brought him by ravens

c. John the Baptist dressed in camel’s hair, and ate locusts and wild honey

d. In this same pattern, Christian monks began the life of the spiritual athlete

i) After the Roman persecutions ended, these monks sought another way to subdue the flesh… the way of the ascetic, the desert-dwelling hermit, fasting for weeks, wearing a hair shirt to afflict the flesh, suffering heat in the day and cold at night

ii) ALL OF IT SELF-IMPOSED

iii) Athanasius wrote of Anthony, the founder of Western monasticism, who never changed his shirt or washed his feet

iv) Simeon Stylites who lived in the 5^th century outdid any who came before him:  he spent the last sixty years of his life sitting on a fifty foot pillar, exposing his body to the elements, refusing any human fellowship, withdrawing from the world

v) Even Martin Luther, before his conversion, fell into this trap… sleeping on the stone floor with no blanket or covering all night through the German winter in his cloister cell in the Augustinian monastery… he almost ruined his health

e. Even worse, the forbidding of marriage by clergy made marriage itself seem dirty and sinful

Roman Catholic hierarchy of holiness held that CELIBACY (abstaining from marriage and all marital relations) was HIGHER than marriage;  thus priests and nuns were firbidden to marry

C. Asceticism’s Great Danger

1. Founded in a false understanding of the material world as intrinsically evil, it fails to receive the good gifts God intends to give us

2. Furthermore, it misunderstands salvation and the finished work of Christ on the cross… it actually insults grace and Christ’s blood thinking that our discipline and physical pain is of greater value than Christ’s blood in achieving forgiveness

3. It produces PRIDE… Paul mentions “humility” twice which NIV has as “false humility”

Colossians 2:23  Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body

4. It also calls the good gifts of God bad

1 Timothy 4:1-5  The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.  ² Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.  ³ They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.  ⁴ For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,  ⁵ because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

1 Timothy 6:17  God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

a. Food is a good gift of God, and it is to be received with thanksgiving

b. Marriage is a good gift of God, and it is to be received with thanksgiving

c. Sensual pleasure (whether beautiful sights of spectacular fall foliage, or beautiful sounds of music, or the soft sensations of silk, or the wonderful fragrance of freshly baked bread, or the sweet taste of honey) is a creation of God and all of those things are to be received with thanksgiving

d. PLEASURE ITSELF is a gift of God, and it is to be received with thanksgiving

Psalm 16:11  You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand

5. Along with all of that, ASCETICISM DOESN’T WORK…

a. “Self-imposed worship” is man-made worship

b. As old as Cain’s offering of vegetables instead of animal sacrifice

c. It is NOT pleasing to God

d. AND it does NOT produce true godliness

Vs. 23  they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

6. Ascetics STILL lust, still covet, still get angry, still yearn for fleshly things… and their religion has made them PROUD because it’s all of human origin

D. Let’s Be Honest:  Asceticism Isn’t a Major Threat, But Gluttony Is

1. I don’t know many ascetics at all… most of us struggle with materialism and gluttony and pleasure-seeking

2. We live in an age and a culture in America that specializes in identifying things that people enjoy and distilling them to the point where we can glut ourselves on them morning, noon, and night

3. Music:  before recorded music, you had to go to a concert or dance or somewhere that live musicians were playing to hear music;  then Edison invented the phonograph, recording sound waves on wax cylinders… the first sounds ever recorded were the lyrics of a song “Mary had a little lamb”;  soon flat discs replaced the cylinders, and the record craze hit;  radio stations came in after Marconi, and you could hear music day and night, but you couldn’t choose it;  also radios were huge—you had to sit in the living room to listen;  then the transistor radio came in and you could carry the little radio everywhere;  but still , you couldn’t choose the music;  then the Walkman came in and you could carry around tapes;  now we have iPods, and websites like Napster and you can listen to your favorite songs 600 times in a row wherever you want

4. Sports:  out of control!!  ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Classic, etc.  Watch ballgames for the rest of your life

5. Food:  Americans struggle with gluttony… many Americans don’t know when to push away from the table

6. All of this points to the need for self-control in lawful pleasures

Proverbs 25:16  If you find honey, eat just enough– too much of it, and you will vomit.

1 Corinthians 6:12  “Everything is permissible for me”– but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”– but I will not be mastered by anything.

7. The Holy Spirit works self-control in us as a Fruit of the Spirit

E. Asceticism vs. Gluttony:  Balance Found in Christ

Martin Luther:  Constant struggle of sinful human to find balance, likened us to a drunken peasant trying to ride home on a donkey;  leaning too much left, he falls off into the mud;  then, leaning too much right, he falls off again

1. Asceticism:

a. Christ’s sufferings on our behalf removes forever any need for asceticism

b. Our sufferings do not pay for sin, they do not slay the flesh, they do not please God in any way

c. Humble repentance and faith in Christ is SUFFICIENT FOREVER for the salvation of the soul

d. The good gifts of God are meant to be enjoyed with thankfulness, 1 Timothy 4 teaches us

2. Gluttony:

a. On the other hand, the hunger for pleasure is meant to be satisfied ultimately in Christ

b. Christ teaches us self-control… and to focus on Him

VII. Application

A. COME TO CHRIST!!!

1. True pleasure is found only in Christ

2. Pursuing happiness through bodily lusts… sexual pleasure, food, other sensual delights leads to emptiness and judgment

3. THE CROSS OF CHRIST and HIS EMPTY TOMB… the pathway to happiness

B. Praise God for your Fullness in Christ!!

Colossians 2:9-10  For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,  ¹⁰ and you have been given fullness in Christ

§  Fully Circumcised Spiritually

§  Fully Alive

§  Fully Forgiven

§  Fully Free from the Law

§  Fully Triumphant over Satan

C. Meant for Pleasure… but it is the Pleasure of God Alone that ultimately satisfies

D. Be on guard against all four dangers

1. Philosophy

2. Legalism

3. Mysticism

4. Asceticism

E. Pray for the Church… for protection against each one