The Life that Holds the Head of Church

The Life that Holds the Head of Church (Col 2:16-23)

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. 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 19 They have 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.

20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely 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.

Introduction:

1) The epistle of Colossians used the several metaphors of the relationship between Christ and the church. A tree, a building and a body were used by Paul for the metaphor of church. Among them a metaphor of the body consisted of the Christ, as the head and a church , as the body. Several issues that happened in the Colossian church come out of ignorance that despised Christ as the head of Christ. Verse 19 says that they fall down into the slump because of not holding the head. In the epistle of Colossian few metaphors were revealed about the relationship between Christ and the church. They are the metaphors of tree, building and body. Among them the body metaphor consisted of the head is the Christ and the body is the church. Several issues that were happened at the Colossian church came out of the causes that they despised the simple discipline of the church as the simple relation between the head and the body. So verse 19 reveals that they were fallen in the slump for not to hold the head. Verse 19 says “19 They have 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.”

When the electricity had been gone suddenly, lots of appendix issues shall be happened. Then what is our job? We have to observe the relationship between the supply of the electricity and the electricity generator.

Verse 19 says “19 They have 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.”

We have to examine the cutting part in them.

2) What is the main problems of our contemporary day? And what is the way of restoration? We meet the issues of same sexual immorality and modern heresies. What is the healing method that the Apostles taught us?

1. What features does the collosian church have?

The Colossian church had exchanged the true gospel into the several false teaching by compromising with the world and had formed the strange culture in the church. What are they?

  1. They fall down into the intended worship. It means that they made on the other religion by himself. Although they had the format o worship but they expect the accomplishment of their intended purpose and also worship themselves because the idolatry is the covet. They did not enjoy to orship to the Trinity God in the Spirit and in the truth. They replaced themselves at the seat of God. This tended to the worshiping the angels automatically. By concentrating on the teaching of the supernatural phenomena they did not think of the teaching of the scripture and replace God into the angels. It seems just like the catholic teaching fall down into the teaching that Mary is the mother of God.
  2. This is the same contents that the heresy of Judaism in the primitive church taught the doctrine of worshiping the angels.(Hebrew 1:) The movement of new ages of today teaches to us this teaching . How ridiculous teaching ,“the claiming to be “you are God” it is! Although the Scripture teaches that the born again Christians were participated into the divine nature, it means the limited states in us. God is infinitive and absolute Being but we are limited being. So we should be depended on the absolute God. It is very dangerous to leave the thought of Christ. It points not to hold the head of the church. The results of dualism produced monster Christians in their lives. They did not hold the Christ but the world as well as the false teaching.
  3. Therefore the Pharisees fall down into the intended worship in their lives. In the short word, it is the self-gospel. This is the root of the hypocrisy. Unless the Christian does not learn to self-denial, he cannot walk one step in his sound way. So we have to learn sound examples out of the Seraphim that were revealed in the Isaiah chapter 6 by serving he Lord with 6 wings. They focused on the self- denial in their worshiping. As we know, in the history of Israel although they took the intimacy to the Lord so much, they could not communicate to God.
  4. Therefore we have to learn the self- denial whenever we have passion to devote ourselves to the Lord and His ministry.

2) They fall down into the deceit humility. Although the humility was very good to us, the artificial humility is very dangerous in our Christian life because it is another style of arrogance.

– The importance of humility- The claiming of St. Augustine, “The humility is the highest virtue of the Christianity” proves gradually in our lives. This is the most important proof that the Christian received the grace.

– So we have to define the humility rightly. They should have the humility and the self- knowledge. The bearing the cross is the humility. Without having the illumination of Holy Spirit, we cannot be humble.

Our humility is different to the humility of Confucianism. If we pull down the humility into the humility of the world, it shall be the arrogance that was guised by the humility.

Ex: I had seen that a CPA served me in a restaurant by saying several time for my family. He had served me very well for a while. We have to take the humble attitude towards our neighbors. Somebody despised the pastor and his ministry. He thought that his ministry are worse than his family and his husband. That is big problems. If he treats his pastors with bad attitude, how can he receive the wonderful grace from preaching or, teaching, the means of the grace that come out of God? If he has better condition he shall kick out the situation. We need the humble heart. If we lose the humble heart we can lose everything in our lives.

They fall down into the ungodly fasting activity. If it is separated of Christ, it is very serious problem in our Christian life. The church need to have the godly activities of abstaining but if it is separated of Christ and his sound teaching ,it shall changed into the false activities that product the artificial fruit in their lives. Finally they shall meet Satan.

  1. What different is the Esther’s fasting and the Jewish fasting in Paul’s day? The one saved their people out of the wicked hand of Haman’s craft, but the other fall down to persecute the Christ and His church. But the will of God could not destroyed by their passion.
  2. Why did God entreat against the religious activities of Israel at Isaiah chapter 59? Because they follow the godly external elements. True fasting need to follow the Word of God.
  3. Because of three above things, the intended worship, the deceit humility the ungodly fasting activity, the beautiful church fall down into the dirty state by changing the gospel. We have to caution the false teaching because we can lose the abundant source in our lives.

2. What is the way to overcome this one?

We have to watch out two things in order to overcome the teaching of heresy as followings;

  1. We have to throw away the carnal thought. It means that our thought should be changed. Look at the verse 18. We have to manage out thought to change all areas. As Peter was rebuked by Jesus as “Satan” Why did he fall down in the miserable seat? Because of his carnal thought. They did not think the work of God, but think the work of the man. So, Paul emphasized that they did not think the things of god but think the things of God. So Paul emphasized that in order to live the abundant life they should concentrate on the thought. Two thoughts, those are the carnal thought and the spiritual thought shall be happened in our Christian actual life. The life and the death shall be depended on the Word of God. So we need to study the Scripture and to meditate the Scripture.
  2. What is the conflict point in Galatian? It was limited by the Spirit or, the flesh. We have to accept the Scripture, the thought that Holy Spirit pleases preciously.

  1. We have to hold the head of the church.

In verse 19, We learn that we try to connect to Christ. To hold the head means to try to connect with Christ. In fact, it is the other expression of the above thing. Our concentrated purpose must be to speculate by depending on the revelation. Because this world has new things we have to examine these things in the world with the whole power. In Acts 2:42-47. What is the passionate thing of the primitive church? First, They received the teaching of the Apostles, to pay , to fellowship and to live pure in the family, to evangelize. These five interrelated to one another in the church life. Among them we have to devote themselves to proclaim and to evangelize. Then we can have true contents as the living fountain in our heart.

Why can we have the passion? Because we live on the new covenant. By this connecting we are guaranteed the people of God who reveals the image of God. If we stays in the money, the honor, the power, the family and the family ease in our life, already we are corrupted in our lives.

Conclusion:

1) We live in the spiritual chaos day for the sound doctrine was despised in the world. Long time ago the evolutionism made the communism and became to the root of American educational philosophy and they took away the Scripture out of the public school and was ruled over by the worldly philosophy and humanistic theory. Who can take charge to this thing? When the church did not hold the sound doctrine, this thing should be happened. Recently many bible studies were executed in our lives we have to check up our dangerous situation. It means that we have to depend on the Scripture

2) At the mount of transfiguration, Peter asked the unreasonable things to the Lord, and then the Lord should listen to only his word. Although Satan attack to us by the false godly styles, mysterious facts and miracles we have to attach to Christ and his words.