The Substance Belongs to Christ

In one paragraph

Before the sermon, Samuel Labonta was baptized, and Pastor Ray connected that moment directly to the text: if you have been raised with Christ, walk like it. The message worked through Colossians 2:16 through 3:4, asking why anyone who has died with Christ would keep living under the world's rules and regulations. Pastor Ray opened with a simple diagram that mapped out ways Christians go wrong:...

Read together

1. Colossians 3:1-4 read during baptism and revisited at end of sermon on seeking things above
2. Colossians 2:6 receiving Christ by faith and walking in him the same way
3. Ephesians 2:8-9 grace through faith, not of works, so no one can boast
4. Colossians 2:16-23 main passage on food, festivals, asceticism and shadow versus substance
5. Galatians 2 not nullifying grace of God, since righteousness cannot come through the law
6. Colossians 2:8-10 warning against being taken captive by philosophy and human tradition, fullness of deity in Christ
7. Romans 7 doing the very thing you do not want to do despite the do-not regulations
8. Romans 3:20-21 justification by faith that struck Luther while teaching through Romans
9. Galatians 5:16 walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh

Talk about it

1. Paul tells the Colossians that the Old Testament laws and ceremonies were shadows pointing toward Christ, who is their substance and fulfillment. What is something from your own religious background that you have had to re-examine in light of who Christ actually is?
2. The sermon described a kind of crosshairs with naturalistic, supernaturalistic, dogmatic, and experiential pulls, and said that none of us hits dead center the way Christ does. Where do you think you personally tend to drift, and what has pulled you there?
3. Paul warns against letting anyone disqualify or sideline you for not practicing asceticism, worshiping angels, or having visions, and he says those who insist on these things are not holding fast to Christ as the head. Have you ever been in a church environment where something other than Christ was treated as the mark of a serious Christian? What effect did that have on you?
4. The sermon pointed out that 'do not handle, do not taste, do not touch' regulations are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh, and used Martin Luther as an example of someone who tried to earn God's favor through self-denial and exhausted himself trying. Where have you seen or experienced that kind of striving, and what finally broke through it?
5. The closing call was to set your mind on things above, where Christ is seated, rather than on earthly regulations or traditions. What does that actually look like in a practical decision or habit in your week?