Defeating Delusion

⁴ I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. ⁵ For though I am absent from the body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.      Colossians 2:4-5

There are a lot of ideas out there. Almost as many worldviews (or ways of making sense of life, humanity and why we are here) as there are people who believe them.  Some seem benign and harmless enough.  These ideas about what really matters and how the world really works, all without exception, have consequences. The committed suicide bomber, the materialistic rationalist and everyone in between have been captured by the consequences of their worldview.  Paul gives some time here to make sure the folks in Colossae and the Northwoods after them would realize these consequences and take right action. 

Paul wrote earlier (2:2-3) that his desire for us was “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.” All of these treasures of wisdom and knowledge are summed up only in Jesus.  But the general tilt of this world is to look for these treasures outside of Christ and his exclusive claims.  They miss by their unwillingness what Christianity is all about. 

There are also those who claim to be Christians that would want to soften or change or distort Christianity in to something it is not.  These are the kind of people that Paul was worried would  want to win you over to their rebrand of Christianity in order to feel more settled about following what they have come up with.  We must guard ourselves from these ideas. This is why Paul is holding out Christ, all the riches of knowledge and wisdom that are in Jesus, as the key to us defending our faith personally.  This is not a platform debate with a college professor, but the everyday, boots on the ground fight against rival, dangerous, tempting, and deceptive worldviews.

He writes, “I say this in order that no one may delude or deceive you.”  Think of the serpent in the garden with small lies, subtle deception, ever so slowly causing doubt tempting you to think that God is holding out on you. Satan and false teachers whisper the lie that there is something better than following and loving God, better than simply trusting Jesus.  How do they do this?

This world hopes to delude you through plausible arguments or fine sounding, well-reasoned points that sound good and promise great reward. They may intellectually make sense, but at root they deny the gospel.  Underneath they reject that Christ himself is the author of all wisdom, knowledge, salvation and hope. They take theories, values, sayings, and experiences that are generally good things make them of equal or greater importance with Christ.  But those promises will never hold water. How then can you see it coming?

One of the marks of denying Christ is evidence of smooth talk, isolation and force. In our passage here the deceivers take advantage of an opportunity when other Christians aren’t around to help you see the error in what they are saying. They talk smoothly while we are isolated. Paul encourages the Colossians here that though he is absent physically, he is with them if they remember what he taught them.  False worldviews take advantage of those times. They become hard to argue with, for disagreeing with them means major backlash. 

Ultimately they deny Christ in two ways. First by marginalizing Jesus. They give Jesus his one category of which he is important, but deny his rule over everything else. He’s great as an example, I respect as a teacher, but… you really need this (insert anything else) to live life. Secondly they trivialize Jesus. They put him on lunch boxes as the poster boy or cute little mascot. They are ashamed or afraid to let the real Jesus loose with all his force of personality and power because it would obliterate the cutesy, weak, quaint, anecdotal, no commitment, bumper sticker depth of Christianity that we sometimes live in. They relegate Jesus or trivialize Jesus and think they still have the favor of Jesus. They have and offer none of him.

Instead Paul says he rejoices to see the firmness of their faith.  No matter what happens, no matter who tries to lie to me and tell me that following a million other things is better than following, knowing, loving and serving Jesus Christ, I can look at it all and say for a fact, Jesus Christ is my only hope.  He’s the only thing that makes sense and because he has hold of my life I cannot be shaken. Whatever you might tell me, whatever you may hold out as tempting, I will not move on from Jesus.  I will not trivialize him by bumper sticker theology. I will not marginalize him by putting only a few things of my life in the Jesus category. I see that he is the owner of every category that there is. 

In Christ, My Only Hope, Pastor Steven