Podcast: Play in new window | Download (14.2MB)
The Colossian Community was a good, solid community of Messianic Jews and Gentile Christians, but they were being challenged by false teachings. They included Jewish legalism, Greek philosophy, a false kind of mysticism and asceticism. To combat these errors, Paul and Timothy focused the attention of Messiah’s Community in Colossae on Messiah.
Why? Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Why must He be the focus of our religion, our thoughts, our devotion, our passion, and no one and nothing else?
Because He is the Creator of all things, and the One for whom all things have been created. Everything that exists – every plant, every creature, every stone or star, every human, every angel, every molecule, every atom, exists for a purpose, and that purpose is “for Messiah” – to do what He wants, to accomplish His purposes; to serve Him, to give Him pleasure, to bring Him honor.
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He is the King of a very great and real and wonderful and eternal kingdom that is characterized by light – a symbol for knowledge, wisdom, truth, reality, victory, joy, happiness and life. It’s a kingdom full of joy and peace and happiness, unmixed with any sadness. It’s a kingdom of truth, unmarred by any error. It’s a kingdom of goodness and beauty and justice. It is a rich kingdom of rewards and great inheritances. We want to live forever with the King in His wonderful kingdom of light.
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He is the blessed Son of God, seated at the right hand of His Father, acknowledged by those in the very center of Heaven as being worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing and dominion forever and ever. It’s an awesome thing to be the Son of God. What a privilege to know Him and be known by Him!
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He is Messiah, the Lord, the head over every power and authority. All authority in Heaven and on Earth is His. He is the highest. He is the greatest. He is the most powerful. He is the most authoritative. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! Over every human being, every man, every woman, every Jew, every Gentile, every politician, every administration, every angel or archangel, every creature, every force of nature.
Why must Yeshua be the focus of our religion, our thoughts, our devotion, our passion, and no one and nothing else? Because He is the Firstborn Over All Creation – the eldest son who has a special place and special privileges in the family of God. He is the head of the family and a special heir among the other brothers and sisters.
As the Firstborn Over All Creation, Yeshua is older than anything in creation; preeminent over all created things – including angels and human beings. As the Firstborn Of All Creation, Messiah is in the place of prominence and is the leader of the sons and daughters of God. He is the special heir among the other sons and daughters of God.
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He is the image of the invisible God. The Third Person of the Trinity, God the Spirit, is invisible. The First Person of the Trinity, the Father, is likewise invisible to us. But the Father wants us to see Him, to know Him. It’s one of the functions of the Son to reveal the invisible God to us, and He does so perfectly. So, when we see Yeshua doing something, are seeing God at work. When we hear Yeshua, we are hearing God speaking to us. When we read about Yeshua doing miracles, we are seeing God revealing something about Himself to us. When we see Yeshua suffering and dying, we are seeing something about the nature of God – His love and grace and mercy. Yeshua perfectly reveals God to us, enabling to really know God the way we desperately need to.
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He is the One Who Is Before All Things, full of age and experience and wisdom and worthy of honor and respect from all who come after Him.
Because He is the Sustainer Of All Things, holding together everything that exists. Messiah is keeping this vast universe in existence – including you. That takes wisdom. That takes power. That takes authority. That is worthy of the greatest respect.
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He is the One In Whom The Fullness Of God Lives In Bodily Form. The Son doesn’t have just a little part of God. The Son has all the fullness of God the Father living in Him. The Son is fully God, completely God. He has the totality, the completeness, the fulness of the infinite, all-powerful, all-present, all-wise, all-loving God living in Him. Just as the Temple had the Spirit of God living in it, and was treated with the highest respect and the greatest honors, so The One In Whom The Fullness Of God Lives is to be greatly respected and highly honored. As the One In Whom The Fullness Of God Lives, He is the Only One who can bring us, who are so lacking, so incomplete, to fullness, to completion, to bring us all the way to the goal.
Why must Yeshua be the focus of our religion, our thoughts, our devotion, our passion, and no one and nothing else? Because He is the One Who Overcame Death. Death is a horrible enemy and Messiah alone overcame this deadly enemy and enables those of us who know who He is and become loyal to Him to overcome death and live forever! If it is possible to live forever in a perfect world, you would want to live forever, wouldn’t you?
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He is our Head, rise and alive and ascended. He has given us His Spirit. As the Living Head of all Christians and Messianic Jews everywhere, He gives us life and strength and wisdom and direction and peace and happiness.
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because Messiah is the Reconciler Of All Things, who alone is able to bring peace to all broken relationships – especially our most important relationship, the Creator-creature relationship. Because of Messiah, human beings can be reconciled to the holy God. We can be reconciled to one another. Because of Yeshua, nature will be completely restored one day, and we won’t perfectly at peace with nature. A time is coming when “shalom shalom” – perfect peace will permeate all relationships – with God, human beings, angels, nature – all because of Yeshua, The Reconciler Of All Things.
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He is the One in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He is wiser than any of the rabbis or Torah-teachers, wiser than the prophets, even wiser than wise king Solomon. He is the Wonderful Counselor who, out of His infinite wisdom, is able to give us all the wisdom, guidance, direction and understanding that we need, including the wisdom that results in salvation. The teachings He gives, the wisdom He supplies, the truths He provides, are deep, profound, simple, perfect and superior to all other religions, worldviews and philosophies.
Why must Yeshua be the focus of our religion, our thoughts, our devotion, our passion, and no one and nothing else? Because He cuts us with a spiritual circumcision, cutting away our old nature and bringing us into His new and eternal covenant. He enables us to die to an old, corrupt life and an old, sinful nature, and rise to a new life and a new nature based on a new and better covenant.
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He enables all of all our spiritual debts to be completely and forever forgiven. All of our spiritual debts have been paid for by the death of Messiah! No more debt owed to God because of our sins. No more debts that will result in condemnation to Hell! Instead, eternal life with God in the New Heavens, New Earth and New Jerusalem!
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He has enabled the disarming of the evil spiritual powers and authorities. Like the greatest of heros, Messiah entered the battle and single-handedly won the war against Satan and the fallen angels, and the forces of sin and death that are dominating fallen humanity – not by exerting overwhelming force – but by humbling Himself, by leaving the glories of Heaven, limiting His powers, becoming a frail human being, subject to pain, suffering, humiliation and death. He vanquished the dark spiritual powers who control humanity, not by exerting overwhelming power, but by allowing Himself to be arrested, judged, humiliated, beaten, spit upon, and nailed naked onto two pieces of wood.
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him? Because He is able to give us grace and peace; grace – unmerited, unearned favor and help; and peace – wholeness, completeness, everything we need; and fallen human beings desperately need the grace and peace from the mighty Son of God.
Why is Yeshua so important that we must stay focused on Him and no one and nothing else? Because He is the One we proclaim. He is the focus of our proclamation. He is the Good News we bring to every human being. The Message that we bring, that alone can rescue human beings from Satan and the demons, sin, the sin nature, death and Hell, is about the Messiah Himself – who He is and what He has done and can do for us.
Messiah is unique! Amazing! Incredible! We need to understand who Messiah is, from our innermost beings. We need to grow in our understanding of Messiah at the core of who we are. We need to be devoted to Messiah, connected to Messiah, draw strength from Messiah, be transformed by Messiah, become like Messiah.
Focusing on the Messiah, and all that He is, and all that He means, and all that He is able to do for us, is essential. Any other focus; any other religion or philosophy or worldview; any other devotion or emphasis or way of holiness is off-focus, dangerous, destructive.
Paul and Timothy’s conclusions based on who Yeshua is: 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. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Messiah. 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. 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.
Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink: Eating and drinking, dietary requirements, kashrut, the kosher laws, wine, no wine, are not our focus. Individual Christians and Messianic Jews will have different understandings of what they should eat or not eat. One person thinks that Jesus made him kosher, and since God created everything, therefore he is free to eat everything. OK. Another wants to respect kashrut. He has that right. One thinks drinking alcoholic beverages is wrong and he wants to honor God by abstaining. That decision should be respected. Another feels that God made wine and it’s OK to drink but not get drunk, and that he honors God and gives Him thanks for the gift of wine and beer and other drinks – that position should be tolerated. Food and drink are not the focus. The focus is Messiah.
Religious festivals, holidays, even Biblical ones like the New Moon celebrations and the Sabbath, are not the focus. Therefore do not let anyone judge you with regard to a 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 Messiah. Yes, the holidays point us to Messiah. But they are shadows of the reality that is essential – Messiah – and not the essential thing itself. Messiah is the realty and He is substantial. They are a shadow of the Messiah and are insubstantial. One person wants to celebrate the Jewish holidays because they are meaningful to him. He sees how Leviticus 23 points to Messiah and God’s plan of salvation through the Messiah, and he wants to order his life that way. By celebrating the holidays, he feels closer to God and creation and the history of Israel and God’s prophetic plan of salvation. That is to be respected. Another wants to celebrate Christmas and Easter and worship on Sunday because they are part of his culture and are meaningful to him and bring him closer to God and provide opportunities to testify to the reality of Messiah. Good. Another wants to celebrate both the Christian and the Jewish holidays because they are meaningful to him. Good. One person doesn’t want to celebrate any holidays because he believes that by being connected to Messiah, who is the reality to which holidays point, he is celebrating a continuous holiday 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Great. Holidays are not the focus. The focus is Messiah.
Self-abasement, a false kind of humility, and the ABCs of religion are not the focus. Since you died with Messiah to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 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. Some of the false teachers mixed their teaching with elemental spiritual forces, the rudiments, the fundamental principles, the ABCs of human religion. Here’s an example of this kind of elementary teaching: “We need to be holy. The way to be holy is by avoiding bad things, by not eating this but not that, not touching that, not looking at that. You need to wear this but not that. You need to say this prayer in this way at this time. You need to treat this time period in a special way by doing this and this and this but not this and that.”
Yes, we need to be holy, and we need to resist temptation and we should not yield to sin. But, torturing ourselves, whipping our bodies, nailing ourselves to a cross, crawling on our knees to a shrine, wearing uncomfortable clothing, repeating repetitious prayers, fastings, abstaining from meat on Fridays, celibacy for leaders – are not the way to become holy. The way to become holy is to get close to the Holy One of Israel.
When we know Yeshua, and His Holy Spirit lives in us, and we are close to Yeshua and He is close to us – the Holy Spirit of the Holy Messiah helps us be aware of the things that tempt us; the Holy Spirit of the Holy Messiah gives us a desire to resist the things that tempt us; the Holy Spirit of the Holy Messiah gives us the power to resist the things that tempt us. And if we do yield to the things that tempt us, the Holy Spirit of the Holy Messiah enables us to repent, turn from our sins, confess our sins and renew our relationship with God – wiser and stronger than before.
Do you understand the difference between these two approaches to holy living? One is based on adherence to outward rules. One is based on inward transformation and empowerment by the living Messiah who lives in us by means of His Spirit. There is a huge, huge difference.
Angels are real, and they are wonderful servants of the Creator, and people have had visions of them, but they are not to be the focus. Do not let anyone who delights in 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. 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. Angels are creatures, not the Creator. They are servants and messengers of the Creator. They are intelligent and powerful, but God is more infinitely wise and all-powerful. So why focus on angels? What is seeing an angel compared to being connected to the Head, the Risen Messiah, the mighty Son of God, from whom the whole body of believers, Christians and Messianic Jews everywhere, grows as God causes it to grow – with the life energies flowing from our Living Head to all the members of the body, giving us spiritual life and strength and wisdom and direction? What is seeing an angel compared to being joined to the Messiah, sharing the Spirit of the Messiah, getting guidance, purpose, mission, peace and joy and everlasting life from the Messiah?
Focus on Messiah! May each one of us know Messiah, from the core of our being! May He be our firm foundation! May each one of us be deeply rooted in Messiah, powerfully connected to Messiah. May He be our vine, and we be His branches! May He be our Head, and we the Spirit-Of-The-Messiah-empowered members of His body. Amen? Amen!