In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij examines Colossians 2:20-23 and the warning the apostle Paul presents there against being lured away into false religion—even false Christianity. Paul gives three reasons to resist false religion:
1. Because their false religious practices are transitory (v. 22)
2. Because their false religious practices are merely human (v. 23a)
3. Because their false religious practices are worthless (v. 23b)
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Summary
We are reminded that genuine salvation in Christ means we have truly died to sin, to the law, to the world, and to self-made religion. This passage from Colossians 2 calls us to resist every false religious system that would lure us away from the complete and finished work of Christ on the cross.
Key Lessons:
- Real faith in Christ produces real change — there are no signs of life in mere religious profession, emotional decisions, or inherited religion without genuine conversion.
- Because we have died with Christ, we are dead to sin, dead to the law’s condemnation, dead to the world’s elementary principles, and dead to self-made religion — we no longer have to submit to their power.
- False religious practices are transitory, merely human, and worthless — they cannot restrain the flesh, they only satisfy it temporarily, and they lead people away from God.
- Christians are in the know: they know who Jesus is, what he has done, that they are in Christ, and what they are to do for him — making it hard to be deceived when grounded in sound biblical teaching.
Application: We are called to close the door on every religious system, ritual, or human tradition that would add to or subtract from what Christ has fully accomplished, and instead live daily in the freedom and new life given to us through union with Christ.
Discussion Questions:
- What are some subtle ways false teachers or religious systems today try to lure believers away from the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work?
- In what areas of your life do you find yourself living as if you were still alive to the world, the flesh, or self-made religion, rather than to Christ?
- How does understanding that you are truly dead to sin and alive to God change the way you respond when you are tempted?
Scripture Focus: Colossians 2:6–23 — the central passage showing that believers are complete in Christ and must resist false religious practices that are transitory, merely human, and worthless. Romans 6–7 is used to show that Christians are dead to sin and to the law’s condemnation. Isaiah 29:13–14 is referenced to expose the hypocrisy of lip-service worship without heart.
Outline
- Introduction
- The Danger of False Religion
- Dying with Christ: The Core Condition
- Two Commands: Don’t Be Judged or Defrauded
- Four Things We Have Died To
- The Why Question: Submitting to False Decrees
- Reason 1: False Religious Practices Are Transitory
- Reason 2: False Religious Practices Are Merely Human
- Reason 3: False Religious Practices Are Worthless
- Only Christ Sets Us Free
Introduction
Foreign, let’s take our Bibles and turn to Colossians 2.
I’m going to read from verse 6 to verse 20.
Verse 6: “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, having been firmly rooted, now being built up in him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.
For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in him you have been made complete, and he is the head over all rule and authority.
And in him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and yes, taking it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through him.
Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, things which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, for whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with him with the growth which is from God.
If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees such as do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which all refer to things destined to perish with use, in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?
These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom and self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but have no value against fleshly indulgence.”
Let’s pray. Lord, thank you this morning for the word of God, the privilege and the opportunity you give us to be here together, gathered as your body, able to have the word of God in our hands, to listen to it, the word of the king of kings to his subjects.
Lord, give us ears to hear and a heart sensitive to receive it, that it would move our wills to put it into practice and to bear fruit unto all good works, because we met Christ, believed in him, and now he is our Lord and savior.
I pray you would give us discernment while we walk through this world, so we are not deceived and we are not moved away from the substance which is in Christ. I pray this in your name, amen.
The Danger of False Religion
Paganism versus Christ. See, there’s a difference between knowing God and knowing about him. You hear people say all the time, “Oh yes, I believe in God, or I made a profession of faith many years ago, and I even prayed the prayer,” yet there are no signs of life or daily trust in God.
Paganism in its simple meaning is really someone who has no religion, or a person practicing aberrant religion. In other words, it’s self-made religion, whether it’s organized or not.
True Salvation Produces Real Change
A person living like this really either has to give evidence one way or the other, whether they really have a relationship with God and they’re alive, or if they’re not. The evidence that a person has been awakened to God and trusted in Jesus for salvation is change.
You also hear people say I was born in this religion and I’m going to die in this religion, and sometimes the person is devout, sometimes they’re not. In any case, people often think if I do what my religion dictates, I should be all right.
The crazy thing is how people carry out what they supposedly believe and are to do. One person says I was baptized as a baby, no problem, I’m getting to heaven, yet no signs of life.
Another person’s parents were pillars in First Church. He thinks, no problem, I’m in, my ticket is punched, my train is headed for the Pearly Gates, and yet no sign of life.
Another walks forward in an evangelistic meeting, cries tears, prays a prayer, gets baptized, signs the church roll, and then he says, man, I’m glad that’s all over with. I don’t know what got into me, but at least I’m safe now, yet no signs of life.
At one extreme is a person who is on the roller coaster of emotion, saved one day, lost the next. This person goes forward at every opportunity but never gains any peace, never really bothers them, they don’t read the Bible much, and there’s no change in behavior, no signs of life.
At the other extreme is one who knows all the right theology and says all the right things, yet bitterness and selfishness and secret sins are nurtured in the heart, absent of a mournful and repentant heart that is willing to confess sin and put it off. There’s just no signs of life.
There are still others who say that there are many ways to get saved, as many ways as there are people who are doing the saving. That’s probably a true statement, because we all have our own ways of thinking of ourselves as right with God, but even in all those instances there’s no sign of life.
“The evidence that a person has been awakened to God and trusted in Jesus for salvation is change.”
With so many ways to be fooled, how does one know salvation has truly come?
When someone genuinely comes and believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and savior and moves away from their religious system, changing religions is not like changing homes or changing an outfit or changing your hairstyle. It’s a way of life.
As the spirit of God enters that person, they want to live for the Lord. Their whole world outlook is entirely changed. It is different. The way they go is different because they met Christ.
There is only one who can save, and that is God who truly exists. There’s only one place to go for rescue, the cross of Jesus Christ.
“There is only one who can save, and that is God who truly exists. There’s only one place to go for rescue, the cross of Jesus Christ.”
You are not redeemed by profession of faith. You do not receive the benefits of Christ and the inheritance of the Father by a claim to faith, or even by a decision of faith, but by possession of faith. Do I have the faith in Christ? Faith must be real.
The Prodigal Son: A Picture of Genuine Faith
We read this morning about the prodigal son. If anyone had real faith, he did. He woke up from his sin, and the first thing he said when he came alive was, “I will arise and go to my father.”
What does that mean? That means he had a new desire. He had a change that utterly rejected the past and all that he was trusting in, and he took a completely different direction.
The prodigal used to believe happiness meant liberation from my father. Self-gratification was the way to live. But now, what he believed then is all deception—all of it was deception.
Like the prodigal son, if you rejoice in the satisfaction for God’s wrath that Christ has performed for you on the cross, if the Holy Spirit has made you alive, you will leave the pigpen of sin and all self means of salvation. You will rest in the complete salvation that is received only, only in Jesus Christ.
“You will leave the pigpen of sin and all self means of salvation, and you will rest in the complete salvation received only in Jesus Christ.”
Dying with Christ: The Core Condition
So that brings me to our text this morning, looking to verse 20 of Colossians 2.
It starts with a very, very small word. It’s the word “if.” Now, “if” points to a condition, and it functions as a claim of fact, at least here.
Notice what it says in Colossians 2:20: “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world.” That phrase, “if you have died with Christ,” means this: if you have died with Christ you will be like this; if you have not died with Christ you will be like this—you will be your old self. If you have died with Christ you will be a new self. There’s no in-between at all whatsoever.
So that word is very significant in this text. The intense focus in this whole section is the relevance of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for those who believe in him.
Because of the relevance of dying with Christ, we are called to resist the practices imposed by others, especially false teachers upon us. Why is that?
Well, there are actually three reasons to resist. Because there is a clear and present danger in the teachings and practices imposed by false teachers, believers are really not to submit themselves to any ethnic or religious rituals and visionary experiences and aesthetic practices at all whatsoever. They mean nothing; they have no value.
So in light of the grand, complete victory accomplished by God through Jesus Christ on the cross, all the imposed regulations and practices are nothing. But like that prodigal son, deception—everything before Christ was all deception—because we’re the greatest deceivers. We deceive ourselves, and we want to fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
And they also only proved to be false promises and a distraction from God’s powerful work of eternal salvation. So there’s a danger for believers: once they are Christians, they can be lured away from what they believed, and sometimes that is very subtle.
So here in Scripture, he is believing that the Colossians are true believers, but they’re still in danger, just like us. We’re still in danger in this world to be lured away, and Satan is good at doing that.
“There is a danger for believers that they can be lured away from what they believed, and sometimes that is very subtle.”
So the first reason to resist false pagan religion—that’s what I’m calling it—is because their false religious practices are transitory. Now I’ll pick that up at the end.
But notice again in Colossians 2:20: “If you have died with Christ,” since Christ is the head, then nothing else counts with the believer except to please him. All religious laws and practices that are not Christ-centered and Christ-directed have no value at all.
For the real believer, to be dead with Christ is to be finished with the old life of sin and error and to begin a new life as a member of his body. So why would we spend time and resources and energy on what is passing away, what is transitory? It’s here today, it’s gone tomorrow.
So submitting also requires understanding and devotion. Further, it is absurd to follow that which Christ has already conquered.
Two Commands: Don’t Be Judged or Defrauded
As our text had said, in the last section of verses we were introduced to two imperatives, two commands. In verse 16, the first command was: let no one act as your judge. The strength of keeping that command is the knowledge of the complete salvation that we have in Christ Jesus.
If what you believe is based on the biblical doctrine found in the word of God, there is nothing to fear from those who desire to impose judgment on you. You have confidence in Christ’s finished work on your behalf, and you have the Holy Spirit and the word of God that gives you discernment and confidence and assurance of your salvation.
The second command was found in verse 18. It says: let no one keep defrauding you of your prize. That means someone trying to steal from you what God has already given you, and they do it in a way where they make a decision not for you but against you.
You’re not living like this, you’re not looking like this, you’re not doing these things, you’re not keeping this diet, so how could you be a believer? That’s how it goes. It’s what they’re doing—it’s all outward observance—and that’s how a person is judged.
The prize of which the Colossians and us are being robbed is the fullness of life and union with the incomparable Christ. If Christians give in, then they go back to square one.
The command is: let no one act as your umpire against you, to get you to deny your claim to be a genuine Christian. We can’t be robbed if we stick to what we’ve learned from God’s word.
Remember that Christians are in the know because they know Christ, they have the Holy Spirit, and they have the entire word of God. What do they know? They know who Jesus is, they know what Jesus had done for them, they know that Jesus is the Christ and they are in Christ, and they know what they’re to do for him.
It’s hard to be deceived when you are in the know of sound biblical teaching.
“It’s hard to be deceived when you are in the know of sound biblical teaching.”
Here in our text again, the Lord’s day, it does begin with this conditional sentence followed by the question why. The why question points to an irrational choice of those who belong to Christ, if they have or are thinking of following the practices of the false teachers.
Paul gives the first class condition: if that assumes it is true that they are believers, just like it says in Colossians 1:3-4, where it says we give thanks to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying for you always. Why? Since you heard, we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints.
Even Epaphras, the pastor of that church at that time, informed us of your love of the spirit. In other words, here’s the evidence that someone’s a believer: it’s not the outward observance, it’s the inward heart.
They have Christ, they love people, which they didn’t love before. Remember the Jew and Gentile problem that I mentioned several messages ago? That’s a huge difference. When a Jew and a Gentile come together and start loving each other, something radical has to happen, and what has happened is conversion.
They were now in union with Christ’s death. That means they were identified with Christ’s atonement for sin and placed into his atoning work. They were in union with Christ’s burial, meaning they died to self. The old man and his ways were dead, and the Colossians were now freed up to serve and live for the Lord.
Everything was cut away from the person’s life which would keep them from being God’s obedient children. They were dead, in other words, to Satan’s family and Satan’s agenda.
They were also in union with Christ’s resurrection. They were raised with him, with Christ, to a new life. Once they served sin and were saved, but now they serve God as Lord and desire to walk in the path of righteousness.
As it says in our text, God gave them new life. They were raised to life, they were not left in the graveyard. They have been rescued from spiritual death and given spiritual life. In other words, they were alive in Christ.
“They have been rescued from spiritual death and given spiritual life. They were alive in Christ.”
In verse 20, if you have died with Christ to these things, for the past life there must be change in your life, there must be.
Four Things We Have Died To
Now what exactly have we died to? To do that, I want to, there’s at least four things, at least I can mention now, four things that we have died to.
Dead to Sin
The first thing is we’ve died to sin. Now just to highlight that a bit, take your Bibles and turn over to Romans 6, and just let me pick up a few verses from that.
Romans 6:1 says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” Verse 2: “May it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”
Now go down to verse 6 of Romans 6. It says, “Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, for he who has died is freed from sin.”
And then verse 8: “And if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” Verse 11 of Romans 6: “Even so, consider yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
In Romans 6, the Apostle Paul is saying to you Christians, you have to think about this. He’s saying the word “consider”—think about it, mull it over in your mind until it becomes practice in your life—that you are actually dead to sin.
Being dead to sin does not mean that you are perfect, nor does it mean that you are without sin, or that you shall never sin again. What it means is that we no longer belong to the realm of sin, wherein we are dominated by sin and under its power and governed by the various lusts and desires of our own flesh. We have been rescued from that. That’s what we have died to.
If you have died to something, then it’s no longer alive in your life. Why do we keep making it alive? Why do we keep going back to our old habits and patterns of sin? We don’t have to do that because of what Christ has done for us.
If you have been a Christian for a while and you actually have considered that, when you do get tempted to sin, who has the upper hand? You do, because you can say to your sin, “No way. I’m not going that way again. That’s just bondage that leads to destruction and death.”
I want to be alive in Christ. I want to experience the life that I have as a believer. And when you do that, and it happens in your life, you are so excited. You say, “Wow, this is—God’s given me the power to do this.”
There’s no way I would have said no before. Now I’m saying no. Now I don’t even want it. I don’t desire it, because I know what it causes in my life and what it caused in my past life.
So we’re dead to sin.
“We no longer belong to the realm of sin, wherein we are dominated by sin and under its power. We have been rescued from that.”
Dead to the Law
Secondly, we’re dead to the law. Right here in Romans, we might as well stay there, Romans 7, we’re dead to the law.
Verse 4 of Romans 7 says, “I am dead to the law’s condemnation and sting. Therefore my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ.”
Then down to verse 6 of Romans 7: “But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter.”
In other words, there’s a change there. We’re no longer under the condemnation of law, and that frees us, right? God is not holding wrath and judgment on me. I’m freed from that.
Because of that, in the forgiveness that comes through Christ, I’m dead to the law and to its condemnation.
“We’re no longer under the condemnation of law — God is not holding wrath and judgment on me. I’m freed from that.”
Dead to the World
But there’s the next one, and turn back to Colossians for this one. We’re dead to the world, we’ve died to the world.
Colossians 2:20. Notice what it says: if you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world.
Now the elemental principles or spirits of the world refer to the evil spiritual forces that fight against God’s work and God’s people. It also includes the rudiments of man-made superstitions and prescriptions that involve physical elements, like already mentioned in our text.
It’s a practice of religion which are not after Christ, and that could be any religion at all. And this would incorporate human generated religious teachings mixed with ideas of Judaism and paganism and mysticism, along with principles and practices and persons under control of the world system under Satan. To all these things we have died.
That, to these, all the saints in Christ are dead. In fact, back in Colossians 1:13, he rescued us from the domain of darkness and he transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.
So we are dead to Satan’s dictates and doctrines. And what happens under his domain? In his domain, the love of darkness abounds. In his domain, hatred abounds towards God and his people. In his domain, no fellowship with God takes place at all.
Darkness in scripture is ungodliness, it’s opposition, it’s estrangement from God, and includes all those dreadful evils which are involved in an evil state of heart and mind. The power of sin still remains, the tyranny of error still remains, the slavery of corruption still remains, and these things are everywhere you go and are the characteristic of human nature and existence all throughout the world throughout all time.
See, Satan is battling for the mind and the heart, even after you become a believer. But now it’s open, Satan’s come out of the closet.
Did that just this week, I came across an article, and a school right here in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, now has a Satan Club run by the Satanic Temple. Yes, they allure children in with fun games and food and all those things.
So people took them to the court, and the court had to uphold the First Amendment and say they have the right to have that club. So they meet after school, Satan’s Temple, which second, will lead to, that’s going to lead to Satan worship, right?
And people would think that that is all right. And who are, this is a middle school, so we’re talking about the minds of children, and that’s what’s happening today.
All this trans stuff going on, where they have trans parties for, what, adults with kids, they’re training them up, giving them what they need for what’s happening. See, satanic things are happening all around us everywhere, and Satan is out, doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care anymore, he’s not keeping himself private anymore, he’s out there.
The mystery of iniquity is growing and developing and exploding behind the scenes, until finally exploding on the scene that we can see. But believers, as they stand on the spiritual realities of being in union with Christ, Christians actually live outside the physical world, that’s Satan’s domain here below.
What do I mean by that? Believers are citizens of heaven. In fact, in Colossians 3:1-2, what else do they do? They set their minds on Christ above.
Look at verse one and two of chapter three of Colossians: therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
That’s where a Christian lives. A Christian lives with their mind in heaven, on Christ, on the word of God.
Colossians 3:1-2: “Keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”
Another thing, a fourth thing that we’re dead to, is we’re dead to self-made religion, and I’m going to deal with that in a minute.
The Why Question: Submitting to False Decrees
If you are a real believer and are dead to these things, which you are, then why does the why question come up in our text? Look at verse 20 again.
It says, “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees such as…” Here’s the why question.
If you’ve died in Christ and you have new life, what else is there to do? The answer is there’s nothing else to do. Christ has done it all.
But look at what he says here in our text. What are the false teachers telling them to do? These decrees and regulations are commands given by a false religion or world religious system and their teachers. They require followers to submit voluntarily to these things.
And what do they promise? If people do these things, then they’re right with God and they’re right with that religion. Their conscience is soothed because they’re doing these things.
What are these decrees? They are prohibitions: do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. This could mean dietary regulations, the keeping of holy days, or all kinds of things.
But it can also mean a degree of getting deeper and deeper into something so you can have a religious experience.
God did give degrees and ordained things in Old Testament worship—priests, robes, lamps, and altars. As I mentioned last week, these were all types of Christ, all fulfilled in Christ.
All these and more have now been fulfilled in Jesus’ coming and done away with. They have never been given to the Christian afterwards. The only two ordinances given to the church by God for all believers are the Lord’s table and believer’s baptism, and we are to continue to do these things until he comes.
Neither of these two ordinances are aids to salvation, and both are only for those who are in Christ.
So if you died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit to them?
Obviously some of the believers were ready to submit to these things and add something on to what Christ had done for them. Paul is warning them: don’t do that. You don’t have to do that. There’s nothing else to do. Now live your life that God’s given you.
The system of the world is godless. Through Christ’s death you were given freedom from the control of its spiritual evil forces. So then why do you still live as if you were still alive to the world? Why are you allowing yourself to be subject to authoritative commands that mean nothing for you?
Regardless of whether someone already believed these false teachers or is in danger of submitting to them, the danger is still real. It was real then, and it is real today.
That’s why it’s so important when somebody becomes a new believer that they get into the church and get into the doctrine of the church quickly. They can learn the Bible and stand upon Scripture so they cannot be deceived.
It’s so important for you now to remain in that, because if you don’t remain in it, you can easily slip away very slowly.
The answer to the why question is already given to us in Colossians. The believers have already received something from the Lord. Through his cross, Christ has given you and me complete salvation.
If we know Christ as Lord and Savior, in Colossians 2:13, he has forgiven us completely. If we know Christ as Lord and Savior, in Colossians 2:14, he has obliterated your IOU of sin that we could have never paid. If Christ as Lord and Savior, he has triumphed over all our enemies, and we have to fear no one anymore because of what Christ has done.
“Christ has given you and I complete salvation. He has forgiven us completely, obliterated our IOU of sin, and triumphed over all our enemies.”
Reason 1: False Religious Practices Are Transitory
Look at verse 22 of chapter 2. Here’s the first reason to resist the practice imposed by false teachers. It says in verse 22, the first part of that: “which all refer to things destined to perish with their use.”
In other words, the first point was their religious practices are transitory. They perish and lack any permanent value at all. Just like food and drink perish and cease to exist in their original form once we eat them, they go through your system and are discarded.
That’s how he’s viewing anything that could be added to or taken away from our faith in Christ. He’s saying that they are useless. These false teachers made eternal things dependent on temporal, earthly bound things, overestimating the use of food and drink. Therefore, resist them.
“Anything that could be added to or taken away from our faith in Christ is useless — only temporary, lacking any permanent value at all.”
Reason 2: False Religious Practices Are Merely Human
A second reason to resist the lure of false religion is found in the second part of verse 22, because their false religion and practices are merely human.
Notice what it says in verse 22: “in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men.” The false teachers get the content of their teaching from human ingenuity.
Dogma laid down by false teachers is definitely a clear and present danger for anyone who comes under their teaching. In other words, the source of their teaching is syncretistic: they get some from philosophy, some from Judaism, some from mystical experiences, some from pragmatic ritualism.
Along with that, it’s sprinkled with impious or imposed religious piety, and then voluntary humility, and then a harsh treatment of the body. All those things are outward things.
All religious systems show some appearance of wisdom. In fact, if you look at Colossians 2:23, it says these are matters which have for sure the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body.
The Apostle Paul makes an allusion here to Isaiah 29:13-14. It’s good for you to turn there this morning, Isaiah 29:13-14, because in this allusion there’s a connection made to these false teachers in the Old Testament who misled Israel into a departure from the worship of the one true living God into idolatrous acts. That is simply idolatry.
Notice in verse 13, the Lord said, “Because this people draw near with their words and honor me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from me, and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote.”
In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it actually says there “by the commandments and teaching of men,” which is, I believe, the correct rendering of that passage of scripture.
Isaiah the prophet was describing the shallow religious lives of these eighth century Jewish people. They were just going through the motions, and that’s why they put and italicize “by rote.”
Isaiah 29:13: “This people draw near with their words and honor me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from me.”
When you have a religious system where you’re just going through the motions and it’s all outward stuff, you don’t have to think about it. They repeat phrases that are repeated every single week in every single thing they do. They have things to perform, and when they perform them they just do it by rote.
The Hypocrisy of Lip Service Without Heart
And what happens when that happens is that there’s no heart anymore. So what happens? They have lip service without heart, that’s hypocrisy.
And the principle behind their thinking is, because there is a God, I must relate to God by being good, or by going through these things. And this is the principle that really we all work by.
The principle is worked out religiously in different ways. The legalist works out this principle by living their lives by a code of conduct, by a set of rules, do’s and don’ts, that’s the tradition of men. And if they follow it, then they are what, God looks at them with favor. If they don’t follow it, God looks at them not with favor.
Now you have to think about that for a minute. For a Christian, even when we sin, God doesn’t look at us with disfavor. He may discipline us to bring us back, but he doesn’t look at us with disfavor. He looks at us as in Christ.
And so the legalism takes account of man’s outward actions, but it takes no account at all of his inward actions. He may well be meticulously serving God in outward things, but disobeying God in reference to inward things, and that is simple hypocrisy, and God hates hypocrisy.
So if you ever find yourself being numb in your heart and coming to church and looking at the Bible and thinking about God in a way where there’s no movement of the heart, you definitely have to check yourself.
And yet a lot of people get lured into religious systems and this is where they end up, because there is nowhere else to go when you’re still in your sin.
So the moment the heart keeps far from God, it also leaves something else. It leaves the word of God. In fact, there will be a failure to see the true source of religious authority, which is scripture alone.
They were offering worship to God without the word of God, just like Jesus said in Mark 7:6. “But in vain they do worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men, neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”
They actually annihilate the word of God. Substituting men’s rules for God’s laws will only end up in not listening to God at all, or accepting his word, or following his voice. A real sheep follows the voice of God. He speaks, we listen, we follow.
“Substituting men’s rules for God’s laws will only end up in not listening to God at all. A real sheep follows the voice of God — he speaks, we listen, we follow.”
So what does God do with this show and appearance of their human wisdom? What does he do with that?
Well, if you notice in Isaiah 29:14, it says this: “Therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous, and look what it says, and the wisdom of their wise man will, what, perish, and the discernment of the discerning men will be concealed.”
Now this is exactly what it says in Colossians, that religious systems give an appearance of wisdom, but it ends up being foolish living, a living without heart, a religion without heart.
And remember this, that wrong teaching, wrong teaching, lays aside the commandments of God, but Christians are to lay aside the commandments of men. And those who do not worship God by his way do not worship him at all.
It does not matter how devout a person is, or how sincere a person is. If they are sincerely wrong, what’s the point?
So following the teachings and the commandments of men actually move people away from God, away from his word, and leads them into the sin of hypocrisy and false worship, which is idolatry.
Just like Titus records: “This testimony is true, for this reason reprove them severely, so that they may be sound in faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and the commandments of men who turn away from the truth.”
So any religious system that anybody can be involved with, whether they name in that system Christ or not, if it is a system based on men’s wisdom, it will lead away from God and not to God. Because there’s always in the back of someone’s mind something: I have to do more to either keep myself saved or to be saved.
So here’s the second reason to resist the practices imposed by false teachers: it is a man-made, religious, works-based, human system which diminishes Christ and is hollow and deceptive. And what is the second reason? Their religious practices are merely human, with no divine source at all.
“It is a man-made, religious, works-based, human system which diminishes Christ and is hollow and deceptive.”
Reason 3: False Religious Practices Are Worthless
And here’s the last reason to resist the lure of false religion: their false religious practices are worthless.
Look at Colossians 2:23. These are matters which have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement of the body and severe treatment of the body.
In other words, this is all self-imposed. Here’s the pattern of human wisdom: self-imposed religious piety, mock humility, and harsh treatment of the body. All these hinge on outward expressions, observances, and rules, instead of inward conviction and devotion to Christ.
The last part of verse 23 has been interpreted in both a negative sense and a positive sense. Look what it says: “but are of no value against fleshly indulgences.”
Here’s the positive sense. I believe this is the twist that false teachers would give: false teachers aim at satisfaction. By carrying out these religious patterns and this human wisdom, the flesh is gratified and satisfied.
And that’s what usually happens with religion. I go through my emotions, I do my rituals, I follow the rules, and what do I do? I feel good about it. I feel like, okay, I’m clean, and I go out and I live my sinful life anyway.
That’s what I did in the past, before I became a Christian. I was involved in a religious system that I was baptized, galvanized, and homogenized in, and yet it didn’t change my life. I just did what I wanted. When something came up I wanted to do, I did it. There was no question about whether it would honor God or be the right thing to do or hurt people. No, it was like my flesh dictated, I did it.
So these false teachers want to put these things in place to help people feel gratified and satisfied with their life. However, all that is satisfied is the flesh. There’s nothing else that’s satisfied.
A negative sense is that these man-made religious endeavors could not hold the sinful flesh in check, but in fact pandered to the flesh. I believe that’s more the sense of the text here. If I’m in a religious system, what’s going to hold down my desires and my lusts? Your regulations? No, none of that’s going to matter.
Matter of fact, according to Ephesians, somebody who practices these things has no spiritual value in the practice of these things, because they are still dead in their trespasses and sin. They still walk according to the course of the world and according to the prince of the power of the air. They still live in the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and are by nature the children of wrath. That’s Ephesians 2.
So in other words, rules do not carry us very far spiritually. They cannot keep us from our sin. Our sin will just dominate, no matter what system we follow.
“Rules do not carry us very far spiritually — they cannot keep us from our sin. Our sin will just dominate, no matter what system we follow.”
Only Christ Sets Us Free
The only one that doesn’t dominate is when someone follows Christ and has the spirit of God living in them, and they follow the word of God, and then they become free, because the truth makes them free.
Rules are not enough of themselves. In fact, the practice and use of these things are damning and destructive, because they will actually send people to hell.
Who’s in charge of religious systems? Satan is. All religions are run by him, and they get people and keep people in bondage and slavery, and the only one that is freed is the Christian.
That’s why he’ll go after you. He’ll go after you for what reason? To get you to do things, to come back to the old way, to come back to the old practices, to go back to where you came from, because he would remind you of some of the light you had back then and how you did have some satisfaction and gratification.
You don’t seem to always have that in the Christian life. Some of the times the Christian life brings suffering and trouble and tribulation in our life, and we muse back there of those things.
But remember what Paul told Timothy: they hold the form of godliness, although they have denied the power, avoid such men as these.
Only God can give you and me the power to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. Only he can do that.
The three reasons to resist pagan religious systems, any religious systems, no matter what they want to name them, are: first, because their religious practices are transitory; second, because their religious practices are merely human; and third, because their religious practices are worthless.
Why would I want to spend time with that? I wouldn’t, and that’s the point. The point is it convinces us: don’t spend time there anymore, it’s done, put it to death, close the door, and go on and live for Christ. That’s the only way we can do it, because salvation is only complete in Christ, everything else has no value.
“Only God can give you and I the power to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. Only he can do that.”
Let’s pray. Lord, thank you again for the word of God, thank you Lord for the scriptures that are before us that help us to handle the things that come our way.
I pray Lord that as we do that, we would, maybe for the first time in a long time, go back and consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ.
Lord, if there’s any way, either now or in the future, that someone’s going to come along to lure us away from you, I pray Lord that we would resist that at all cost, and we would go back to these scriptures and we would be informed again by what they say, so we can become strong, faithful followers of Christ with great discernment, leaning on the Holy Spirit, not grieving him or quenching him, but giving ourselves over as a clean vessel.
Because we know, Lord, it’s our reasonable service of worship to give ourselves to you, because of your mercy, you didn’t give us what we deserved, you gave us your compassion. And so because of that, Lord, we would be motivated every day to want to know the good and the acceptable will of God.
We would not want to be conformed to the world, but be transformed in the renewing of our mind, that we could actually know your will. Lord, I pray also that we wouldn’t lift ourselves up higher than we ought to, or lower, but just the way you created us, and go out and serve you with love and zeal.
I pray that for us, and I ask you to strengthen us by your word, in Christ’s name, amen.