Classic Sermon #6065: A Vital Faith

We are going to continue with our study of the Epistle to the Colossians. Colossians 2:13, chapter 3, verse 4. We are studying this epistle and going part by part, it has some precious teachings about the person of Jesus and the centrality of Jesus Christ, and this passage that we are going to study today continues with that focus Christ The central point that Paul gives to this epistle says Colossians 2:13,

"... And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he gave life together with him, forgiving you all your sins, annulling the act of the decrees that was against us that was contrary to us, taking it out of the way and nailing it to the cross. And stripping principalities and powers, he publicly exhibited them, triumphing over them on the cross. Therefore, let no one judge you in food or drink or in terms of feast days, new moon, or days of rest, all of which are a shadow of what is to come.

But let no one deprive you of your reward from the body that belongs to Christ, affecting humility and worship of angels, meddling in what they have not seen, vainly puffed up by their own carnal mind and not becoming head by virtue of which the whole body nourishes itself. and joining by the joints and ligaments that grows with the growth that God gives. Well, if you have died with Christ regarding the rudiments of the world, why, as if you lived in the world, do you submit to precepts such as do not handle or taste or even touch, in accordance with commandments and doctrines of men, things that all destroy each other? with the use.

Such things have, in truth, a certain reputation for wisdom in voluntary worship, in humility, and in harsh treatment of the body, but they have no value against the appetites of the flesh. If, then, you have risen with Christ, seek the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your sights on things above, not on things on earth, because you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, your life, appears, then you too will appear like him in glory…”

Brethren, I am thinking throughout this passage of what constitutes true holiness as Paul expresses it here. What constitutes a true spirituality, true holiness, what it consists of. And I am going to try to justify why I extract that thought from this passage that we have just studied.

We talked about how Paul reminds us of the importance of never taking our eyes off Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the center, Jesus Christ is the foundation of our spiritual life. Paul warns us to be careful with false doctrines, with doctrines of men that sound very sophisticated, promise a lot and yet when we compare them with what Christ offers they fall very short. Paul warns us to remain established in what we have believed, in what we have received, to remain firm in the foundation of our faith.

Paul speaks to the Colossians and tells them, you are well, I rejoice seeing you in the spirit in the firmness of your commitment to the Lord, in the love that exists between you and the unity that exists between you, in the knowledge that you are having and growing in the knowledge of Christ Jesus, and therefore do not be diverted from that with those who come to teach things that take your mind off Jesus Christ who is the center of everything else. Paul pleads with them to be rooted, he says, and built on Jesus Christ, to be confirmed in the faith and not to move in that way that they have received the Lord.

And we talked about the importance of perseverance in the Christian life, of not being subject to any wind of doctrine, of not jumping from doctrine to doctrine, from church to church, from man to man, as if wanting to search the things of the world. what only Christ can give.

I was talking with a sister this week and she told me, the thought that was recorded in me from that sermon, the only thing that I… said, that I could truly retain was that no church is perfect. And amen, that's a good thought to remember. No church is perfect, no pastor is perfect, no collection of men, no collectivity of human beings is perfect. Our gaze has to be on Christ Jesus, our foundation has to be Jesus Christ. Everything else is secondary and the person who has had a true encounter and has founded his life on Jesus Christ is not going to be moved easily, he will be able to visit churches, he will be able to put on a television program and listen to a preacher, he will be able to read different books and as the word says, he will examine everything and retain the good but the backbone of his spirituality will be Jesus Christ revealed through the word.

And the Christian feeds directly on that word and is not moved very easily. Examine things very carefully. There is a call there from Paul to focus on that sound doctrine, as the Apostle James says, and on that wisdom that comes from on high. James talks about wisdom that is true spiritual wisdom, and he says, “…for the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, kind, benign, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or hypocrisy…”

Very different from that complex and leafy wisdom that promises a lot but does not deliver enough. So it is a warning to put Christ in the first place. And so Paul now continues in his meditation and Paul goes into more detail and begins to elaborate a little more about this false doctrine that is bothering the Colossians, that is disturbing them and is leading them away from that healthy spirituality that they are following and from which they should not stray.

Here in these verses that we have read, Paul explains why they should not be easily moved from what they already have and from what they have received. Paul contrasts what Christ has done on the cross, the work that Christ has completed, the different things that Christ has done for the Colossians and for every believer, wonderful things, very real things, very profound things, with what that false doctrine it promises, which is more of a shadow, it is a mirage, it is a fiction, it is something that hypnotizes for a moment but when we get closer and try to touch it we discover that it promises a lot but fulfills very little, compared to the solid and very consistent work that Christ has accomplished.

Look at the first part, Paul first says what Christ has done and what Christ has accomplished for us. In verse 10 he says, "... you are complete in him...", let's go a little backwards, you are complete in him, that is, you already possess all the attributes of perfection and of God through the person of Jesus Christ, because he has them, in him dwells bodily in the fullness of the Godhead, and you have access to it.

Did you know that through the indwelling of Christ in your life you have access to all the blessings and all the power of Jesus Christ? That is why Christ said in Matthew 28, "...all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and preach the Gospel...", meaning that as I have it, you also have it, now launch yourselves to fulfill what that I send them That is, you are complete in Christ.

Secondly, Paul speaks in verse 11 of the transformation that has taken place, the spiritual transformation. Christ has freed us from the slavery of sin, it says that we were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands. Christ cast the sinful carnal body from us, that does not mean that we were made perfect, but that slavery under which we lived, without Christ, to sin and to the old nature, has now been cut off and God has given us a new nature for through his spirit and the slavery of sin has already been broken in us.

In addition to that, verse 13 says, he gave us life, and that is where we enter today's reading. It says, when we were dead in sins, when we were in our fallen nature, Christ came and made us alive together with him. He revived us, raised us to a new life, forgave us our sins through his death on the cross.

And furthermore Paul says in verse 14 that “….Christ annulled the handwriting of decrees that was against us….” What does that mean? Before Christ every human being, I put it this way, had an arrest warrant against him, there was an arrest warrant, an arrest warrant, a warrant for your arrest. Legally every man, every woman was under the judgment of God and there was a death warrant, there was a document lying around that had our sins written on it and those sins were being tabulated and they were being noted. And what Christ did through his death was to take that document that was in the divine file with our name there, and he removed that arrest warrant, he took it out of the way as Paul says, and do you know what he did? He nailed her to the cross. A tremendously powerful image that Paul uses.

What did Paul mean by that? He was referring to what happened in those times when a person was crucified, what was done on top, on top of the cross? The document why that person was being crucified was attached, so that everyone who passed by, we are crucifying this person as a thief, or as a murderer, or as a revolutionary against Rome.

You will remember in the Gospels that Christ was called this is the king of the Jews, that is why they were crucifying him, because he was supposedly putting himself above Caesar. He was seditious. And then what Paul says is that Christ, there on the cross, he issued all those arrest warrants that were against us, of all humanity, he took it on the cross, and he already put death on himself and the condemnation that we deserved and he annulled all that there. So now, when we by faith believe that this was a reality and appropriate that act of Jesus Christ, we can then have peace with God and our criminal record, so to speak, is clean in the eyes of God.

And finally there is another spiritual dimension that Paul enters into considering in verse 15, he says, “…dispossessing principalities and powers, he made a public display of them, triumphing over them on the cross….” Who are these principalities and these powers? The forces of hell, the demonic powers that are powers that have authority on earth, that have influence and that govern governments and human institutions and cultural and intellectual systems. And those demonic powers that use all those machinery and those mechanisms to enslave humanity and to keep it captive, Christ through his work on the cross, and through his life, through his death, says that he stripped, that It's a very important word because it's the idea of looting like an army going into a city and looting it and stealing its wealth. Christ through his death plundered the kingdom of hell. And what was it that took him away, what did Christ strip Satan of? Of our souls, control of our life. Christ removed Satan's power over us.

That is why you will remember when we studied verse 13 of chapter 1, it says that Christ has delivered us from the power of darkness and has transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. When Paul says that Christ dispossessed principalities and powers, he took away the property of the human race. Satan is no longer inevitably the king of this world unless we don't want it and don't let it. No one has to live now under the power of Satan because Christ legally took away his power, plundered hell, and now through a vital relationship with Christ our life is no longer outside the control of Satan and is under the control of Jesus Christ . He dispossessed principalities and powers.

It also says, “…he exhibited them publicly….” A reference to when a Roman general (displayed) a triumph, when a Roman general went to a foreign country and a war, and defeated the enemy was allowed as a public celebration when he returned with his army to parade down the main street of Rome bringing chained to the officers and soldiers who had been defeated and put them on public display and all the Roman people crowded around the streets giving victory to the winner. And it was a shame for the defeated to be dragged in chains, those officers and those generals of the defeated army. And that is what Paul uses here, that image says, "...he publicly exhibited them the resounding victory of Christ on the cross of Calvary against Satan, and he triumphed over them there on the cross..."

And I thought about the irony that the cross that was a symbol of shame, of defeat, such that no Roman citizen could be crucified because it was an indirect shame for Rome, that in that shameful cross it was not Jesus Christ who was actually shamed but Satan and the powers of hell. Shame was on Satan. That cross and that death there on the cross was a way of Christ publicly displaying the defeat of hell. A wonderful thought.

Christ achieved all of this on the cross, Christ achieved all of this through his life and then Paul makes that list of things, he is like a lawyer who is building his argument for the Colossians. And then Paul says, look at Colossians, and he says to us, look at the church, look at all that Christ has achieved, he has given you life, he has forgiven you your sins, he has removed the accusation that was against you, before God , He has delivered them from the wrath of God, He has dispossessed principalities and powers and has removed Satan's control of their lives, He has forever defeated the powers of hell. And then in light of all that you cannot leave Christ and go after the doctrines of men. That is the argument, that is why in verse 16 there is the culmination and it says;

"... therefore...", why therefore? In light of everything that I just said, "...so let no one judge them...", and that is a very key word, let no one judge them, judge, "...in food or drink or in terms of holidays , new moon or days of rest…”

Why is the word judge important here? Because we have already been freed from judgment, Christ has already overthrown all that was against us, now in Jesus Christ there is no longer any condemnation and so you cannot submit yourself now again to a judgment of a legalistic religion, you see? Paul is telling you, let's not allow ourselves to be judged by a condemnatory religion, by a legalistic religion, returning to the spiritual slavery from which you were freed.

I was thinking about what the epistle to the Galatians says where you can read it and you will find even more background for all this. Paul is talking to the Galatians who have also left behind, this congregation in Galatia, they have allowed themselves to be deceived and confused by people who came to preach such a Judaist, legalistic religion and wanted to introduce those Christians back to the law and the requirements of the law. And Paul shoots them a letter to correct that mistake, and in verse 8 of chapter 4, he says:

“… In another time you did not know God and you served those who by nature, by definition are not gods. He says, but now knowing God through Christ, or rather, being known by God, because we can never fully know God, how is it that you turn back to the weak and poor rudiments to which you want to return to enslave . How is it that you can leave that dead religion and experience the reality of God in your life, how are you going to go back to a legalistic religion again? Now then they return, says verse 10, to keep the days, the months, the times and the years, I am afraid of you that I have worked in vain, that I have preached a Gospel of liberation and joy in Jesus Christ and that I have done in vain because here you are again getting back into the chain of a legalistic religion. And then Paul says, therefore do not be judged in a ritualistic religion. That's the first thing, don't let yourself be judged.

Secondly, he says, do not fall back into that ritualism of dates, food, drinks because that does not compare with the real work, the interior work that Christ has done in your hearts because none of that religion that those were doctrines that were beginning to penetrate there in Colossae, none of those things Paul says, achieve all that I have just enumerated to you that Christ achieves.

Paul tells them, be careful not to meddle, there it is in verse 18, no one deprives you of your prize, another key word, affecting humility and worship of angels, meddling in what he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his own carnal mind.

Beware of meddling with lesser beings because your prize is Christ Jesus. Beware of losing that great prize that you have received in the person of Jesus Christ because the Gospel, the center of the Gospel is the person of Jesus and if you start to struggle with those semi-gods and those angels, because that doctrine, that Colossian heresy, as that doctrine that was circulating at that time has been called, and what is Gnosticism, which was a doctrine that threatened Christianity very strongly in the first centuries of the Christian era, spoke of, as I have told you before of those intermediate beings that were between the almighty god and the human race, and the Gnostics preached that you had to appease and that you had to get in touch with those gods that were between heaven and earth, and that you had to mess with them, and that then that doctrine and that teaching that Gnosticism gave could guide people to other higher spheres until they could reach where God was. It had intermediaries and then it seems that there was a cult of angels and beings that had something of Judaism but that there was also a mixture there, it seems of occultism, like the New Age, for example, that we have today, very similar to this type of thing .

And I thought, brothers, about, and I say this with great respect and with a healthy discrepancy at the same time that I express my respect for the Catholic religion, but I believe that Pablo today, if he sometimes looked at the cult that They have many Catholic brothers in their healthy desire to please God, for the saints and for Mary, and sometimes even the angels, the Archangel Michael for example, and other angels.

I wonder if there isn't a similarity in this, like the need that human beings always have to find intermediate beings that take them before God, like we don't feel deserving enough to go directly to the Father, or we think that perhaps God is too busy and has too many cases over there that he is dealing with, and so he needs Christ, Mary or Saint Michael or whoever it is to help him in the administration of the earth. And then we kind of go to those intermediate beings to use them as a lever so that they take us before God. And I think Paul would say, why are you going to allow yourself to be deprived of the greatest prize that you have, which is direct access to the person of Christ and through him directly to the Father.

As they say in Hebrews, “….having access to the throne of grace let us approach with confidence…” Do you understand? That is, the idea is, why let us be fooled, an expression that is not very Cervantine, but why let us be confused by getting into intermediate beings if Christ has already opened a completely clear path to go directly to the throne of grace. Let's not mess with those things, and you know, brother, Santeria becomes an extremely complex system. There are saints who specialize in thunder, and other saints in rain, and others in crops, and there are saints who specialize in a specific disease, etc. and it becomes a kind of very complex system. And that is also a kind of mental vanity in which people get involved in projecting things and inventing things and a well elaborated system is created and the devil has taken advantage of that, but look, by far, with spiritualism and so many other things we know.

Because they do not have the protection of the spirit of God even though they are born from a healthy spirituality, because these brothers truly want to please God through their spirituality, but they are doing it in an improper way. And I believe that the word of God would advise them not to be deceived in this way.

And Paul spoke to them again, "... if you have died with Christ in terms of the rudiments of the world, why as if you lived in the world, verse 20, you submit to precepts such as do not handle, or taste, or even touch..."

What is asceticism, in the first centuries of the church, after a time like the church was declining a bit in its vitality and asceticism entered. People went to the caves to seek God in a more complete way and I believe a lot, in fact in the consecration and I am not totally longing for that, but it kind of became a neurosis almost, like something compulsive and it came to almost have a life of their own. There were men who spent their entire lives climbing on a very high column living there on a little piece of land to multiply meat. And it got to such extremes that, that is where the cult of the Virgin Mary came from, because sex was bad, and if Mary was pure and the mother of God, she could not have been the mother of other children, because there are a rejection as of sexuality implicit in this. And perhaps from there also comes the belief that in order to be truly consecrated, you had to be celibate as well.

I think there was this tendency, it was a compulsiveness to not touch things that could harm, not to harm the will of God, not to offend God, and it then became, threatened to become once again a legalistic and fearful religion, seeing the devil everywhere, and seeing danger everywhere.

Why do they get involved, he says, in this question of not handling or liking, because all those things are destroyed with use. It is what Jesus Christ said, what you eat, he says, pardoning the expression, it goes to the latrine, he says, it is what comes out of the heart of man. That's what poisons people. Christ also had a sound vision of what true spirituality was.

I always respect the Lord more and more because I see that way so simple, so clear, so simple of him to see the spiritual life. He was not calling us to a fearful, neurotic spirituality, but a healthy spirituality.

Paul says, “…..everything is a shadow of what is to come but the body belongs to Christ….” What does that mean? That those rites and those human values are simply indirect projections, they are symbols, they are representations, they are shadows. Now, the body that casts the shadow to the solid, the truly real is Christ Jesus. And all those things are simply symbols of true spirituality.

As Hebrews tells us, the tabernacle was a symbol, the holy place, the most holy place. The sacrifices were symbols of what was to come, of Christ who was the perfect sacrifice. All these things, circumcision was a symbol of something, now Christ made it real in our hearts. Circumcision used to be a physical thing in Judaism, but now it says, Christ has made it happen.

As I think Ezekiel said, I am going to circumcise hearts and that is why Paul speaks of the circumcision that Christ has done in us. Christ did what was true, so don't be fooled by this whole system of symbols and things that are simply indirect projections.

So how can we apply all of this to our life as a church? I want to finish here with a couple of ideas. What does all this tell us that Paul is speaking to us in the 20th century? I would say the first, brothers, I am going to make an affirmation as follows: the primary achievement of Christ in our favor with his life, his death and his resurrection, I would say that it is freedom. Christ achieved freedom for us, freedom from sin for us, freedom from death, freedom from Satan as we have seen, freedom from the guilt that we felt, freedom from the wrath of God, freedom from the yoke of the law, from all those things Christ set us free Christ achieved a liberation for all humanity through his person.

And that word freedom is very important that we remember it. Our lives as individual Christians and as a church have to reflect that value, that freedom that Christ has achieved for us. And I want to elaborate a little on that thought.

In Galatians 5, verse 1 Paul says: “…. So stand firm in freedom, in verse 3 it says, because you, brothers, were called to freedom only that you do not use, here is a warning, that you use freedom as an opportunity for the flesh but serve one another out of love ….”

But there is an emphasis on freedom. And I believe, brothers, that our Christian life, I say again as individuals and as a church, and I believe the very environment of our family life, should project that freedom, that lightness of spirit of those who feel confident before their father, who he feels approved by his father, that he feels loved by his father. And I thought about the difference between a child who has grown up in a home with love, with affirmation, with acceptance, with approval of what he or she is, who grows up with a healthy image of himself, with a adequate self-image, and let us think of that child who has grown up in that home of freedom and acceptance as well as wise discipline, but let us compare him with a child who has grown up in a repressive and condemnatory environment and which promotes the formation of neurotic attitudes, where everything is bad, where he is not approved of what he is, where he is not given the space to develop his individuality.

I am sure that if we compare these two children in their social behavior, we will clearly know which is which. Because the child who has grown up with approval will be a vital child, he will be sometimes daring even in his behavior because he will be exploring and looking for options and developing skills, and he is confident and he approaches people, and he lets people know approach him or her. But the child who has grown up under a severe condemnation, and under a repressive environment will be timid, and will be careful not to do anything to upset people or whatever, because children in their natural behavior are clear in their behavior. . But the child who has grown repressed grows up in a fearful way and expects judgment and expects condemnation from others.

And I submit that for our consideration because something like this must also be our spirituality as a church and as individuals. There are churches and there are individuals who can be like the child who has lived repressed or like the child who has grown up under healthy discipline. And I believe that we have to be careful as a church and as individuals to become legalistic and condemnatory of our spirituality, because Christ has set us free, Christ has knocked down that wall of condemnation that was above us. We cannot be seeing sin everywhere nor should we be excessively concerned with sin, affecting a superficial and artificial and ultimately neurotic holiness. I am afraid of it, sometimes that our desire, many times to be holy and to please God, there is a very fine line between a holiness that is beautiful and that overflows with vitality and joy, and life, and light, and a holiness that is rather based on fear and repression, and judgment.

And Paul is calling out here to the Colossians saying, hey, look, the life that Christ has called you to is a life of freedom, it's a spontaneous life, it's a spirituality that exudes joy and celebration for what Christ has done. There has to be that balance in our lives. I am not calling libertinism brothers, as Paul warns in Galatians 1:13, obviously you know that I preach many times, but just as I preach about holiness I also try to draw clear lines on what truly constitutes holiness. And today I want to emphasize the space that we have to give ourselves in this search for holiness.

I once spoke to you about space and the importance of having space in our dealings with our children and in our spiritual development. And I believe that there must be space in the spiritual life also in the search for holiness so that there is freedom and there is life, and there is joy. The truly holy person knows how to laugh at himself, he doesn't take himself too seriously, sometimes we take our holiness so seriously that we bore all the people around us. And people are afraid of us, they are afraid of being honest with us, they are afraid of confiding in us a weakness or a fear because they will feel judged and they will say, how can I get close to that mass of person? He will think that I am impious if I confess to him a thought or a fall or a weakness, or a fear.

And I believe that the truly spiritual and truly holy person is a person who doesn't take himself too seriously, you know? That he takes everything with a grain of salt, because he knows that it is by the grace of God that we are saved and not by anything that we have done and that only by the mercy of God, as it says in fact in Galatians itself, he says, my children , if any of you should have sinned, you who are spiritual, he says, restore him with a spirit of meekness looking at yourself, lest you commit the same ones that you are judging others. And that expression that is often used in English, there only by the grace of God I have not fallen. And that is what we have to be careful about, brothers, always.

And our spiritual life should reflect that sense of God's grace. The truly spiritual person, I believe, is able to converse with an unbeliever and speak in a healthy way and that unbeliever does not feel as if he is before a spiritual giant, he does not feel nervous and timid. No, he is a detached person, he is a healthy person who knows how to laugh, who knows how to make a joke and who knows how to enjoy life within the framework that God has established. And he is a person that I believe, who is attractive due to his spontaneous spirit and his confidence in the grace of the Lord.

The opposite is that artificial sanctity, just a dress that we put on over it. It is a repressive holiness that leaves no room to breathe, to grow, to make mistakes, that is easily scandalized, that lives in a continuous fear of offending God instead of living in a continuous desire to please God. Do you see the difference? One is a push that they give us from behind, fear. Another is a musical note that draws us to our God and makes us want to please our Father who has done so much for us.

And I believe that depending on the emphasis we place on our spirituality, our life as a congregation, as individuals and as parents will also be healthy. In our desire to please God, let us be careful that we do not go to the other side of not driving, not liking, not touching, of the sanctimonious compulsive life that does not please God and that has nothing spiritual about it, they simply are, as it says here, things of men, inventions of men that men make themselves, who wears a beard or does not wear a beard, wears sideburns or does not wear a sideburn, wears a long suit or does not wear a long suit. They are things, yes as Pablo says, look, the truth is they have a certain reputation for wisdom, that's fine, that's nice, that helps and it's nice and whoever wants to practice it is fine, but in reality that doesn't do anything to cut the sinful tendency that is in us.

Now, brothers, what am I saying? That a woman or a man dress like anyone? I think not, I think that the Christian must reflect as the word also says in his modesty dress and everything else. But from there to being compulsive and neurotic and fearful, no, that is not from God. God wants rather a healthy spirituality, a healthy desire to please him.

And I believe that is what truly allows for healthy holiness to be cultivated in the church life and in the life of the home. The external legalism of the uniform and long things and repressive morality never created a saint, quite the contrary, frequently what we see is that it leads to scandal and hypocrisy. In many of these repressive environments things happen, brothers, that if you uncover the lid of the pot there are crickets, there are worms, there is everything in there except a healthy spirituality.

This is what happened to the people of Israel. Whitewashed tombs, every legal and legalistic system of laws and prohibitions, but what was underneath? Spiritual death, lack of sensitivity. The Son of God was walking among them and they could not see him because they were too enamored with his precepts and his principles and his artificial laws. And that's what happens when a repressive environment is created within a congregation or a family, the spirit of God is grieved and lowered and then Satan comes and produces precisely what that sensitivity is trying to escape. How rare is the human mind, and how rare is human sensitivity, but it is so and sometimes we make victory easy for Satan.

Now, I say, where the genuine spirit of Christ is, there is freedom, there is laughter, there is happy music, there is a party, there is fellowship, there is celebration among the brothers, there is joy, the joy of the Lord is present. Perfect love, he says, casts out fear. A holy and pleasing life to God is preached, yes, but if someone falls, the aim is to restore and raise the fallen, not condemn him, not fall on him.

I believe, brothers, in a theology that sees the sanctity of everything created and that consecrates everything to the Lord, every thought, every impulse, as Paul says, brings it subject to the person of Jesus Christ. Nature, art, all consecrate it to the Lord and give it back to the one who created it and to the one who gave it. And that is why I believe that a truly profound church is going to be a church that cultivates all those aspects of creation and that subjects them to the holiness that God commands, not that avoids them and closes the door and drives six nails into them. to the door so that the devil does not come out. Because Satan has already been defeated. His nails were taken out, his teeth were taken out and now everything belongs to Christ and we belong to Christ and everything is subject to the Lord.

And then we can live and move in that freedom. And that brothers, if you want to know what I think as a pastor, I take advantage because sometimes people really wonder what our pastor is thinking about this and about that? And I believe that, brothers, it is to promote in us as a church and in my own life a complex spirituality that sometimes unites the extremes of one spirituality and another. Brothers, we are looking for a balance and sometimes that will lead us to experiment and reach blind alleys and have to go back a bit and search, but in that I believe we are going to be enriched, instead of getting into a program that we received from a denomination or a book, whatever, and we continue on that way and there is no detour and then we stop being creative and we stop listening to the voice of the spirit of God.

A truly creative congregation will sometimes make certain mistakes and certain things, but God will always be pointing it in the direction he wants it to follow. But I say, brothers, sometimes it is good and it is nice that of all the meetings that take place during the year, which are very spiritual, that we also take one to loosen our bows and celebrate what you are as women, that beauty of the body, and the things that God has given, I believe that this has its beauty and perhaps some would say, a holy church would not do that. But I think so, because a holy church recognizes the holiness of all creation and subjects everything to the Father. And so I believe that this has its place. I love it when we get together to celebrate together and eat together and enjoy and laugh, because in all of this we are declaring the God who has made us books through Christ Jesus.

And that is what I am referring to, I am trying here in different ways to point to that happy, free spirit, to that balance between freedom and licentiousness and repression, to which God has called us. And that is what we as a church and as individuals have to be looking for in our lives, brothers, a spirituality that glorifies God in the way that God truly wants to be glorified, not self-righteousness.

Finally, this passage has told me a lot about the importance of avoiding dead religion, formal and formalistic religion. Because Paul speaks here of leaving those things that are representative and going to that Christ who has done real things in the lives of the Colossians. You have to avoid religion, brothers, I do not like to be told that I am a religious person because I am not religious. I love Christ Jesus and I serve him and I have decided to give my life to him and I fight for that as much as I can, to do it, but I am not consecrated to any religion, nor to any man or to any system. I hope you aren't either. Rather, we serve a living Christ, we serve a Christ who has worked in us and who has transformed us and who has done beautiful things in us. And therefore our spiritual life should not be religious and formal and ritualistic but should be fervent and vigorous and full of vitality. It must project the energy of God that moves within us, it must project the presence of the spirit of God that created everything that exists out of nothing, that makes changes, that transforms, that heals, that gives life to the dead, that strengthens our thoughts and our bodies. Our spiritual life should reflect that vigor.

Romans 12:11 talks about being fervent in spirit and the idea of fervent in the original Greek is like a burning coal, red, a glow, as they say in English, shining like a red hot coal. And Paul speaks to Timothy, he says that I advise you to fan the fire of the gift that is in you. There is an allusion there to fervor and Timothy is called as a shepherd, continually blowing. The idea is to take a fan and blow that fire so it doesn't die and fan it and lift it up.

And you will remember that what fell on the first disciples at Pentecost were not snowflakes, they were tongues like fire, he says, distributed. And the spirit of God moved in such a way that the people thought they were crazy and drunk. There is a call in the Christian life to vitality. Biblical Christianity, I believe, is characterized by enthusiasm, by fervor, by intensity, by life. Our meetings, brothers, our life as a church, must cultivate that fervor, must project that joy, that intensity.

When we get together and when we feel that the fire of the Lord is waning, we must make a decision as a church to blow that fire of God back into our lives because it does not depend on God giving it just once, but God interacts with us and God expects that when you already feel that you are feeling indifferent to the word, that you come to church and your worship is half dead, that it is a ritualism, that you are not feeling that God is speaking to you and that he is putting new concerns in your life, and that you leave the church as you entered, alarms must begin to sound everywhere, I have to go back to look for the fire of my Lord. And then you make a decision to go fast for a while, or cry out to God, or ask Him, Lord, is there any sin in me or is there something that is suppressing your spirit? Or I have simply become indifferent, I have lost my first love. And we have to go back to find that fire and that enthusiasm and that joy and that infatuation with our Lord. Because the Christian life should never be ritualistic, it shouldn't be formalistic, we shouldn't be able to just come here to church and walk out the way we walked in, but we have to feel that God has touched us and impacted us.

And I believe, brothers, in tears, I believe in crying when it comes from the heart touched by God. I believe in laughter that celebrates the presence of God in our lives. I believe in the cry that springs up in Hallelujah! In a glory to God, because we feel that the presence of God needs to be projected and expressed because we feel it so deeply within us. And I believe in the fervor and vitality of the Son of God. I believe that our meetings should not be meetings of the dead but meetings of people who have received life through Christ and who are celebrating it. We have to cultivate that. We have to ask the Lord to fill our lives with that enthusiasm so that we are not like those churches that Christ told them, I have something against you, you have lost your first love and you no longer adore me with the same spontaneity with which you did. Now your services and your meetings are rituals, they are formulaic and the Lord discerns that, brothers, in our lives.

I always ask the Lord because I experience it many times, the worries of life and the burden of life tend to absorb our vitality and the threat will always be that, of losing ourselves and doing things automatically, a Sunday spirituality. We are Christians only when we are in church, but no, Christ has called us to a celebratory life, to a vital and joyful life, brothers, to a spontaneous life that is always examining and re-examining the foundations of its faith and raising them again. fresh as bread out of the oven, new, always discovering new things that the Lord brings us. That is the life to which God has called us. Let us not be subject to the laws of men or to the system of men, let us go to Christ Jesus and may he renew our understanding day by day. God bless us.