This Is the Life: Fighting - Self-Made Religion
Colossians 2:16-23
Pastor Bob Hiller
8/15/2010
Colossians 2:20-22 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.
1. Two self-made religions often attack the church: ____________ and _____________.
2. What legalistic teachers do:
- Make ____________ issues ___________.
- Make up their own _____________.
- Make teachings that appear _______________ but lack ____________.
3. The answer to the lie of legalists is to proclaim what God actually _______________ and our _____________ in Christ!
Scripture Readings
Jeremiah 23:16-29
Colossians 2:16-23
Luke 12:49-53
Take It With You!
Here we will offer thoughts and meditations on the message to help us as we contemplate and discuss and wrestle with what we are hearing.
So, talk of humility, or faith, or grace tends invariably to slip over into prescriptions for what we are to do to make ourselves as humble as possible, or to get some faith, or to decide for grace, and so on. In the theology of the cross, however, the point is that language is to be used in such a way that every prescription is cut off...The law humbles, grace exalts. Something is done to us... We can only be humbled by the appropriate use of language. The words must be law and gospel in such a way that there is no escape. Thus the impetuous question of whether or not humbling oneself or falling down and praying for grace is "doing something" can only be turned back to the questioner: "When you humble yourself and plead for grace, are you making the claim that you are doing something? If so, you are not pleading for grace, but only your own cause. And so you are still lost. Give up and believe the gospel!"
Gerhard Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross.
The bottom line is that we are all self-righteous. We are all prone to secretly believe that we are somehow better than others because of the things we do or do not do. The Scriptures teach that no one is inherently righteous and that our only righteousness come from Jesus as a gift. Anyone who fails to embrace this humbling fact invariably pursues righteousness on his or her own, which is the grievous sin of self-righteousness.
Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformission.
