Encounter the Truth

Jonathan Griffiths: Throughout your Christian life, you will encounter people and you will encounter movements who will tell you that they've got the next great thing for your Christian growth and experience. And friends, we need to just learn to filter out the noise of these things. And just walk with Jesus Christ, and he will grow us and he will sustain us and he will strengthen us.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. And Jonathan, there are so many Bible reading programs and books on this and that, and conferences. And a lot of those things can really have some good things in there and some merit in there. But walking with Jesus, as you point out, is the most important thing. But a lot of us hear that and say, I don't really know what that looks like aside from all the extras. What does it mean to just walk with Jesus?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, in many ways, I think it means returning again and again, day by day to a Bible presentation of who Jesus is and what he has done for us at the cross of Calvary. I find for myself, I am greatly refreshed. Each time I return to the scriptures and look again to Christ. Each time I hear others teaching the word, as I have the privilege of listening to other Bible teachers who simply point me to Jesus and to his work at the cross. And I just find I need to be rerooted again and again and again in the gospel basics of Jesus Christ and his saving work. And I think that's what we all need day by day.

Guest (Male): It is certainly what we need and we're going to open up God's word together now. So, I hope that you will grab a Bible, meet us in Colossians chapter two as we continue the message, Liberated in Christ. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: When I was a kid growing up in Toronto, I used to enjoy going downtown on a Saturday morning with one or two of my friends and exploring the downtown core when it was pretty deserted. I don't know if you'd send a 12-year-old down to do that now, but we did in our day, went down on the on the subway and did some exploring. When all the office workers were at home or up at the cottage, we like to go and walk the underground paths that connected the skyscrapers above, we like to go and ride the elevator up the CN Tower. And I still enjoy urban exploring.

When we lived in London, I loved exploring the old financial district, the square mile and loved exploring the new financial district out at Canary Wharf. In any event, when one of these great buildings, these skyscrapers, is under construction, what happens at the ground level is that a big plywood enclosure is built around the perimeter of the building site to keep people out. You will have seen this. To stop them falling into the enormous hole that is being dug for the foundations, to keep them out of the way of the cranes and the trucks and all the rest.

At the sidewalks bordering the site, there will be a covering, a sealing covering as well to stop any falling materials landing upon the pedestrians and so when you're up close to the building, you won't see it actually at all. While it's being built.

As you walk by at street level, there will inevitably be an artist's rendering of this great building of what is coming, of what is being built, stuck to the plywood board so the pedestrians can see. And if like me, you take a little bit of an interest in these things, you might stop as you walk by and just gaze at the picture and imagine what this new tower will be like.

Now, at some point in the process, the building will be more or less complete, but the wooden boards will still be in place until the cranes and the equipment are all taken away. The faded picture of the project that's been there for some months, even years will probably still be glued to the boards. No one's yet taken it down. And if you were really lacking in powers of observation, you know, you could walk by the site, stand under the the scaffolding, look at the the faded poster and think, boy, that's going to be an amazing building when it's built. I can't wait till that's built. Maybe you know, you take a little selfie next to the poster and Instagram it to someone, look what's coming.

But you know, people from the opposite side of the street might just look on a little bit perplexed at what you're doing. What is this guy doing having a selfie next to the faded picture when the building is, you know, right there behind him? Has he not noticed that the picture has given way to reality? Can he not see that? Or has he completely missed the point?

Those who would fixate on right and ritual and regulation, they fail to see that the reality has come. It's no longer pictures, visual aids, shadows. Jesus Christ has brought the substance, and for us believers, that's why we don't follow all the feast days and the holidays and the dietary requirements of the Old Testament. You may have wondered about that. That's why we don't follow them. The reality has come. And we need to be on our guard constantly against any attempt to push us back into that kind of ritualism and legalism as Christian believers. We need to be on our guard against anyone who would force us into Old Testament patterns of religion.

And sometimes you know, this kind of thing does come into vogue in the in the church, fads come and go all the time, in evangelicalism. Christians should keep certain dietary rules or observe certain days once more. This does happen. Maybe you've come across it. Maybe you've seen it. And and the argument for this normally states the obvious fact that these things, well, they're in the Bible, they're in the Bible, as if that observation should now shut down all discussion and debate. Well, where we saw such things in the Old Testament and they are there, they were there as shadow, as pointer, but the reality has come in Christ. who makes us holy by his blood, who opens the door of the eternal kingdom by his grace. who guarantees to his believing people rest and rejoicing in the kingdom of God.

The coming of Jesus Christ brings substance to the shadows. That's the first liberating truth about him and the next one is this, his life brings nourishment to the body, verses 18 and 19.

Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. Now, notice again, Paul's a very deep concern that the believers in Christ could be judged, could be condemned, could be disqualified by those who would look down upon their spiritual experience and look down upon their devotion to Christ.

Here the focus shifts slightly from the question of following the rules and the regulations of the Old Testament law. It turns now to a slightly different angle, a different way in which these false teachers were unsettling the believers. And here the focus is on their patterns of worship and devotion. These outsiders clearly had their own ideas about what it looked like to be truly devoted to the Lord and to express that devotion with sincerity and with appropriate fervor. To be really spiritual, they said, you need to be into asceticism. You've got to be into denying yourself things. We don't know exactly what it was. We can only imagine, getting into fasting in a big way. Don't indulge in the things you enjoy, no chocolate, January to April. Learn to go hungry for extended periods of time. Deny yourself sleep perhaps, go on some exhausting pilgrimage, I don't know, avoid all comforts, discipline your body to learn devotion to the Lord. And of course, the Apostle Paul is not opposed to self-discipline, far from it, he's not opposed to self-control, of course not. But he is opposed to this. He's opposed to placing rules and regulations on the backs of believers that go beyond the word of God.

He's opposed to the idea that some practice or routine not prescribed or required by scripture should be pressed upon believers and made essential to their faith and their discipleship. And of course, it is the great mark of religious cults that they always place these requirements upon their followers, deny yourself this, push yourself physically in this way, embrace discomfort or physical pain for the sake of spiritual benefit. That's the heartbeat of a cult.

Within the church, within evangelism, such claims will normally be less pronounced, but I think we sometimes nonetheless see movements that tend in this direction. And we just need to look out for it. We need to be on guard against this. A certain routine of self-denial, certain type of harsh discipline of the body, a regimen of some kind, that will be the key to spiritual fullness, that's going to be the mark of true devotion. Well, watch out, says Paul, don't let anyone disqualify you on that basis.

And then there's the claim to special spiritual experiences and the call to engage in strange and unusual kinds of worship. And we're familiar with these things too, aren't we? We've seen more than enough of this in the church over recent decades. Come and join in this unbiblical pattern of worship with us, then you're going to be a real insider when you do that. Worshiping angels was the weird thing, evidently in that day, that's the thing that Paul mentions, and in our generation, we've seen the extremes, haven't we? I remember some years ago a movement that swept through the the the churches, it started off with enthusiasm, a sense that the Spirit of God was at work in some remarkable and unusual and powerful ways, and it ended not so long after with people collapsing on the ground and making animal noises. It ended in ungodly chaos.

But people found themselves wondering in the early days, am I missing out if I don't experience this? Am I am I missing out if I'm not am I not experiencing fullness if I don't experience this? Some may claims to having other kinds of spiritual experiences, to seeing visions, perhaps. It's striking, isn't it? As we think about it, as we consider what happens in First Corinthians 12, where Paul holds back when discussing his own experiences of visions. He doesn't boast. He refuses to do that or make others feel that they need to experience those things to be real Christians. No, Paul sees that the false teacher who would make believers feel inadequate because they don't experience these things, end of verse 19, such a one is, he says, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind.

These waves, they do come through the church where there will be a new kind of experience, a new trend, a new fad in worship, a sense that the Spirit of God is perhaps moving in a new way. And whether the the claim is genuine or not, what often happens is that those who don't buy in, those who don't jump on board, those who don't have the same experience, there can be this sense pretty quickly that they are second-class citizens. Second-class Christians and not the real deal, or at least not really experiencing spiritual fullness. And Paul says, don't allow anyone to tell you that about your Christianity. Don't let anyone disqualify you. And here's why.

The source of spiritual life, the source of vitality, is not a new practice of asceticism, of self-denial. It's not the latest worship fad. It's not some strange or unusual experience. It's not any of these things. It is Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ and him alone. The smug false teacher is puffed up, that's for sure, but here is what he is not doing, verse 19. Paul says, he is not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

The church, the company of believers, it is the body of Christ. We are joined to him and he is the head of the body. Here is where we find life. Here is how we grow. Here is where we experience true spiritual vitality. It is in connection with Jesus Christ. That's it. He gives us life. He sustains us, he grows us. That's the full picture, that is the whole truth, that is what we are taught in scripture, plain and simple.

Now, throughout your Christian life, you will encounter people and you will encounter movements who will tell you that they've got the next great thing for your Christian growth and experience. You know, go on some camp somewhere where you're going to eat lentils and sleep on a bed of birch bark for a month, starve yourself or stuff yourself, join this crazy worship time and lose control and have visions or meow like a cat and then you'll truly live. Do it and it's going to be great, miss out, you're hardly a Christian at all. And friends, we need to just learn to filter out the noise of these things. We need to learn to resist the ridiculous. And just walk with Jesus Christ.

Just walk with Jesus Christ, steadily walk with him, day by day and week by week and month by month and year by year and decade by decade. We need to meet him each day in his word. We need to confess our sin to him. We need to ask him to be gracious to us and to help us move forward. We need to meet regularly with his people. We need to seek opportunities to serve him. We need to give ourselves to prayer. We need to stay connected to the head, and he will grow us and he will sustain us and he will strengthen us. That's the Christian life.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. Our message is called Liberated in Christ, part of our series, Walking Worthy from the book of Colossians. Today, focusing in on verses 16 to 23. Now, stay with us because we'll get back to the message in just a moment.

Do you ever wonder if you can trust the Gospels? You know, there are some differences between Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Plus, they were written a long time ago by different people. Maybe you've wondered, can you really trust them? Well, New Testament scholar Peter Williams is tackling that question in a book entitled Can We Trust the Gospels? He's looking at evidence from non-Christian sources. He's assessing how accurately these four biblical accounts reflect the cultural context of their day, comparing the accounts of the same events, and then looking at how these texts were handed down through the centuries. Whether you're a skeptic or a scholar, you're going to find some powerful arguments in favor of trusting the Gospels.

Again, we'd love to send you a copy of this book is our way of saying thank you for your financial support this month. You can give online at encounterthetruth.org or when you call us at 1-833-99-TRUTH. That's 1-833-998-7884. Or encounterthetruth.org. Back to the message, here's Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, that's the second liberating truth about Jesus. He brings life, he brings nourishment to the body. And finally, now the third, his death brings freedom to the oppressed, verse 20. If with Christ, you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why is if you were still alive to the world, do you submit to regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

The false teachers circulating at Colossi, who evidently have a Jewish background, evidently were promoting elements of Old Testament law, they actually stood truly in the tradition of all teachers of worldly religion. That's the truth. The the brands are different, the packaging is different, the labels and the language and the outworkings all vary, but the principles of all human worldly religions are the same. Keep these rules and the divinity might accept you. Work hard enough at obedience, right and ritual and regulation, and you might win God's favor in the end. Now, that is worldly religion, that is human religion in a nutshell. And it stems from the fundamental nature of the human predicament. It's why it's so widespread.

You see, all of us have a God-given conscience that tells us that we've done wrong, that tells us that we are guilty before him. By virtue of God's creative work, we all have a sense that yes, he exists and that we are accountable to him. And knowing in our heart of hearts that we stand guilty before God, the default mode of the human heart is to try to be better and to do better to win his approval. And all forms of human religion are attempts of various kinds to do that, packaged in different ways. But here's the thing, it is bondage. Here's the thing, it is slavery. It's slavery because in sin, we cannot do better on our own. We simply cannot do it. We cannot fix the problem of our heart. We cannot alleviate the burden of our own conscience. We cannot stop sinning. We cannot make ourselves right with God. And the vicious cycle of that leads only ultimately to despair.

And you know, maybe for some among us, that's exactly where you are today. Maybe what I've just said there, it sums up exactly what is going on in your own heart. Maybe that's precisely the nature of the burden you are carrying. If so, listen carefully to what comes next. For the Christian believer, for the one who has come to Christ, we are set free from that vicious cycle and from that hopeless bondage, and we are set free through the death of Jesus. If we belong to Jesus Christ by faith, we have died to that bondage, to worldly religion, to what Paul calls the elemental spirits of the world. We died to it because Jesus paid in full the price of our failure to keep God's law. He erased our record of wrong at the cross. He dealt with our guilt fully and finally objectively.

So the claims of lawkeeping, of rule and regulation and right and ritual to try and make ourselves right before God, hopeless as that attempt must always be, the claims of worldly religion upon us have been broken. We don't need to listen to the voices that tell us to try and be better and to do better to please God, to atone for our crimes. No, Jesus has paid the price through his death at Calvary. And he smashed entirely the claims of worldly religion upon our hearts.

See, worldly religion always claims that it can make us better, that it can break our bad habits, stop the indulgence of the flesh. But it can do no such thing. Never can. Only Jesus sets us free from guilt and condemnation. Only Jesus Christ sets us free to live a new kind of life of obedience. And so let me ask you, have you found that life? Have you experienced it personally? If if you haven't, and I know maybe a number among us, you haven't, but would love to. If you haven't, let me say to you as clearly as I know how to say it, you can. You can receive it. You can experience it. You can experience new life. You can know freedom from guilt and bondage and condemnation. You can find these things in Christ by coming to him in simple faith.

And for us here, who have done that already, who have placed our trust in Jesus Christ, here is the message plain and simple. Let no one pass judgment upon you in questions of food or festival. Let no one disqualify you on the basis of worship or spiritual experience. Do not submit to the regulations of worldly religion. These things, they have no hold upon you. Simply stay close to the head, to Jesus Christ himself.

Guest (Male): Jonathan Griffiths here in Encounter the Truth and a message called Liberated in Christ, part of our series from the book of Colossians called Walking Worthy. And if you've missed any of the broadcasts in the series, come and listen online. Our website is encounterthetruth.org. You can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. Again, that's at encounterthetruth.org.

Well, we depend here at Encounter the Truth on your generosity to keep the program and the podcast going. So thank you for giving to this ministry. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a book called Can We Trust the Gospels? It's written by Peter Williams. And Jonathan, I've got a friend who always says, you know, what you read is not necessarily as important as who you read. So, who is Peter Williams?

Jonathan Griffiths: Peter Williams is a really outstanding New Testament scholar based at the University of Cambridge. He's principal of an institution called Tyndale House Cambridge, which I think has a claim to be the leading biblical studies library in the world. I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time at Tyndale House myself when I was doing my PhD research, and so I know Peter and his work and he's a he's a really outstanding scholar.

Guest (Male): And so, when I hear that, I hear super intellectual, really heady. Am I going to be able to relate to a book like Can We Trust the Gospels?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, Peter's a fine scholar and an intellectual to be sure, but he's written this book to serve the church, to serve the people of God. And he's worked hard to make it really accessible, and that's one of the great hallmarks of this book, and it's one of the reasons why we want to get it into the hands of our listeners. Peter's tackling really fundamental issues, the trustworthiness of the Gospels, the reliability of the Gospels, and he's seeking to make the arguments in favor of the trustworthiness of the Gospels clear and simple and accessible. And I think his arguments are compelling, and I'd love to get this book into the hands of our listeners.

Guest (Male): Well, it's called Can We Trust the Gospels, and it is our thank you gift to you as you financially support Encounter the Truth this month. You can give online at encounterthetruth.org or call us at 1-833-998-7884. It might be easier to remember as 833-99-TRUTH or again, the website is encounterthetruth.org. You can also write to us at Encounter the Truth, PO Box 5513, Ottawa, Ontario, K2C 3M1. Or in the US at Encounter the Truth, 215 North Arlington Heights Road, Suite 102, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 60004. For Jonathan Griffiths and our producer Mark Betta, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us next time.