Why Self-Help Doesn't Help


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Edited June 17, 2009

Why Self-Help Doesn’t Help Rich Nathan June 6-7, 2009 Vision for Life: Seeing the Big Picture (Colossians) Series Colossians 2:9-15 Let me begin by reading to you a few quotes from a massively best-selling book titled The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne. Her book and the film titled “The Secret” have grossed over $300 million dollars. Rhonda Byrne has appeared numerous times on Oprah, offering people the secret. So, what is the secret? Let me read from Rhonda Byrne’s book: The earth turns on its orbit for You. The oceans ebb and flow for You. The birds sing for You. The sun rises and it sets for You. The stars come out for You. Every beautiful thing you see, every wondrous thing you experience, is all there for You. Take a look around. None of it can exist, without You. No matter who you thought you were; now you know the Truth of Who You Really Are. You are the Master of the Universe. You are the heir to the kingdom. You are the Perfection of Life and now you know the secret. Rhonda Byrne goes on to say: You are God in a physical body. You are Spirit in the flesh. You are Eternal Life expressing itself as You. You are a cosmic being. You are all Power. You are all wisdom. You are all intelligence. You are perfection. You are magnificent. You are the creator, and you are creating the creation of You on this planet. The incredible claims of self-help So, are you feeling pretty good about yourself? I love Rhonda Byrne’s use of capitals, by the way. What’s the secret? Believe that you are God Almighty, a belief which used to be called either “blasphemy,” or “paranoid schizophrenia” accompanied by delusions of grandeur. The secret, according to Rhonda Byrne, is that the entire universe exists for you and you control everything including the ocean tides. Two quotes immediately jumped to my mind when I read this stuff. One is by another self-help guru, Dr. Phil. You are taking your summer vacation at the beach. You’ve got a copy of The Secret with you and you decide to control the tides. I can hear Dr. Phil asking: “How’s that working out for you?”

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The second quote, as I read Rhonda Byrne’s stuff is from P.T. Barnum, of Barnum and Bailey’s Circus. P.T. Barnum once said: No one ever lost money underestimating the taste of the American public. Folks have written to me and asked, “Is The Secret compatible with Christian faith?” Come on, people! This is not one of those mysterious enigmas wrapped in a paradox. This is pretty easy stuff. Repeat after me: Jesus is God and I am not! There are nearly 185,000 self-help books listed on Amazon. Virtually every sector of the American economy has gotten hammered during the recession – banking, autos, retail, and construction. But there is one sector that just keeps growing – the self-help sector. Americans spent $8 billion dollars in 2008 on selfimprovement books, CDs, seminars, coaching, stress-management programs. The latest forecast is at least 6% annual growth for the next four years. Gordon Hall made $100 million dollars during the 1980’s with a chain of Nautilus Health Spas. He used to drive around Phoenix, Arizona in a huge black limo driven by a beautiful woman who wore pink hot pants. Gordon Hall once said, I am the master of the universe. I am God Almighty. He regularly proclaimed that he was going to be a billionaire by age 40. When I read some of Gordon Hall’s statements, I said to my research assistant, “I am certain that this guy fell flat on his face. Can you dig some stuff up on Gordon Hall?” His chain of health spas was taken. So were all of his real estate and his shopping centers. And in the late 1990’s, Gordon Hall was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for taking part in a conspiracy that cost stock investors millions of dollars. Apparently, he was the front man for some members of the Genovese and Bonanno organized crime families and tried to infiltrate Wall Street with members of the Mob. Tony Salerno wrote a book a few years ago titled S.H.A.M.: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless. “S.H.A.M.” is actually an acronym, which stands for “Self-Help and Actualization Movement.” Salerno said that the money spent on self-help cures and programs would be okay if they actually worked. But for the most part, they don’t. In fact, they count on failure because it keeps getting people to come back for more and more and more self-help courses. Salerno investigated not only the different kinds of selfhelp movements – victimization (victimization and empowerment camps), but also the people behind the movements. There are all these so-called experts

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with loose credentials. For example, Dr. John Gray, who has made millions of dollars on his Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus books. There was even a recent Broadway play by that title. Dr. John Gray is not a medical doctor. He is not a psychiatrist or psychologist. On the contrary; he received his Ph.D. in 1982 from Columbia Pacific University, a non-accredited correspondence college in California, where all of these places are. Columbia Pacific University was eventually ordered to close for handing out phony credentials. Not only do you get these books written with bullet points and catchy titles, but the self-help movement offers really odd counsel. One of the gurus of the selfhelp movement said this: Change your DNA and you change your life. Think about that! On the one hand, it’s true. And on the other hand, it is really hard to change your genetic material. You get the books and the videos and the empowerment seminars. And then you have all the ancillary products. Motivational speaker, Tony Robbins, and the spiritualist, Deepak Chopra, sell something called “Q Link.” It is a pendent that is designed to enhance a person’s resistance to ambient radiation that comes from cell phones. Okay. A lot of this stuff has deep roots in the whole way that we think as Americans, whether we are talking about The Little Engine that Could. You know the story. A long train of freight cars asked a large engine to take the freight cars over the hill, but the large engine said, “I can’t.” Then the cars asked another engine and that other engine said, “I can’t.” And then the cars came to the little engine and the little locomotive said, “I think I can.” And so it put itself in front of the great train and said, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” And when it went over the hill, it said, “I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could.” We love that stuff. We love Walt Disney’s: When you wish upon a star, it makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart desires will come to you. If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme. When you wish upon a star, as dreamers do… I like positive people as much as any body. And as a general rule, I respect people who are self-motivated; they initiate things and they know where they’re going. I respect people who are proactive and take responsibility for their lives. I’ve been preaching through the book of Colossians, a letter that was written by the apostle Paul back in 60-61 A.D. I’ve repeatedly said that Colossians is a

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worldview book. It assaults and challenges the prevailing worldviews of the first century and the prevailing worldviews of 21st century America. In Colossians we are given a radically different worldview. An entirely different set of lenses through which to look at life. And today we are going to talk about taking off the American self-help set of lenses that we grow up with just living in the United States, and beginning to see life through the lenses that God provides. I’ve called today’s talk, “Why Self-Help Doesn’t Help.” Let’s pray. Colossians 2:9-15 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your sinful nature was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Again, I need to be clear. When I’m saying that self-help doesn’t help, I am in no way intending to discourage individuals here from taking responsibility for the state of their finances, or the state of their marriages, or the state of their careers, or their schoolwork, or their health. I’m not intending in any way to discourage anyone here from taking initiative to improve your day-to-day lives. When I say that self-help doesn’t work, I mean self-help has absolutely no value when it comes to your spirituality, your relationship with God, finding ultimate meaning in this world, answering the basic questions that every human being in every culture has had to answer: Who am I? What is my purpose in life? Why am I here? What is life all about? How do I live a good life? How do I determine what is right and what is wrong? How can I become the kind of person that God intends me to be? When dealing with ultimate questions, questions of choosing your values, figuring out life’s meaning, discovering your purpose, self-help doesn’t help at all. Why not? Because of what is arrayed against us. Do you know the Bible is way more pessimistic regarding the potential of any human being apart from God. When I read the Bible, especially when I read this text in Colossians, I almost feel like Paul is saying to us, “You puny human beings, you have no idea what you are up against!”

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What is arrayed against us? First of all, the power of the world. The power of the world We talked about this last week when I cited the Roman Catholic scholar, George Weigel: Ideas have consequences and bad ideas have lethal consequences. We are constantly being marketed to and manipulated and shaped and pushed and prodded by the larger culture that the Bible calls “the world,” or the “world system.” It is all the attitudes, all the habits of mind, all the preferences of 21st century America, all of our prejudices are entirely at odds with God. John Stott, the great Bible teacher, defined the world this way, The word “world” [in the Bible] expresses a whole social value system which is alien to God. It permeates, indeed dominates, non-Christian society and holds people in captivity. Whenever human beings are being dehumanized – by political oppression or bureaucratic tyranny, by an outlook that is secular (repudiating God), amoral (repudiating absolutes), or materialistic (glorifying the consumer market), by poverty, hunger, or unemployment, by racial discrimination, or by any form of injustice – there we can detect the subhuman values of “this world.” We are talking about a set of values that are passed on from your parents and extended family and reinforced all through life by the educational system, by the media, by peer pressure. The world, all the patterns of thought, all the traditions, all the customs, all the institutions – the world always leads the larger society, you and me, away from God. Just walk around Easton Town Center. The messaging from the world is screaming at us. It drowns out the voice of God. What is the messaging as you walk around Easton? It is: You are what you own. Sex without reference to covenant or commitment is essential for your personal fulfillment. God doesn’t exist; if he does exist, he only exists at the margins of life. Being young is better than being old. Self-help doesn’t work because of the powers that are arrayed against each of us. Are you in touch with and sensitive to the power of the world and the world system? The power of the evil spiritual realm Look at this with me:

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Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. Colossians 2:10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. Colossians 2:15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. The apostle Paul has already talked about the evil spiritual realm in Colossians 1:16: Colossians 1:16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. What is Paul referring to by thrones, or powers, or rulers or authorities? Both Jesus and the apostle Paul believed and taught that the world was filled with evil spirits. 1st century Jews believed this; 1st century Gentiles believed this; Jesus and the apostle Paul never doubted that they were up against evil spiritual forces. Jesus and the apostle Paul constantly reminded their listeners that they faced supernatural evil, supernatural opponents who were trying to destroy them. Clinton Arnold wrote one of the best books I’ve ever read on supernatural evil, on the evil spiritual world that continues to affect life in 21st century America. The book is titled Powers of Darkness. Clinton Arnold says that all of the terms that Paul uses, whether we are talking about principalities, or authorities, or powers, or thrones, or angels, or world rulers, or demons – all of these words were known to both Jewish and Gentile readers in the 1st century. Here is what Clinton Arnold says: A very thin line separated Jewish and Gentile religious beliefs in many quarters during the 1st century. On the one hand, many Jews practiced magic, believed in astrology, and borrowed religious concepts from the cults of their pagan neighbors. On the other hand, the Gentiles took many religious ideas and cultic terminology from Judaism…everyone believed in the existence of good and evil spirits and shared a basic stock vocabulary for referring to it. These evil powers influence the non-Christian world by blinding people to their need for Christ. These evil supernatural powers inspire persecution of

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Christians, suppression of the gospel, the mocking of Jesus and everything associated with Jesus. These evil supernatural powers are behind temptation, where spirits entice individuals to behave in ways that are contrary to God and God’s designs. It is Satan’s desire to re-enslave people. Once an individual has gotten free by turning to Christ, it is Satan’s desire to re-enslave people through various addictions – sexual addictions, drug addictions, alcohol addictions, food addictions, work addictions. Satan’s desire is to deceive people through lies. His desire is to move churches away from the truth through false teaching and false prophecies. So we are facing the power of the world, the power of an evil supernatural spiritual realm. Then the apostle Paul adds that we are also facing: The power of our own sinful natures Colossians 2:11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your sinful nature was put off when you were circumcised by Christ Chuck Colson, who many of you have heard of, he was Richard Nixon’s legal counsel during the whole Watergate break-in and was a master of dirty tricks and political sleaze. In his book, Born Again, he talks about an evening where he sat down with a businessman, Tom Phillips. This was during the throes of Watergate. Colson was being tried for obstruction of justice. In the book he said that his friend, Tom Phillips, tried to explain how to accept Christ. But Colson said: “I was totally baffled. I was tired. I was empty. I was sick of the scandal and the accusations. I was sick of the way that I was living. But never once did I really see myself as a corrupt person. I didn’t see myself as a sinner through and through. ‘Politics was a dirty business,’ I thought, ‘and I was good at it.’ ‘And what I had done,’ I rationalized, ‘wasn’t a whole lot different than the usual political maneuverings.’ I was just doing what the other side was doing.” Colson said: “But that night when I left Tom’s house and sat alone in my car, my own sin – not just dirty politics, but the hatred, the pride, the evil, the lust that was so deep within me was thrust before my eyes. For the first time in my life I felt myself to be thoroughly unclean and worst of all, trapped.”

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There are lots of ways that the sinful nature expresses itself. But one way that it expresses itself in each of us is to trap us. Colson had it exactly right. Worst of all, I was trapped. A successful business man recently commented that one of the great untapped businesses in America is drug, alcohol, gambling and sex rehabilitation hospitals. He said this is the fastest growth industry with huge profits for the 21st century. This man said it can’t fail. America just keeps producing more and more addicts. The demand for rehabilitation services is absolutely endless. We are hopelessly trapped. Whoever you are, your sinful nature keeps saying to you, “More.” In some area of your life, in many areas of your life – more. It drives us to the point where we can no longer control it. We become workaholics or alcoholics or jog-aholics or sex-aholics. Psychology Today a few years ago wrote about a woman whose life was falling apart. Her nerves were shot. Her life is shot. Her health is shot. Her life is absolutely collapsing from too many all night parties and too much pot and too much booze and sexual encounters. A therapist asked her, “Why don’t you stop?” She responded, “You mean I don’t have to do what I want to do? I don’t have to do what I want to do? I don’t have to be a slave of my desires?” Let me ask you a personal question: why don’t you stop doing what’s killing you? Smoking too much or eating too much or vomiting up what you eat. Or using the internet in an illicit way or dating total losers. Why don’t you stop? Why don’t you stop buying what you don’t need or stop grieving because you aren’t complimented or acknowledged? You know why we don’t stop? Because what Paul is saying here is true. We are driven and controlled by our sinful nature. Let me ask you another question. Can you say verses 1-3 about yourself without any limitations, without a bunch of weasel words – “Yes, but I am a pretty decent person over here and I really try hard. I may be a little addicted.” But can you say verses 1-3 accurately and realistically described my life before I came to Christ or my life now whenever I try to live it apart from God. This is not a harsh view of people. This is not overly pessimistic. The Bible is reality based. Verses 1-3 is living in reality. As you look in the mirror at your past, as you look at people living apart from God, or yourself apart from God, do you see verses 1-3 of Ephesians 2 in the mirror? Dead person. Enslaved person. Person who just follows the world. Person who demands to have your needs met. Do you see that person? If you can’t, then your eyes have not yet been opened by the Holy Spirit to your true condition. If you don’t realize how deep a hole you are in, apart from God, then you are likely not yet a Christian.

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If you resist and resent these kinds of things being said about you – I am no drunkard. I am no drug addict. You can’t say all these things. If you resent and resist these words, then friend it is very probable that you are not yet a Christian. Because you need to acknowledge the depth of your problem before you can really cry out to Christ to save you. You see, inside each of us lives a traitor to the kingdom of God. There is a part of me and a part of you that desires to cooperate with supernatural evil. It is this terrible bent, this twist, this brokenness inside, this part of you and me that says, “I know it is wrong; I know it is stupid and self-destructive; it can’t work; nevertheless, I’m going to do it anyway. I want what I want when I want it.” The sinful nature is that part of you and me that conspires against God, conspires against God’s standard, conspires against holiness, conspires against coming into the light; it is that part of you and me that wants to hide in the shadows and the dark. It works against humility and works against confession. Have you ever said about yourself what Chuck Colson said about himself? I feel myself to be thoroughly unclean and worst of all trapped. Trapped by habits too strong for me. Trapped by this twist inside of me. This is not meant to run any of us down. The apostle Paul is just holding a mirror up to us saying, “I want you to live a life that is absolutely reality based.” Because unless you live in the truth, unless you live in reality, there is no hope. Any solution you come up with is just going to wash away. The Bible describes each of us apart from God in really pessimistic terms. It confronts all the ways that we use weasel words. You know what I mean by weasel words. “I’m really a decent person. I may be a little bit addicted; maybe I hide my shadow self, but everyone does it. Maybe I hate to be criticized; my pride is easily wounded. I demand my own way.” I ask you again, have you ever said about yourself what Chuck Colson said about himself? I feel myself to be thoroughly unclean and worst of all trapped. Why doesn’t self-help work? The ultimate problem is that: The problem is that we are dead Colossians 2:13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins Paul described the Colossians before they turned to Christ this way.

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Colossians 2:13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins He speaks about the uncircumcision of our sinful natures. He is saying that just as the Israelites often lived like their uncircumcised Gentile neighbors; the Israelites in the Old Testament didn’t love God even though they had the name “Chosen People” over their lives, even though the Israelite boys were circumcised when they were 8-days old, yet their hearts were not circumcised. They lived like their Gentile neighbors. Paul said that is the way you and I used to be. We lived just like everyone else in the world. But worse than that, he says we were dead in our sins. Dead. Here is the ultimate problem with self-help. Maybe as you think about the power of the larger culture, the power of the world and the power of the evil supernatural realm and the fact that inside of us there is a part of us that wants to cooperate with the evil in the world. But maybe, just maybe with a little self-help we can fight the world, the devil, and our own sinful nature. Paul says, ultimately the reason why self-help does not work is because we are dead. Apart from God, you and I are dead. Jesus said the same thing in John 5:24: John 5:24 Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. If you pass from death to life when you become a follower of Christ, then your previous condition must be that you were dead. What does it mean that you and I are dead? You say, “What do you mean I am dead? I can bench press 300 pounds. I swim a mile three times a week. I just ran in the last Columbus marathon.” When the Bible says here that we are dead, it is not an indictment of your intelligence. It is not saying that you are brain dead or that you have a flat EEG. You can be a rocket scientist, you can be physically fit, you can be a physician, you can have a personality that just lights up a room, be vivacious and effervescent and all of that, but still be dead in the sense that Paul is talking about here when he says “You were dead in your transgressions and sins.” He is not talking about being physically dead, but spiritually dead. Dead with respect to God. Oh, you may believe that God exists as far back in your life as you can remember. There may never be a time in your life when you didn’t believe that God existed. You may have attended church for years, but in terms of being

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spiritually alive, of being in touch with God’s Spirit, of being aware of spiritual reality, you are dead. We are born in this world out of touch with the Spirit of God. We live in a world of the living dead. I want to give you a picture of what I mean. I have used this before, but I think it is a helpful illustration. Right now, as you sit here in your seats, you are being bombarded with radio waves from WNCI and WBNS The Fan and Sunny 95 – all these radio signals are going through your body. You can’t see them, you can’t smell them, and you can’t touch them. But they are real. They are there. They are being beamed through the air. And if you had a radio receiver, if you had a radio, you could pick them up. God is invisible all around us. He is just as real as those radio waves. But it is like you and I have been born with dead receivers. The problem is not in the strength of the signal that is being sent. The signal from God’s Spirit is plenty strong. His voice is plenty loud. The problem is that we don’t have the right equipment, but better, we have the right equipment, but the equipment is dead. Our bodies are alive, but our spirits are dead. We are cut off from God. That’s what Paul is talking about in being dead. You are born cut off from God’s Spirit, cut off from an awareness of God’s voice or presence. A person who is spiritually dead can’t make heads or tails of the Bible. It just doesn’t make any sense to them. A person who is spiritually dead picks up the Bible and it is just a boring ancient book, filled with crazy stories. Why would you want to spend any time reading that? To a person who is spiritually dead, movies aren’t boring, magazines aren’t boring, watching some football game isn’t boring, but the Bible? Forget about it. Every week cars pull up in front of churches all over America and they drop off dead people. Dead people are wheeled into the church – row after row of dead people. Sometimes the person in the pulpit is wheeled up there, but they are dead. There is no spiritual awareness, no spiritual reality. You can tell when a person is dead, even though they are in church, because their evaluation of church will be from an entirely unspiritual perspective. After the service they will talk about what the people wore or how nice the building was or what the music sounded like or they will critique the vocals or whether the message was entertaining or if the room was the right temperature. See, spiritually alive people evaluate church from a totally different perspective. A spiritually alive person would ask, “Do I sense Christ’s presence in the worship?” Have I been challenged today to love Christ more, to put off my sin? To act in faith in God’s Word? As a result of this morning, am I more prepared to live the way Christ wants me to live? Oh, they might mention the building or the music, but a spiritually alive person is in touch with something deeper that’s going on. They are in touch with the voice of Christ and the presence of Christ.

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And they evaluate things based on am I drawing nearer to Christ as a result of what I am doing and hearing? We don’t go up to a dead person, who is lying in a coffin and say, “You need a pendent to put around your neck. You just need a little motivation, a little executive coaching. Come on, you can do it. You can believe in yourself. Just try harder.” When I think about everything that is arrayed against us – the world, the evil spiritual realm, our own sinful natures, the fact that we are dead, I think about the statement that General Lewis Puller made back during the Korean War. He was fighting this terrible battle at Chosin Reservoir when he said this: We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies things. How are we going to fight the powers that are arrayed against us? We need power. But not the power of self-help or these silly statements like “Change your DNA and you will change your life.” Paul speaks about: The power of our union with Christ Three times in verses 9-11 Paul talks about us being in Christ. Colossians 2:9-11 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your sinful nature was put off when you were circumcised by Christ And in verses 12-13, three times he speaks about us being with Christ: Colossians 2:12-13 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins Union with Christ is the central message of the apostle Paul. According to Bible scholars, the phrase “in Christ” or “in him” occur 164 times in the letters of Paul. Dr. James Stewart, who was a New Testament professor in Scotland in the first half of the 20th century, said:

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The heart of Paul’s religion is union with Christ. This, more than any other conception – more than justification, more than sanctification, more even than reconciliation – is the key that unlocks the secrets of his soul. He went on to say: In Paul’s view everything is gathered up in one great fact of our union with Christ…other elements of the Christian experience are not so much isolated events as aspects of the one reality, not parallel lines…but radii of the same circle of which union with Christ is the center. In other words, the New Testament definition of a Christian is someone who is in Christ, connected with Christ, joined to Christ, having Christ’s life flow through you. Being a Christian is not just acting in a Christian way, observing some type of external code. Being a Christian is not just trying to be a good person, being kind, and being nice to your neighbor, helping someone who is unfortunate. Being a Christian is not just believing certain statements about who Jesus is, or who God is. Being a Christian is having God’s very own life in your soul. Being joined like a branch to the vine. Having God living in you and you are living in God. This union with Christ is symbolized by baptism. That’s why Paul speaks about baptism in verse 12: Colossians 2:12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. We are reenacting in our own lives what God has actually done in us by the Holy Spirit. We are going to be doing a baptism here in a couple of weeks. I would strongly encourage any of you who have not been baptized following your commitment of faith in Christ, to be baptized at that baptism. Go to the baptism class. You are reenacting in your own life what the Holy Spirit has done in you, joining you to the death of Christ. When you go under the water, you are reenacting Christ’s burial. And when you come up out of the water, you are reenacting in your own person Christ’s resurrection. You are saying, “I am spiritually joined to those things.” The reason why you and I do not have to be subject to addictions and the powers of this world, and the corruption and bent of our sinful natures, is that we are joined spiritually to a power much greater than these powers. We’re joined to the power of God. We are in Christ. Christ’s life is flowing in us. We need to keep leaning into Christ, keep drawing on Christ, keep welcoming Christ, keep drinking in Christ’s presence and going after Christ. And Paul speaks to another power greater than the power of self-help.

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The power of the cross Colossians 2:13-15 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Paul describe the power of the cross in defeating Satan in Colossians 2:14: Colossians 2:14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. In the ancient world when a prisoner was crucified by the Roman government, the charge that stood against them was hung over them. On the cross of the condemned person would be the charge: Murderer, Thief, Rebel. And you will recall when Jesus was crucified, over the cross in three different languages was the charge leveled against him. The sign on Jesus’ cross read, “Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews.” What the apostle Paul is saying is that wasn’t the only sign hanging over the cross of Jesus. There was another sign hanging over his cross, a sign listing your sins and my sins – all the charges against us were nailed to his cross. His cross didn’t only say: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, his cross said: Adulterer, Pornography User, Slanderer, Gossiper, Cheater, Liar, Unforgiving One, Ungrateful, Self-Pitying, Proud, Angry, Greedy, Selfish, Self-Centered, Lover of Money, Hater of God. When you look at the cross, friend, do you say, “I see the sign listing my sins.” Do you say, “The cross is where my sins were nailed? Christ was condemned for all the charges that were leveled against me.” Why does the cross have the power we need? Because our sins are nailed to the cross. And he disarmed the powers, verse 15: Colossians 2:15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. What power was taken away from Satan at the cross? The power to accuse us, the power to condemn us. You know the name Satan means “the accuser.” One of the major ways that we are engaged in spiritual warfare is by Satan reminding

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us of our sins - accusation. I see this over and over again in my pastoring of people. Counselors face this all the time with their clients. A Christian is thoroughly depressed and discouraged because of their past – either because of some sin in their past, or because of the particular form their sin took. You talk with them about what Christ achieved and they say, “Yes, I understand that I can’t be right before God except through faith in Christ, but…” And then they go on and describe the particular sin, the one big thing they did. They committed adultery. They said a horrible thing to their father or mother before their mother or father died and had no chance to take it back. They failed to tell their mom or dad how much they loved them before they died. They failed as a parent. Their child is in rebellion and they feel it is their fault. They betrayed a trust or treated someone shamefully. They failed to respond to God’s call and now they feel that they’ve missed it forever. There is often at the root of discouragement and depression Christians this one big sin, or this one particular failure – a divorce, a crime, a lifestyle of promiscuity. This is what the enemy uses to condemn, to accuse. Friends, do you experience this form of spiritual warfare in your life? A flood of accusations coming to you in the middle of the night as you lie awake? A flood of accusations coming to you on long drives as you have time to think about yourself? How do you respond to accusations brought against you? Let me speak an affectionate word to some of you and say: How many of us are trying to escape from the guilt of past failures through our addictive behaviors, our constant need to drink or the constant escape into marijuana use, or workaholism, the constant need to have noise in the background – a radio playing or a TV on – or our obsessive concerns with what we eat? Often, the backdrop to addictive behavior is the need to fill our souls with noise so that we don’t have to deal with the constant accusation of our own failures and sins. I say this affectionately, but some of you are escaping into addiction to try to silence the voice that is inside that tells you that you have blown it and there’s no hope for you. You are a failure. You are unloved; not even God could love someone like you. The problem is that the voice of failure gets louder and louder over time. Our addictions only add fuel to our feelings of guilt. The devil traps addicts into this downward spiral of guilt, leading to the need to escape through addictive behavior, leading to greater guilt and accusation, leading to the need for even more escape. The noose around your neck gets tighter and tighter until you cannot breathe at all. Projecting onto other people doesn’t work: I haven’t failed. It is you. The reason why you are pursuing a divorce, the reason why you are breaking your marriage vows is his fault; it is her fault. It is never your fault. It is always someone else’s fault. Play the blame game and shift blame. You are just a victim. I will tell you

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in the quiet moments, when you are by yourself, you will not be able to escape the accuser who lets you know that you are responsible. Escape doesn’t help; being a victim doesn’t help; self-help doesn’t help. What works is believing God’s Word and employing it to meet the accusations of the devil! Friends, let me say something with all affection: Your greatest sin and my greatest sin is not that horrible thing we said and can’t take back. It’s not your past adultery, or drug use, or alcoholism, or your child out of wedlock, or missing God’s call. That is not our greatest failure. Your greatest sin and my greatest sin is the failure to believe the Word of God. God has declared in Colossians 2:1315 that he has blotted out your debts; blotted out the record of your indebtedness, and he has nailed your sins to the cross of Christ where it has been fully paid for. And the great sin that we regularly commit against God is to say: I don’t believe you. I believe you keep a record somewhere. I know one day you are going to throw this in my face. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that the cross is enough for this. Friend, if you want to repent of something before God, stop repenting over and over again of the same thing that Satan throws in your face. Instead, repent of your unbelief. The cross has taken the power of accusation away from Satan his main weapon to discourage. The cross has disarmed him. That’s why the apostle Paul can say in Romans 8:31-34: Romans 8:31-34 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then can condemn? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who can condemn you? Who can bring any charge against you if you have confessed to Christ and asked forgiveness for your sins? No one! Not another person, not your own conscience, not Satan, no one. That is the freedom you are supposed to enjoy, Christian. That is the good news – no condemnation if you’ve turned to Christ for forgiveness. No condemnation. And then in Colossians 2:15 we read: Colossians 2:15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

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You know this word for public spectacle is used of Christ in Hebrews 6:6 where it says: Hebrews 6:6 To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. What happened at the cross is that Christ turned the tables on Satan. Satan thought he would hold the Son of God up to public disgrace. As the Son of God hung there spread-eagled, naked and mocked, with all the taunts of the passersby, with all the mocking of the crowd, with all the devils shrieking, Satan thought he was holding up Christ to public disgrace. But the cross was the means of disgracing Satan. There is in this text in Colossians a picture of what would have been a common sight in the ancient world. A Roman General coming back victorious from battle first would have the enemy in chains marching through the street, defeated, as the crowd screamed at them and taunted them. Then the victorious Roman troops, marching behind. Flowers and laurels being tossed at them. And then behind was the victorious Roman General in his chariot. That’s what happened at the cross, friends. Satan was made a public spectacle of. He is paraded in chains. He is a defeated foe. Never allow Satan to deceive you that he still has the weapon of accusation in his hand which the cross of Christ has taken away. You can’t accuse me anymore, Satan. My Lord has triumphed at the cross. Let’s pray.

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Why Self-Help Doesn’t Help Rich Nathan June 6-7, 2009 Vision for Life: Seeing the Big Picture (Colossians) Series Colossians 2:9-15 I.

The Incredible Claims of Self-Help

II.

The Powers Arrayed Against Us A. The Power of the World (Colossians 2:8) B. The Power of the Evil Spiritual Realm (Colossians 2:8, 10) C. The Power of Our Own Sinful Nature (Colossians 2:11) D. The Ultimate Problem: We are Dead (Colossians 2:13)

III.

The Power That is Ours A. The Power of Our Union with Christ (Colossians 2:9-12) B. The Power of the Cross (Colossians 2:13-15) 1. Our sin is nailed to the cross 2. Satan is disarmed and disgraced

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