Colossians 2:6-15

Repetition, they say, is the key to retention. By now, as we begin our third sermon in this summer sermon series, many of you can probably recite from memory the reasons why the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Colossians. There was a wave of false teaching making its way through the city of Colosse. This wave of false teaching was also beginning to beat against the doors of faith of many Christians in Colosse – even against the very door of their church’s confession of faith. This wave of false teaching was slowly beginning to seep into their congregation; and, like water in a basement, it only takes an inch or two to cause some serious damage.

The false teaching? The Colossian Heresy, as it is called? I won’t ask you to say it with me – though, by this point, many of you could. “There had to be something more,” Christians were being told. There had to be something more to the Gospel, something more to their salvation, something more to Christ himself. Christians were being led to believe that there had to be something more to know, something more to do in order to make their salvation complete, in order to make their salvation sure. Jesus just wasn’t enough – or so they were being told.

Paul says . . . this letter says . . . God’s Word says . . . No! Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough for me – I pray he is enough for you – because he rescued us. He rescued us from the dominion of darkness and from the sins that condemned us. Jesus is enough for me – I pray he is enough for you – because he reconciled us. He reconciled us to God; we now are at peace with him; our sin has been paid for and we are robed in his righteousness. Rescued. Reconciled. ---- Do you remember the other two R’s of this epistle? ---- Raised and Renewed.

To help us look at the first two R’s – rescued and reconciled – you may recall that we asked several questions of the text. Rescued . . . from what, how, when, why? Reconciled . . . just how bad was our relationship with God that we needed to be reconciled to him in the first place, what could we have done to restore that relationship ourselves, what did Jesus do to restore that relationship for us, what impact does this restored relationship have on our day to day lives? This morning, however, we ask only one question of the sermon text. Yes, Jesus is enough for me. Yes, Jesus raised me from the dead . . . but now what?

The sermon text this morning will answer that question for us. The sermon text and the Holy Spirit need no help answering that question for us. But as we ask that question this morning – Jesus raised me from the dead . . . but now what – I’d like you to picture a garden, a flower garden. Picture a perennial flower garden in your back yard – white daisies, black-eyed-susans, tall irises, arching lilies all bordered by brilliant, gold daffodils and an assortment of brightly colored tulips. Or, if you prefer, picture an annual flower garden in your front yard – an endless sea of red, white and blue petunias or a luscious mound of thick, red impatiens with healthy, deep green leaves, go ahead and throw in some pockets of orange and yellow marigolds.

Picture any flower garden you wish but try to keep that picture in mind as we ask the question, “Jesus raised me from the dead . . . but now what?” Jesus raised us from the dead. What does that imply? What does that mean? It means that once we were dead but now we are alive – spiritually alive. OK. We were spiritually dead – dead in our transgressions and sins; enemies of God, unable to obey him, unable to believe in him. Jesus changed all of that when he raised us from the dead; when he made us spiritually alive. Now we see him as our only Savior from sin. Now we receive his free forgiveness. Now we are at peace with God. Now we freely obey him.

Yes. Jesus is enough for me. Yes. Jesus raised me from the dead. I am spiritually alive. But now what? Well, think of that flower garden. Your flower garden is alive. It’s healthy. It’s beautiful. It’s growing. There it is, in your back yard, your front yard. But now what? Do you just let it sit there? Do you make it fend for itself? Worse yet, do you run it over with the riding lawn mower? Of course not! Your garden is alive and beautiful and healthy; you’re going to take care of it, aren’t you? In fact, before you ever even planted your garden, you put some thought into it. You put some thought into the amount of sunlight that that area of your yard receives; then you chose flowers that would grow well when exposed to that amount of sunlight – be it a lot or a little.

Your garden is alive . . . now what? You’re going to water it, maybe even fertilize it with some Miracle Grow. You’re going to regularly pull the weeds out of it so that they don’t take over your garden and choke out your beautiful flowers. You’re going to pluck the dead heads off your flowers so that they can continue to blossom. In early spring or in late fall, you’re going to cover those flower beds with sheets to protect them from frost. You’re going to use whatever you can to protect your flowers from bunny rabbits and deer and other animals that may see your flower garden as a lavish salad bar.

And why did you plant that garden in the first place? – Because it would be beautiful, beautiful for you to look at, beautiful for others to see and to admire and to comment on and to perhaps, just maybe, even inspire them to take better care of their own gardens. To help them do that, you may even dig up some of those perennials in your own garden and share them with a friend or neighbor; transplanting them so that they can take root for someone else. Maybe someone who has seen your garden has no garden of her own. What might you do? Take them to the store and pick out a flat of annuals and show them where and how to plant them.

Dear Christian, your garden is your faith. Jesus planted that garden when he raised you from the dead, when he made you spiritually alive. Your faith is alive. It’s healthy. It’s beautiful. It’s growing. There it is in your heart, in your life. There’s no reason to ask, “But now what?” We’re not going to just let it sit there. We’re not going to make it fend for itself. Worse yet, we’re not going to run over it with anything that would kill and destroy it. Our garden – our faith – is alive and beautiful and healthy. We’re going to take care of it.

Paul wrote, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Picture your garden. Where did it come from? – From a packet of dead seeds; from a bucket of dried bulbs – things with no life in them. We had no life in us but Jesus raised us from the dead. He made us alive. Like those seeds or those bulbs that grew into a beautiful garden, our faith, rooted in Jesus, grew into something beautiful. But like our gardens, our faith needs to be built up and strengthened – cared for, tended, watered. We water it with the Word of God and with the Lord’s Supper. The Means of Grace make the roots of our faith grow ever deeper into our source of life – Jesus Christ.

Paul goes on, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” More dangerous than bunnies and deer, more deadly than a deep freeze are the hollow and deceptive philosophies and the traditions of men and the basic principles of this world. Our gardens – our faith – are under constant attack. Jesus is enough – only God’s Word is saying that. Everything else is trying to get us to believe something different.

Something as innocent as a little child picking a flower or two may not seem harmful to our garden at first but if we don’t protect our gardens from something as non-threatening as a little child, soon that child will be picking handfuls of flowers, she’ll show her friends and they’ll pick flowers. Before you know it, rather than being content to pick only the flowers around the edge of the garden, they will be running in and out of that garden trampling every flower in sight.

That’s how Satan uses false doctrine. A little lie. A little doubt. A little error. Maybe not in doctrine but maybe in practice. We question one teaching of the Bible, then another. Rather than turning to God’s Word or a like-minded – a like-faithed – believer we turn to the philosophy of a noted “theologian” or a tradition of another church body or a logical, a noted counselor or a rational principle of the world – and of our own mind. It’s no wonder that God in his Word says to you and to me, “See to it that no one takes you captive.” Don’t let them destroy your garden, your faith.

Paul explains why. “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.” Our baptisms connected us to Christ. They connected us to his perfect life that is now credited to us by faith. They connected us to his innocent death that paid the wages of our sin. They connected us to his resurrection that gives us spiritual life on earth and eternal life in heaven.

That’s a beautiful garden. That’s a perfect garden, a full garden, a complete garden. There needs to be nothing more in that garden. Jesus is enough. There’s no need to add anything else to the gardens of our faith – there’s nothing more to know, there’s nothing more to do for our salvation. “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, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.” That is the content of your garden. We are alive in Christ. We are forgiven in Christ. Christ has freed us from the law so that we can use the law as a guide in living our faith.

And as you live your faith, Christ will be glorified. The more beautiful your garden – that is, the more you live your faith – the more God will be honored by it and the more people will take notice of it. And as others observe and look at and comment on your garden, they may just be moved by the Holy Spirit to cultivate a garden – a faith – of their very own. In the same way that someone with a green thumb may help a neighbor with transplanting perennials or picking out annuals, you with a green, living faith can share Jesus and help others get rooted and built up and strengthened in him. Jesus raised you from the dead and so now I’m asking you, dear Christian, now what? Amen.