Title: FINDING GOD’S REST
Focus: The rest of God, foreshadowed in the 4th commandment, is found in Jesus.
Function: To encourage the people to abide in Jesus, thus drawing from his rest of salvation.
Confession: Lord’s Day 38
Text: Colossians 2:6-23
Centuries
ago, St. Augustine allowed Christians to peek through the window of his soul,
by writing a very personal journal of spiritual reflections on the Christian
faith. In book one of his Confessions, Augustine begins with a prayer of
praise and adoration saying, “You, O Lord, awake us to delight in your
praise; for you made us for yourself, and our heart is restless, until it rests
in you.”
Do you find that to be true? I do. Sometimes, I become very weary when I examine my own life: Though I do not want to dishonor our heavenly Father, I often find there is a need to acknowledge before him that “I blew it again.” And then there are those times that I am not living up to my own expectations: You know, things like: I eat too much; or I work too much and don’t spend enough time with my family; or I have been too absorbed with my own needs and concerns so that I failed to support sufficiently my family’s needs.
And then, of course, there are
those countless expectations from society and my colleagues at work: Financial
advisors will tell us that we can’t retire comfortably unless we stash away a
million dollars or so; Dieticians tell us that unless we use “Product so and
so” we are bound to bump into a heart attack. The other day I was at a gathering
where I was given the impression or feeling that if I did not pray at least one
hour a day, and did not lead one person to Christ that day, I probably was
failing Jesus and his call for discipleship. When I buy into all these
societal, expert and legalistic demands and obligations, I become weary. And I
find a need to turn to Jesus and rest in him. I think that St. Augustine was
right: “…our heart is restless, until it rests in you, O Lord.”
Augustine was right because the Scriptures teach us that the rest of God, foreshadowed in the 4th commandment, is found in Jesus. Did not Jesus himself teach us that truth when he said to the people worn out by the legalistic demands of the Pharisees: “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”? Yes, the rest of God, foreshadowed in the 4th command is found in Jesus himself. That’s also what the apostle Paul teaches us in Colossians 2:6-23.
When Paul writes this letter to the church in Colosse, he is in a fighting mood. There are false teachers roaming around, leading Christians astray with all kinds of different notions. Bible scholars refer to these notions as the “Colossian heresy” (cf. NIV notes). These false teachers would emphasize human wisdom and tradition (and thus we read in 2:6 “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human traditions and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”). Some false teachers emphasized angel worship (and thus we read in 2:18 “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize”). Others would emphasize asceticism: “Don’t handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” And again, a number of false teachers would demand strict attention to ceremonies and prescriptive rules (and thus we hear Paul say in 2:16,17: “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ”). Paul is in a fighting mood as he writes his letter to the Colossian church.
Paul’s passion for clear Christian teachings makes for interesting reading. But it’s also sometimes difficult to know what Paul is talking about, because we don’t know all the “ins and outs” of the Colossian heresy. Nevertheless, a quick overview of the passage’s flow of thought gives us some insights.