"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."

         Philip Yancey, in his book "Prayer: Does it Make a Difference?", writes about a time when he went on a five-day silent spiritual retreat put on by Brendan Manning. The structure of the retreat was that the participants would spend one hour each day talking to Manning, they would attend a daily worship, and they committed to spend two hours each day alone in prayer. Otherwise they were free to spend the time as they wished, remembering to be silent.

         In reflecting on this experience Yancey writes, "I became more convinced than ever that God finds ways to communicate to those who truly seek him, especially when we lower the volume of the surrounding static. I remember reading the account of a man who interrupted a busy life to spend a few days in a monastery.

         "I hope your stay is a blessed one," said the monk who showed the visitor to his cell. "If you need anything, let us know, and we will teach you how to live without it."

         That statement takes us up short. We are so used to the message that hospitality means providing all that is needed or requested. I was also struck by the thought that we would have to be taught how to get along with what we have, or how to get along without something we need.

         This is the message in Paul's letter to the Colossians. He is teaching them how to get along without something they think they need.

         "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ . . ."

         He says to them, "You have Christ, and you have the Gospel that bears fruit all over the world. Now someone is creating in you a perceived need for more: a need for a further way to peace with God, a need for a new method to attain personal holiness, a need for a sense of identity, a need for greater fruitfulness. Let me teach you how to live without what that philosophy offers you.

         But why would anyone want more than Christ in the first place?

          The simple reality is that the Gospel can get boring at times in our lives. We get used to the old, old story of Jesus and his love. We discover that the spiritual life is not steadily curving upward, higher and higher every day. It is much more one of plateaus and valleys and then some peaks along the way. We find the flat places boring. Yancey admits that he was bored the first several days of his silent retreat. He did not immediately sense the voice of God. But when we are faithful in the flat places of the journey, we benefit from a steady obedience, attentiveness to a Word we know well, and a willingness to do Gods' will daily. When we are faithful in the valley and on the plateau, then the mountaintop experiences come in their time.

         Paul writes, "Just as you received Christ as Lord, continue to live in him . . ." Then he uses four phrases to describe that life of continuing in Christ:

• rooted in him,
• built up in him,
• strengthened in the faith, and
• overflowing with thankfulness.

         "Rooted" is in the perfect tense, indicating a past action with continuing results. Jeremiah 17:7,8: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." Rooted is what happens when you practice the disciplines of placing your life where you know you will continually receive God's love and grace.

         "Built up" and "strengthened" are both in the present tense. They indicate that we are being built by God like a building that is taking shape, and like an athlete in training. We are being strengthened by God and for the work of God. Both words indicate an attitude of allowing God to work in us, relinquishing control of our lives, not knowing quite what we will become, but submitted to God's design and purpose.

         "Overflowing thankfulness" indicates an active response in which we are awake to what we do possess in Christ and filled with faith in what God can do.

         But some came to that church with the message, "You need more than Christ." They brought with them a philosophy, which in the ancient world meant more than a system of rational thought. A philosophy could include behavior, religious practices, magic arts and a belief system. Here it seems to primarily mean adding religious practices to Christian life. There are two kinds of practices described here. In verse 16 Paul refers to eating and drinking, religious festivals, New Moon celebrations and Sabbaths. These seem to indicate a belief in "elemental spirits" or "basic principles" of the world, most likely referring to angels or spiritual beings believed to control the movements of stars and through that control the fate of individuals. So all these observances were intended to get spiritual powers to look kindly on your life.

         The other part of the philosophy had to do with circumcision, the sign of covenant identity in the Old Testament. This seems to be a direct attack on the Gentile Christians. The new philosophy does not trust the foreign and alien people who were coming into the church by grace. They wanted the newcomers to prove their identity by being circumcised. Paul says that God has done something much more important in their hearts.

         So Paul says that all of the practices are empty, hollow and deceptive. You can learn to live without all these add-ons; you have Christ and the Gospel.

         Then Paul ends this section by speaking of the cross. He says that in baptism you were buried with Christ and raised with him. What more do you need?

         Once you were dead in your sins, but Christ made you alive. He forgave all your sins. He cancelled the written code that was against you. He is talking here about a type of IOU. It is a banking term for a document that spells out the obligation of someone to pay a debt. We have a debt payable to God that in his mercy he has cancelled through the cross of Christ.

         Finally, through the cross, God has disarmed all spiritual powers and authorities.

         So Paul is saying to them, you don't need a whole system of religious practices; you have Christ and the Gospel. Continue to live in him.

         What is the word to us? Some of this seems distant from where we live. We are not tempted to worship spirit beings that control stars. But we might ask "Where am I spiritually needy?"

"In what ways am I tempted to add to the Gospel?"

         The secular culture offers a great deal to us, and demands a great deal from us. The "static" that drowns out the voice of God is all around us. How do we learn to get along without much of what it tells us we need? The image that comes to mind is that of Moses going before Pharaoh in Egypt. He asks that Pharaoh let the Israelites take a journey of several days, to get away from all the demands and promises of Egypt, so they could hold a festival to God. And Pharaoh responds that they are lazy and sends them back to work. Our secular world is constantly telling us we are lazy, and then sending us to do its work, and reap its rewards. It tells us loudly that we need all it offers.

         So we must learn to ask questions of all that is offered, and to gauge the price of all that is demanded. We must learn how to do without some of that which adds static to our God-listening, lest we come to a place where we no longer can hear his voice.

         Most of all we need to learn from Paul, who in his response to the philosophy that threatened his church did not spend a lot of time addressing it in detail. Rather he kept his focus and his message on Christ and the cross. His response was to stay near the cross.

"Jesus, keep me near the cross--there a precious fountain,

free to all, a healing stream, flows from Calvary's mountain.

In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever.

Till my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river."

         Amen.