Sermon Notes: Mother’s Day 2025 – Colossians 2:6-15
Last year for Mother’s Day we preached from Exodus 20 about the role of boundaries in parenting.
This year and every year moving forward we will focus on parenting for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day because parenting is at the heart of societal formation and parenting is difficult.
The difficulty of parenting is due in part to our children being born into Adam and all the “fun” that comes with that ingrained rebellion, and in part to resistance from the forces of darkness in the heavenly places who teach ideas that lead to the creation of systems disguised as “light”. So, as parents we can easily download and assimilate these systems rooted in dark ideas while believing we are on the right track.
For this reason, God’s ways run into the buzzsaw of backlash when dark ideas and systems get challenged and threatened with disruption.
Dark ideas and systems make disciples who get comfortable in their slavery, and when that comfort gets threatened, dark disciples come out swinging.
We will identify one that needs to be challenged in our application.
Let’s ask this question: Where do these dark ideas and systems that get downloaded to our collective practices come from?
Let’s read Colossians 2:6-15 together.
The central theme of Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae is the absolute preeminence, centrality, and sufficiency of Jesus over all things.
The second chapter continues this theme by exalting Jesus as the interpretive key to understanding God the Father’s mystery that was hidden from the rulers and authorities.[1] But that mystery has now been revealed. That mystery is that Jesus, the eternal Creator Son of God, has defeated the Serpent Dragon by his advent, life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, all according to the plan of God, and in Jesus is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
That’s a lot of wisdom and knowledge, and all of it is hidden in Jesus’ person and work.
The mystery is that all things center in Jesus, and all those things are still hidden in him for us to discover. And, since we are in him and he in us, we have access to discover all the hidden glories of wisdom and knowledge for us to discover according to Proverbs 25:2
As a result, Paul does not want this kingdom of priests to the Lord in the church at Colossae to be deluded with “plausible” arguments (2:4) to the contrary of Jesus as the beginning, middle, and end of all things. So, there is true wisdom and knowledge found in Jesus then there are lies.
Note: All the Serpent Dragon’s arguments are going to be “plausible”, meaning reasonable or probable. The dark forces are not going to put something in front of us that’s obviously going to kill us without cloaking it in deception. The Serpent Dragon’s deluded argument to Eve in the garden was plausible.
In verses 6-7, Paul says they have received Jesus the Lord, and just like they received him by faith they are to keep living in him, sinking the roots of their very holistic existence deeper into the knowledge and practice of faith in Jesus, and to do it with thanksgiving.
Verses 9-15 tell them why they CAN sink the roots of their faith deep in Jesus. They can do this because the fullness of God dwells in Jesus who is the head of all things, and they have been filled up on the inside with Jesus, and thus they have access to the fullness of God.
We have that also. Right!
They have been “circumcised”, that is transformed, made alive, and forgiven because on the cross Jesus disarmed the dark rulers and authorities who enslaved them in the unseen realm as agents of the Serpent Dragon by triumphing over them.
Paul makes it clear that the Colossians are in a real cosmological and metaphysical battle of thoughts and ideas that are lies. He also makes it clear Jesus has overcome these lies on their behalf by his work on the cross and freed them in the circumcision of their salvation so that they can discern the lies from the truth and choose to walk in the truth of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Jesus rather than being the victims of lies.
That brings us to verse 8 to show us where the dark lies come from.
He says, “See to it”.
It’s a command. “Blepo”. See to it. “Blepo” meansto discern, to see, to perceive. “Blepo” is present tense and active voice meaning the seeing and discerning and perceiving is an active and ongoing effort in the present moment all the time. In other words, “seeing to it” requires we not lag in our discernment. We, as followers of Jesus, are to be constantly discerning and making sure we are not deceived.
What Paul is commanding them to do is to actively be scanning and interpreting the data. Jesus has made this possible by his work on the cross.
Why? Because those rulers and authorities are always teaching and trying to take people captive.
“See to it that no one takes you captive…”
Paul says “no one”. Why?
The reason is that the dark forces use humans who believe the lies to disciple other humans into believing the lies either consciously or unaware. That’s been the Serpent Dragon’s way since the rebellion. People believe the lie, they are taken captive, and they spread the lie. It’s even more nefarious if he can get us to put Jesus’ name on the lie.
Captivity happens first with the mind not the body.
Did you know when we take in an idea and assimilate it, it neurologically grows literal neurological roots in the brain. An idea or belief captured with an FMRI in the brain literally looks like a little tree that roots into the ground. Check out Dr. Caroline Leaf’s book “Cleaning up my mental mess” and her research on this. It’s fascinating. When the neurological pathways of our brains are set with lies, then we are working not only against the lie but against the actual wiring of our brains.
Paul didn’t have FMRI technology, but he clearly knew how ideas and thoughts worked to captivate people. Ideas become little rooted trees in our brain, and our brain then controls our body. Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a destiny.
So, Paul is commanding the Colossians to root their thinking in Jesus where all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are stored. We must strive to put little Jesus trees in our brain.
This means we learn Jesus’ wisdom and knowledge from his word that guides us to his created laws in the world in him he has hidden for us to discover. This requires great care and careful study, and Holy Spirit empowered fellowship. Thus Paul says to “See to it”.
However, if we assimilate ideas that are rooted in the rebellion and the dark forces of the Serpent Dragon in the heavenly places, we become his slaves who do his bidding and often unaware that’s what we are doing.
How does that work?
Colossians 2:8 (ESV) “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
It works like this: philosophy and empty deceit rooted in human tradition that was learned from the elemental spirits of the world rather than Jesus.
We don’t have time to identify the elemental spirits. There is robust debate on Paul’s use of this word (Galatians 4:3, 9; Colossians 2:8, 20) and what exactly it means. I believe he uses it to describe worldly[2] religious systems being in error because they are rooted in the false teaching of spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
According to Paul in verse 8, these spiritual sources of false teaching inform merely human traditions[3] that are thus deceitful and empty and thus they are false wisdom (philosophy) that take people captive.
The problem is not philosophy. The problem is false and deceptive philosophy. False wisdom.
So, it goes like this working from metaphysical first principles: Elemental spirits teach a plausible idea, humans get access to the idea through first or secondary sources, humans believe the idea and assimilate it into practice and cement it as a tradition, that tradition becomes a philosophically plausible practice, other humans accept the practice and never question the premise and pass it on, and it is deceptive and deadly because it is not rooted in Jesus Christ.
The parenting world is one that is hard to navigate because being a parent on the fallen side of the full restoration of all things comes with such a deeply rooted passion for our children that fear can disguise itself as faith and love, self-seeking can disguise itself as healthy living, and our identity is so closely associated with our children we are very easily offended at any suggestion that our chosen methods may need to be questioned.
And, we have relegated the world of neuroscience and child development to non-Christians for so long we don’t know how to navigate Jesus’ creation, and we are stuck with really poor and misapplied ideas. Often something gets touted as “biblical” and it’s neither biblical nor good. Mormons and JW claim to be “biblical”.
We have to do better.
How do we apply this text today?
Application
In this application we are going to state the positive not simply identify the negative. To say it another way, we are going to identify what is the wise knowledge of God found in the Jesus Christ and let that naturally shed light on what might be sourced in dark forces that seek our destruction.
We will just identify one today.
(1) God rooted parenting in connection.
God makes us in his image, and God’s image is less the attributes and more about status and function. We are appointed to rule on God’s behalf, reflecting his authority as members of his family. The image of God is something we are, not first some list of attributes we have.
In creation we are his image bearers, his family, appointed to rule on his behalf with his authority. We were intimately connected to him and his purpose.
So, in creation, connection to God as his family is the source of our authority and life.
What happens in the rebellion? What is lost? Connection.
The wages of rebellion were to be disconnected from God. Cut off. No access. Death.
The result? We began behaving contrary to our nature and status. Right out of the gate, we murder rather than create life. We begin acting like the Serpent Dragon because that is who we are now connected with. So, we behave contrary to God’s standards.
How will God correct our behavior problems? How does God change things? He reconnects himself with us by coming to take up residence among and in his people as we are studying in Exodus. And ultimately Exodus shows us that through the cross of the Lamb of God, Jesus, by repentance and faith in him, the Triune God takes up permanent residence in us by the Holy Spirit to stay connected to us until he fully restores all things at which time faith will become sight and our face to face connection will be restored like in Eden forever.
Do you see it? Connection. Broken connection. Restored connection.
As parents, everything in our broken and being restored selves and in our broken systems are striving to disconnect us from parents and the covenant family of the local church.
Parenting newborns. Parenting infants. Parenting toddlers. Educating kids. All of it is taking time away from the necessary means the wise Creator Jesus designed us to grow and thrive.
Disconnection wrecks children from conception onward. The emotions of an unwanted pregnancy to ignoring our children’s cries for connection drive our children to sources other than God’s appointed means in mom and dad and a local church for salvation and comfort and that disconnect wires their brains to be independent of us and dependent on other things.
Disconnection drives rebellion, addiction, and a host of other issues.
Make no mistake, we are dealing with free moral agents who will make decisions, and the time may come when they may make decisions contrary to truth, but the solution is not first behavior modification, it is connection.
NOTE: As you kids get older, they can choose to reject connection by rebellion and a host of other thing, but that does not mean connection is NOT the way.
Connection is how God does it, and he calls us to do the same.
God, in Jesus Christ, reconnects to us, then he changes our hearts, and then he transforms our decision making.
Ezekiel 36:24-27 (ESV) “I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
Connection leading to change in behavior.
This is contrary to so much of what we have assimilated and get constantly taught.
I’ll leave it to you to make a list of all the ways our ideas and systems separate us from our children rather than connect us and ask you this question: What resonates with your redeemed and new heart: Connection or Separation?
Do not be deceived. Connection is costlier and more demanding and will have you wearing sockos before the appointed time, but it’s God’s way.
We will come back with some follow up on Father’s Day.
Let’s pray: 1. Honor 2. Contrition 3. Prayer 4. Increase 5. Holiness 6. Sending
[1] Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2 that if the forces of darkness and their human puppets had understood God’s plan that was hidden as a mystery through the preaching of the prophets in God’s mysterious use of language and parable, they would not have fallen into God’s plan by crucifying the Lord Jesus.
[2] 1 John 5:19 describes the “world” as the temporary realm the evil one who has been given a “reign” over for a time. This matches the Deuteronomy 32:8-9 worldview that Psalm 82 is describing. These beings are called “sons of God” in Genesis 6 and identified in Enoch (not a canonical book but believed by Second Temple Jews as accurate) as “watchers” or supernatural “divine” yet created beings Yahweh made and who rebelled against him.
[3] Not all traditions are merely human and bad, so don’t hate on all tradition as evil.