Rich Kao

Col. 2:8 - "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy or empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ."

"Building a Spiritual Firewall" is the title of my second message from the book of Colossians.  The overall title of the series is called "The God-centered Life."    We all know what a firewall is in computer-ese; it's a configuration of hardware / software meant to keep out intruders, viruses, malware, security breaches, etc.  So in Colossians, Paul helps us build the strongest spiritual firewall possible against the doctrines of men, worldly philosophy, and vain theories.  Without a solid grounding in who Christ is, it's easy for the enemy to breach our thinking, and lead us astray.  Paul provides what theologians called the highest "Christological" statement of his varied epistles.

Here was my intro...

- Since the beginning of time, there has always been a war against Christ-centered thinking, a war to push Jesus out of the middle, and relegate him to the sidelines, if not eliminate Him altogether.

- But those who do so, do so at their own peril, not realizing that in fact, a Christ-centered world-view,  philosophy, and theology is the most beautiful, magnificent and satisfying way of thinking there is.

- When Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life (jn 14:6),”  it was the ultimate distillation and reduction of high powered thought and truth into it’s simplest terms.

For the rest of the sermon, you can listen in here.