You've Been Discharged — Why the Old Rules Can't Call Roll on You

Central Image

The military discharge: you don't still eat at 6, 12, and 4:30 — you got out. Since you died with Christ to the elements of the world, there's no authority left that can make you live by their rules.

The Turn

The sermon exposed the assumption that something can be added to Christ to complete your standing before God — a food rule, a practice, the right worship style. Paul's answer is that anything you add to Christ doesn't refine your righteousness; it replaces him with an idol.

Outline

Opening: A Storm, a Superman Shirt, and a Poke in the Chest

Toby opens in southwest Arkansas — 400 people, straight-line winds, power out, tornado warning — and preaches a barn-burner because he doesn't want to embarrass his home church. On the way out, an 80-year-old woman pushes through the crowd, pokes him twice in the chest, and announces loud enough for everyone to hear: "What's wrong with the church today, and you're part of it." He fires back a loud "bless your heart" and moves on. He returns to her at the end. She's not just a setup.

Bridge from Last Week: God Took the Pencil

Colossians 2:6-15 established that we are caught dead to rights — guilty, legitimately condemned. But God in Christ obliterated the debt and stripped the hostile spiritual forces of their authority. Like Gary Reed the town marshal finally getting his shot at Toby's brother, only to discover he had no pencil — they can't write the ticket. Like Barney Fife with one bullet, and Andy took the bullet. All they can do is be mad. That's the "therefore" today's text hangs on.

All Sin Is Relational

The first big move: you cannot sin against a chair. Sin requires reference to a relationship outside yourself. God's command is love God and love people; therefore all sin is not-loving God and not-loving people. Nothing sins in a vacuum. This matters because it also means no religious practice is holy in a vacuum — it either connects to relationship or it's just a game between the ears.

Don't Let Anyone Judge You. Don't Let Anyone Disqualify You.

Paul's two commands. Don't let anyone judge you about food, drink, festival, new moon, or sabbath — these are shadows, and the substance is Christ. "Disqualify" is a sports word: stepping over the line before you jump means you're out before you start. But Jesus is the one who qualified your faith. The ascetics and vision-chasers pressuring the Colossians aren't touching anything heavenly; they're puffed up in their own heads. They've got a reputation for wisdom, but the only thing their self-made religion actually gratifies is the flesh. Paul says so plainly.

You're Discharged

The veterans in the room don't eat at 6, 12, and 4:30 anymore. Why not? Because they got out. You died with Christ to the elements of the world — those regulations, those systems, those strictures. Why would you stand at attention when something with no authority over you calls the roll? You're out. Act like it.

Jesus Plus Is Idolatry

Toby confesses: he used to tell people that if they weren't spending a half hour to an hour a day with God in the Word and in prayer, what were they even bothering for. His thing. Different thing from the woman in Arkansas, same move. Everyone is somewhere on the continuum between free in Christ and a slave to something, and you can be a slave to religious ideas just as thoroughly as to a substance. He's watched people die unable to make peace with God because they'd spent their lives checking boxes — was I right about everything? — and they still weren't sure. It's a tragedy. The Bible calls what they were trusting an idol. Anything besides Jesus that you think you have to be right about to stand before God is an idol.

The Old Order Changes

Tennyson, pulling from Mallory and from a sentiment probably a thousand years older: *The old order changeth, giving place to new, and God fulfils Himself in many ways, lest one good custom should corrupt the world.* Even Camelot, even something God used, can become self-serving and have to end. God has to end our kingdoms to grow his. Ed Hoskins, founding elder at Friendswood, big shot at NASA: even God can't steer a train that's standing still. Make a decision, get moving, and the first two wrong ones still put you ahead of the person who never moved.

Grateful, Not Enslaved

Be grateful for what helped you — a cappella singing, daily Scripture, whatever it was — and don't be a slave to it, and don't chain anyone else with it either. The Halloween party is a shot at blessing the community. It might not work forever. When it stops working, quit. And if Toby's the one arguing to keep it past its time, he's given permission to be poked in the chest with the Tennyson line.

The Landing

That woman in Arkansas was all in for God, even if what she was all in for was a burden she didn't have to carry. Don't carry it. Be free, be grateful, and don't put it on anyone else.

1. That woman in Arkansas poked Toby in the chest on his way out after a barn-burner sermon and told him he was "part of what's wrong with the church today." When's the last time someone called you out for something you were certain was fine — and some part of you knew exactly what they meant even while you were getting defensive?
2. Toby made the claim that you literally cannot sin against a chair — all sin is relational, every last bit of it. Walk back through his argument. What was he trying to establish, and why does it matter for what Paul's doing in Colossians 2?
3. Paul calls the festivals, sabbaths, and food rules "a shadow" — and says the substance is Christ. What's the difference between a shadow and the thing casting it, and why does that distinction gut the authority of anyone using those rules to pressure the Colossians?
4. Toby said everybody is sitting somewhere on a continuum between free in Christ and enslaved to something — and named religious performance as a chain just as real as addiction. What's the thing you've been treating as "Jesus plus"?
5. The "game between the ears" — religious experience or practice disconnected from an actual relationship with God or anyone else, happening entirely inside your own head. Where does that show up for you?
6. Toby said the Seventh-day Adventists are wrong about Saturday worship, but their standing before God is no different from ours. Where is the line between being free about the forms of faith and being willing to say something is actually wrong? How do you hold both without collapsing into "whatever works for you"?
7. Ed Hoskins said even God can't steer a train that's standing still. Which things at this church are genuinely moving us forward, and which ones might have crossed over from means to the thing itself?
8. Pick one practice or tradition in your faith life — something that helped you at some point — and figure out this week whether you're grateful for it or enslaved to it. What would genuine freedom from it actually look like without dismissing what it gave you?