I wanna talk to day about Our next steps…You guys hear us say that a lot around here. “What is your next step?”,  “move to the next step”. And so on. But a lot of times we wonder what that is and granted for some it is very detailed… Stop allowing sin to rule your life, Stop sleeping around, Stop drinking, smoking or injecting that which is damaging to your body. Read the bible more. Pray more all of these are Next Step things. God can and Will come into your life before these things are gone. Just know that once he is there he Doesn’t want any room mates. So today Paul gives a letter to the Church at Colosse. And in it he gives us a pattern that we need to really consider while taking our next steps.

The Command…

Colossians 2:6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,

I love this because is so simple to wrap my little mind around if you call yourself a Christian act like a Christian. Make sense to everyone? But yet this is one of the biggest problems that we have today is the people’s faith or Christianity only shows on Sundays. If you haven’t told your friends you were going to church or that you got saved would they know by your lifestyle? As you have received Christ…WALK IN HIM.

The Instruction…

 Col. 2:7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

The main focus of verse 7 is that we take the Next Step.  Be rooted or have some deep roots into what you believe. And then come the part that we touched on in the first point…established in the faith. Are you established in the Faith or are you still walking around in your probationary period…You know what I am talking about right you get a new job and they say well we want you to work 90 day so we know what we got. Some of you do the same thing with God. “Well I feel like God is talking right to me this morning I will try it, and see what I think, but if it isn’t as fun or doesn’t make me feel as Good then I will just go back to my lifestyle”. God doesn’t require a probationary period. If you are serious about Faith in Him then God will establish you.

 The Warning…

Col. 2:8 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. 

“IF I am a good person, God wouldn’t let me go to Hell”. “I believe that as long as you believe something God will understand”. “All Gods point to the same thing”. “If you hug a tree then you will gain the energy from the tree”. Anybody else got one???

The world will do everything that it can to throw you off the track and the Devil does that thru philosophy and empty deceit…Notice it says human traditions and then elemental spirits of the world. Sometimes there is a demonic or spiritual influence at work and then sometimes we make the devils job easy by just following what everyone else says…tradition. Let me be clear here. Cause this gets twisted. There are traditions that are not bad. But if they get in the way of the spirit of God then they are.

The Promise…

Col. 2:9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, (10) and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

It is in Jesus we can win this battle. Verse 10 tell us we are complete in Him. Finished in Him we don’t need anything else but Him. “But Vince I am flawed and bmroken and the sin in my life is too much and to bad and to often what Can Jesus possibly do with me…” I want you to look at another verse with me this morning…

  Col. 2:13 And you, who were dead in your Sin…(now Check this out!), God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our Sin, (14) by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Let Him Take your stuff…The sin, the doubt, the fear and Nail it where it belongs on His Cross.  That is how you can take your next steps… Now take them.