Grace and peace are yours through Jesus Christ who disarmed the powers and authorities, and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Amen.

Gracious and merciful God, because You have entrusted the treasure of salvation in Christ to all those baptized into Your name, give them Your Holy Spirit that they may faithfully proclaim the good news about Jesus, who reigns victorious because of his death, resurrection, and descent into hell; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Heresy had come to Colosse. The congregation was struggling with teachers who wanted to bypass Christ. The Colossian church was in danger because it was listening to the voice of the world, instead of listening to the voice of God in his holy Word.

Nothing has really changed over 2,000 years. We are still surrounded by heresy. All around us we hear the voice of the world pulling us away from the clear voice of God in his Word. Here are just a few examples from what I have observed on TV and in the newspapers this past week. People are upset with the Catholic Church because it is requiring its members, and especially its lay leaders, to sign a document that says they agree with all their church’s doctrines. It boggles my mind that people would be upset about that. When you were confirmed as a child or an adult, you publicly confessed that you agree with this church and our synod.

I caught a glimpse of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson being interviewed on "60 Minutes." Robinson is the openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church. He thinks it is amazing that open-minded Christians don’t agree with his choice of lifestyle. I think it is amazing that Bible-believing Christians even allowed him to be a member, let alone a pastor, because God calls his lifestyle an abomination and a perversion.

I heard a portion of John Kerry’s nomination speech where he ripped on President Bush for wearing his faith on his sleeve. Kerry was ridiculing Bush for allowing his Christian faith to influence his political decisions. Again, that blows my mind. Personally, my political decisions and the morals I teach my children are based solely on my faith in God.

You see, we, too, are surrounded by heresies and false philosophies. They are no different than what the Colossian Christians were facing all those years ago. Paul counters these heresies in our sermon text. He points to the completed work of Christ and the sufficiency of our Savior in all things to battle these heresies. Because of Jesus and his holy Word, we now have everything we need. We have every spiritual blessing and every spiritual victory.

Paul begins this section by writing: "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. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."

It is easy for us to become enslaved by "hollow and deceptive philosophies." The big craze in magazines and TV news programs a year or two ago was to discuss Mary Magdalene. Dan Brown, the author of "The DaVinci Code" had caused all this uproar because he claimed in his novel that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were actually husband and wife and their children and great grandchildren included DaVinci, among others. Our Christianity was attacked. Many Christians didn’t know how to respond. They weren’t in their Bibles enough to be able to give clear, concise answers to these critics.

Recently, a supposed religious expert in an interview claimed that Christianity, like all religions, is a developing religion. To the world that sounds enlightened. To Christians it sounds like enlightened blasphemy. God gave us his holy, unchanging, inerrant Word in our Bibles. Christianity is not a "changing, developing" religion. It is the same message that has always been taught and will always be taught by Christ’s true disciples.

How can we defend ourselves against these attacks against our faith and our God? We need to be in our Bibles. Sadly, Lutherans are notoriously negligent about reading their Bibles. Historically, our Lutheran congregations have been poor at attending Bible studies. Generally, Lutherans in our synod come to church and go home.

I pray, not any more! At least not in this congregation. Not in a church where I am the pastor.

The few months that I have been your pastor, I have heard too many times about money troubles. In our Church Council meeting on Monday, we spent a lot of time, again, talking about money. After we were finally done with that, I asked about Sunday school classrooms. I feel that the best way to educate our youth is to have separate classes designed for each educational level. That means I need a room for 1-3 year olds so that their parents can come to Bible study; a room for Pre-K-K; grades 1-2; 3-4; 5-6; 7-8; teens; and adults. That is 8 different rooms. Someone suggested that we didn’t need that many rooms because we only had 10 kids coming to Sunday school. That got me fired-up. I said that if we only have 10 kids in Sunday school in a congregation this size, then we have deeper problems than money. We have a faith problem.

I don’t know how you feel about Bible study, but maybe you get the impression that I feel pretty strongly about it. That’s because God feels very strongly about it. At my previous congregation at Faith in Radcliff we had 50 members and 20 kids. We averaged 25 for Bible study and 10 for Sunday school. That’s 50% attendance.

If we are going to shoot for 50% here then we should have 150 in Bible study and 50 in Sunday school. When our regular worship schedule starts next month, I challenge each of you to be there. If you won’t be there, then write me an excuse. Give me your reasons why you can’t spend an hour studying God’s Word. No one will do it. Why not? Because there is no good excuse for missing Bible study.

Why would you want to miss Bible study anyhow? Listen to all the spiritual blessings that Paul says come from your study of God’s Word: you receive Christ Jesus as Lord; you are able to live your life for God instead of for Satan and for yourself; you are rooted in Christ like a strong tree that isn’t pushed around by the winds of this world; you are built up in Christ like a sturdy building that won’t crack under the pressures of this world; you are strengthened in your faith; and because you better understand what Christ has done for you, you are overflowing with thankfulness. You won’t be enslaved by false teachings of this world. Instead, you will stand strong in Christ. That’s what comes from getting to know your Christ better in Bible study.

We all need to get to know Christ better. Exactly who is this Christ? Paul writes: "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority." Because Jesus is God in bodily form who is control over every power and authority, he is everything we need. He is the real force in this world and beyond. In Christ, we are completely fulfilled. Every spiritual need is satisfied. False teachers and faulty philosophies may degrade Jesus, but because we are in Jesus’ Word, we know who he really is. We can defend him. We can proclaim him.

Why is Jesus able to supply us with every spiritual need and blessing? Because he is victorious! And because Jesus is victorious, he gives us every spiritual victory.

Too often as Christians we live like losers. We walk around like we have a big "L" on our foreheads. "Loser!" We lack the faith that God can get us out of any financial difficulty. We cringe at pain and illness. We doubt God will work everything to our eternal benefit. We become negative and whiny and depressing to be around. We act like losers.

Paul reminds us that we are winners. We are victors because we share in Christ’s victory. He writes: "In [Christ] you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead." Today you witnessed a circumcision. Obviously it wasn’t a physical circumcision "done by the hands of men," but a spiritual one. You witnessed Christ circumcising Talon in his baptism. Christ "cut away" Talon’s sinful nature.

Now through his baptism, Talon is connected in a special and powerful way to Christ. As Christ died to sin, so in baptism sin is destroyed, it is cut off. As Christ rose, so in baptism a resurrection to a new life of faith takes place. When I discussed baptism with Talon’s parents, Tony and Robin, I told them that once Talon was baptized, they would have no more trouble out of him. He would be a little angel. They laughed too. All of us who have been baptized know that we still get into trouble. We still sin. But now we have been given the strength to overcome our sinful nature and Satan’s temptations. We are no longer weak, helpless creatures. Through our baptism, Christ has made us powerful and strong and alive for him!

Paul continues: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross." We were dead in our sin. We were unable to keep God’s commandments. We were guilty of breaking God’s written code.

Instead of leaving mankind dead and rotting under the tyranny of the sinful nature, God forgave all people their sins. This involved the cross of Christ. Imagine Jesus taking Moses’ two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments and nailing them to the cross. They no longer condemn us as failures. We are winners! We are no longer dead in sin. We are made alive in Christ! We are no longer guilty of sin. We are forgiven!

Paul then tells us how this victory over sin and Satan took place: "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." When I read this verse I remember what it was like to watch the results of the last Gulf War. We witnessed our military moving into Baghdad, pulling down that huge statue of Saddam, moving into Saddam’s palace, finding the dead bodies of Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay, and then finding Saddam himself hiding in a hole in the ground. Our military disarmed the powers and authorities of Iraq. We made a public spectacle of them. We showed that these tyrants were no longer in control. Now we were. We had fought to bring freedom and peace to that country.

Jesus did exactly the same thing – but only on a much grander scale. With his death on the cross, his resurrection from the grave, and his descent into hell, he disarmed the powers and authorities of Satan. Satan had been defeated through Christ’s death and resurrection. Then Jesus descended into hell to prove his victory to his enemy’s face. He strolled right into the enemy’s fortress. He took over Satan’s palace. Satan had been cowering because he knew that he had been whooped. By going into the enemy’s lair, Jesus proved to Satan, his demons, and to all of us, that he really was the Victor in war. And because Jesus was victorious, so are we. Jesus had fought to bring us freedom and peace.

There are still insurgents and terrorists who are trying to cause problems in Iraq. But it really isn’t as bad as our American media makes it sound. Satan and his forces are still trying to cause problems in our lives. But it really isn’t as bad as we make it sound. Jesus has given us the victory. We need to trust in that victory. We need to quit focusing on the negative and focus on positive of Christ’s victory parade. And then we need to live like we really are victorious.

Be in God’s Word. Take advantage of his spiritual blessings as a well-rooted plant and a solid building, and as you point out the empty shell of false teachings in our world. Also, live like victors as you take advantage of Christ’s spiritual victories in your baptism, in his cross, and in his victory parade over our enemies. In Jesus Christ we have everything we need. Amen.

"Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Amen. (1 Corinthians 15:57)