You can listen to the full audio of this message here: Lives Hidden With Christ - Reality How do we know what is real? In an age where digital “baloney” flies about everywhere—from our social media feeds to online articles—discerning truth has become a constant challenge.
We are flooded with fabricated content. You might see a quote from a public figure that perfectly aligns with your preconceived notions, so you automatically believe it. But what about the increasingly popular (and deceptive) trend of manufactured positive stories?
The Problem of Fake Positivity
We often associate “fake news” with the negative, like scandals or misinformation. However, one of the most popular ways websites now generate clicks is by publishing AI-generated articles about famous people performing remarkably good deeds. The articles look legit, they spread like wildfire, and they’re completely untrue.
I saw a perfect example of this recently. During a university football team’s bye week, I saw dozens of people sharing the same story about the head coach and his wife spending millions to start a school for underprivileged kids.
It sounded great, but when I clicked the link, the website was clearly fake, and the article was obviously written by artificial intelligence. The language was overly sentimental and stilted: “The small children upon seeing Coach wept in joy as they knew that they were finally going to be able to…”
It was ridiculous and, sure enough, untrue. What’s truly fascinating is that the exact same story was being attached to scores of athletes and coaches across the country, simply replacing the names. Yet, people shared it with comments like, “This is why I love him!”
We live in a day and age where we have lost our anchor for what is real. Everything seems too good (or too bad) to be true. We are groping for reality.
Finding Reality in Scripture
This is why the phrase that pops off the page in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae is so vital: Reality. Paul is directly challenging the Colossian believers to consider what is truly real.
Let’s look at Colossians 2:16-19 (NIV):
“Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen. They are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow."
Shadows vs. Reality
The church communities in Colossae and Laodicea were dealing with groups coming in and essentially saying:
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“How do you know you’re really worshiping God?”
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“Don’t you want to experience the fullness of worship?”
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“We have a deeper, clearer understanding of what’s going on because we’ve had experiences, like worshipping alongside angels.”
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“We know what’s real through our experiences and rituals.”
These groups were mixing and matching pieces from different spiritualities—food restrictions, religious festivals, and Sabbath-keeping—and presenting it as the path to truth.
Paul’s response is definitive: No, that’s not real.
The Old Testament practices (like festivals and food laws) were given by God to remind the people of what He had done. They were given to set them apart. Paul calls these things shadows. They were temporary symbols that led and pointed us to the ultimate reality: Christ.
Christ has come. We have the reality. We no longer need to worry about the shadows. They were helpful, but what we truly need is Jesus.
Beware of False Humility and Detail
Paul then cautions the believers against those who would disqualify them. He points out a couple of key characteristics of these false teachers:
1. They Delight in False Humility and Angel Worship
These people were claiming special, secret knowledge—like being able to worship with angels—while simultaneously professing, “We don’t know very much; we are just humble servants.” This is a classic move: using self-deprecation to sell spiritual authority.
2. They Go into Great Detail About What They Have Seen
We tend to believe things that are highly detailed. The more specifics, the more true it must be, right?
Not necessarily.
Think about the way we lie: we add as many details as possible to make the story airtight. As a teenager, you knew that the more details you had—the temperature of the A/C, the brand of ketchup, the color of the paper plates—the more believable your story was.
In contrast, when you read the Bible, one of the great frustrations is the lack of enough detail. Why? Because the biblical authors were recording real, overwhelming experiences. They were so “gobsmacked” in the moment that they often missed the minutiae that an outside observer might want. The reality was the event, not the peripheral details.
Paul warns that those who rely on an overload of detail are often simply “puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind."
Connecting to the Head
The core problem, Paul states, is that they have “lost connection with the head."
In Colossians, “the head” is Christ. These false teachers are disconnected from the source of all truth, life, and growth.
The body—the church—is “supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews." When a limb loses connection with the head (like a dislocated knee cap), it stops working correctly. It cannot do what it was meant to do because it is no longer connected to the control center.
Our Challenge: Wrestling with Reality
For us today, we must wrestle with two questions:
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Am I being the “earnest man”? Am I displaying a false humility while giving people complicated, detailed claims about how they should have a spiritual experience? Am I “puffed up in idle notions” and leading people away from the simple reality of Christ?
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Am I buying into the “hollow and deceptive philosophies”? Am I being taken captive by things that are not Christ? This could be spiritualism, politics, debates over how a church does communion, or what kind of music is played. These are all empty, hollow philosophies if they become the foundation of our faith.
We have to wrestle with our hearts and minds and ask: Are we seeking to be fully and thoroughly and only connected to our Head, who is Christ?
If we are following and trusting Him, our real and true Head, then we will display for the world the ultimate reality: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
At the end of the day, what is real is Christ—His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. He is the standard. He is the reality.