Have you ever sat down in a rickety chair at a party? You feel it wobble underneath you, and suddenly you cannot relax. You never quite let your full weight settle, because somewhere in the back of your mind you are not sure the thing can actually hold you. So you hover. You stay tense. You brace for the moment it gives out.
That is how a lot of us live. We are looking for something solid enough to trust our whole lives to, and most of what we lean on is not strong enough to carry the weight. So we live braced. We live anxious. We never fully collapse into rest, because we are not convinced anything can really hold us.
This is the heart of the series we are in, Held Together. The things we think are holding our lives together are the things we have quietly put our trust in. And the problem is, most of them buckle under pressure. But when we begin to trust our lives to Jesus, something changes. We start to experience the kind of security that lets us actually breathe, the kind of safety that makes room for love and joy and peace and patience and a sound mind. That is the invitation of the gospel. And it begins with a simple but difficult truth: God’s design is good.
God’s Design Is Good
We can put that on a coffee mug. We can print it on a t-shirt. But to really believe it is a lot harder than it sounds.
Still, think about it honestly. Have you ever stood on top of a mountain and thought, “That’s fine, but I could have done better”? Have you ever watched a sunset and wished God had added a little more pink, a few more blue tones? Of course not. When we encounter what God has made, we instinctively know it is good. It is right. It is the way things are meant to be.
You and I are part of that good design. Whether or not you feel it today, you were made to flourish under God’s love and care. The same hands that crafted the mountains and painted the sunset are holding your life too. We were designed to live inside His goodness.
Sin is what convinces us to reject that design. Brokenness whispers in our ear that we can find life somewhere else, that we do not really need God, that we can do this on our own. And here is the good news: it is right in the middle of that rebellion that Jesus meets us. He lived the life we could not live. He died the death we deserved to die. He rose again so that sin, Satan, and death would no longer have a grip on us. That is what the Bible calls the gospel, the good news, and it is the invitation to come back to God’s good design and finally stop trying to hold everything together ourselves.
The Danger of Being Deceived
The apostle Paul, writing to the church in Colossae, loved this good news. He could not stop talking about it. But he also knew it could be threatened, and the moment the good news gets distorted is the moment we stop trusting Jesus and start hunting for satisfaction somewhere else.
So he warns them: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8).
Nobody wakes up hoping to be deceived. Deception does not announce itself. It creeps in during unguarded moments, and it only works when something false manages to look true. It usually starts with a little bit of truth, mixed with a little bit of our own desire, and a whole lot of fear. And fear is a terrible motivator. It pushes us into decisions we would never make with a clear head.
In Paul’s day, deception was more primal. A false teacher would walk into a community and start mixing partial truths with the world’s thinking until a pile of half-lies became one complete lie. In our day it is far more crowded. Deception comes through podcasts and algorithms, influencers and news cycles, conspiracy theories and echo chambers. Entire communities now form around ideas completely disconnected from the gospel, and they can sound like the real thing.
Paul’s deepest concern is not that we might get a doctrine slightly wrong. It is that deception pulls us away from Christ. Every false gospel ultimately does the same thing: it shifts your attention off of Jesus and back onto yourself. And here is the trouble with that. We make terrible saviors. Every time we try to be the hero of our own story, we end up further away and in deeper need of rescue than when we started.
Paul names three counterfeit gospels. They were alive in the first century, and honestly, they may be even more alive today.
Legalism Says, “I Must Earn It”
The first false gospel is legalism, and its refrain is simple: if it is going to be mine, I have to earn it.
Legalism turns faith into a scorecard. What you eat, what you avoid, which holidays you keep, how you observe the Sabbath. The assumption is that the more rules you keep, the more spiritual you are. Every generation has its own version of the scorecard. Church attendance. Bible reading plans. Political positions. Homeschool or public school. What music you listen to, what movies you watch, which translation you carry. And because there is no real way to measure yourself against God, legalism always ends up measuring you against the person next to you.
The two great tragedies of legalism are these. First, it is joyless. It sucks the life out of everything and makes God look like a grumpy figure in the sky just waiting to zap you for the next wrong move. But that is not the God revealed in Jesus. Jesus went to weddings. He turned water into wine. He shared meals with friends, welcomed children, and invited women into friendship and mission. Jesus does not drain the color out of life; He restores it. He brings light into darkness, healing into pain, and joy into sorrow.
Second, legalism makes us live in the gap, the distance between who we are and who we think God wants us to be. When the gap is all you can see, every day feels like a failure. I should pray more. I should serve more. I should be a better parent, a better friend, a better Christian. And the gap never closes.
The gospel invites you to live somewhere else, in the gains. In what Christ has already done. You are beloved. His righteousness has been given to you. While you were still a sinner, He died for you, and now you belong. When God looks at you, He does not sigh in disappointment. He says, “This is my son, this is my daughter, whom I love.” As 2 Corinthians 5:17 puts it, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here.”
If you belong to Jesus, you do not work for your acceptance. You work from it. You are not fighting for God’s love; you already have it. Do not settle for the shadow when you have been given the substance.
Gnosticism Says, “I Must Figure It Out”
The second counterfeit gospel insists that ordinary faith is not enough, that you need deeper mysteries, more information, more hidden truth. Get enough secret knowledge, it promises, and you will finally transcend your struggles.
This might be the most modern false gospel of all. We genuinely believe that knowledge will save us. If I just read one more article, listen to one more podcast, watch one more video, find one more secret, then I will finally have peace. But it never ends. We have more information at our fingertips than any people in history, and we are called the most anxious generation that has ever lived. Information is a terrible savior.
You can become fascinated with spiritual things and still neglect Jesus. You can know every prophecy chart and still struggle to love your neighbor. You can spend your life trying to figure out what God will do tomorrow and never actually meet Him today. Remember, the tree in the garden was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the temptation was, “Then you will be like God.” But Genesis had already said we were made in His image. Paul’s answer is to stop living for what you do not know and start living for what has been plainly revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.
Asceticism Says, “I Must Escape It”
The third counterfeit gospel treats the physical world as the problem and escape as the goal. “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch” (Colossians 2:21). Some tried to seal themselves off in a spiritual bubble; others decided the body did not matter at all. Either way, the message was the same: creation is bad, so get away from it.
But Christianity has never taught that creation is bad. God called it good, and the ultimate proof is Jesus Himself. God put on flesh. Jesus ate food, attended weddings, worked a job, laughed with friends, touched lepers, and walked dusty roads. Even after the resurrection, He still had a body.
So matter matters. Your work matters. Your relationships matter. Your body matters. God is not trying to rescue you out of being human; He is teaching you how to become fully human. Jesus is not calling us to escape reality but to bring His presence into it, to enjoy good food and friendship, to build families, plant gardens, create, and laugh often. These are not distractions from life with God. They are often the very places we meet Him.
One Person Strong Enough to Hold You
Look at what each counterfeit really does. Legalism says do more, but Jesus says it is finished. Gnosticism says find the secret, but Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Asceticism says escape the world, but the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Every false gospel has one thing in common. They all put the weight of your life back on your own shoulders. Earn it. Figure it out. Escape it. They all say it is up to you. But the gospel says Jesus is enough. He has already done for you what you could never do for yourself, and He is holding together all the things you were never meant to carry alone. Your life was never meant to be held together by your performance, your knowledge, or your discipline. Your life is held together by a person, and His name is Jesus.
Your Next Step
This week, pay attention to what you are actually leaning on. Notice where you are bracing instead of resting, and practice collapsing your weight onto Christ again. Sit with these questions:
- Which counterfeit am I most tempted by right now: earning it, figuring it out, or escaping it?
- Where am I living in the gap, measuring myself by what I am “not yet,” instead of living in the gains of who I already am in Christ?
- Whose scorecard am I keeping, and who am I quietly comparing myself to?
- What piece of “one more thing to know” am I hoping will finally bring me peace, and what would it look like to trust Jesus with what I do not know?
- Where might God be inviting me to meet Him in ordinary life this week, in a meal, a friendship, my work, or my home?
Join Us This Sunday
Wherever you are trying to hold your own life together, you do not have to keep bracing. You can lay it down and let Jesus be the One who holds you.
Experience Mosaic in person this Sunday at 10:00 AM. Come as you are, grab a coffee, and discover what it means to build your life on the One who holds all things together. We would love to meet you there.
