Fullness in Christ

And we see it a lot in some of our modern day movies, some of the subtle messaging about this is where you will find wholeness. We see it a lot in the culture around us. Some of the things that advertising tells us is when you have this perfect version of what a body is, then you'll feel whole. Or when you have the fast car and the nice house, then you'll feel whole. Many people on the Gold Coast, they're trying to build this Australian dream when they'll finally feel whole and full and content.

And the reason I'm bringing this up is because we're in the fourth week of an eight week series in the letter of Colossians. We've called it the All Sufficient Christ, why Jesus is all you need. And the reason the apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church at Colossae was because a man called Epaphras, a Colossian Christian, had gone to Paul and told him about some issues that were going on in that church. And some of the issues that were happening were coming through the false teachers that were in that church. They weren't saying don't believe in Christ, but they were talking about fullness.

They were talking about wholeness. They were saying, you're sure, like, you've believed in Jesus, that's good, but you need more if you're going to experience the fullness of God, if you're going to be a complete Christian. For them back then, they were saying things like, well, you need to be more Jewish. You should get circumcised. You should observe the Jewish holy days.

They were also saying some sort of Greco-Roman pagan things, like you need to be harsh with your body, spiritually harsh if you wanna be spiritually full. You need to appease the spiritual realm as well to make sure you're at peace with them. They were giving all these messages to unsettle the Colossians, and so Paul wrote to them to correct these messages, to set their eyes on Christ, and to show them where fullness really is. Where do we find fullness? Whether we're Christian or not, we're all looking for it, and our passage today is going to show us where it is found.

So we're going to open it up, and we're gonna look at Colossians 2:6-15 under three different headings, just to break it up, some signposts to take us along the way. And the first heading is this, Paul talks about the life you are called to pursue. The life you are called to pursue in verses six to seven. So Eric had just read it for us, but Paul said in verse six, and hopefully you've got your Bibles open because we're gonna be flicking around and looking at the passage, so open up your Bible or your Bible app so you can follow along. Paul says, therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.

That's verse six. And a lot of scholars would say that's actually the summary of what the letter of Colossians is about. As you received Christ Jesus the Lord through Epaphras, you heard the gospel from Paul, Paul's gospel through Epaphras. As you received Christ through Epaphras and as you believed, continue. Don't go this false teacher direction of adding on to that message.

As you received Him, continue in Him. And this is also a bit of a hinge point in the letter. Paul has spent the first of chapter one and a little bit of chapter two talking about what he's thankful for in the church and what he's praying for in his ministry and so on, and now he issues the first command in the letter, the first imperative in the letter. He says, walk in Him. And we gotta pay attention to that little word therefore.

Therefore, when that comes up in your Bible, it means all of the stuff that's come before is informing this now. See, Paul didn't get to the commands until this point. He didn't just say, start doing this, start doing this. He actually wanted to do a number of things before he started telling the people what to do. And let's just quickly run over what we've covered over the last few weeks now that we're at this hinge point.

So in our first week, we talked about growing in Christ in chapter one verses one to 14, and Paul talked about what he was thankful for in the Colossian church. He was thankful for the faith, hope, and love that was in that church. Now if an apostle is thankful for that, then we know that's probably something that should characterise us. That's what it looks like to be a mature church. People who are strong in faith, we trust in Jesus, we trust the gospel, people who are full of hope that Jesus is coming, that the difficulties we're enduring right now will end, Jesus will return, and the new creation will be our new reality, and full of love.

We're meant to be a church that's full of love for one another, deeply, sincerely concerned for each other's spiritual well-being and physical well-being. So he thanked God for the faith, hope, and love that were in the church, and then Paul told them what he was praying for. He told them that he'd been praying for the Colossians to know what is the will of God. Verse nine. That's it.

He wanted them to know the will of God. Why? Because the Colossian teachers are saying, well, no. No. No.

The will of God is that you add a few things on. And Paul's saying, no. The knowledge of God's will is that you continue on in Christ, that you keep growing in the knowledge of God, that you keep persevering through suffering, that you keep loving one another and so on. So Paul tells them what he was praying for, and then he lifted up this beautiful picture of who Christ is for us in verses 15 to 23. He talked about the unrivaled Christ, the Christ who was unrivaled in the old creation.

He is the image of the invisible God. Jesus is the one through whom everything was created. Jesus is the one for whom everything was created. Jesus is the one who holds everything together. He's unrivaled in the old creation, and He's unrivaled in the new creation.

He's the firstborn from the dead. He's the beginning of the new creation that has already begun in His resurrection. Jesus is absolutely unrivaled without competitor. He is supreme, preeminent and all sufficient. And then Paul finishes verse 24 of chapter one, and he goes into the beginning of chapter two by talking about his ministry, and he talks about how he's been suffering to spread this gospel, and how he is labouring and struggling and striving to help the church mature, and the way we saw that he did that was by proclaiming Christ.

Christ is the one through whom we mature. So he's done all of this, and now he's ready to say, therefore. Therefore, Colossians 2:6, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. To walk in Him means to live in Him, to live in Christ, to live daily in communion with Him. We do that through prayer.

We hear His voice in His word. We read His word. We're to live in Christ. Then Paul fleshes that out in verse seven with what we call participles. Basically, the main verb, the main command is walk in Him, and then these four participles kind of flesh out what that means in verse seven.

So it talks about being rooted, built up, established in the faith, and abounding in thanksgiving. Those are the four things. Now interestingly, the first three, and Paul says, you are to be rooted, built up, and established, they're in the passive voice. These are things that are happening to the Colossian Christians. They are not things that the Colossian Christians need to do, go out and get done.

So it's actually God who's rooted them, God who is building them up, and God who is establishing them in the faith in verse seven. The rooted metaphor, that's an organic image. Think about putting roots down into the soil. And if you look at the Greek, it's in the perfect tense. So what it means is that this is something that's happened in the past with ongoing ramifications.

In other words, when you put your trust in Jesus, God put your roots down in Christ, and putting roots in healthy soil like that has ongoing ramifications of growth in your life. So they've been rooted by God in Christ, and then the built up word is actually present tense. Built up in Him is in the present tense. Sorry.

So God is still building us up. We are like stones that God has carved out and He's putting into the spiritual temple. So God is building us up. And then the last thing that God is doing, the third thing, is that He's establishing us in the faith. That should be present tense as well.

Establishing, that's growing our commitment to Christ, so we become more and more confident that Christ is the Saviour, that He is the answer. Now it's just interesting that Paul says, walk in Him, and then he says three things that God's doing in you. And this is a bit of the mystery of the Christian life. As we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, we do it because God is at work in us. The Christian life is not God saves you, He does all the work to save you, and then He says, okay, now you go on without me.

Do your best. Nor is the Christian life, God initially saved me, and He continues to do it all by Himself, and I'm not involved. I just let go and passively wait for Him to change me. No. We work because God is at work in us.

We work and God is at work. Both are true. We don't be passive, but it's not up to us. God is the power who's working in us. So what does it mean to walk in Him?

Well, three of those things are already just things that God is doing in us. He's rooted us. He's building us up. He's establishing us in the faith. And the fourth thing is something that we can do.

The fourth thing is to be abounding in thanksgiving. To be abounding in thanksgiving, to be praising God constantly for what we have received in Christ is a great inoculation against the empty promises of something more. It inoculates us. It prevents us from going, oh, maybe this false teaching over here, maybe that's what I really need. And maybe it's not like you even know it's a false teaching, but someone's coming to you and saying you're struggling with sin.

Okay. There's a specific course that I've done that you have to do. If you don't do this, you're gonna struggle the rest of your life. Now that's unhelpful because all you need is Christ to overcome your sin. The course may be beneficial perhaps, but if it's presented as necessary, then that's when it becomes a watering down of the gospel.

And that's something I've been wrestling with as I've been preaching through this series, because I don't want to mislead you, church, into thinking that a whole bunch of beneficial things should be thrown out, and it's just Christ, and we're just in His word, and don't give me books. Don't give me podcasts. Don't give me anything else because that's not Jesus. You know? And I think the way that helps me distinguish it is because Paul was dealing with these false teachers who are not saying, here are some beneficial things.

They're saying, here are some necessary things. Now even if they did say some of these things are beneficial, some of the things that they advocate for, we'll see next week, are wrong. But that's the difference, I think, that helps me understand the Christian life. So we've got this category of necessary things that we need to be a Christian and to grow. We need the gospel.

We need Christ. And then there's beneficial things, something random like a prayer journal. That's beneficial. But if someone puts the prayer journal in the necessary category, saying, you need Christ plus a prayer journal to be saved and to grow, then you're watering down and corrupting the gospel. Does that make sense?

So a prayer journal can be in the beneficial category. It's not in the necessary category. And when someone starts putting stuff in the necessary category, that's when we say no. Jesus alone, Christ alone, the gospel alone is necessary for salvation and for growth in faith. Anyways, so a little bit of a rant there, but I just wanna make sure we don't get confused about that. So Paul's warning them against this emptiness in this passage, and we're gonna look at that next.

So we've just looked at, first, the life you are called to pursue, which is to live in Christ, to keep going and abound in thanksgiving as God builds us up. And then the second thing is the emptiness that we should beware, which comes up in verse eight. So Paul actually starts to name the false teaching a little bit more directly here. Next week, he'll elaborate a lot more. But let's take a look at what this false teaching is.

So Paul says in verse eight, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit. Philosophy and empty deceit. Now back then, philosophy wasn't used as we've got a very specific thing in mind when we talk about philosophy today. Philosophy back then, that Greek word, could just mean any sort of teaching, any sort of idea. So it's not necessarily the case that the Colossians had this particular philosophy called X, Y, and Z that they were advocating for.

It seems like they were just these Christians that hadn't matured in Christ, and they were just giving them a bunch of different things that they needed to believe. And Paul explains what this empty philosophy is with three accordings. So he says that this philosophy is according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. So let's just look at those three accordings to just understand a bit more of what this is. So Paul says that this empty philosophy that they're teaching is according to human tradition, that just means that they're making it up.

It's not divinely inspired. It's not from God. It's something that's come from their own minds. It's come from human beings. The second thing Paul says is that it's according to the elemental spirits of the world.

Now this Greek word can mean basic elements of the world, like fire, wind, earth, water, those sorts of things. And in this ancient Greco-Roman context Paul is writing in, those things had a spiritual charge to them as well. Some Greeks thought that earth, water, and fire weren't just physical elements, but spiritual elements that helped create the world. And so these false teachers are making up this stuff, and they're teaching the Colossian Christians about these spiritual elements, probably saying you need to appease these different spiritual powers in order to be at peace in these different areas and so on and so forth. But the point is that it's not according to Christ.

That's the third according. So it's something they've made up out of their heads according to human tradition, according to elemental spirits of the world, so it's about these elemental spirits, and it's not about Christ. At the end of the day, if it's not according to Christ, if it's not about Jesus, it's not worth listening to. Now it could sound arrogant to you if I say that if you're not a Christian or you're a seeker and you're coming here to find the truth, and I say, it's not worth listening to a teaching that's not about Christ. You might think, well, hang on.

You know, what about all the Buddhists and Muslims out there and all those sorts of people? Surely they have an angle on God. But what I want you to notice if that's you is that you're actually assuming that these other people all have a different angle on God, that there is no absolute truth found in one religion. But if you take a step back and look at yourself, the person that's saying that, that's actually quite an arrogant thing to do. Because if you're saying, well, Christians can't claim to have the truth in Jesus, then you're claiming to be outside of the whole puzzle and saying, well, all these religions, they have different angles on God, and you Christians are very naive.

You can't say you have everything. We've all got a different angle. But how do you know that if that's you? How do you know that's the truth? See, I don't think it's actually arrogant for me to say the truth is in Jesus because I'm not claiming it's in myself, although I've had some special dream or whatever.

I believe that Jesus, who historically we know was a man who lived in the first century, who lived and who died, and as a Christian, I believe that He rose from the grave, and so I listen to Him, and I hope you will too. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the one worth listening to, worth knowing. Now we've been talking about the emptiness you should beware, and Paul's saying this empty philosophy is not about Christ. It should be discarded.

But what might this empty philosophy, what might this heresy look like today? What is it that Paul would warn us about? Well, it's basically when anyone says to you, you need Jesus plus something else to be a complete Christian, to experience God's fullness. Not just, oh, this thing over here is beneficial as well, but you need this. And I think some of the ways we need to be careful in our own tradition of reformed theology is it can show up in elite theological tribes at times.

And sometimes these elite tribes are pictured as these are the complete Christians. Now I love reformed theology. I preach it, but I'm saved in Christ alone. I'm not saved in my theological tradition. And there are brothers and sisters that are Lutherans and Baptists that I might disagree with, and I might not think that they understand the scriptures as well.

But I'm not any more of a Christian than they are because I'm saved in Christ alone. They're saved in Christ alone. I treasure reformed theology as in the beneficial category, but I don't place it as, well, you gotta be part of a reformed church and believe in Jesus, and then you're saved. No. You're saved in Christ alone.

Hope that makes sense. I think that's something that could trip us up in our tradition. Another thing that's floating around today that could trip you up is someone that comes to you and says, well, if you want fullness in Christ, if you want to be a complete Christian, you need to have a hyper spiritual experience. I remember when I worked in North Brisbane as a pastor, at one stage working with the youth, there was another youth pastor nearby that wanted to have coffee with me. He invited me out for coffee, and we were chatting and talking about our ministries and whatnot.

And while we're having coffee, he said, you know what you really need, Ben? If you wanna have spiritual power in your ministry, you need to start speaking in tongues. And at the time, I pointed him to 1 Corinthians 12, which talks about how we don't all have the same gifts and whatnot, but that's a dangerous message because spiritual gifts are not what give us the fullness. Christ is the one who gives us the fullness. So it can come up as a hyper spiritual experience that's being offered.

It can also come up in the lifestyle that we think characterises a complete Christianity. So maybe Christians judge each other because they're like, well, this family, they've got way too much. They mustn't be like a full on Christian because they've got too much. But then the prosperity gospel people will say, well, we are blessed by God because we have got a lot, and you don't have much, so you mustn't be. There's all sorts of different ways that we can add on to Jesus.

Jesus is the all sufficient means of salvation and growth. He is the one in whom God's fullness is, and we're going to see that next. Actually, it's foolish to take on any other sort of you must have this because we could not possibly exhaust the riches that we have in Christ already. For all of eternity, we'll be plumbing the depths of who Christ is, and we're gonna look at that next in the fullness you've already received. So we've looked at the life you were called to pursue, the emptiness you should beware, and now the fullness you've already received.

And there are four things that Paul talks about that they've already received here. And just a side note, if you wanna turn a three point into a seven point sermon, this is how you do it. You put four sub points under the third point. No one knows. It's amazing.

Anyways, Paul says the fullness you've already received, and here's the first thing he points to. He says, the fullness of Christ is in you. That's what he says in verses nine to 10. He says, for in Him, that's Jesus, in Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in Him who is the head of all rule and authority. Absolutely mind blowing.

You have been filled in Christ, the one in whom all the fullness of God dwells. How can the limited be filled with the unlimited? The finite with the infinite, the weak with the almighty, the ignorant with the omniscient. If you have received Christ as Lord, then don't be in doubt. You have received the fullness of the Spirit.

God's presence indwells you. And this fullness has many facets to it. We're gonna look at the next one. So you have been filled in Christ, fullness of Christ in you. That's the first fullness you've already received.

The second one is new life in Christ. Paul talks about this. I'll just read it again for us to remind us of what he said in verses 11 to 12. In Christ also, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. So it's a spiritual circumcision.

He's not talking about literal circumcision. By putting off the body of the flesh. The flesh is one of Paul's favourite terms for our sinful nature. So again, he's talking about our spiritual flesh, our spiritual sinful nature has been cut off, so to speak, through the spiritual circumcision of Christ. And then he says, by the circumcision of Christ.

Verse 12. Now he's talking about literal baptism, having been buried with Him in baptism. It's one of the things that baptism signifies. In which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised Him from the dead. See, when you put your faith in Jesus, it's like God spiritually circumcised you.

He the Old Testament talks about being circumcised in heart at times. It was possible in the Old Testament to be a Jewish person who was circumcised externally, but whose heart was far from God. And Paul seems to be getting at that here. He circumcised our hearts. He set us apart in heart for God by removing the sinful nature and making us alive with Christ.

And this is one of the reasons why as reformed people we say that baptism is the new covenant sign that circumcision pointed to, the old covenant sign. We can talk more about that after the service if you want, but it's one of the reasons why I believe baptism should be given to children as those who belong to Christ in a Christian household. So Paul is saying that we've been made alive, and it's incredible because he says, in which you were also raised with Christ. In Romans 6, Paul talks about being raised with Christ as a future thing, but here in Colossians, he talks about it as something that's already happened. He's giving us the sense that our old nature, our sinful nature has been put to death, and we've been given this new nature.

We've actually spiritually begun to experience the power of the resurrection as new people, as new creations. So let me ask you, are you struggling with sin right now? We've talked about the sinful nature being cut away. Are you struggling with sin right now? Are you wrestling with an addiction or feeling defeated by temptation?

How do you wrestle it to the ground or overcome your propensity to sin? The false teachers were offering things in Colossae. One of the things was spiritual strictness, asceticism we call it, being harsh, being strict. That's how you can subdue the power of the flesh and bring the sinful nature to the ground. But Paul teaches us that freedom from sin is already ours in Christ.

He says that Christ put off the body of the flesh. He cut it away in His death. He has dealt with your sinful propensity. And Paul also said, you were also raised. You've been raised with Christ.

You're a new person, a new creation. Don't listen to Satan's voice that says you're hopeless. You're trapped. You can't win. Don't let anyone know.

Keep it hidden. Otherwise, they might tell you the gospel and remind you of your forgiveness, so don't tell anyone. It's all lies. Part of victory against sin is winning the war in your mind, taking hold of those lies and declaring God's truth instead. So Paul says in Romans 6:11, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

That's how we should think of ourselves. So if you're struggling with sin and wrestling with sin, you shouldn't think, I'm an addict. I'm just a filthy sinner. I'm hopeless. No.

In Christ, there is no condemnation. You're forgiven. I'm dead to sin. I'm alive to God in Christ Jesus. There's no way I cannot make progress in the Christian life if I'm alive to God in Christ Jesus.

This is not to say that we can never sin again. Jesus has defeated sin, but we're only beginning to experience that victory in this life. It's the already but not yet tension that we find in the New Testament. Some of these promises are already being experienced, but the not yet fullness remains to be received. So we're in the already phase, but not yet the fullness.

But Paul's teaching us here that we should be optimistic about our ability to overcome because Christ has dealt with this sinful nature, and He's given us His Spirit, He's made us new people. And we should also be realistic that we won't reach perfection until Jesus returns. I love how the apostle John puts it in his letter. He says, my little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, is there realism?

We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. We have fullness in Christ. We have new life in Christ. We've been put to death. The old self has been put to death, and we have this newness of life in us, and we have forgiveness through the cross.

This is another aspect of the fullness we've already received. So we read about it in verses 13 to 14. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Jesus, having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. Now what is this record of debt?

It's imagine an IOU, and all of humanity has written to God: IOU perfect obedience, perfect righteousness, signed humanity. And all of us have failed in that. And so this certificate can be used against us in the court of law and say, this is what you said you'd do, and you haven't done it, so you deserve death. That's what the record of debt is.

It's this thing that stood against us with its legal demands, but Jesus set it aside, nailing it to the cross. I love the words of the hymn, my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, o my soul.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah, brother. I love that, man, this is good news for a sinner like me. Paul doesn't say some of your trespasses have been forgiven. All of them have.

Paul doesn't say that Jesus has paid down your debt a little. He's cancelled it, blotted it out. The Greek word there can actually be translated obliterated. Imagine your certificate of debt, and Jesus has put it in a field somewhere, and then they've dropped this gospel atomic bomb on top of it and obliterated it to pieces. Where can you find the certificate anymore?

It's gone. God doesn't remember your sins anymore. They're paid for in Christ. He's ripped up the certificate. He's nailed it to the cross.

In God's eyes, because you are in Christ, you are as righteous as Jesus is. That sounds almost blasphemous almost, but no, that's true because you're clothed with Christ's righteousness. In God's eyes, you are as righteous as Jesus is. Let's not set ourselves up as a higher judge than God and say, but, you know, God, this is still my life, and I kicked the dog this week and did this. I'm terrible.

I didn't do that, by the way. Don't worry. We've got a dog lover in the audience who's like, oh, no. No. I didn't do that.

But we turn to Jesus. We don't set ourselves up as a higher judge than God. We put our faith in the righteousness of Christ that perfectly clothes us. That's the message for you if you're struggling with sin and repenting of your sin and wanting to change and seeking Christ. But I also have a warning for you, for those of you who have made peace with your sin.

If you are using the gospel to excuse your sin, if you are using the gospel to avoid accountability, if you are using the gospel to justify hurting others, then you're in a dangerous position. The kind of faith that saves is not a dead faith. It's a living faith that understands the precious Son of God gave Himself up for your sins. How can you not want to put to death what He died for? How can you resist Him if He wants you to forsake your sin?

It can be a long, hard battle, but if you're wrestling with it, be comforted in the gospel. But if you've accepted it and you're excusing it, then there's a warning there for you. If you turn to Jesus, if you're someone who's like, I need to turn back to Him with this, He's not going to shame you, but He's not going to leave you the same either. He'll receive you as you are, but He'll not leave you as you are. Jesus will never shame His people.

But there are some things that Jesus does shame, and we'll see that next as we explore the fourth thing we've already received in Christ, and that is freedom from evil powers. Freedom from evil powers, which sometimes in the West, that's a bit odd, like, we don't necessarily talk about that, but let me explain. So Paul says in verse 15, He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Christ. Now the rulers and authorities I explained last week, they're spiritual rulers and authorities. We're in a spiritual battle with the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, the cosmic powers over this present darkness, and they're the ones that Jesus has disarmed through the cross.

Imagine the law court scenario again. God is the judge. You're sitting, you're being accused, and there's an accuser that comes out. That's a picture of who Satan is. He is called the accuser.

And imagine he's taken that certificate of debt, and he's waving it in the court, and he's saying, you have done this and this and this and this. You are not righteous. You are guilty. But what Jesus did at the cross was take that certificate of debt out of his hands and nail it to the cross, obliterating it. And it makes Satan look like a fool.

He's got nothing in his hand. You've done this, this. Oh, I don't have any evidence against him anymore. It's gone. It's been paid for at the cross.

It's obliterated by this gospel bomb. That's the picture here. Christ has put these rulers and authorities to open shame. He's exposed them to public disgrace for accusing His beloved children. And Paul says that God has triumphed over them in Christ.

Now this picks up on a Roman concept called the triumphal procession. When the Romans would defeat other enemies, they would come in this triumphal procession into the city, and the generals would go first and so on, and behind them would be all these captives, these prisoners who are led in shame, tied up however it looks like. And that's a picture of what's going on here. Jesus is leading these spiritual rulers and authorities in this triumphal procession, and they've got nothing left, and they've done the wrong thing. They've been accusing God's people who are righteous through Christ, and so He's taken them captive.

The false teachers, Paul said at the beginning, don't be taken captive by this empty philosophy, this deceit, because Christ has taken captive these spiritual powers that these Colossian false teachers are worried about. Now some of us really do have a fear of supernatural evil, but God wants you to hear today, if that's you, if you fear that or maybe you're just concerned about it, that the powers of evil have been disarmed. They've been led around in Christ's triumphal procession. They can only lie to you and act like they have power over you. But Christian, they can't touch a single hair on your head without God's permission.

Don't fear evil. Jesus is king. He has triumphed. Defy the fear of evil by rejoicing in the victory of Christ. Isn't Jesus good?

Isn't God good? He's given us so much. We have been filled in Him who has the fullness of deity in Him. We have new life in Christ. We are forgiven.

We have no more to fear from spiritual evil. We have freedom. There's a life we are called to pursue, a life that is in Christ, constantly growing in our trust in Him as God is working in us, constantly rejoicing and abounding with thanksgiving for what Jesus has done. There is an emptiness to beware. Watch out for any Christian teaching or attitude that says the real Christians have Jesus plus this.

No, the real Christians have Christ. That's it. He is all sufficient. He's preeminent. Lots of other beneficial things, but the one sufficient thing is Christ.

Live in the already of Christ's fullness, church. Don't be deceived by the empty promises of something more. And there's something very settling about getting this. Oh, we've already got Christ. We already have fullness in Him.

It means we don't need to feel inadequate if someone understands reformed theology better than us, or we don't need to feel insecure if someone is more gifted than us. It means the rat race is over. We don't need to join all the other Aussies out there who are fighting to climb the corporate ladder and think that fullness and wholeness and happiness exists one rung higher. We don't need to join all the other Aussies who are sacrificing so much to build the Australian dream on the Gold Coast. We can be content in Christ, knowing that He is the fullness that we already have.

As God's people, we aren't deceived by those empty promises. We have received fullness in Christ, and all of these precious image bearers on the Gold Coast, these people who don't know Jesus, need to see Christ's fullness in us. They need to see where the answer is. It's not in the empty promises. It's in Christ.

Let the Gold Coast see Christ in you, church. Live in the already of His fullness. Don't be deceived by the empty promises of something more. Let's pray. Jesus, we praise You.

We praise You. We praise You. You are incredible. My feeble words cannot get across Your worth, Your supremacy, Your sufficiency. And Lord, we just pray that by Your Holy Spirit, You would lift our eyes to the beauty of Jesus, and that we would see Him as He is in all of His splendour, and that we'd be captured by His glory, and that we would realise we have fullness in Him.

We have everything we need. Lord, move us into thanksgiving for what we have. Help us to abound in it this week, and help us not to believe the empty promises of something more somewhere else or by adding on to Jesus. We pray this in His name. Amen.