The Masterpiece Within: Discovering Your Sufficiency in Christ

• The Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ [00:01:54 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines Colossians as the most Christ-centered book, asserting that Jesus is creation's only source, God's only Son, and man's only Savior, and that believers need nothing beyond Him.
• The City of Colossae and Historical Context [00:07:16 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor introduces the geographical and historical background of Colossae, describing it as a declining city in the Lycus River Valley, distinct from the more prominent cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis.
• Personal Travel Anecdote [00:11:13 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal story about visiting the ancient ruins of Colossae and the Lycus Valley with a friend named Gordon Franz, providing visual context for the sermon.
• Historical Context of Colossae [00:11:42 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the physical location of ancient Colossae, its geography near the Lycus Valley and Mount Cadmus, and the archaeological state of the ruins.
• Church Planting and Epaphras [00:14:56 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that Paul did not found the church in Colossae; rather, it was planted by Epaphras, a layman and businessman who heard the gospel in Ephesus and returned home to establish the church.
• The Colossian Heresy [00:18:56 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor identifies the core issue as a syncretism of Jewish legalism (circumcision, dietary laws, Sabbath) and local folk religion/mysticism, which claimed Jesus was not enough for full spiritual maturity.
• Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ [00:23:55 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that adding anything to Christ subtracts from Him, and that the letter of Colossians is designed to prove that Jesus is complete and sufficient for believers.
• Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ [00:23:55 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that Paul's letter to the Colossians exalts Jesus as complete and sufficient, countering false teachings that require additional experiences or rules for maturity.
• False Teaching and Man-Made Rules [00:23:17 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor identifies a problem where people add to Christ through charismatic experiences or man-made laws, which he argues actually subtracts from Christ's sufficiency.
• Christian Identity and Maturity [00:26:20 ▶️ 📄]
  > Using a quote from Josh Moody, the pastor explains that the Christian journey is not self-discovery but becoming more like Christ, finding life in Him rather than seeking external validation.
• Apostolic Authority [00:30:46 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor distinguishes between 'capital A' apostles (eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ like Paul) and modern 'little a' apostles, asserting that Paul's authority came directly from God's will.
• Community and Encouragement [00:35:09 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the metaphor of packing parachutes to illustrate the mutual need for encouragement and support within the church community.
• Identity as Saints [00:36:05 ▶️ 📄]
  > Defines 'saint' not as a moral achievement but as a positional status of being set apart to God through faith in Christ, emphasizing that all believers are saints.
• Faithfulness vs. Perfection [00:38:13 ▶️ 📄]
  > Distinguishes between being 'faithful' (loyal and committed) and being perfect, noting that believers can be faithful to God even while struggling with doctrinal errors or personal failures.
• Dual Location (In Christ vs. In the World) [00:39:18 ▶️ 📄]
  > Explains the concept of having two addresses: geographically in the world (e.g., Edmond) and spiritually 'in Christ,' asserting that spiritual identity must govern earthly living.
• Sufficiency of Christ [00:41:44 ▶️ 📄]
  > Concludes that Jesus is everything needed for salvation and spiritual life, illustrated by the story of Toscanini attributing all glory to Beethoven.

• Sermon Illustration [00:02:41 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor quotes Charles Spurgeon's declaration that his creed was 'Jesus Christ' and that the focus of his church should always be the person of Jesus Christ, using this to align with his heart for Faith Bible Church.
• Sermon Illustration [00:05:11 ▶️ 📄]
  > The story of William Randolph Hearst, a wealthy newspaper publisher who searched the world for a priceless masterpiece, only to discover it was already in his own warehouse, illustrating that believers already possess 'heaven's masterpiece' in Christ.
• Sermon Illustration [00:08:50 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the decline of Hierapolis, noting its hot springs and massive necropolis (cemetery), suggesting that many who came for healing did not get healed and ended up buried there.
• Sermon Illustration [00:11:13 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts a personal trip to the ancient ruins of Colossae and the Lycus Valley in Turkey, describing the landscape, the Acropolis, and Mount Cadmus.
• Sermon Illustration [00:12:40 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts a personal anecdote about visiting ancient Colossae where they were confronted by four men growing opium poppies on the Acropolis. The tension was resolved when their driver, Abraham, told the men they were from America studying the Bible, causing the men to burst into laughter and leave.
• Sermon Illustration [00:25:16 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about buying books he already owned, illustrating how Christians often search for something new in Jesus when they already possess everything they need in Him.
• Sermon Illustration [00:33:03 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts the story of Charles Plum, a Vietnam pilot who was saved by a parachute packed by an unknown man. This is used to illustrate the importance of recognizing and supporting the 'people behind the scenes' who help us, and the call to 'pack the parachute' for others.
• Sermon Illustration [00:35:09 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about his wife packing his parachute for skydiving, using it as a metaphor for how believers should pack the 'parachutes' (provide encouragement and support) for others.
• Sermon Illustration [00:36:53 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts a radio sermon by J. Vernon McGee who categorized people simply as 'saints and ain'ts' to emphasize that being a saint is a binary spiritual status, not a moral spectrum.
• Sermon Illustration [00:37:31 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor quotes John Phillips to clarify that a saint is not a canonized figure with relics, but simply any sinner saved by God's grace.
• Sermon Illustration [00:39:08 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor quotes Adrian Rogers to define faithfulness not as perfection, but as continuing to trust and follow God's commandments even when life is difficult and mistakes are made.
• Sermon Illustration [00:41:44 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor tells a story about conductor Arturo Toscanini, who, after a successful performance, attributed all glory to Beethoven and dismissed himself and the orchestra as 'nothing,' illustrating that Christ is everything and believers are nothing outside of Him.

• Pastoral Charge [00:35:36 ▶️ 📄]
  > To actively encourage, support, and strengthen others in the community.
• Pastoral Charge [00:37:54 ▶️ 📄]
  > To examine personal faith and ensure hope is placed solely in Jesus Christ for salvation.

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:02] Well, this is an exciting Sunday here at Faith Bible Church. We're beginning a new sermon series in the book of Colossians that will take us, Lord willing, into the summer.
[00:00:11] And so let's bow our hearts together now as we commit ourselves and this sermon series to the Lord for our good and His glory.
[00:00:20] Father, we thank You today that as we've sung here this morning that You are our God, that we can know You as You are, that You're not far away and distant and unknowable.
[00:00:29] we can know you through your creation and through the word of God and through the son of God who came to reveal you to us.
[00:00:37] Father, I pray that in all we do here today that Christ will be magnified.
[00:00:41] I pray he'll be magnified in our personal lives and our marriages, our homes, our families, Father, in our work, everywhere we go.
[00:00:51] Father, we thank you on a cold day like this for warm homes and warm clothes.
[00:00:57] Father, we never want to take your blessings for granted, even the most simple ones.
[00:01:01] Father, thank you for your kind provision for us.
[00:01:06] Now, Father, as we launch into our study of Colossians, I pray that we won't be the same people at the end of this study that we are today.
[00:01:13] Father, help us to yield our lives to you so that you can mold us and shape us and change us more into the image of your dear Son.
[00:01:23] Father, we look forward to that day when Christ, who is our life, will appear.
[00:01:27] It will appear with him in glory.
[00:01:29] We ask these things in his precious name.
[00:01:31] Amen.
[00:01:33] Welcome to Faith Bible Church this morning.
[00:01:35] Great to have you here with us.
[00:01:37] Thank you for coming out on this brutally cold morning.
[00:01:39] There's a lot more people at 815 and here than I expected.
[00:01:42] And I know many of you may be joining us on live stream.
[00:01:45] Welcome as well.
[00:01:46] We're so glad you're here with us.
[00:01:49] We've titled our new sermon series on Colossians, A Christ Above All.
[00:01:54] And Colossians is a book that extols and exalts the complete and inexhaustible supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Colossians is the most Christ-centered book in all the New Testament.
[00:02:08] I mean, in Colossians, we're going to see that Jesus is creation's only source. He's God's only Son, and He's man's only Savior. And for that reason alone, it's going to do us good to study
[00:02:21] this book together. I mean, if that's all that's there, that would be plenty. We need this study today because more and more in our culture today, Jesus is being diminished and devalued and even discarded.
[00:02:35] Sometime back, I was reading a book and there was a quote in there from a sermon by Charles Spurgeon.
[00:02:41] Most of you know who Spurgeon is, the great preacher in the Victorian era, the last part of the 19th century.
[00:02:47] His sermons literally went around the world.
[00:02:50] But Spurgeon, when he preached his first sermon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, he was 26 years of age.
[00:02:56] He'd already been a pastor for six years in other churches, but he came to this esteemed church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, 26 years of age, preached his first sermon.
[00:03:06] It was March 25, 1861, and in the sermon, not too far into it, he said this, I would propose that the subject of the ministry of this house, talking about that church, as long as this platform shall stand, and as long as this house shall be frequented
[00:03:23] by worshipers shall be the person of Jesus Christ. If I am asked to say, what is my creed?
[00:03:30] I think I must reply, it is Jesus Christ. I love that. As long as this church stands, he says, I want the focus of this church to be the person of Jesus Christ. Somebody asks us,
[00:03:43] what is our creed? It is Jesus Christ. And that's my heart for Faith Bible Church. I know that's the heart of our elders as well. And that's the message of Colossians, the message of Colossians
[00:03:56] on this Jesus Christ. I've read a lot this last few weeks, and I put together, this is a quote from kind of some different sources, kind of a collage here. I pray it'll minister to you.
[00:04:09] It says, this book, the book of Colossians, is about the sufficiency of Christ and the completeness of the Christian in and through Christ. When a man or woman lays hold of Christ, they have all in one. They need nothing beyond Him or beside Him. The Christian needs no other
[00:04:24] sacrifice for sin. The Christian needs no other source of reality. The Christian needs no other foundation of hope. The Christian needs no other deity, for Christ is God and above all other gods.
[00:04:36] Angels bow to Him. Devils submit to Him. Creation finds its center in Him, and the church owes Him as its head. Christ is not better, He's best. He's not more, He's all. He's not eminent, He's
[00:04:49] preeminent. He's not comparative, He's superlative. He's not penultimate, He's ultimate. This is a letter that emblazons Christ's sufficiency and supremacy before us. This book of Colossians cries out to us that we are in Christ and that we don't have need of anything else to flourish
[00:05:11] and to prosper spiritually. There's a story I read years ago, William Randolph Hearst, he was a wealthy 20th century newspaper publisher. He was an incredible art collector. And one day he read a description of a priceless masterpiece and he called his agent in and said, I have to
[00:05:28] have that masterpiece, go find it, buy it, whatever it costs. So he commissioned his agent to go wherever he could and to find it. And you can imagine his surprise when he received a telegram
[00:05:39] some months later from his art agent telling him the priceless masterpiece when it was in his own warehouse where his art collection was stored. So this multimillionaire had been searching all over the world for a treasure that he already possessed. And you and I as believers in Jesus
[00:05:56] Christ need to make that same discovery concerning him, that in Jesus we have everything we need.
[00:06:02] You and I possess heaven's masterpiece.
[00:06:06] And what we need to do is to learn how to possess our possessions, to make it a reality in our lives.
[00:06:13] That's the core message of the book of Colossians.
[00:06:17] Now, what I want to do this morning is introduce this book to us and kind of immerse ourselves in the background and atmosphere of this book to get our bearings in this book of Colossians.
[00:06:27] And then a bit later in the message, we'll get a start by looking at verses 1 and 2.
[00:06:32] Let me read these verses for us just to get this text before us this morning.
[00:06:37] Colossians 1, 1 and 2.
[00:06:39] Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father.
[00:06:52] May the Lord write these eternal words on our heart this morning.
[00:06:56] What I want to do this morning is have, I've got a lot of slides for us here, a PowerPoint, and so I want to let you know this is online. You can access this there. I've also got some
[00:07:06] more extensive notes about the city of Colossae and the book of Colossians, about 10 pages or so, so you can get all that online to kind of bolster the study we'll do this morning.
[00:07:16] But what I want to do this morning is look at four simple points. The city, we'll look a little bit at the city of Colossae. What do we know about that place?
[00:07:23] The church that was there, then the controversy. One of the things you need to understand as you read the New Testament, especially Paul's epistles, every one of the epistles are addressing a problem. There's some problem that's there that's being addressed. So actually, we can thank God for
[00:07:39] all the problems the early church had. We wouldn't have all these books we have if it weren't for that. But when we discover what the problem was or the issue, then we can understand the solution
[00:07:49] to that, and we can understand what that book is really about. So there was a controversy or a crisis at this church. And then we'll end by looking at the correspondence. We'll get into the letter just a little bit, those first couple of verses. But the first thing we want to look
[00:08:05] at here is the city of Colossae. Now, Colossae, the word Colossae comes from the word colossus, which means large or huge. Now, that's kind of ironic because Colossae is the least important city and church to which any of Paul's letters were addressed. I mean, it had been a great city
[00:08:24] in the area of Phrygia, but its heyday was over. There was a couple of other cities there nearby.
[00:08:30] I'll show you a map in a moment. Laodicea, a great banking center, a medical school was there.
[00:08:36] The city of Hierapolis, there was a great trade center there in the city of Hierapolis, and there were all these spas in the city of Hierapolis. You go there today, there's all kinds of hot springs there. I've been there a couple times and been in some of those, and
[00:08:50] the water is so hot, I mean, you can just barely stand to get in it. In fact, back in that day, people flooded from around the world to come to what they thought were these healing waters
[00:08:59] at the city of Hierapolis. But when you go there today, the city of Hierapolis has a massive, what was called in that day a necropolis. Basically, it's a cemetery. The dead were buried, which tells me that most of the people that came there to get healed didn't get healed,
[00:09:15] and they ended up in that cemetery out there. It's massive there outside the city.
[00:09:20] of Hierapolis. So this was a city in Paul's day that had already kind of seen its heyday, kind of reached its zenith, and it was a bit of a city in decline. Now, you can see on this map
[00:09:32] here that you've got Colossae down here near the bottom left, but you see Ephesus there. Colossae is about a hundred miles inland. Ephesus is the major city, one of the major cities in the world
[00:09:44] at that time. And you have these three cities, all of them are mentioned in the book of Colossians, Heropolis, Laodicea, and Colossae.
[00:09:52] They were called the tri-cities of the Lycus River Valley.
[00:09:57] And again, it's about 100 miles inland from the city of Ephesus.
[00:10:02] Now, kind of to zoom in a little bit closer, you can see on the far left over there, that's Greece.
[00:10:08] That's a little bit of Greece.
[00:10:09] That's the island of Crete.
[00:10:10] You see where Israel is down here, Jerusalem.
[00:10:13] You have Syria north of that.
[00:10:15] And so this is modern-day Turkey, ancient Asia Minor.
[00:10:18] That's where these cities here are located.
[00:10:21] And again, fairly close to one another there.
[00:10:25] Now, here's zooming in a little further.
[00:10:28] This area was known as the Lycus River Valley.
[00:10:30] The word Lycus means wolf, so it's the wolf river.
[00:10:34] But you can see these three cities.
[00:10:36] They're about 10, 15 miles apart.
[00:10:39] The book of Laodicea is mentioned again in Revelation chapter 3.
[00:10:44] There's a river over there called the Meander River.
[00:10:47] you can see how much it kind of moves around and we get our word meander from that i don't know about you but i was growing up my granddad would say i'm going to go off and kind of meander over
[00:10:57] here somewhere and i didn't realize at the time it comes from the name of that river that's just kind of you know went was jagged and kind of kind of went all over the place but these are these
[00:11:07] three cities of this lycus river valley colossi that we're at that city's located is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in the world. About, I guess, in the 90s, our boys were still
[00:11:19] small. I abandoned my wife and family for three weeks and went over there to all that area. There was a guy named Gordon Franz, a good friend of mine. He's been over there dozens and dozens of
[00:11:30] time into Israel. And he took myself and two other men, the four of us, traveled all around that area just in a van all over Greece and all over Turkey. It was a tremendous trip. I've had
[00:11:42] the privilege to be there a couple of times. But this is the ancient ruins there. And really, there's been no major significant excavation in that area. Laodicea has been excavated extensively, Heropolis, all these other cities, but really not much. But this is looking to the north
[00:11:57] from Colossae down at the Lycus Valley, there where the river is. But this is looking back to the south. And you can see there that raised area, that's a tell, that's the Acropolis of the
[00:12:09] old city. So where I took this picture from, you're standing there, that's where the city would have been. Behind it is a mountain range there called Mount Cadmus. And so this city was at the base of a mountain, an over 8,000-foot mountain that towered over it, over the city.
[00:12:26] This is a little bit clearer picture, a little bit better picture when it's green there and beautiful. So you see the Acropolis, and again, this area where I'm standing, or you can see there, It's where the ancient city would have been.
[00:12:39] Now, a little quick story here.
[00:12:40] The first time I went there, we went to the city of Izmir, which is ancient Smyrna.
[00:12:46] And there was a guy there that got us.
[00:12:48] And we had a van, and we had a driver named Abraham.
[00:12:50] And the pastor at the church back in Izmir was named Zakai.
[00:12:55] Well, we had no cell phones back then, just this big, huge, you know, mobile phone.
[00:12:59] Some of you may have seen those before.
[00:13:01] and so our driver couldn't speak English and we can't speak Turkish so when when Gordon Franz our leader wanted to tell the driver something he had to call Zakai in Izmir tell him what he
[00:13:13] wanted and hand the phone to Abraham and then he'd tell him what to do and so it was this constant you know get back at headquarters so we get out there to the side at Colossae we get up on the
[00:13:22] the tell there that the Acropolis area and all of a sudden these four guys literally just show up out of nowhere i'm like this doesn't look very good just four guys kind of wandering around kind
[00:13:32] of walking around this and so we just kind of ignored him and went out what we were doing well they go over and talk to abraham because he speaks their language and it's pretty intense conversation
[00:13:41] all of a sudden they just burst out into laughter and then they just disappear and leave so we're kind of wondering what's up with that so we have to call zakai and you have him and call abraham
[00:13:50] anyway the whole thing goes around and abraham tells zakai tells us abraham told him that we're there. And these guys, they were growing opium poppy up there on top of the Acropolis. That's what this is. I took a picture of it. So, it had a little cash business on the side, I think. And
[00:14:06] they were wondering, what are these guys doing here? So, they're kind of checking us out. And when they went over and talked to Abraham and asked him what we were doing, he told them we
[00:14:13] were from America. We were studying the Bible, and this was a significant place. And that's when they cracked up laughing. That's the funniest thing they'd ever heard. So, anyway, so we got out of there with our lives, which was good. But anyway, they were making some money on the side
[00:14:27] there. This is one of my favorite pictures right here. This is the ancient site of Colossae right here. You can see that tell again. That's the city of Honaz in the background. But it's right
[00:14:37] at the base of this towering, and it just goes from here forward out into the river valley. It's an absolutely breathtaking, a beautiful, a beautiful place. So that's a little bit there about the city that Paul came to. Now, what about the church at Colossae? How did this church get
[00:14:56] started there? Well, the church was not founded by Paul. The Apostle Paul had never been to Colossae at the time he wrote this letter. So how do we know that? Well, notice in verse 4 of chapter 1,
[00:15:09] he says, we heard about your faith. So he's never seen them, he's just heard about it.
[00:15:13] You go down to chapter 1, verse 7, he says, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved brother, who's a faithful bondservant of Christ, for he informed us of your love and the Spirit. So he'd heard the gospel from someone other than Paul. You go over to chapter 2, verse
[00:15:30] 1, he says, I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf for those who are at Laodicea and for all those who've not personally seen my face. So these believers had never met Paul,
[00:15:43] Paul had never met them.
[00:15:45] So what happened is, on his third missionary journey, Paul was in the city of Ephesus, this huge metropolis.
[00:15:53] 250,000 people lived there.
[00:15:55] Paul was there for three years.
[00:15:57] And for two years, he preached in a lecture hall called the Hall of Tyrannus.
[00:16:03] And so people from all over that area would come to Ephesus because it was the big main nerve center.
[00:16:09] And as they came there, many of them would hear the gospel through Paul and through others that he had ministered to.
[00:16:16] They'd come and hear Paul, they'd believe the gospel, and then they took the gospel back home to where they came from.
[00:16:24] And one of the men that came and heard the gospel from Paul and believed it was a man named Epaphras.
[00:16:30] Read about him there in chapter 1 and verse 7.
[00:16:32] By the way, another man who heard the gospel there preached by Paul and went back to his home city and had an impact was Philemon.
[00:16:40] We have a book called Philemon in the New Testament.
[00:16:43] He was from Colossae as well.
[00:16:46] So the church was planted then by Epaphras during Paul's two-year teaching ministry in Ephesus during Paul's third missionary journey.
[00:16:55] in Acts chapter 19 when Paul's at Ephesus it says he took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus this went on for two years so that all the Jews and Greeks
[00:17:09] who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord so people would come there to Ephesus and they'd hear about this guy preaching in this lecture hall and they'd go in maybe for a little
[00:17:17] bit of time in the evening you know they didn't have all the entertainment we have today go listen to this guy talk. And they came to faith in Christ. And so Epaphras goes back home to his
[00:17:27] hometown. And what does he do? He plants a church. And he probably plants the church at Laodicea and the one in Heropolis as well. So he was a layman church planter whose ministry was an
[00:17:41] offshoot of Paul's teaching ministry in Ephesus. And I want to encourage all of us with that this morning because you don't have to be in full-time ministry to be used by God in significant ways.
[00:17:53] When you have Philemon, you have Epaphras, businessmen who heard the gospel and came back and planted these churches in this area. Now, we find out in this book and in Philemon that there was at least two house churches. There was one in the home of a woman named Nympha
[00:18:12] and a man named Philemon.
[00:18:15] Now, there may have been more, but we know there were at least these two where maybe 30, 40, 50, maybe 60 or 70 believers gathered together in this ancient city to study the Bible together,
[00:18:27] to learn about Christ and to magnify and glorify Him through their lives.
[00:18:31] We also know that the church was primarily composed of Gentiles from Colossians 2, verse 13.
[00:18:39] So that's just a little bit here about this ancient city, this place and about this church that got founded there. Now, let's look now at the controversy, the controversy or the crisis at Colossae. So after Paul is at Ephesus during his third
[00:18:56] missionary journey, that's his headquarters, he's there three years. He's later arrested, and eventually he ends up in Rome under house arrest. He's living in his own rented quarters so people could come and see him, but he was confined there and guarded 24 hours a day.
[00:19:14] Now, while Paul's there in Rome, this man who'd heard Paul preach in Ephesus and founded the church at Colossae, this man Epaphras, he went and visited Paul in Rome, probably to get some more teaching from Paul, but also just to let Paul know how the work there was going.
[00:19:30] So he brings Paul news of how things are going in Colossae. And part of his report was that there was a strain of false teaching that had infected and infiltrated the Colossian church. So Paul is
[00:19:44] going to write this letter in response to that and send it back to the believers at Colossae to read.
[00:19:50] Now, we don't know exactly what this false teaching was. It's been called by Bible scholars the Colossian heresy. Now, we don't know the exact nature of this teaching because it's never really described for us clearly in the book of Colossians. But what we have to do, really, when we're
[00:20:08] studying the New Testament in these letters, it's kind of like listening to one end of a phone conversation. You know, we're driving along in the car, and I hear my wife talking to somebody on her phone, and I'm trying to piece together what they're saying by what she's saying. And
[00:20:23] that's kind of what you have to do in these New Testament letters. You have to piece together what the problem was by looking at what Paul wrote in response to that problem.
[00:20:33] Now, again, we don't know the exact nature of this false teaching. I have one really very technical commentary, and he says he's found 44 different views of what the exact heresy is that Paul is combating. You know, people say it's Gnosticism, it's some kind of embryonic or
[00:20:50] proto-gnosticism, various forms of pagan belief, all kinds of things. But what we're going to develop, and again, we'll talk about this more when we get to chapter 2, but I think the primary strand of false teaching was Jewish legalism. It was Jewish legalism. In chapter 2, Paul mentions
[00:21:08] circumcision. He talks about dietary regulations. People were not eating certain things. He talks about keeping the Sabbath and Jewish festivals and new moons. So a lot of this seems to have been this Jewish false teaching that would tell a Gentile when they got converted, but to really
[00:21:28] please God, you got to become a Jew. You got to be circumcised and keep the law and the festivals and all of these other things. We also discover in Colossians 2.18, the part of this false teaching
[00:21:41] was, they were telling these people, if you really want to be fully mature in Christ, and if you really want to arrive spiritually, you need to have mystical experiences. You need to have dreams and visions and these different kinds of things. So again, I'm not going to stand before
[00:21:59] you here today and say that I know exactly everything about this false teaching, but my view would be it's probably predominantly Jewish legalistic teaching, kind of mixed in a little bit was some local folk religion. So it's kind of an amalgam or a mixture or kind of what we call a
[00:22:16] syncretism of Jewish legalism, Jewish teaching, but also local folk religion. Again, we'll talk about that a lot more when we get to chapter 2. But here's the main point. Whatever the exact makeup of this false teaching was, the core was that Jesus was not enough to bring believers to
[00:22:35] full maturity. You become a believer, and once you become a believer, then you have to add these other things to Christ. You have to add to Him to be fully complete. You have to have man-made laws
[00:22:48] and ceremonies, and the focus was on just learning and gaining more knowledge and dramatic mystical experiences. You had to have all those things to really become fully mature and holy. So there's implied or implicit in this a devaluing of Christ, kind of a reductionist view of Him,
[00:23:07] that He wasn't fully adequate. You know, we see that today as people have all kinds of man-made rules and laws and churches that here's the things you have to do if you really want to
[00:23:17] be fully mature and complete. We have people out there telling us about, you know, different charismatic experiences that we have to have if we really want to be complete in Christ. You have to speak in tongues, or have dreams, or visions, or on and on it goes. But the problem is that to
[00:23:35] add to Christ is really to subtract from Christ, because He's complete and we're complete in Him, and Jesus can't be improved upon. So to counter this false teaching, what we're going to see throughout this book is Paul is going to exalt and extol the full supremacy and sufficiency of
[00:23:55] Jesus Christ. So if the problem is people are saying, well, we need more than Christ to really be mature, Paul is going to tell them, no, you don't. He's going to exalt and extol how great
[00:24:05] Christ really is. And we'll see it throughout the book. This has been called, the book of Colossians has been called a Christ-intoxicated letter. And you can see it in this letter here.
[00:24:19] notice there's 95 verses in Colossians. Jesus is referred to 96 times. He's called the Son one time, the firstborn two times, the head three times, Jesus seven times, Lord 16 times, Christ 26 times. You have all these different pronouns, he, him, his, himself, whom, 41 times. This is a
[00:24:43] book, it's a Christ-intoxicated letter. It's permeated with the person of Jesus Christ. This book emblazons the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ before us. The point here is that we find all that we need in Jesus, and in Him we have what we need to live the life God's called
[00:25:05] us to live. I'm kind of embarrassed to share this today, but on several occasions, it's been more than once, to my shame, I'll be in a bookstore or I'll be on Amazon and I'll see some book that I
[00:25:16] just have to have. It's some great book that I really want to read and I buy it. And I get back to my library or the book comes in on Amazon and I go to put it on the shelf and I realize I already
[00:25:25] have it. I've already got the book. I don't have to, you know, give it to my son or Jay or give it to somebody else. I already have what I thought was so wonderful and great. And I think that's
[00:25:35] the way it is in our Christian life so many times. We're on some kind of a quest or a search for something new, but we don't realize what we already have in Jesus Christ. That's what He's
[00:25:45] going to lay out for us in Colossians. Here's who Jesus is. Here's what He's done. You're sufficient in Him. We need to draw out and apply the meaning of His death and resurrection to our lives. That's
[00:26:00] the key to the spiritual life. We don't have to look outside of Christ to be spiritually complete.
[00:26:06] here's a quote from a book by a man named josh moody there's a book on colossians he says who am i christ is my life actually colossians says that in colossians 3 christ who is our life
[00:26:20] think about this christ is my life the christian is not on a voyage of self-discovery the christian is not on a journey of becoming more the christian is on a journey of becoming more like christ
[00:26:34] our task is not to discover who we are it is to become who we were made to be who are you look to christ that's who you are who should you be look to christ that is what should be your aim
[00:26:49] christ is your life what does that mean not that your individual personality is unimportant it means that your personality becomes as it is meant to be as you yourself in christ become more like Christ. Your task is not to discover who you are, but to discover who Christ
[00:27:08] made you to be. That's what Colossians tells us. Now, we're going to see in this book as well that wrong doctrine, always bad doctrine or wrong doctrine leads to bad living. And so the first
[00:27:23] half of the book, he's going to deal with this controversy, this wrong teaching. But the last half of the book, he's going to apply that to our lives. He's going to say, look, if Jesus is
[00:27:31] preeminent over everything, then He's preeminent over our daily lives as well. He's even going to get down in chapter 3 in one of the great texts in the New Testament on marriage and family and our relationships with our children. It all trickles down into daily life. But if Jesus is
[00:27:49] preeminent, then He has to be preeminent over everything in our lives. Now, that's a little bit there about the city, a little bit about the church, and about this crisis. One final thought here, a couple of thoughts here before we move on. Irenaeus was one of the great church fathers
[00:28:05] in the second century. He was the great luminary in the early church there, fought false teaching.
[00:28:10] He was once asked what Jesus Christ brought to the world that had not been brought by other great religious leaders. And his poignant reply was he brought himself. I love that. Jesus brought himself. He brought one nobody else could ever bring, God in human flesh, the creator of all
[00:28:26] things. And that's what the book of Colossians reveals to us. So as we get into this book and think it through, here's the message I want to develop. And I think what this book really is
[00:28:35] about, it's going to tell us that spiritual maturity comes through understanding and appropriating the sufficiency and supremacy of Christ. It's not by keeping rules. It's not by ceremonies. It's not by just gaining more knowledge. It's not by mystical experiences.
[00:28:51] It's Christ plus nothing equals everything.
[00:28:55] That's what this book will teach us.
[00:28:56] We don't get more spiritually mature by keeping man-made rules, going through different ceremonies, even necessarily just by gaining a bunch of knowledge, not by having some experiences.
[00:29:09] It's through appropriating and understanding who Jesus is and what He's done for us, drawing out the implications of our life from His death and His resurrection.
[00:29:20] Well, let's look now at the correspondence.
[00:29:23] Let's get into this letter a little bit here.
[00:29:24] We'll just look at these first two verses.
[00:29:27] Again, let me just summarize this real quickly.
[00:29:30] Here's some quick facts on Colossians.
[00:29:31] Who wrote the book?
[00:29:32] Paul with Timothy.
[00:29:34] Where was it written?
[00:29:34] It was in Rome when Paul was under house arrest.
[00:29:37] When was it written?
[00:29:38] A.D. 61.
[00:29:40] 61 A.D.
[00:29:41] By the way, that's a really interesting point.
[00:29:43] I haven't really gotten my mind around this yet, but I know from all the reading I've done that there was a massive earthquake in that area, right epicenter there. We had one a couple nights
[00:29:54] ago here, right? It kind of rattled us. They had a massive one, devastated the area in 60 AD.
[00:30:00] So this is about a year later that Paul is writing to these believers. And what's interesting is he never mentions it anywhere in the letter. You'd think he'd mention this earthquake and what had been going on there, but I think he doesn't mention it primarily because his focus is there's
[00:30:15] a spiritual earthquake there. And that's His bigger priority as He deals with this in their lives. But why was it written? It's written to demonstrate the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus to bring us to maturity. Well, let's look at verses 1 and 2 just here real quickly.
[00:30:32] The leaders, the lives, the location. The leaders obviously here is the Apostle Paul. He's the human author of this letter. He's Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Paul's the human
[00:30:46] author, but we know the Holy Spirit is the ultimate author, the real author. As the apostle, Paul is being moved by the Spirit of God to write the words down here, that the words we read are the
[00:30:57] very words of God Himself. And Paul here's an apostle. Now people ask me, are there apostles today? Yes, there are little a apostles, because the word apostle just means someone who's sent out with the authority of the person who sends them. But there aren't any capital A apostles
[00:31:16] today like Paul. And I don't even like it when people use the word apostle. You know, somebody say, well, so-and-so's an apostle. I think it's confusing. Certainly there are no capital A apostles today because to be an apostle, you had to see the resurrected Christ. You had to be an
[00:31:31] eyewitness. You had to be appointed personally by Jesus, and you had to do the signs and wonders that authenticated that you were really an apostle.
[00:31:42] Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, 12, I did the signs of an apostle.
[00:31:48] So I don't think there's anybody alive on earth today who is a capital A apostle.
[00:31:52] They were the foundation of the church, according to Ephesians 2, 20.
[00:31:58] And Paul says, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, not by some human appointment or some committee that got together.
[00:32:06] He was an apostle by the will of God.
[00:32:09] Let me just say this about each one of us here.
[00:32:11] Whatever we are today, whoever we are, wherever we are, it's by the will of God.
[00:32:17] We need to remember that.
[00:32:18] We're what God has made us to be.
[00:32:20] There's no such thing as a self-made person.
[00:32:23] We're who we are and what we are by the will of God.
[00:32:27] And then he mentions Timothy, our brother.
[00:32:29] By this time that he writes Colossians, Timothy has been with Paul for over 10 years.
[00:32:35] Paul had led Timothy to Christ, and he followed Paul.
[00:32:38] Think about all the harrowing experiences and journeys and adventures he'd been with the Apostle Paul.
[00:32:44] But think about how these two men ministered to one another and how Timothy was such a help to Paul.
[00:32:51] There's a book I read.
[00:32:53] I'm in the process of reading it as we go through Colossians.
[00:32:55] It's a commentary on Colossians by David Jeremiah.
[00:32:59] It told a story in there that impacted me this week as I read it.
[00:33:03] He said, Charles Plum, a farm boy from Kansas, became a United States jet fighter pilot who completed 74 combat missions in Vietnam before being shot down on his last mission. He ejected and parachuted into enemy hands where he spent six years in a Vietnamese prison. After his release,
[00:33:21] Plum and his wife were at a restaurant, and a man came up and said, you're Charles Plum. You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, and you were shot down. Plum had no
[00:33:32] idea who this guy was and how he'd gotten that information, and the man said, I know you. I packed your parachute. And then pumping Plum's hand, the man said, I guess it worked. And Plum
[00:33:43] said, it sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today. And Jeremiah goes on and says this, since his release, Charles Plum has been a powerful motivational speaker. He tells his story to hundreds of people. This incident often is told in his presentations. He's never
[00:34:00] gotten over his gratitude for the man who packed his parachute, and he often asks his audience that question, who's packing your parachute? In other words, who are the people behind the scenes in your life who care for you, who help you, who encourage you and strengthen you, even if they
[00:34:17] often go unrecognized? And are you packing the parachute for someone else? It's a great question to ask ourselves. Let me just say this this morning. I thought about this a lot this week as I read that. I'm thankful to God, more than you'll ever know, for so many of you here who
[00:34:35] packed my parachute for years, some of you for decades here at Faith Bible Church. I mean, think of all that it takes on a Sunday morning in children's ministry and student ministry and greeters and all the things it takes to have a service like we have here this morning.
[00:34:52] I'm the person who gets to stand up here and is maybe more recognized, but there are hundreds of people that pack my parachute every week. Our elders, our staff, especially Jay Reisner, our lead pastor here at the church. I mean, everybody that knows my wife knows that she
[00:35:09] packs my parachute and does a wonderful job of that, all my family. But I would ask you, whose parachute are you packing? Who are you helping and encouraging? So many of you over the years, you've encouraged me, you've helped me, you've supported me, and I thank you for that
[00:35:24] from the bottom of my heart. I want to ask you, who else are you helping out in life? Whose parachute are you packing? And who are you recognizing that's helping you on your way in
[00:35:36] life? All of us have so much help and so much encouragement from others. But I pray that we'll be packing somebody else's parachute as well, being encouragement and strengthening to those around us who need it. People need it desperately. We all do. So those are their leaders. And then
[00:35:53] we see their lives. Notice what Paul says about these believers, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ. He calls them saints here. The word saints means holy ones or set-apart ones.
[00:36:05] They're marked out as belonging to God is what that means. They belong to God. Now, the word saint here is not our condition. We don't always live like a saint. It's our position. It's our
[00:36:17] position. By the way, an interesting point, the word saints in the New Testament, always plural except one time. And the only exceptions in Philippians 4.21, but even there he refers to every saint. So he's kind of speaking of it in the plural. So to me, that's instructive that
[00:36:34] there's no lone ranger saints. It's always plural. We're the saints of God. We live in community with one another to help and encourage one another. But every believer in Jesus Christ is a saint.
[00:36:49] I remember hearing J. Vernon McGee years ago on the radio say there's two kinds of people.
[00:36:53] There's saints and ain'ts.
[00:36:55] And that's the only two kinds of people.
[00:36:56] You're a saint, he said, or you ain't.
[00:36:59] And so it's not some special group of Christians.
[00:37:02] Every believer is a saint.
[00:37:04] Paul addresses believers that way over and over again.
[00:37:07] So being a saint is not based on what we do.
[00:37:12] It's based solely on what Christ has done for us through His death and resurrection.
[00:37:18] John Phillips says this, a saint in the New Testament is not some person who's been canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, immortalized in a stained glass window, and whose relics are worshiped and supposed to perform miracles.
[00:37:31] A saint is simply any sinner who is saved by God's grace.
[00:37:36] I love that.
[00:37:37] That's who a saint is.
[00:37:38] Somebody who's realized that they're a sinner, that they need Christ to be their Savior, the one who died in their place on the cross and rose from the dead.
[00:37:46] They trust in Him.
[00:37:47] The moment you do that, you're set apart to God.
[00:37:50] You're a special vessel set apart to Him.
[00:37:52] You become a saint.
[00:37:54] Let me ask you this morning, are you a saint?
[00:37:56] Are you a saint?
[00:37:57] Have you put your faith and all your hope on Jesus Christ for salvation and eternal life?
[00:38:05] That's what a saint is.
[00:38:06] Then he moves from our position to our condition, calls them faithful brethren, faithful brothers and sisters.
[00:38:13] Now I like this because from the rest of this letter, we know that the Colossians didn't have it all together. In fact, as this letter will reveal, they were misguided about many things, and they were even doctrinally off track a bit. But He still calls them faithful brothers and
[00:38:29] sisters. You say, well, why is that? Well, it's because they were seeking the Lord, and they were committed to Him, and they were loyal to Him in spite of their failures. And I'm glad this is here
[00:38:39] not as some kind of an excuse or a cop-out for us, but it tells me that even though I'm mistaken about some things, and I'm falling short in some areas of my life, I can still be considered
[00:38:51] faithful to God if I'm committed to Him and loyal to Him. Adrian Rogers says, faithfulness does not mean we'll be perfect, does not mean we won't struggle, and that we won't make poor decisions, but it does mean we'll continue to trust in God and try to follow His commandments,
[00:39:08] even when life is difficult. Their life were marked out by their position, they were saints, And by their condition, they were faithful.
[00:39:16] And then finally, notice their location.
[00:39:18] This is great in verse 2.
[00:39:20] In Christ at Colossae.
[00:39:23] Did you know every believer has two addresses?
[00:39:25] We all live in two places at the same time.
[00:39:28] These believers spiritually were in Christ, but geographically, they were in Colossae.
[00:39:37] 164 times in the New Testament, Paul mentions being in Christ.
[00:39:41] 11 times in this letter.
[00:39:43] To be in Christ means that we're not in Adam anymore.
[00:39:46] We don't draw our identity from Adam anymore.
[00:39:49] We now are in vital union with Jesus Christ, and we draw our identity now from Him.
[00:39:55] So who I am is that I'm in Christ.
[00:39:58] Where I am is that I'm in Edmund.
[00:40:00] We need to allow being in Christ affect how we live in Edmund.
[00:40:05] One person says, no matter where you are geographically and physically, what you are spiritually will never change.
[00:40:11] You may be at work, at play, overseas, under the weather, out of money, but you're always and unchangeably in Christ.
[00:40:18] You may be down in the dumps, over the hill, or beside yourself, but you're always and unchangeably in Christ.
[00:40:25] You may be at paradise or in prison.
[00:40:27] The movies are in Chicago, but you're always and unchangeably in Christ.
[00:40:33] Your spiritual identity as one in Christ must control and characterize how you live, wherever you live.
[00:40:39] so we have a dual address all of us here we live both in christ and in edmond or wherever it is you live and if we forget either one of those we're in trouble but look you and i we we work
[00:40:53] in edmond we visit friends and relatives in edmond our children go to school in edmond we keep our houses and our lawns in edmond we go to the doctor in edmond we shop in edmond
[00:41:03] but all the time we're doing that the bible says we're in christ and that's to affect how we live in edmund and the fact that we're in christ means ever means that we have everything that we need
[00:41:17] spiritually and then finally here in verse two he mentions two of the great resources we have in christ grace to you and peace from god our father and the lord jesus christ grace precedes piece. This letter begins and it ends with the grace of God. Our spiritual life is bookended by
[00:41:36] God's grace. But again, the point here is Jesus is everything you need. It's all found in Him.
[00:41:44] Years ago, Arturo Toscanini, the great maestro, the great conductor, conducted a rendition of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in London. It was a masterpiece at the end. I mean, there were just literally a successive rose of thunder of the applause.
[00:42:02] But Toscanini was a perfectionist and a disciplinarian. He always found something to criticize in the production. And so the members of the orchestra were wondering what he was going to say. And when he got to the end, it says, he was uplifted and exalted and even
[00:42:18] humble. He turned to the orchestra when the applause finally died down, and he said this, Toscanini is nobody. I am nothing. You are nobody. This orchestra is nothing. And then he paused and he outstretched his hands and lifted him to the sky and he says, Beethoven, Beethoven, he is
[00:42:38] everything. And I think we can apply that to our lives as believers. I am nothing. You're nothing.
[00:42:47] Outside of Christ's faith, Bible church is nothing. But Jesus Christ, he's everything. He's everything. Christ plus nothing is everything. Oh, may God make that real in our lives. Let's pray together. Father, thank You for this book written so long ago to a city in decline, but about an
[00:43:10] exalted, all-sufficient Savior. Father, bring home its truth to our lives, I pray, today and in the coming months as well. Father, help us to remember every day wherever we go that we're in Christ.
[00:43:21] wherever we are physically we're in him father help us to be grateful for the people who support us and encourage us and help us father help us to offer that to others to be about packing the
[00:43:35] parachutes for others around us who are involved in your great ministry your great cause father minister to us now i pray as we leave here today that we'll go out and be a fragrance of you to
[00:43:46] this world around us we ask these things in jesus name amen well if you'll stand with me for the benediction. We're dismissed with the Lord's blessing on us. If you're visiting with us today, thanks for being here. Thanks for coming out on such a great day.