Sermon: In Christ all the Fullness...

Everyday Life…(Colossians 2:6-9)

Everyday life can get you down…everyday life can ware you out, can’t it…it’s easy during these times for us to lose our focus…

The one thing I have learned about everyday life is going to happen to everyone…it doesn’t discriminate…it doesn’t matter what race you are, what sex you are…it doesn’t matter where you live…life is going to happen and with comes joy and sorrow…peace and war….pain and happiness…and everything else between.

Add all the voices that scream for attention…things can get really tough…

In this floating sea of uncertainty where do we find a steady place to stand…where can I plant my feet and stabilize myself…

The Colossian church found it self in the middle of this sea of uncertainties…The Jews where teaching one thing, the early Gnostics another…everywhere they turned someone was telling them something different to believe…and Paul reminds them….

6So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him,

Right off the bat Paul is telling the Colossians you have received Christ, so live in him or walk in him…Christ is all you need…

For the Christian walk…Christ is enough…enough for salvation, enough for everyday life.

The word Live or walk...is referring to the way a person lives their lives…walk has often been used in Christianity to describe their daily life…walking with Christ…it speaks of action and progress.

You cannot walk and remain in the same place…so it is in the Christian life; we are either going forward or backwards

Rooted, Built up, Strengthened=Thankfulness

7rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

There are three words you need to underline…or circle in your bibles…Paul tell the Colossians they have received Christ…they are to live in him every day of their lives…and then Paul continues…

They are to be rooted…Paul is saying that Christ is the soil and we find our roots in Him…drawing our nourishment from Him…we are to be planted in Christ…

Think about trees that are deeply rooted…they are stable, the wind can blow and beat against them and they will not fall over…Christians deeply rooted in Christ will stand strong…in any situation…

Paul then switches to buildings…here Jesus is the foundation and we are to be built up one Him, the Rock of Ages…we are to be rooted once for all, but we are also being built up

Think about that for just a moment…if Christ is our foundation how big can we built up…there is no limit!

Next Paul says we are to be strengthened or firm or even better established…the thought here is this is a process that goes on continuously through the Christian life…Paul is saying live in Christ, be rooted in Christ, who is building you up and has established you…to continue in your faith…

overflowing with thankfulness…When we are doing these things, we should be overflowing with thankfulness…fact is our lives will be overflowing with thankfulness…when you focus all you have on Christ and he becomes the center of your lives…there is nothing left but thankfulness…he is so good to us…we don’t deserve his love, yet he lavishly pours it out on us…

Paul is saying do as I say and in any situation no matter what…you’ll not only survive it, you’ll be thankful….

What in this life can compare to Christ? Are you tired? Christ will give you rest, are you sick? Christ is the great physician….Christ is to be the center your life…want to love your spouse deeper, having marital problems?…put Christ above your wife or husband…and watch what happens…Want to love your kids properly, deeper…put Christ above your kids…if you put Christ first in your life…your life will be characterized by “overflowing thankfulness”….When Christ is first…His love will fill your life and overflow into all your relationships…You will be ‘thankful’…I promise!

Christ is all you need…

8See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

Remember the Colossians where dealing with all these voices, saying you have to practice religion this way…or that way….there was ceremonialism, asceticism, Angele worship an attempt to diminish Christ….and there was early Gnostics with their “secret knowledge” and lastly they were facing the growing reliance on human wisdom and tradition….

I don’t know about you…but does that sound like things have changed much? Here in America we have these same voices screaming into our lives today…add materialism, idol worship, money worship….what are we to do? How do we filter all these different voices out…

Paul in this passage says…see to it that no one takes you captive through ‘hollow’ and deceptive philosophy….Many times we see people come along and try to tear down anything of value in our live…and then offer nothing to replace what they have attempted to destroyed…

The word ‘philosophy’ here means the ‘love of wisdom’…which there is nothing wrong with wisdom, but when wisdom is sought apart Christ….it can lead to terrible evil, the 20th century is a example of that….it’s when we start to exalt our own wisdom above the wisdom of God…when we worship the created, more than the Creator…we run into trouble…

The ‘human traditions’ and ‘basic principles of the world’….means following religious teaching which have been invented by man but has no foundation in Scripture…Paul was talking about the Jewish rituals, ceremonies, and ordinances by which man tried to win God’s favor.
Paul is saying to test all teaching by Christ…does it agree with the teachings of Christ? Listen to this verse from the Phillips translation…

“Be careful that nobody spoils your faith through intellectualism or high sounding nonsense. Such stuff is at best founded on men’s idea of nature of the world, and disregards Christ!...
We are to filter all these voices out with Christ…

Because….

9For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,

Paul returns everything to Christ…this verse is the most sublime and unmistakable verse in the Bible on the deity of Lord Jesus Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of Deity lives in bodily form…

Christ is God in flesh, in fullness…there isn’t anything missing…He is fully God and fully human….which counters many of the false religions of today…Gnosticism, Christian Science, Jehovah Witness…all deny the divinity of Christ…The argument is clear—In Christ is contained everything we need…Christ plus something equals nothing—why be satisfied with anything else? Christ is all we need…

So how can we sum up this morning….

Live in Christ…rooted, being built up and established in Him…overflowing with thankfulness…see to it that no one takes this away from you with teaching that make Christ into something less…for in Christ the fullness of divinity lives…There is no one like Him…no one! There is nothing else we need!


-ps