Why Build on Christ

[0:00] We're Colossians chapter 2, verse 9 and 10. I suppose that's a big surprise for you. Where we are is that verse 8, Paul basically laid out this big idea of avoid false worldviews, false foundations of knowledge, false ways of looking at the world and take up the one true way, the Lord Jesus Christ, and verse 9 is one reason to do so.

[0:34] Verse 10 is a second reason to do so. And then verse 11 through 15 is a third reason. Now, that third reason is going to take us a couple of weeks to plow through because there's just so much there that we need to know.

[0:48] And so rather than taking it in one big swoop, one big whatever that word is that I wanted to say, we're going to break it up into a couple of pieces.

[0:59] But today we are going to take verse 9 and 10. So reason 1 and 2, reason 1 and 2 on why you should build your life on Christ. So let's take a look at the text.

[1:10] It says in Colossians chapter 2, verse 9, For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And in him you have been made complete.

[1:23] And he is the head over all rule and authority. This is the word of the Lord and all God's people said. Amen. Years ago there was a movie that came out called Zeitgeist.

[1:37] This movie in various forms now is all over YouTube and TikTok. And it's this idea that Christianity is not special.

[1:49] That Christianity is not unique. That the God that we serve, the God that we love, Jesus Christ, who's born of a virgin, who dies upon a cross, and who's resurrected, is an idea borrowed from all kinds of ancient religions and myths.

[2:05] And the idea is to try to put Christianity in with all of the other religions of the world, and therefore I get to just sort of ignore it, and I get to write it off, because it's just like everything else.

[2:21] The problem is, is that that movie that started all of these thoughts is based upon nothing but conjecture and lies. And the reason that you know that is because, I'll just give you one little example.

[2:36] There's this mythological God, if you will, a Roman God named Mithras. Right? Mithras was a warrior God. He was a God for the Roman soldier.

[2:49] And everyone likes to say that, you know, Jesus is actually borrowed from Mithras, because Mithras was born of a virgin, and he gave a sacrifice of his life in order to set people free.

[3:01] And so they try to make the connection between the two. And let me just tell you this, this one thing, this will help you understand. The only thing we know about Mithras is on a carving.

[3:14] It's a picture. It's one picture. We have one carving picture of Mithras killing a bull.

[3:25] Do you understand what I'm saying? You have to understand that just because it's on YouTube and TikTok does not mean it's true.

[3:45] And just because someone told you about it doesn't mean it's true. What's true is the word of God. Let God be found true and every man a liar.

[3:57] Well, the reason that I bring that up is because if you don't grapple with who Christ is and build your life on Christ so that he forms up the way you think not just what you think then when you see something like that you're going to buy it hook, line, and sinker because you don't have a worldview you don't have a platform you don't have a foundation to stand on to be able to look at such a thing and go that's ridiculous.

[4:29] So you need to build your life on Christ and we have two reasons for that. The first reason has to do with because of who he is and the second reason with what he does.

[4:41] And so I want to just frame it up that way and under two under both of those I have two things under each one. So let's talk about this who he is who he is verse 9 told us that it was in him that all the fullness of deity dwelled bodily and so we have at least this first part of his divinity his divinity and we need to talk about that this is Jesus Christ being talked about in verse 9 when it says in him the him refers to verse 8 and it's Jesus Christ and it's telling us that in him there is fullness of deity.

[5:19] What does it mean that he has fullness of deity? Well one way to answer that is that because he's fullness of deity he is infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth.

[5:36] But there's another way to say it. And another way to say it is to look at John chapter 1 verse 1 that says in the beginning was the word which if you trace it out that's going to be Jesus and the word was with God that means face to face and the word was God and this was is not was and now not but this was is already before the beginning.

[6:01] Or in Titus chapter 2 verse 13 we're looking for the blessed hope in the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

[6:14] Jesus Christ is both our Savior and our God. Or my favorite Hebrews chapter 1 verse 8 the writer in the book of Hebrews is telling us but of the Son he says just look at that for a second but of the Son he says he follow the context is the Father.

[6:41] The Father says to the Son God the Father says to God the Son and what does he say? Your throne oh God is forever and ever and the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom.

[6:59] The Father calls his Son God. What we're saying is that Jesus Christ is fully divine. He is full deity and the evidence throughout scripture the evidence that we would bring forward or you could say five silver bullets as Dr. Steve Lawson talks about them five silver bullets that if you're in a conversation with someone and they say to you how do you know Jesus is God here's five things for you to use here they are Jesus he's the one who performs the work that only God can perform he performs the work that only God can perform it means that he's the one who creates out of nothing he's the one who holds the universe together in his hands he's the one who forgives sins who sends the spirit and who sits as judge over all mankind those are things that only God can do and Jesus does them so he is God he also receives the worship that only God can receive he's worshipped by angels he's worshipped by the church he's worshipped by all mankind he is worshipped by the entire cosmos only God should be worshipped that way and Jesus Christ is God because he is worshipped that way he possesses the attributes that only God can possess he's infinite eternal and unchangeable and only God is that and so Jesus

[8:38] Christ is that he's called the names that only God is called Jesus is called God Jesus is called Lord or Yahweh or Jehovah he's called the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and so only God should be called those things Jesus is called those things so he is God and finally he possesses equality with God the Father and God the Spirit as you can see in Matthew 28 and 19 we're to baptize them in the name singular name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit equality with all he is fully divine now that is a whole semester of seminary in about five minutes you hold on to those truths you write those down they're on the sermon handout if you missed what I said they're on the sermon handout you go find the passages that show it you will have an understanding of the deity and the divinity of Jesus Christ but he's not just divine the text doesn't just say he's fully divine it says that fullness of deity dwelled within him bodily this idea of dwelling is the idea of taking up residence coming to live settling down abiding lodging in some place and this fullness of deity dwells bodily it doesn't dwell in a body okay so think about this if you got a glove stick your hand in it that's not the way this is working it's not it's not as though the human is an empty glove and divinity just filled it and animated it that's not what it's saying it doesn't say divinity dwelled in a body it says divinity dwelled bodily which means he was fully human he was fully human not just some sort of empty shell fully human and as a full human he therefore had the appearance of a man remember what the lady said at the at the well

[10:50] Samaria she says come see a man who has told me all that I have ever done he looked like a man he had the appearance of a man he also had the body of a man he ate he drank they came and they poured oil and perfume on him his feet his head he sweat like drops of blood right he was stabbed in his side and blood and water flowed he was fully human he had the body of a man he also had the soul of a man he had the soul of a man you can see this in his death because death is when the soul and the body part right and so his soul came apart from his body so his body died you can see this in his human will he didn't want to die he sat there in the garden saying father if this cup can pass from me he didn't want to die but yet he did the father's will you can see this human soul in the fact that he has emotions he was compassionate he has anger we can see passages where it talks about him sighing we can see him at the tomb of

[12:13] Lazarus crying we can see his fear and we can see his gladness but he also had the limitations of a man there were certain things that he did not know no man knows the day or the hour not even the son of man knows when he's going to return he was hungry he grew tired he slept and so what you have then in this passage is that the full humanity and the full deity come together because the fullness of deity dwelled within him bodily but what does his full humanity and his full deity have to do with our passage and building your life on Christ here's what it has to do the false teachers wanted to convince people who had started like you believing in Jesus they wanted to convince them that that was a good start but they needed more these false teachers had their secret ways they had their secret doctrines they thought that they were the elites and we need to teach you so you can really get to the fullness if you do the things that we tell you right the things that are built upon the tradition of men and the elementary principles of the world then you're really going to be a good super

[13:43] Christian but Paul says no build your life on Christ because he's fully God and fully man how does that help you well think about the basic!

[13:57] questions! right! you remember!! you what I told you a worldview was a worldview is a way of looking at the world it's like how do you see the world what lenses do I look at that help me understand these things think about these basic questions where did we come from why am I here what am I supposed to do where am I headed why are things so bad in this world what can be done about it the answers to those questions how you answer them tells us what your worldview is and if we want to have a Christian worldview then the only place we can get such answers is from the God man from Jesus Christ as fully God and fully man he is the only one who gives truthful satisfying answers to these questions of life or let me say it another way because he's fully God and fully man what he says about life death origins destinations truth lies right wrong what he says about these things is the only truth there is without him it is impossible to know anything truly let me say that again apart from knowing this fully

[15:22] God and fully man all other world views are completely unable to answer the most basic questions of life and instead they have to borrow from the Christian world view to make sense of life now you say I'm not sure I understand that so I'm going to see if I can explain and illustrate just because I think it might help us to press this so we talked about a world view last week I talked about a world view called materialism materialism this idea that only that which is material is real so this is real and that's real and that's real what's not necessarily real or what's not necessarily a truth or what's not necessarily something we can even deal with is concepts like justice and love and hope and instead for the materialist these are things that are more of a biological function why is it that this guy likes to jump into a fast car and drive at high speeds even though there's the potential that like he could wreck and hurt himself it's because it's a biological function it's just the way his brain is wired it's a little bit like digestion that's a biological function too and so since things are a biological function since we're nothing more than stardust since we're nothing more than mechanical biological meat machines what we do doesn't really matter there's no!

[17:11] morality that is a materialistic worldview and you start talking to somebody who has a materialistic worldview like that and you begin to challenge them with these things and you say well there really is a God and they say well where's the proof and you go like well I mean and you start labeling things as proof and they're going to be like I'm sorry but I can't test that I can't you know because they're not going to listen to you because their worldview is a different thing but then when he gets into a moment when he gets into a moment where something happens to him for example somebody steals his car and he begins to get angry because somebody stole his car he begins to feel a sense of vengeance and justice my question is but that's just a biological function what does it matter well no it's just wrong for somebody to steal my car no it was just his biological function do you understand what I'm saying to you like

[18:16] I'm going to pause for a second be sure you're with me here some of you are kind of going like what you see here's the problem the problem is is that we have all of these ideas in our minds we have all these thoughts in our minds as lost people who don't want to acknowledge God and when we think like a materialist we have no right to say something's right or wrong because there's no morality because everything's just a biological function yet the person who's a materialist will be highly offended with a sense of justice and vengeance because something's done to them that's wrong and the question is where did you get that ought!

[18:59] where did you get that morality where did you get that wrong where did you get that sense of justice not from biological functions you got it because built into you is the law of God and you're borrowing from the Christian world view to call something wrong and you have no standing to do so you understand what I'm saying I think you're with me I think you're with me I'm only a little crazy because Jesus is the God man the only way we can truly understand life is to listen to him he gives us the answers to all of these questions and because of that we need to build our lives upon Christ as fully God he speaks the truth and his truth is the only truth and as fully human he understands exactly what we're going through he knows how we have to learn he knows what we're going to have to go through he understands the weakness that we have he understands the limited amount of time that we have and so because of that we can build our lives upon him but you can't do that unless you have two things you got to have the word of

[20:33] God and prayer you got to have the word of God and prayer you're not going to understand what Jesus says about life and the answers to these questions if you never read his word if you don't get into his word if you just wait for him to send something to you via osmosis from the sky or some lightning bolt that strikes you or some dream that you're going to have you're going to be disappointed because you're not going to get the solid answers you need they come from the scriptures and prayer is your way of saying God please help me understand but there are some there are some who are not Christians that when we begin to talk about this God man the thing that they need to understand is that this God man not only can give us the truth to life and understand things but this God man can give to us salvation there's a problem that we have as sinners that problem is lined out in

[21:39] Romans chapter 3 verse 10 through 12 this describes every human being it says that there's none righteous not even one most of us would agree with that it goes on it says there is none who understands there's none no one who speaks who seeks for God verse 12 all have turned aside together they become useless there is none who does good not even one as a sinner you are an enemy of God you are separated from God and the only future for God's enemies is in eternity under his just judgment and punishment the question is have you thumbed your nose at God have you defiled his name have you rejected his rule have you responded to him as the king because what is a king going to do to traitors who reject his rule he's going to destroy them but the good news is that this same king who rules all things sent his son to take the punishment for wicked rebellious sinners listen to that the king sent his son to take the punishment that wicked rebellious sinners deserved the good news is that you don't have to live a life apart from

[23:08] Christ you can trust him be saved and build your life on Christ so reason one why should you build your life on Christ because of who he is are you awake are you ready for reason two okay verse 10 and in him you have been made complete and he's the head over all rule and authority so I'm going to break that into two parts right we'll take that first part and that first part I'm going to say it a different way than what's in the text what I'm going to say to you of what it is that Christ does is that he is sufficient for all he is sufficient for all and I'm getting that from that phrase in him you have been made complete okay so let me describe this in a couple of steps for you the Colossians Paul says to them you were made complete the word complete here he's borrowing from the false teachers okay think about this these false teachers these

[24:14] Gnostics they believe that somewhere way back there was this God figure! and from it kind of popped off like a little wart another little God and off that another God and off that another God they're called emanations right they just emanate from one another you know how light emanates light shines and it just goes forth that's kind of what they talk about and each one of these was a different divine spark a different divine entity and down the line somewhere way far away from the who decided to capture everything in matter and material world so the God of the Old Testament that's who they say this is created all things and the divine sparks got captured in material world so about the time of Jesus after he's died and risen and gone on some of these people who were believing these things started coming into

[25:18] Christianity and kind of going like oh so Jesus is like a really good divine spark you know he like look at that he's gone back to the father like he rose from the dead probably didn't really have a body and so like Jesus and so all kinds of things came up people trying to use Jesus to bring that gnostic thing together and the goal of that gnosticism the goal was for you to learn who you truly are learned that you're really divine and when you do and then you die that body dies that divine spark escapes and goes back to the pleroma back to the divinity back to the fullness back to where it's complete Paul says Colossians you are already complete complete you're already complete and this completeness is this idea that they are in

[26:21] Christ they're in him right in him you've been made complete it was something that happened to them they didn't make themselves complete they didn't do a bunch of rituals they didn't do a bunch of other things to make themselves complete they were in Christ and because they're in Christ they're complete as Paul was writing to them they were already complete they already had the fullness and that fullness was all of who God is that is they were saved and being sanctified and they were headed to be in heaven with the Lord forever because they belonged to him that was the completeness that they had these Colossians they were made complete in other words they didn't need anything else because

[27:23] Jesus is enough and that's why we're saying that he is sufficient for all he is enough for all he is enough to save he's enough to take someone who's a wretch and make them a saint he's enough to save it doesn't matter race gender political bias financial status marriage partner list out of all kinds of things you want to it doesn't matter what they are as we see them he is enough to save from darkness to light all who call upon his name he is enough for all the second part of verse 10 is that he is sovereign over all it says that he's head that word head means the supreme one or the ruler or the one in charge of things and the idea is that nothing happens in this life apart from the pleasure and the will of

[28:33] God let me say that again nothing happens in this life apart from the pleasure and the will of God let me show you a couple of things psalm 115 verse 3 but our god is in the heavens he does whatever he pleases he does whatever he does in heaven and in earth in the seas and in all deeps he does whatever he pleases Daniel chapter 4 verse 35 in the mouth of nebuchadnezzar he says all the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing but he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth and no one can ward off his hand or say to him what have you done Ephesians 1 verse 11 says that also we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will he is sovereign ruler over all things nothing happens in this world in this life apart from the control ordination plan of

[29:53] God almighty he is the head over all things as a matter of fact our text says over all rule and authority the parallel passage in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 22 says that he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church so in Ephesians Paul says all things in Colossians he says all rulers and authorities and the idea is the same the idea is the same if he's over all things and he's definitely over the rulers and authorities and if he's over the rulers and authorities he's over all things he's he's the supreme sovereign over every lion alligator dog cat mouse bird elephant spider snake or fish every planet every star every quasar every black hole every nebula every asteroid moon every antimatter pocket every tornado every flood every hurricane every earthquake every fire every blizzard every bacteria every virus every tsunami every man woman boy and girl that lives that has lived that will live he is unlimited by time unlimited by space unlimited by matter he is sovereign over the physical emotional spiritual realm there is nothing in which he is not sovereign over in all existence he is the sovereign ruler over all things so he is sufficient and he is sovereign but what does that have to do with our passage what does it have to do with building your life on christ the false teachers were always wanting to add to jesus jesus plus something else is what you need to be able to get back to to the play roma and paul is saying christian your god the triune god the father son holy spirit sufficient and sovereign you need nothing but him if that's true for your salvation if it's true that you need nothing but jesus for your salvation if that's true for the walk of grace and growing and sanctification that i think paul is sort of talking about here if that's true for your arrival in heaven one day that he is sufficient and sovereign so that you can have your salvation your sanctification and your heaven one day with the pain and he is also sovereign over your pain and suffering isn't that the whole point of romans 8 28 we know that god causes all things to work together for good to those who love god and to those who are called according to his purpose god is the one who's sovereign over all things and so he is causing all things to work together for good there is no oops with god there is no plan b with god he has done precisely as he has pleased and his hand has never been thwarted!

[33:29] at all he is the one who's turning this out for good for us and what is that good what's the good that he is attempting to produce in us verse 29 says for those whom he foreknew he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so he would be the first born among many brethren the end result he's after is much like the song we sang that is that the!

[33:58] the! and suffering is coming to us not to destroy us but to burn off the dross and to refine the gold that is what we need in our lives that's why we need to build our lives upon him because as we hold wrong thoughts from the world when suffering comes to us we can't really deal with it the way we ought to we might deal with it in a way that we're satisfied with but what I'm talking about is dealing with it in a way that God is satisfied with and so when we learn that he is sovereign and he is sufficient obviously the very best practical application statement we can make is that well you just need to trust God in times that are tough that's easier said than done it's harder it's harder when it comes out of nowhere because that seems to be where all suffering seems to come these days is out of nowhere

[35:03] I didn't even think that was going to be a thing so how how can we get ourselves ready what I understand Brady I believe God is sovereign I believe God is sufficient I want to trust him how can I not get surprised again by suffering and let me give you two things two things that I think hopefully will be helpful to you one remind yourself often of God's control and power and sovereignty over all things that has got to be the number one best thing you can do for your walk with the Lord is to remind yourself often that he is sovereign and in control he's still on the throne and one of the best practices that you can have that will help you remember this because I'm challenging you

[36:03] I challenge you all the time you need to read your Bible right I don't say that enough do I I want you to find yourself a gold or yellow pencil highlighter or something like that whatever you know if you think it's blasphemy to write in your Bible then you get a piece of paper and a pen you weirdo but for the rest of us it's okay to write in your Bible and if you see a verse like this Psalm 30 135 verse 6 I read it a while ago!

[36:38] whatever the Lord pleases he does in heaven and on earth and in the seas and all deeps highlight that in that color that yellow whatever color you want highlight it circle it mark it write it down and over time as you read God's word if you highlight it or you make a list of these verses do that make a list highlight them and eventually your Bible starts being yellow on more pages than you can count there will be yellow all over the place you'll see his sovereignty you'll see his control you'll see his authority you'll see his omnipotence you'll see that he has not let anything go he's not standing there going like I hope you you make it he is holding all things together and so mark your Bible up and when times get tough open your flip through it and every time you see yellow stop and read and remind yourself he is sovereign over all things and the second thing that

[37:49] I would tell you to do is to pray to pray and you pray this way okay three things you can pray for number one Lord forgive me for not trusting you Lord forgive me for not trusting you can you say that where you sit right now like it's just in your mind between you and the Lord can you actually say Lord forgive me for not trusting you or is it kind of hard to say if you find it hard to say then you need to humble yourself because none of us trust the Lord the way we should and so!

[38:32] you!! Lord forgive me for not trusting you secondly Lord help me trust you more in other words Lord help grow my faith and then finally Lord thank you for being in charge of all things now there are some we're going to be hearing these words that I'm saying today maybe through video maybe you're sitting here this morning and if you were to die today you would not be with the Lord forever because you've never trusted the Lord for your salvation you never turned to him because you never thought that he was enough for you maybe you're one who wanted a God who would let you do things on your own so you have fought against his sovereignty because you like to be the boss of your own life you like to call the shots in your own life you like to be that self made person you like to think that maybe you're clever enough to outwit God on the day of judgment or maybe you think that you've done enough good things that maybe it'll outweigh the bad things none of that treats

[39:47] Jesus as sufficient instead it looks to you and your actions to make up what's! in God you're thinking that maybe the good deeds I mean he likes these good things and so if I do these good things maybe he'll appreciate it I'd be kind of like a woman who steals a baby from a hospital because she wants a baby for herself no matter how well she takes care of this baby no matter how much she feeds this baby warms this baby changes diapers for this baby the fact is she stole it it doesn't belong to her and no amount of the good that she does is ever going to erase the crime of what she's done so there's no amount of good that you're ever going to be able to do in order to pay God back for who he is and what he's done and how you've broken his law and in Texas and the Bible belt there's a lot of wannabe mothers who want a relationship with

[40:51] God on their terms and so they want God to look at them and look at their good and your only hope is to realize that Jesus is enough to admit your sin to admit your wickedness to admit your inability to save yourself and to call upon Christ today to save you and then with the rest of us you can build your life on Christ because as the God man he is sovereign and he's enough let's pray