Having the Lord Jesus Christ is to have everything needed in spiritual life for time and eternity. To have Him is to have everything. Not to have Him is to have absolutely nothing at all. All joy, peace, meaning, value, purpose, hope, fulfillment in life.
Now and forever is bound up in Christ. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. And we are returning today to a series that's unlike any we've ever put together. Not long ago, we asked our staff members which message of John MacArthur stands out to you the most?
Which one is your absolute favorite? And our staff responded, so we are currently presenting 10 of those messages in a series that we've titled John MacArthur's Most Memorable Sermon. And the message you will hear today was chosen by Vicki Demion. And Vicki joins me in the studio now. Welcome, Vicki.
Thank you, Phil. Vicki's been on our staff for 37 years, so she's a fixture here at Grace to U. She works in the development department. And she's a good organizer. And the message she selected Is the sufficiency of Christ?
Vicki, why is that the sermon you picked? I pick that. It has a special significance to me because of the part where John talks about rationalism or human wisdom, because it reminds me of how I came to Christ. It was a very long journey. I put a lot of value in education, and I'd been in school my whole life.
And when I was in college, I was hoping it was going to give me direction for my life-you know, what job to pursue, that kind of thing. And after four years of a secular school, I found out no, they didn't have the answers to life, and they specifically didn't have any direction for my life.
So I reached graduation, and I had kind of come to the end of my rope. it was a very kind of practical circumstance because I really thought like I couldn't move ahead. Until I found out what life was all about. How could I make a decision that really counted if I didn't know what I was doing here?
So I went to my small town library. And I started pulling books. And I kind of did my own self study for actually a year and a half. I was reading and praying to God. I wasn't even sure was there.
But I understood eventually that I was looking for truth. It wasn't just about direction for my life, but. First I need to find out What the truth about life was.
So I read philosophy. religion, mysticism, some science, and I went just through tons of books and they all raised a lot of stimulating questions but they didn't have complete answers. And I was really striving to be objective in this and I told myself, whatever this truth is, if I like it, it doesn't matter. It just matters whether it's true. It doesn't matter if it's beneficial.
It just matters if it's true.
So The last category of books I landed on was Christian books. And I think that's because I had grown up in the church.
so I thought I knew God. I knew that Jesus Christ was God. because I'd been pretty well taught in Sunday school, I think. But I didn't connect Christianity with the concept of absolute truth at all. Christ.
And Christianity was so m Mixed with moralism in those days, and Christ was so covered over with morality. being a good person, that I couldn't see him for who he was. But one day I was reading a book by Catherine Marshall, who is a Christian author, and I got to a paragraph that described God's character. and she said he was holy And good. and sovereign and eternal.
And it was at that moment the Holy Spirit Pointed so strongly to this is what you've been looking for. You've been looking for me. And it was a It was a moment of great joy. And relief, because I'd gotten to really a point of despair in the search earlier on, thinking, am I ever going to find this? The Holy Spirit was prompting me.
I later Realize throughout the whole search. And so I God did bring me to the truth. Um I think that John's message Um was It's kind of like a time saver for people. For those who are looking for truth, because it can direct you away from the expectation that human wisdom alone can provide those answers, and it directs you to the sufficiency of Christ and His word. That's a great introduction to this message.
So now let's listen to the sufficiency of Christ, chosen by Grace to You staff member Vicki Demion. This is her choice as John MacArthur's most memorable sermon. My heart is drawn to a very important subject that I want to share with you. The subject is the sufficiency of Christ. The sufficiency of Christ.
It's just very important from time to time, no matter what we're studying, that we focus again on all that is bound up in Christ. In order to do that, I want you to turn in your Bible to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2, that wonderful epistle of Paul. And I want to call your attention to verse 10. If I might, the first part of the verse, just one statement.
And we'll use that as the initial point to discuss this particular portion of Scripture. Paul writing in Colossians 2:10 says, and you are complete. In Him. That means exactly what it says. The sufficiency of Christ.
You are, from a spiritual viewpoint, complete. In him. The surpassing theme of the New Testament is distilled and articulated in that phrase. Everything from Matthew to Revelation. speaks to the issue of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ.
And no clearer statement exists than that of Colossians 2.10. You are complete in him. Having the Lord Jesus Christ is to have everything needed in spiritual life for time and eternity. To have Him is to have everything, not to have Him is to have absolutely nothing at all. All joy, peace, meaning, value, purpose, hope, fulfillment in life.
Now and forever is bound up in Christ. And when a person receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, they enter into an all-sufficient relationship with an all-sufficient Christ. Do you remember that Jesus said a man found a treasure hidden in a field and sold everything he had to buy the treasure? And a man found a pearl of great price and sold everything he had to buy that one pearl. And don't we realize that Because of the sufficiency of Christ, we give up all things that we may have one, and that is Christ.
It's an exchange of all that I am and all that I have for all that He is. But that is not a popular thing. In the day in which we live now, I don't see in our country Aggressive. Hate against Christ. I don't see the great majority of People denying the existence of Christ or even the quote-unquote goodness of Christ as a historical person.
And there are a lot of people who want to use the name of Christ and who might even say they believe in Jesus Christ, but it's inevitably Christ plus something. It might be Christ plus human intellect. or philosophy or sociology or Mystical experience or Christ plus Ritual or ceremony? Self-denial. Christ plus a lot of things.
But not Christ was nothing. Not Christ all-sufficient. Not Total completeness in Christ. Not absolute abandonment of my life to Christ. That's what we want to talk about.
Paul writes to the Colossians because they were being intimidated. They were being intimidated by people who were telling them that Christ was not sufficient. Christ was not adequate. Christ was not enough. They needed to have rationalism.
It was Christ plus intellectualism, Christ plus philosophy. It was Christ plus ceremonies and laws and rules and rituals, and it was Christ plus mystical experiences and encounters with angels. And it was Christ plus self-denial, self-abnegation, self-affliction.
South Mutilation. They were very intimidated.
So Paul writes this epistle to them to tell them it's Christ plus nothing. And to show the lie of these heresies. The great Beginning of his Argument is in chapter 1, verse 14. Where Paul says, in whom, that is, in Christ, referred to as his dear Son in verse 13, in whom we have redemption through his blood. Even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the pratatakas of all creation, that is the supreme one of all those ever created?
And of course in his physical body there was creation. For by him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Do you notice all the uses of the word all? The sufficiency of Christ.
He's the head of the body of the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. All, all, all, all, all is in Christ. Chapter 2, verse 3, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Chapter 2, verse 9: For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily, and you are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power.
Little wonder in chapter 3, verse 4, he says, Christ who is our life. He is our life. He's not part of our life. He's not the start of our life. He's not the capstone of our life.
He is our life. The Colossians were being told that they needed something more than just Jesus Christ to know God.
Something more than just Jesus Christ to be whole people.
Something more than just Jesus Christ to defeat the powers of sin, the powers of the demon world.
Something more than just Jesus Christ. to have salvation Something more than just Jesus Christ to have true spirituality, Christ was not sufficient. And so Paul just loads his gun with a whole lot of alls and starts firing them at him. The all-sufficient Christ. It's well that we focus on that as we look at this second chapter.
The lack of sufficiency in Christ. According to these heretics, could be made up by four things. Rationalism. Legalism. Mysticism.
or asceticism. Rationalism, legalism, mysticism, or asceticism. Rationalism means human wisdom, philosophy. Legalism means ceremony, ritual, religious routine. Mysticism means supernatural experiences, paranormal experiences, visions.
And asceticism means Physical self-denial. And the particular heresy in Colossi was saying that all of these things are necessary for complete spiritual life and for a right relationship to God. Christ is not sufficient. It is one of the deceptive ploys of Satan. not to deny outwardly the person of Christ.
Not to attack overtly the person of Christ, but simply to try to demonstrate that Christ is not enough. That he's insufficient. Let's look at these four areas. First of all, in verse 8, the Apostle Paul answers those who say it's Christ plus rationalism. Christ plus Your mind, Christ plus human reason, Christ plus philosophy.
Verse 8 says, Keep on being aware, it's a present tense. Always be alert to the fact. Beware lest any man spoil you. Sulagogon means to carry off booty, kidnap you, plunder you, seduce you, haul you away as a captive to their thinking. Don't let anybody take you captive through philosophy.
And it can be translated, which is vain deceit. Philosophy, even vain deceit. It is deceitful. It is useless. Philosophy.
What is philosophy? Wisdom of man. Study of man's wisdom. We are a world that gives great, great... Attention to the mind, to the intellect, and we are all often intimidated by that.
As if simple faith in Jesus Christ is not enough. There's something in philosophy and psychology and something in human reason that embellishes Christ. That, my dear friends, is liberal theology. To the liberals, they don't deny Christ. It's just that Christ, those who believe only in Christ, are sort of.
Pea brains, you know? Anti-intellectual. They they laugh at us. Because of the simplicity of our faith that Jesus Christ is all-sufficient for all the spiritual needs of every man and woman. both in time and eternity.
And they purveyed. The idea that Christ is Apart. But beyond that, there's this endless verbosity about life and truth and morality and solutions to men's dilemmas that comes out of their brains. That's supposed to be area diet. and all solving It's interesting to me today.
I was thinking about this as I was preparing for today that we don't even have much classic philosophy yet left to speak of. Most classic philosophy is in the past and is rehashed and reread. Our philosophers today are the media people. They're the ones articulating the solution to the human problem today, and they're anything but classic philosophers. Those are the kind of philosophers we have today.
It's the body, body, body, body, body. It's feel good, feel good, feel good, feel good time.
So nobody is cognitive. We're not producing philosophers who are spinning off musings out of their mind. We live in the pragmatic body cult era when all we want to know is about feeling.
So we have a. A raft of philosophers who are giving man a raison d'être, a reason to be. In terms of how they feel and expressing their passions and lusts and desires, and that's the new philosophy. And so, of course, Christ can't intrude on that. You can have Christ, but if you really want to live it up, you've got to have this too.
It's just that always man is convoluting truth, the simple truth of Christ, by adding. his own reasonings. And the reasoning of man is bankrupt of any truth morally, any truth spiritually. Purveyors of human wisdom have been around since the beginning and they're here today and they want us to believe that Christ is not enough and if you have this simple childlike faith that embraces Christ, you're some kind of mindless person.
some kind of anti-intellectual Person, common, mean, unsophisticated. That's very intimidating. That comes against young people in the educational environment all the time. That comes at the seminary level all the time.
So look at verse 8. Paul says, Beware lest. Any man? Carry you off captive with some human reasoning that is nothing more than vain deceit or an empty lie or an utter delusion. After the tradition of men, that is a result of the inadequate human thinking process.
After the rudiments of the world, rudiments mean the basic elements of learning, the ABCs. What he's really saying is nothing more than human Baby talk. We think that the world's philosophers and the world's thinkers and these people articulating all of the answers to all of man's needs are the bright and the brilliant and the surpassing and the highest level and the ones who are really the elite. And the fact is, he says they're the ones who are messing with the ABC's stuff that's so basic and so rudimentary that it isn't even adequate for adults. The truth of the matter is, you and I possess the knowledge of God which is infinitely higher than the knowledge of man, and at best, all that man can come up with is wisdom is foolishness, right?
1 Corinthians 1. Rather than advancing human wisdom, rather than advancing the mind. Worldly philosophy regresses away from mature truth to the infantile babblings of little infants. Poverty-stricken opinions of puny minds that go nowhere near the ultimate truth of God, which is the highest and the surpassing of all truth, which believers have already attained in Christ. The great incomprehensible mind of Christ is revealed to us in the Word of God and through the Spirit of God.
Not because we're brilliant, but because we believe.
So, when somebody comes along and says, Well, Christ is a good starting point, but you need more than that. You need human reason and human solutions and philosophy. That's not an advanced perspective. That's not a more deep and profound insight. It's just the opposite.
It's infantile, it goes backwards. Why do you want to be captive to baby talk when you can ascend to the profound truth of God? You see? For in him, verse nine says, dwells. All the fullness, all the pleuroma.
Of the Godhead, all the pleroma of God dwells in Christ bodily in the incarnation, it was all there. amazing God man. And you, verse 10, are complete in him. Isn't that marvelous? All the pleroma of God is in Christ and Christ is in you and you are complete in that.
What can human wisdom about meaning add to that? What can human wisdom about morality add to that? What can human wisdom about purpose add to that? What can human wisdom about life, love, death? What can human wisdom about anything add to that?
What lack in their spiritual life? Do Christians need help with from the world? None.
So don't believe for any moment that when you come and receive Jesus Christ, that's some kind of starting point. You've got to accumulate a whole bunch of other stuff out of the world to round out your life. From the spiritual dimension. He is all we need. He is utterly sufficient.
Who is, it says in verse 10, the head of all principality and power. All the highest beings created. Those are names of angels. He is over all of them. His knowledge surpasses human knowledge.
It surpasses supernatural knowledge. And the best that men can do is infantile. You want to know the truth, folks? We are the elite of the world intellectually. We have the mind of Christ, right?
Who knows God in Christ, we know the truth. I know the truth about values. I know the truth about morality. I know the truth from the standpoint of life. I know the truth from the standpoint of death.
I know what is right. I know what is wrong. I know what makes people happy, what makes them sad. I know where joy is found, peace is found, hope is found, truth is found, and so do you, right? And you didn't get that by getting a PhD.
You got it by receiving Christ. It's all available to you because Christ comes to us in His person and He comes to us through His Word and by His Spirit. And the combination is to have the wisdom of God. Christ is made unto us, 1 Corinthians 1:30, wisdom. Wisdom.
He's all we need in the spiritual sense. I'm not going to say that being a Christian is going to affect you in every dimension of life. But in the spiritual dimension. He's all we need. He provides, verse 11 and 12 say, he provides complete salvation.
We are circumcised, that is there's a cleansing symbolized in circumcision. But not with hands, in other words, not a physical circumcision, but a putting off. of the body of the sins of the flesh. In other words, Christ comes to us and takes away the Sins of the flesh. were delivered from them.
How? By being immersed with him into his own death and resurrection, verse 12 says. Buried with him in baptism, in which you're risen through the faith of the operation of God who's raised him from the dead. When you believed in Christ, you're placed into his death and resurrection, as you know, and through that death and that new life. comes complete salvation, transformation from death to life.
You're alive to God. You understand God. You hear his voice. You know what he says. The natural man doesn't.
The natural man doesn't understand the things of God. He's a corpse. You can scream at a corpse so you're blue in the face, he won't hear. You give him life, and he'll hear. God has given us life and we hear his voice and we understand what he says.
Complete salvation, complete forgiveness in verses. 13 and 14. Even though we were dead in sins and uncircumcision of flesh, he made us alive together with him that is with Christ, having forgiven you all trespasses. And then verse 14, one of the great verses in all the epistles. Blotting out, the word means to erase or wipe off.
In those days when a scribe wrote, he wrote on papyrus, which was... Made from reeds, paper made from reeds, or he wrote on vellum, which was made from animal skin. The ink didn't have acid, so when he wrote, the ink would sit right on top of the vellum or on top of the papyrus. And if he wanted to use it again, he could take something wet and wipe it off and reuse it because it was costly. And the picture here is of a wiping off, and what was wiped off?
the handwriting of laws that was against us. which was contrary to us. He took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. The picture is very vivid. There was a list of crimes.
That was put on the cross of a crucified victim that showed everybody why he was crucified. Paul says the list of crimes that nailed Jesus to the cross were not his crimes, but whose? Ours. And the idea here is a self-signed, self-confessed debt of sin was nailed to the cross, was the list of crimes for which he died. and by his death he erased that list.
So we have in Christ complete salvation, complete forgiveness. And then he says in verse 15, complete victory. Because he spoiled. conquered principalities and powers, meaning demon hosts. Made a show of them openly.
I believe he descended into the lower parts and down there proclaimed his triumph over them. He showed the demons on earth and the demons in the pit bound that he had won the victory, openly triumphing over them in his death.
So when we receive Christ, we receive complete salvation. That is deliverance from the flesh and the power of sin. And someday the presence of sin. We receive complete forgiveness for all of the things that we've done to violate the law of God, and we receive complete victory over the powers of the demon world, the fallen world, the hosts of hell. That's sufficiency.
Human philosophy adds nothing to that. Human reason adds nothing to that. Human sociology, psychology, philosophy add nothing to that. And we must realize that Whereas man may teach us some things helpful about life in this world, They offer nothing to make up some lack of Christ. Christ is sufficient.
To make us wise, so that John says, We need not that any man should teach us. Human wisdom has no application to our spiritual life. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. The message today, called The Sufficiency of Christ, is part of our brand new study called John MacArthur's Most Memorable Sermon. It's a collection of favorite lessons chosen by Grace to You staff members.
Well friend, the concept of an all-sufficient Christ, the broadness of that statement is staggering, and some people might find it hard to believe. But that is exactly what the Bible teaches, that Christ is sufficient for every spiritual need, both now and for eternity. And that is a reality that you could never meditate on too much. Along that line, I'd like to recommend John's classic book called Our Sufficiency in Christ. It shows you why you can trust Christ to meet every spiritual need.
To order a copy of Our Sufficiency in Christ, get in touch today. You can call us at 855 Grace during normal business hours. That's 7.30 to 4 o'clock Pacific Time. or you can order at our website, gty.org. Shipping is free when you order our sufficiency in Christ from Grace to You.
The price is $13. To order a copy for yourself or a few to give away, call 80055 GRACE or go to gty.org. That's our website, gty.org. And when you visit there, remember, you have access to John's more than 3,600 sermons. All of those messages are available for you to download in both MP3 and transcript format.
Free of charge. You can also tap into a wide range of other free Bible study tools, including daily devotionals, study guides for John's radio series, and video of the Grace to You television program. You'll find all of that and much more at our website, gty.org. That's our web address one more time, gty.org.
Now for the entire Grace to U staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for joining us today. Be back tomorrow as we continue our series called John MacArthur's Most Memorable Sermon. It's another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth, one verse at a time, on grace to you.
