It's Christ plus nothing. It's not Jesus Christ is a good starting point, and if you can get your life together, you might make it in the kingdom. Jesus Christ is a good beginning, but if you keep the rules, you'll get there. No, it's Christ plus nothing. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Have you ever tried giving the gospel to someone who's really given to philosophy and worldly wisdom?
Someone who finds life direction from philosophers and professors and the best thinkers from all fields.
Someone who believes that being enlightened means being informed by current knowledge, not the so-called old-fashioned concepts like heaven and hell and sin and forgiveness.
Well, John MacArthur's message today speaks directly to the person who elevates human reasoning above all else. Today's lesson was chosen by a Grace to U staff member as John MacArthur's most memorable sermon. That's the title of our brand new series, and so follow along now. Here's John with his lesson titled The Sufficiency of Christ. 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. 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. The lack of sufficiency in Christ. According to these heretics, could be made up by four things.
Rationalism Legalism Mysticism. or asceticism. 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. 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. Secondly, The attack comes from legalism, not just rationalism. Paul says in verse 16, don't let anyone therefore Condemn you, the word condemn rather than judge gives the idea. Don't let anyone, therefore, condemn you. In food or in drink?
Or in respect of a feast day, or of the new moon, or of a Sabbath day, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body or the reality that casts the shadow is Christ.
Now this is the religion of human achievement again through legalism. There are people who want us to believe that you believe in Christ. Yes, but you do this, you do this, you do this, you do this. You go through all these rituals, and Christ plus nothing won't get you there. It's Christ plus legalism.
Legalism is just a word that means keeping rules and laws and outward ceremonies to gain favor with God. With the Jews, of course, it had to do with the Old Testament. They had dietary laws, food and drink laws. But by now, in the new covenant, with the coming of Christ, those laws were set aside. You say, well, what were those laws for in the first place?
Well, the dietary laws and the feast laws and the ceremonies of Israel. We're symbols. They weren't spiritual realities. They were simply illustrations of a spiritual truth. But primarily, I just want you to know that God gave them all those unique living habits.
for the primary reason to make their life so unusual, their diet so unusual, their behavior so unusual, that it was difficult for them to interact with the pagan nations around them. But there came a time. When God set all of those symbols aside in the coming of Jesus Christ, and in Mark 7 is a monumental statement: nothing going into the mouth of a man defiles the man. That is a shocking statement, Mark 7:14 and 15. Because the Jews had always believed that there were certain things going in that did defile, and Jesus there is saying it's a new day, folks.
Defilement doesn't come dietarily anymore. And in Acts 10, he says to Peter, Rise, Peter, kill, and eat. And there's a whole lot of unclean animals on a sheet in his vision. And don't you ever call anymore unclean what God has now sanctified. And here comes the culmination of it.
Don't let anybody condemn you because of your diet, because you don't keep a feast day, because you don't celebrate a new moon, because you don't observe the Sabbath. Those were a shadow. The reality is now here. And the reality is faith in Christ. The reality is Christ.
Don't let anybody tell you it's Christ plus your beads, Christ plus your candles, Christ plus service. Or Christ plus baptism. Or Christ plus observing the seventh day of the week, or Christ plus. Fasting. Or Christ plus anything like that.
There are Today, many people who would advocate that And not only are they in cults and False religions, but they're even quote unquote in evangelical Christianity or even fundamental Christianity. Listen, I believe that churches like ours are full of people who believe their salvation is attached to how often they read the Bible, pray, and go to church. Or their confidence in their salvation is attached to the fact that they don't do certain things and they don't go certain places, or they do do certain things and they do go certain places. And they're not really trusting in the all-sufficient Christ. They're trusting because they believe in Christ.
In that plus, their religious activities. That's not Anything new?
So Paul says, look. Don't let anybody. Hold you to some dietary laws. Don't let anybody tell you you can't eat pork, or you can't eat this, or you can't eat that. Don't let anybody hold you to some feast day.
Which has to do with the annual festivals: Passover, Pentecost, Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of Lights, Leviticus 23. Don't let anybody hold you to the new moon, which was a special sacrifice always offered on the first day of every month according to Numbers 28, 11 to 14. Don't let anybody hold you to observance of the Sabbath. As if that's how you attain a right relationship to God? Gentiles never did observe those things, and now they're trying to impose them on Gentiles.
There's no point in that. It's not what you do on the outside, it's the change that Christ has made on the inside that makes you right with God. All those things are a shadow. Just a shadow. And the shadow only Portends of someone to come.
You see the shadow and you look further and there's the person. And once the person's there, you don't care about the shadow. You don't embrace the shadow, you embrace the person. It's Christ plus nothing. It's not Jesus Christ is a good starting point, and if you can get your life together, you might make it in the kingdom.
Jesus Christ is a good beginning, but if you keep the rules, you'll get there. No, it's Christ plus nothing. Don't let anybody intimidate you. And then thirdly, And we're moving quickly. Verse 18.
Paul says, don't let anybody intimidate you with mysticism. Telling you that Christ is not enough. You need Christ plus.
Some Other experience. Let me tell you what mysticism is, okay? Mysticism is a deeper, higher religious experience based on personal intuition. Did you get that? Mysticism is a deeper, higher religious experience based on personal intuition.
You know what it really is? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Mysticism is nothing. It's just something you think is something.
It is not what you think it is. And yet people think it is what they think it is. People came along to the Colossians and they said there's a higher, there is an ascending, there is a surpassing, there is a paranormal, there is a supernatural, a higher, deeper spiritual knowledge, there is a mystical piety, there is a plane of humility connected with Aeons and angels and demigods and emanations, and we need to ascend to that level. Verse 18, let me give you the New American Standard because it's a very difficult verse to translate from the original. The NAS has captured it.
Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize, take away your reward, by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind. And not holding fast to the head from whom all the body, by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increases with the increase of God. And that all means that Christ is the one who really builds the body. Don't let anybody beguile you, woo you, deceive you, deny you your reward by engulfing you in some.
Some delightful self-abasement, which means a proud humility. And the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, which do nothing but inflate without any cause his fleshly mind. It's a big ego trip, Paul says. All these people who are into mysticism. It's coming at us like a flood, folks.
Like a flood. All the mysticism that's encroaching upon the church, this new wave interest in missions where they're saying we'll never reach the world without signs and wonders, and they're having courses in seminary on miracles and signs and wonders, and they're teaching people how to get into the other dimension, how to get into the other paradigm. They use that term of the third world and think mystically. And it's nothing, it's nothing but sheer imagination at best. And at worst, you are courting demons.
Courting demons. It's just Not true. Mysticism is nothing but the The indiscreet action. of a fallen intuition. Or at worst, demonic.
But there are people running around intimidating the socks off Christian people because they're not having those experiences. You're not having a miracle?
Well who who Who would be intimidated enough to buy into that? I'll tell you who. Lots of folks who send millions of dollars. to buy a miracle. They line up.
They say this is great faith. You have to have great faith. It's not great faith, that's great distrust in the sufficiency of Christ. In the sufficiency of his word. And you usher yourself into it.
very, very, very dangerous environment. The environment of human imagination is dangerous enough, but when it gets tangled up with the demonic forces of the other world, it's even more frightening.
Now there's no higher plane. There is no surpassing experience. There's no deeper life. Christ is all in all. These people do this, it says, because they delight in humility, and all it does is puff up their fleshly mind.
Isn't that a tragic? Diagnosis, but that's a fact. Christ is not enough. Supposed humility is nothing but ugly pride. Worshiping angels.
Seeking visions. Building everything on these kinds of mystical experiences strikes a blow against the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. They're not holding fast to the head who is Christ. He's the one from whom the entire body, supported and held together by joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. You want to grow, you grow because you hang on closely to Christ.
He's all you need. It isn't, well, let's receive Christ, and boy, let's hope that we don't get stuck at that level. I'm not trying to be ungracious, but I'm just telling you, Christ is sufficient. And I don't need to see angels. And I don't need to have visions.
And I don't need to rise to some higher level, some deeper life, some other plane. I have more in the sufficiency of Christ than I can even. commit myself to. There's a final Fought here. That has to do with asceticism.
Asceticism, well, you say, what is that? The dictionary says asceticism is living a life of rigorous physical self-denial. Living a life of rigorous physical self-denial. One time when I was preaching over there in the Family Center before we had this auditorium.
Some of you may remember this. I was toward the end of my message, and a man walked up on the platform. That's happened about a half a dozen times in the years I've been here.
Okay. and just kind of said, I have something to say, I have something to say, I have something to say. He said it right out loud. And then he just began to yell at the top of his voice. You people are phonies.
You people are materialistic. You, if you really knew God, you'd get rid of all your cars and all your fancy houses. And he went on and on. I don't know exactly the words, but that was his whole speech. And there was nothing I could do but just stand there and let him say what he said.
And of course, he just. finished in a matter of a few moments and the ushers took him out and uh That was his view of spirituality. Having one suit of clothes and riding a bicycle. It's Christ plus a bicycle. Christ plus Um give away everything you have to the poor and you know, live as a hermit.
Christ plus Put rocks in your shoes. Did you know the monks used to do that? Put rocks in their shoes. You know, they would wear a belt that had little sharp pieces of metal in it so it would cut their stomach all the time, all day long? That's That's asceticism.
So he says in verse 20. Therefore, wherefore, if you're dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, If you've died to all that, Why in the world are you going back into the world and all of their silly ABCs of religion, such as these ordinances and commandments and doctrines of men, like touch not, taste not, handle not? In other words, spirituality is tied to abstinence. Don't touch that, don't taste that, don't get married, you know, sexual abstinence, and that still exists, doesn't it? We still have residue of that in the religions of our country.
That spirituality is connected to never marrying. You stay away from certain things, a meager diet. In other words, you strip yourself down to almost nakedness and you live in abject poverty and total self-denial, inflict pain on your body, and that's what makes you acceptable to God. And that comes out of the Greek dualism that says the body is evil and.
So you deny the body everything?
Some of the monks thought it was a sin to bathe. Because they would see themselves naked. And the longer they held to that theology, the smaller and smaller their circle of acquaintances became. And their influence went with it. Others felt that marriage was An experiment of the serpent which separated from the Lord.
Athanasius boasted of the devotion of a man named Antony who never changed his vest and never washed his feet. And that was praiseworthy. And Antonius proudly related that such was the holy asceticism of Simeon Styletus that when he walked, vermin dropped off his body. And the main thing is that it's a little bit more. That's holiness in that perspective.
Do you remember at Christmas time the guy in the Philippines who crucifies himself every year? And the flagellantes who beat themselves raw on their backs till they bleed in order to effect some penance toward God.
So God will accept them. We've died to all that stuff. If God blesses us, then He blesses us. And we accept this blessing with thankfulness. And we use it.
to enjoy his goodness and to share with others in need. And we are not made more spiritual by deprivation. He says in verse 22: all these things are going to perish. Verse 23, he says, I'll give you a good translation of it. It's again hard to translate.
Regulations of this kind These things Though, to be sure, having a reputation for wisdom because of their self-made Design Their self-made humility And unsparing treatment of the body are of no real value whatever, serving only to indulge the flesh. Whoo, isn't that good? That just indulges the flesh. That just makes you proud to be humble. Proud to be humble.
Self-styled ritual religion.
Some kind of phony apparent piety in supernatural experiences, self-denial that appears to be abject. poverty All these do is elevate the flesh, indulge the flesh, lift up pride, and make you proud about. All your sacrifices, all your visions, all your spiritual achievements. And they take away from Christ all your human reason, and they take away from Christ. I understand this intimidation.
I have been long and often called anti-intellectual. I have been criticized because I believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, the sufficiency of spiritual resources, and the sufficiency of Christ. And I don't feel that in order to do spiritual work, we need human wisdom. I have been criticized very often. by people who would demand a certain external legalism.
Who would criticize me? For the fact that I don't do certain things. That they think are spiritual behaviors. I've certainly been criticized because I uh I haven't ascended to the highest level of spiritual experience and had visions and supernatural paranormal experiences. I have been told that I.
That I just will never reach that plane with my present mindset. I was listening to a radio program the other day where they were discussing me on a talk show. Yeah. And the one guy who One guy they were reviewing my book on the charismatic movement and One reviewer read through a little of it and The comment of the other one was, well, I don't know who this man is, but I'll tell you one thing, God will never bless his life. That's not what I said.
Well, I don't know what you call blessing. But I don't know that I could handle much more. then God has graciously given. I don't really care to go to heaven and come back and tell about it. or go to hell and come back and tell about it.
I don't really care to know all of worldly wisdom. I'm not really concerned with that. I'm not concerned that I try to please God with a whole lot of self-designed rituals and rules. I'm certainly not concerned that in order to gain God's favor, I've got to deny myself all the great and wonderful and kind things that God has done for me. My confidence and my faith all rests in one person.
Who's that? Jesus Christ, and I believe with all my heart, not because of me, but because of his sovereign and infinite grace, I am complete in him. I hope you believe that too. Let's bow together in prayer. Listen carefully.
Would you please for a moment to this? In Christ, I find the source of all earth's loving, the universe of peace and trust divine. I find the satisfaction born of knowing Forever I am his. And he is mine. In Christ, I find a harbor from the tempest.
a refuge safe to guard throughout the test. I find in him a shelter from the darkness, as safely in his arms my soul does rest. In Christ I find the bread that leaves no hunger. The wine that leaves no thirst within the heart. I find the warmth of love that Jesus gives the blessing of its riches to impart.
In Christ I find an endless realm of beauty, A garden cool assuaging sordid heat. I find the matchless wonder of His presence As I in prayer abide at Jesus' feet. In Christ, I find the greatest human treasures: the washing white from sin, salvation free. In him is found a joy that knows no measure, the gift of one who gave his all for me. In Christ I find all love.
All joy, all blessing. I find the peace that shares with doubt no part. In Christ I find the gate to heaven's glory. In Christ. The Christ who dwells within my heart.
Father, how thankful we are. for the sufficiency of Christ. That in all the complexity of the world, In all the din of voices and words. All the analyses and solutions notwithstanding. We are complete in Christ.
He is all in all. How we thank thee. Help us to be content with Him. And discontent until, even as Paul said. We are fully formed into his image.
Help us to seek Him. To know him. to love him. to be like him. Are you Resting trusting Living And even facing death.
In the confidence of the sufficiency of Christ. Are you? Is Christ all in all to you? Christ plus nothing. I trust you say yes to that.
If so, thank him for his grace. If the answer is no, if you've been trusting in Human wisdom or some kind of religious works. Or looking for some kind of supernatural experience. If you've been thinking that your own self-denial and Self-imposed pain. could in some way gain you favor with God.
Put it all aside. and in simple childlike faith, embrace the living, dying, risen Christ. As your Savior, and He brings complete salvation, complete forgiveness, complete victory, for you are complete in Him. You're listening to Grace to You, featuring the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. Today's message by John called The Sufficiency of Christ is the favorite of one of our staff members, chosen from over thirty six hundred sermons.
The title of our current series is John MacArthur's Most Memorable Sermon.
Well, friend, I trust that today's lesson helped you see that in Christ are found all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Of course, an important goal of grace to you is to give people like you tools for understanding and benefiting from that amazing wealth. And along that line, let me remind you about John's classic book called Our Sufficiency in Christ. It shows you why you can trust God to provide for every spiritual need you have, and it can help you identify subtle ways that you might not be trusting Him the way you should. To order a copy of Our Sufficiency in Christ, get in touch today.
Call us at 800-55 GRACE or go to our website gty.org. Our Sufficiency in Christ can help you find the balance between trusting yourself to God's resources and fulfilling your responsibilities in the Christian life. The book costs $13 and shipping is free. Again, to order our sufficiency in Christ, call 80055GRACE or go to gty.org. And friend, just a quick reminder about the impact that you have when you support Grace to You financially.
Every day, this broadcast encourages and equips people around the world with verse-by-verse teaching from God's Word. We also make thousands of Bible study resources available free of charge at gty.org and we mail out thousands of free books or booklets every month. Listeners like you help make that ministry possible. To send a tax-deductible donation, visit our website gty.org or call us at 800-55GRACE.
Now for the entire Grace to U staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Look for Grace to You Television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378 and be here tomorrow as we introduce another staff member and find out what he chose as John MacArthur's most memorable sermon. It's another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time. on Race to You.
