Paul's got a simple prayer here, a simple burden, that the believer would have in his brain reveal truth, that he would see it manifest in his conduct lovingly, and that he would have as a result a settled, solid position of confident assurance in the truth, and then he would be able to enjoy the riches that were here. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. There is no deception with more terrifying consequences than to believe you're a Christian when you're really not. Sadly, that is no doubt the case for countless people.
So how can you make sure that you're not one of them? How can you have complete confidence that you're going to heaven? John MacArthur helps answer that question today, which can help you enjoy the blessings that come from being complete in Christ. That is the title of John's current study, Complete in Christ, and it's a look at why Christ's power and grace are totally sufficient to meet all of your needs. Now, to help you be confident that your salvation is real, here's John.
For our study, we come again to our second chapter of Colossians. Let's look at the phrase now in verse 2. Unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding. Now that's kind of a tangled up thing in the English.
Let me see if I can go a little further. Unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding. Literally, say it this way. The full riches of settled understanding. In other words, he says, I want you to experience all of the riches that are available to you when you're solid and you're assured of what you have. In other words, you can't claim these things and really enjoy the richness of them unless you're really assured that they're yours, right? And as your life becomes holy and your behavior manifests what's inside, you get a settled understanding of what's yours and you can enjoy how rich you are. Now, he says, I want you to have a settled understanding. The word understanding, senasis, just means facts connected to conduct.
Facts connected to conduct. True understanding doesn't belong to anybody but Christians. The natural man understandeth what?
Not. He understandeth not. Ephesians, very simple statement, 4.18, says the pagans have their understanding darkened. They don't understand.
Their understanding is darkened. Romans 1 verse 31, without understanding. Romans 3 verse 11, there is none that understandeth. The unregenerate man does not have truth connected to conduct.
His mind is a blank. Paul says, I want you to have settled understanding. Now, what are you to understand? Paul, you say, well, what do you want me to understand? I want you to understand the will of God and all that's involved in it. Ephesians 5, 17, listen, I'll quote it. And be not unwise, but understanding, what's the rest? What the will of the Lord is. What does God want you to understand? The revelation of God's will. And I'll tell you, the more you study, the more your mind is filled, the more it begins to flow through you in terms of operation, in terms of behavior, the more you understand how really rich you are.
And you can enjoy the Christian life. And the things of the world mean less and less and less, and you find that the things you initially couldn't let go of, you finally can let go. Because you know where the true riches are, and you can begin to do what Jesus said with confidence, lay up for yourselves what?
Treasure in heaven. Because you know now that's where your confidence is. Because where your heart is, that's where your treasure is going to be. And until you have a heart that is settled and assured and confident in God, you're going to hang on to some things in the world. But when your mind is confident and your behavior roots that confidence, you're going to have the kind of insurance that lets you let go and trust the true riches. See, how do you get that assurance?
How do you get that confidence? Well, you need to pray for it, I think. Pray just keeps you acknowledging the source of it. Colossians 1, 9, remember we studied, he said, we prayed for you since the day we heard and don't cease to pray for you from now on, desiring you might be filled with knowledge and wisdom and spiritual understanding.
So we pray for it. We seek that God would show us clearly His will. In 2 Timothy 2, 7, consider what I say and the Lord give thee understanding. We have to recognize that our understanding, our settled assurance comes from God, comes from Him. Through prayer, through the word, through behavior, we get this confidence. So, Paul's got a simple prayer here, a simple burden that the believer would have in his brain, revealed truth, that he would see it manifest in his conduct, lovingly, and that he would have as a result a settled, solid position of confident assurance in the truth, and then he would be able to enjoy the riches that were his. He says all of this stuff comes from one source, so you've got to have a settled conviction about one thing, verse 2. He says the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement, I'm going to read this the way it is in the Greek, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, Christ. To the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Now listen to me. Paul says I want you to have a basic, settled, assured conviction. And the place that that thing has to start is that you have to be convinced that the mystery of God is Christ.
Now listen, what do you mean, Paul? You have to be convinced of the deity and all sufficiency of Christ, is what he's saying. That the hidden God has manifested himself in the revealed Christ.
You see what he's saying? I want you to have absolute, unwavering assurance and acknowledge that the mystery of God, that is the hidden God, is revealed as Christ. What is that saying? That Christ is deity. And that in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
That is sufficiency. And why does he say this? Because those are the two things the false teachers in Colossae were attacking. The deity of Christ and a sufficiency to save.
And he says you have to start there. You have to have a settled conviction about the deity of Christ and his sufficiency. And these people had come into Colossae attacking the deity of Jesus Christ. They were saying that Jesus was just one of those emanations, just a sort of an angelic being down the line, a good emanation, a good spirit like many others. And they were saying that it isn't enough to come to Christ for salvation. He's just one step on the ladder.
You've got to have super wisdom and you've got to go for some mysterious knowledge, etc., etc. And Paul is saying, look, I don't want you to fuss with that. I want you to have an absolute, settled assurance about the riches that you have. And the first thing you have to be sure of is that this Christ is none other than the hidden God revealed. He is deity, number two in verse three, that in him is all sufficiency. That's his point. A settled conviction about Christ.
Folks, if you're wavering there, you're in trouble. 1 Timothy 3.16, discussing the term the mystery of God, Christ, explains it. What is the mystery of God? And without controversy, in other words, you can't argue with this. Don't even discuss this. No argument here.
No debate left. Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. What is the mystery of godliness? What is the mystery of God in Colossians that we just saw?
Here it is. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the nations, believed on in the world, and received up into glory. So what is the mystery of godliness?
Jesus Christ. Every one of those describes him. God manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit. That is his ministry ordained and given justification by the Holy Spirit at the baptism, seen by the angels who attended and watched him, preached to the nations, believed on in the world, and ascending into glory.
Who is that? None other than Christ. That is the mystery of godliness, the hidden God now revealed. And incidentally, 1 Timothy 3.16 may have been an early church hymn. They may have sung that verse.
And if they did, I know why. To just keep driving home the truth of who God was revealed in the world in Christ. Now, out of that settled confidence that Jesus is God, that he is deity, and that in him are all sufficiencies, the treasury of wisdom and knowledge, out of that settled confidence comes every other confidence. Because if he's who he said, then listen to me, then his word is what it says, right?
And I can believe it all. When you have a solid and settled conviction about who he is and about his sufficiency, then you can believe his legacy, right? When he says to me, Heaven's yours, MacArthur, the angels are all yours, they're taking care of you, and nothing will ever come upon you that I don't plan. When he says to you, I'll supply all your needs according to my riches. When he says to me, you don't have to fear anything because your life is in my hands and everything is going to be taken care of, take no thought for this and that and the other thing, I've got it all under control. And I say, you know something, I believe that, I have confidence in that, I'll accept those riches because I know you well enough to know that that is true. So when you have that settled conviction about who he is, then you can spend your riches, you can enjoy him. That's what he's saying.
If you're hung up on who Jesus is, you've got some problems on believing what he's going to give you. Now notice verse 3, because I want to talk about this for just a second, but he says, In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. You say, what does it mean they're hidden? Does it mean you've got to go in there and poke around and try to find them? No, it means they're hidden, listen to this, from everybody but the Christian. All you've got to do is go in there and pick them up. You know what it's like?
It's like a diamond mine that somebody blasted the lid off of and you just walk in and pick up the diamonds. They're all there. All you have to do is study to show yourself approved unto God. All you have to do is let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
All you have to do is apply yourself a little bit and you can go in and pick them all up. And of course the heretics, they believed that all wisdom and knowledge was hidden in their mass of elevated material, treasures, hidden. The word hidden is an interesting word in the Greek, apocryphos, from which you get apocryphal. The heretics and the false teachers believed there was a great mass of divine knowledge necessary for salvation and it was hidden in secret books. And the secret books were called apocryphos and only those super intellects could open them. And Paul says, baloney, the only apocryphos where all of this stuff is hidden is Jesus Christ.
And the day you opened your heart to Christ, God took the lid off the diamond mine and just said, go ahead, take what you need. It's all there. You don't need the special books of the secret intellect. You don't need the Bible plus somebody else. Because in Him are hidden some of the treasures.
Is that what it said? All of them. You just need the Bible. The revelation of the one in there is enough.
There's enough wealth there. Paul just says, boy, if you could only understand it, it'd blow your mind off. In Ephesians 1 17, I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Him, that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. He says, I pray for you that you might just get a grip on what's there for you.
Staggering. It's all there. Paul says, I want you to be settled on this one thing. Jesus is God, verse 2. Second thing, He is all sufficient, and in Him is everything that man needs. You say, Paul, why are you so hot about this?
Why are you so concerned? Because of verse 4. And I'm saying this, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. Lightfoot translates it, I wish to warn you against anyone who would lead you astray by specious arguments and persuasive rhetoric. He's saying, I don't want you to exchange proven riches for speculation. It's sad when a Christian would come to the place where he'd listen to some of that garbage about Christ. Well, I don't know, I've always believed the other way.
See, Paul is saying, look, have a settled conviction. And I'm telling you this, lest anybody is going to beguile you with enticing words. Clever phrases, and they're clever, and their arguments are good. This is a basic attack of all false systems. They'll deny two things. They'll deny the deity of Christ, now mark it in your mind.
They'll all do it. They'll deny the deity of Christ, and they'll deny a sufficiency to save, one or the other or both. They'll come and say, oh yes, Christ saves plus works, right? Or, oh yes, Christ isn't God.
But these are the two things around which all that false stuff revolves. It is a denial of the deity of Christ and or his sufficiency to save alone. The cults are all brought to the bar of God right here and condemned, folks, all of them. Anything that reduces Christ to less than deity or anything that adds anything to his saving sufficiency belongs in the beguiling activity of Satan. So, Paul desires the Colossians and all Christians to resist the seductive teaching of Satan, and it can only be done by having settled convictions.
Deep down, confidence. Then he says in verse 5, For though I am absent in the flesh, and this is kind of a confidence saying, I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in spirit, joying and beholding your order and steadfastness of your faith in Christ. He says, now I've just warned you, I've just told you what I feel, but I'm just saying thanks, and even though I'm not there, in my spirit, my inner man, I'm thankful that you haven't collapsed yet. I'm thankful you're still hanging in there tough. He said, I'm glad that you're hanging in there. I can't be physically present. I am slightly detained for three years or more as a prisoner in Rome.
I see no immediate hope of release, but I certainly am supportive of you in my spirit, and I'm so thrilled to know that you're hanging in there. I have a happy confidence because I've noticed, it's a beautiful thought, your order and steadfastness. Both of those words are military terms.
The word order, takis, is an interesting word. It means rank, and it means a single file line of soldiers. You're still holding rank. And he's saying, you may be being attacked, but nobody has broken rank.
Everybody's in single file. You're holding the line. Nobody's been shot down yet, and that's good, and I'm happy.
You say, well, then what's he so excited about? Listen, folks, an ounce of prevention, right? And then he uses another term, steadfast, stereoma. This, again, speaks of a solid front of soldiers ready to stand the shock of attack, and it speaks more of not the unbroken rank, but the solidarity. Not only are you unbroken in your rank, but, man, you are standing firm, and when the shock of battle hits, boom, you're going to stop it, and I rejoice. You're obedient. You're disciplined.
You're holding rank, and you're going to stand the attack, and that makes me happy. So what does he say? Strong in heart, united in love, settled in understanding?
Let me give you a fourth. Walking in Christ. Walking in Christ.
Verse 6. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. Since all those other things are true, therefore, you're now settled in Christ. You're confident about Christ. You're firm in Christ. If that's the truth, then keep on walking in Christ. Don't waver.
Don't change. As you have received the truth, heiress, which speaks of a decisive point in time past, you received Christ. You received him as Lord. You declared him as Lord.
You have that settled, confident assurance. Therefore, keep walking in him. Don't waver. And what does walk mean? Daily lifestyle.
Daily conduct. Keep walking in him. The primary impetus of this point is don't change in your view of Christ. Don't let your Christology flounder. Keep walking in Christ. But the upshot of it is walking in Christ means more than just walking along believing something. It means walking in union with Christ. Following Jesus. Doing what he would do. I remember when I was a little kid, my dad would say to me, do you think that's what Jesus would have done? No. Same thing my kids say. No.
But that was always the standard at our house. What would Jesus have done? Not only to maintain continuing faith in him, a continuing settled conviction, but to maintain a continuing pattern of life patterned after him. Paul says, this is what I pray for you.
You've received him. Don't forsake him. But walk as he walked. Look at 1 John 2, 6.
Isn't that what he says? He that says he abides in him ought himself also so to walk even as what? He walked.
If you say you abide in Christ, then walk the way Christ walked. How did he walk? He walked in love. He walked in wisdom. He walked in truth. He walked in the Spirit. He walked in holiness. All those things that describe the walk of the Christian in Ephesians 4 and 5 are characteristic of Christ. So, your Christian pattern, your life after him. I learn in my head.
I live it out in my life. I get a settled conviction that Jesus is who he claimed, and then I set my life goal to be like him. To walk as he walked.
To make my lifestyle like his lifestyle. Then he adds four participles in verse 7 to kind of sum it up. Rooted, and incidentally the tenses of the verbs here are critically important. It's a perfect participle, having been rooted. Since you have already been rooted in him, you ought to walk in him. You've already been rooted like a tree with deep roots in rich soil, drawing its nourishment, so the Christian is deep rooted in Christ, the source of life and nourishment and growth and fruit. Then being built up, that's present, you have been rooted, and you are being built up as you walk in him. Listen, now I'll say this. It is only when you do what Christ would do that you grow.
Did you get that? You are being built up as you walk in him. Whenever you do the deeds of the flesh, you're not building yourself up, are you?
What are you doing? Tearing yourself down. So, you are built up when you walk in him, when you obey him. The source of that of course is the word of God, Acts 20-32.
I command you to the word of his grace which is able to what? Build you up. The word builds us up. Jude 20, he says, Beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith. How do you build yourself up? By knowing the word, the will of God, and obeying it. And you're built up.
What will be the result? You will be established in the faith. That's a present passive. You walk in him because you're rooted with him. And as you walk in him, you are being built up, edified only in terms of the positive. When you walk in him, you're not edified any other time. And when you're walking in him and being built up, God will establish you solidly in the things that you have been taught. And all of a sudden you'll find that information takes roots in your life.
Well, God wants established Christians, silent, deep-rooted, strong, who don't get pushed around by false information. And here's how. Get the word in your mind. And he's come full circle, incidentally. He gets all the way back to being established in the faith you've been taught, all the way back to here again. Start out by feeding on the word.
Let it produce activity. That activity will give you settled conviction. The conviction will be that Christ is who he claimed. And then you can claim all of his promises and begin to walk step by step like he walked. And that's where your life will come from. And as you walk in him, you'll be built up.
And you'll even be more established in the faith. And then there's a final thing, a last thing. Strong in heart, united in love, settled in understanding, walking in Christ. And lastly, the response to all of it, abounding in thanksgiving. The end of verse 7. The fourth of those participles.
And we just separate it out because it's the only one in the active voice. It's a response to the others, abounding with thanksgiving. What should be the life attitude of a Christian? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For the riches that I'm enjoying, for the life that I'm living, for the walk that I'm walking.
Thank you. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. He calls his current study from the book of Colossians complete in Christ. John, this is revolutionary truth that Christ is everything the believer needs for life and godliness.
You've been preaching on this for years. You wrote a book on it, Our Sufficiency in Christ, saying that it's not Christ plus other things. It's Christ, and he is sufficient. And I'm wondering, as you consider the church today, what are some of the typical things that get added?
And how do we reform our thinking? Well, first of all, Christ is everything. Christ is all and in all. Ephesians 3.8, Paul preached to the Gentiles the unfathomable or unsearchable or inexhaustible riches of Christ. Everything is in Christ. When I wrote that book, I was realizing that there was a very, very powerful movement in terms of psychology. You remember that?
Yes. And people were actually saying that you can't even start the sanctification process unless you get some psychological help. Psychology is sort of the doorway or the vestibule or the lobby into the deeper things, but you've got to start with psychology. And I didn't believe that. I didn't believe that psychology, which by definition is a human way to understand human problems, offered anything at all that could transform life.
That's only possible by the power of God and through divine truth. I wrote the book to demonstrate that Christ is not waiting for some psychologist to help you get to him or get to his power or get to his wisdom. It was so dominant in the church. I remember when I wrote that book that I got flack from all kinds of people. And even the publisher said, you know, we don't think you should publish this book because you're questioning psychology. And psychology was like this sacred cow. Well, psychology has faded out of the picture. You never hear anybody talk about Christian psychology, or rarely, ever.
I mean, there are psychologists out there, but they're not Christians. And our sufficiency in Christ has remained and been sustained. So our sufficiency in Christ just says this, that everything you need, everything you need is found in him.
You have to believe that. No matter how dire, how difficult, how challenging life is, the answers are found in Christ. You would do well to get a copy of our sufficiency in Christ.
It'll make a difference in your life. It'll enable you to find those resources in Christ, and it's available from Grace to you with free shipping in the U.S. That's right. Our sufficiency in Christ shows you why you can trust God to provide for your every need and can help you identify areas in your life where you might not be trusting him.
To order a copy, 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. To order a copy for yourself or to give away, call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. Now, turning the corner a bit, let me remind you about the impact 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, as well as thousands of free books and booklets or CDs that we send out each month. The support of listeners like you helps make all of that ministry possible. To make a tax-deductible donation, visit our website, gty.org, that's gty.org, or call 800-55-GRACE. Now, for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DIRECTV Channel 378, and be here tomorrow for another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
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