The Sufficiency of Christ In Life

Good morning, everybody. Good to see everyone. Of course, it's still such a wonderful privilege to have this opportunity.

I'm sad that we're already at the halfway mark, but I'm also not sad because that means mom and dad will be back sooner than later.

And so I will just enjoy this time that I have remaining, getting to fill the pulpit for dad.

And hopefully it has been a blessing to all of you and will continue to be one today and next week.

And I'm excited about today's topic. We have a lot to dive into, so we'll go ahead and jump right into it.

If you'd like to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 13, this is where we started last week. We're going to start here once more.

We have lots to cover today, and so we will try to keep a steady pace going and get into some, what

I believe will be some good stuff here. This study that we've been doing, the sufficiency of Christ, I began outlining nearly three months ago when

I first was made aware that I'd be filling the pulpit for the month of October.

So I started putting some thought into it, prayerfully considering what I could be covering over the course of four Sundays, which is a tremendous opportunity to have.

And with anything I've ever taught, whether it be from the Sunday school table, whether it be from the pulpit, whether it be from the podium on Wednesday night

Bible study, I'm yet to teach anything that didn't first begin with something

I was personally studying for my own sake. The Lord has allowed me the opportunity to do that each and every time.

There will come a day where, who knows, I'm sure there will come a day where I'll need to be prayerfully considering,

Lord, what do you want me to be covering? Put something on my heart, something in particular.

For the time being though, up to present day, it has coincided each and every time with something that was already on my heart for personal reasons.

Just again, personal studies, wanting to dive into particular Bible studies for my own sake.

And so a little over, nearly three months ago when I started outlining the four sermons that will make up this very brief series, this particular sermon was the focal point.

This was the one that I started with. This is the one that I was most excited to get to dive into with all of you, to get to talk about some of the topics that we will be covering today or some of the sub points within the topic rather.

And I placed it at this particular point in the study because I felt that beginning, as we did, with reminding ourselves the importance of relying on Christ in the first place, would be a good starting point, relying on his sufficiency in the first place, followed by relying on his sufficiency in our very salvation, namely the sanctification process, which we talked about in detail last week, leading into today, which will be the sufficiency of Christ in life, a little bit more general, a little bit more broad.

We can only cover so much in the amount of time we have, but I feel that what we will be covering will address very important areas for each of us in our own unique lives.

Look at verse five. Let's look at Hebrews chapter 13, starting in verse five. It says, let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as ye have.

For he has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say, the

Lord, my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful day that you bless us with for bringing this together as a local body.

Once more, we thank you for the opportunity that we have each and every week, not only to gather, to assemble, to encourage one another, to be edified by your word, to abide in your word together, but also for the unique privilege of being able to expect to do this each and every week.

Lord, we know that this is a unique time in history, and it's a unique place to live in. So we ask that you help us not ever take it for granted, and to enjoy these times together, and to look forward to it with earnest each and every week as we go to your word, and again, allow it to edify us, encourage us, prepare us for the week to come.

We ask you to bless the service, Lord, let all of the words be your words, and we ask these things in your name.

Amen. Over the past couple of Sundays, as I've alluded to already, we've addressed the importance of keeping the

Lord first. That is kind of the main conclusion, if you want to put it that way, of the entire study, keeping the

Lord first. Sounds pretty simple. But addressing some of the various ways we can do that, obviously, is important.

So making sure that we're relying on his sufficiency as the starting point for avoiding the pitfalls of self -sufficiency.

So why do we need to lean into Christ for his sufficiency? Well, it's because we don't have that in and of ourselves.

Men try it. We try it all the time. The majority of the human race certainly relies on self -sufficiency over against the

Lord and what he can do in your life more than anything else. So what is the antidote to that? It is dying to self and going back to Christ.

And so the starting point, of course, is going to him so that we can avoid the pitfalls of self -sufficiency, which is a greater temptation for any one of us than we may even realize throughout time.

So none of us as human beings in a depraved state, even if we've been regenerated and the

Holy Spirit lives within us, there's still that old man. We talked about him a lot last week. We still carry him around on our backs.

And in cases live through phases of life where he seems to be an even bigger burden than at other times.

So because of that, because of that, we have to remember that relying on our own selves over the

Lord is a temptation. It can be a temptation for any one of us. We have to remember it. Now, today,

I'd like to broaden the topic a little bit from where we've gone so far and address the necessity of Christ in our lives in general.

We talked about relying on him. We've talked about his sufficiency in salvation. Let's talk about his sufficiency in our lives in general.

Again, we've already addressed things like relying on him. We've addressed his sufficiency in sanctification, our

Christian growth. But what about our day to day lives? Now, don't get me wrong.

Our sanctification process that we discussed last week is very much a part of our daily lives as well.

But I want us to consider how vitally important it is to be relying on his sufficiency in every single area of life, not just that which pertains to the quote unquote spiritual things.

There's really not a separation between the material world that we live in, space and time in the spiritual realm.

They are interlocked. The spiritual realm, first and foremost, is a greater reality than the very molecules that we can actually see.

But they're also not all that far apart either if they're separated at all.

And I don't believe they are. In other words, the spiritual realities of things like sanctification, like our salvation process.

Yes, they're there, but they are there so that the physical world we live in can be redeemed also.

So that all of the things, of course, Christ came, the father loved the world that he sent his son.

The world is the cosmos, the universe. He loved all of it. He came to redeem all of it from a fallen state.

It was conquered by the devil originally in the garden. He won that victory already. He's already conquered it.

He ascended back to the throne. He's sitting at the right hand of power as we speak. And the last 2000 years have been this great, this great sweeping history of bringing in the elect of God, bringing in the sheep into the fold, all of the sheep that maybe have gone astray, that are just scattered.

When the shepherd is struck, the sheep will scatter. He was talking about his disciples, but that has certainly been the case for all of Christians throughout time.

And so he's bringing in all of the sheep, he's bringing in the fold. And of course, when he comes back, the physical realm and the spiritual realm will be one in the same.

There will be this reunion that was once there, and that we lost at least the perception of it.

We can't see it because of sin, but we're going to get it back. And so we've been talking about spiritual things, certainly sanctification is one of them.

But that does not mean that Christ's efficiency is exclusive to the spiritual. We have to remember that when we leave this building, and we go out and live the rest of our lives this week, he is just as intimately a part of each and everything that we do.

Every conversation we have, every thought we have, every action we do, as he is the spiritual stuff, quote unquote, such as our sanctification, it's all really together.

So because of our time limitations today, we're going to be focusing on three specific areas of life in which

Christ's efficiency can rescue us. There are I don't know how many thousands upon thousands of areas of life that he is sufficient.

It's all of them. We're going to focus in on three. Area number one is sufficient.

The fact that he is sufficient for our contentment. Area number two is that he is sufficient for our fulfillment.

And area number three is that he is sufficient against the influence of men. So let's take a look at area number one first, is sufficiency for our contentment.

Let's start by examining that Hebrews passage one more time. We'll take a look at some other passages as well shortly.

Look at Hebrews 13, verse five. Let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have.

For he has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Now the Greek term for that word conversation at the beginning of verse five, let your conversation be without covetousness.

That word there is interesting because it far exceeds any of what we might think is related to a literal conversation.

You know, we think of conversations, we think of talking, we think of communication between people. This Greek term far exceeds that.

And it's actually referring to our complete way of life. All of it, the way we conduct ourselves, our way of life, let your way of life be without covetousness.

Secondly, that phrase referring to covetousness is a

Greek term that's specifically talking about the love of money or an extreme desire for wealth and material gain.

So another way that you could read just the opening phrase of verse five there is let your way of life be without the love of money.

Let your way of life be without the love of money. Now the question should be given the context of this passage is why is the writer talking about money at all?

What does that have to do with anything going on here? Well, as you can see with the next phrase, the main concern is the contentment of believers, the contentment of his brothers and sisters in the

Lord, wherever they are in life, whatever they're doing, their contentment in life in general.

Now, oddly enough, so many cases, and I mean, this is something any one of us could go out into the world and notice with our own eyes, just observe, but many cases of this love of money, this problem that the

Bible talks about more than one place. This is just one of them. This problem that he's talking about here actually doesn't come necessarily from those in this, in a poorer state, in a poor state, yearning for wealth, yearning for more money.

Oftentimes this love of money comes from those who have the wealth already.

They've already been blessed without measure. They've already accumulated vast amounts in some cases of wealth, of material gain, but because of that, they are now striving so hard not to ever lose it.

So they've accumulated it and now the thing they care most about in life is not ever losing what they've accumulated, not ever losing what they had or what they gained in the first place.

And it's to the point where they would be discontent if they lost that money.

That's what the writer is talking about here. That's why he's bringing money into the picture in the first place. Discontentment obviously is a wonderful topic across all spectrums, but think about it in this context, the love of money.

If you have this material wealth, if you have gained in the material realm a significant amount and you lose it, will you be content still?

Is the Lord still enough? Or are you going to be striving so hard not to lose what you've gained?

The Lord is blessed with you by the way. There's nothing that you did. All of it is of grace. Even the physical, everything in the physical realm, it's all of grace.

Salvation, yes, but everything else too, it's all of grace. Are you okay? Will you be content enough in the

Lord if you lost that? That's what he's talking about here. Now, allow me to give you all just kind of a quick qualification here.

It may not even be necessary to give with this congregation, but I want to be as clear as possible.

This verse is not a proof text for the monks. This is not a proof text for people that want to say that the material realm is evil.

What the writer has in view here is far removed from what you might call asceticism.

This is an ancient thing that Paul himself had to deal with, the ascetics, asceticism.

What is that? Well, imagine if you have some guy come in here, he opens the door, he's wearing raggedy clothes, probably doesn't have any shoes on, he rode here on his bike, and he starts lambasting everyone in this room for owning a car, for wearing clothes that actually look somewhat nice, for having taken a shower in the last 24 hours, for having any material wealth at all, for having a savings account.

Why haven't you given all that to the poor? Why aren't you out there doing what you can to protect everybody else in the world except for yourself and your family, of course, is by implication.

That's asceticism, and it's an evil thing. It is of Satan, and it's one of those things that has absolutely rotted the mind of large amounts of false religions throughout time to the point where you have self -flagellation, you have guys, you know, monks or other examples where they are literally hurting themselves because they feel that's making them more holy.

Maybe it's crawling up the steps on their bare knees of a stone pyramid to show whatever

God it is they're worshiping that they are willing to hurt themselves all the way to death for that God's sake.

There were men that wanted to attribute our God that we worship to that false religion, and Paul had to face this a lot.

He had to face mysticism, asceticism that we just broke down, obviously legalism, all kinds of different battles,

Gnosticism. Paul himself in the first century, within years of Jesus dying on the cross and ascending back into heaven and being witnessed by 500 plus eyewitnesses of this reality, still had the same battles we have to fight today.

So all of that to say this, verse 5 of Hebrews chapter 13 is not a proof text for the monks or the nuns or anybody that wants to say that you have to live with lack in order to be holy.

That's not what is being said here. That's not what is in view here. Material wealth is not an inherent evil.

The inherent evil that is in view in this verse, which is explicitly addressed in the verse itself, is the love of that material wealth.

You see the difference? It's a very important, seemingly obvious difference, but sometimes it's missed.

The love of that material wealth is the inherent evil. It's no different than any other form of idolatry.

And where does that stem from? Where does this evil love of money stem from? Verse 5, discontentment.

The opposite of what the writer of Hebrews is wanting his brothers and sisters out there to never struggle with, or let me put it this way, he actually puts it in the positive in the verse.

He says to be content. The opposite of that point obviously is discontentment. He does not want that for his brothers and sisters.

So again, what does the writer have in view here? How does it apply to the sufficiency of Christ in our lives for each one of us that live in different, unique circumstances?

How does it apply to us? Turn to Philippians chapter 14 for a second. We're not done with Hebrews, so if you have a physical

Bible, hold your place in Hebrews 13, because we're coming right back. We've still got to look at verse 6, but turn to Philippians for a second.

Philippians chapter 4. Not too many letters behind Hebrews. Chapter 4, let's look at verse 10, and let's look at how

Paul himself practiced what he preached. And by the way,

I say that with the assumption that Paul wrote Hebrews, I believe he did, but whether it was Paul or not, all of the apostles practiced what they preached, and this is what it looks like, and we can look like this too.

Look at verse 10. But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last hour your care of me hath flourished again, wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity.

Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatever state I am therewith to be content.

I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound everywhere, and in all things

I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me. I want you to think about that last verse in its actual context.

It's often applied to some pretty funny life examples, but think about it in the context of what

Paul is talking about there. Paul here makes it very clear that to rely on the sufficiency of Christ is to have the capacity to flourish, whether we are abased or whether blessings abound, whether we are rich enough to go out there and actually put a dent in the world to actually perhaps support nonprofit ministries, perhaps to build institutions, all things that we as Christians should be hoping we have the opportunity to do.

And Paul did as well. He knew what it was like, though, to rely on Christ's sufficiency in that context, as well as when it was all taken away from him.

He was just as content in both cases. Go figure, this is the same guy in the same letter that told us to rejoice in the

Lord all the way, and again I say rejoice. This is something that is impossible to do without the sufficiency of Christ, without relying on that.

It's a supernatural thing. How on earth could any one of us expect to be joyful in every situation that befalls us in life, the majority of which may very well include some form of grief or sorrow, which again we're going to be talking about a lot next week.

How on earth can we expect to be joyful in every context? Well, we can't expect it unless there is this supernatural reality that transcends us, and yet we have the capacity to benefit from.

We have the capacity to tap into, for lack of a better term, the words given to us by Paul in that Philippians passage, and I believe he gave us this passage in Hebrews as well, came from a man who had been in bonds, he had been in prison, he had been shipwrecked a number of times, he had been stoned, he had been whipped, he had been robbed, and this is the guy telling us to be content in every situation.

I guess it's possible then, because if it was possible for him, surely it's possible for just about anybody else.

This is a man that was, interestingly enough, he was the prime persecutor of the church, and then he underwent a good bit of persecution, perhaps more than any of the other apostles.

I don't know, maybe you can make an argument for that. The reason I kind of have the feeling is because he just happened to give us like more than half the

New Testament, so we have a lot of Paul's testimony. But either way, this was a guy that knew persecution and survived murder attempts on his life, as well as being shipwrecked, being out at sea, being on cold islands in the rain, being bitten by venomous vipers.

This is a guy that experienced all of it and was content in all things. And how is it possible for Paul, in both the dire circumstances and the abundance that he experienced, to know how to navigate either one of them?

Not just, okay, so we think, all right, we're in the rough stuff. We are going through tribulations.

We are experiencing some grief, experiencing some sorrow. Life isn't going the way we thought it would.

Perhaps our friends abandoned us. Perhaps our job, I was fired, or our job totally abandoned us.

Everything in life is just absolutely a wreck right now. The guy I did vote for is not the president. Nothing is going right.

How are we going to get through all of this? What are the implications of all this? What on earth is the domino effect going to look like as my life progresses?

Obviously, in those times, we'll think, well, we can rely on Christ and he'll get us through it. And that is very much true.

But think about it on the flip side for a second. What if everything does go exactly as planned? What if life is going great and you have an abundance of blessings that are just flowing in and you have no idea why.

But it's just happening by God's grace alone. You don't know what to do with it. The sufficiency of Christ is what will help you navigate it on both sides.

He'll help you navigate what to do with the abundant blessings that are just flowing out of thin air from our perspective, just as much as he will help you navigate the grief and the sorrows.

Paul knew that this is how you navigate either one of these situations. I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me, verse 13.

That's the context this verse is found in. I can do all things, whether it is in the abundance of God's blessings or being abased.

I can do all things. I can do both. I can do everything in both categories forever through Christ, which strengthens me.

I can be content through Christ, which strengthens me. We need Christ's strength to enable us to handle either situation we find ourselves in.

We have to have his strength in order to be content in any condition that we find ourselves in as well.

So when the writer of Hebrews says, and be content with such things as you have, verse five, he's telling us that Christ is sufficient in all things.

And how does he put it exactly? Go back to Hebrews 13. If you held your place there, let's look at verse six now.

How exactly does he put it? He says in verse six, so that we may boldly say, we may boldly proclaim, we may tell anybody anywhere at any place, the

Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. So Christ is sufficient for all of our crises as well as all of the abundance as well.

It doesn't matter if it's the bad stuff or the good stuff, he is sufficient in both cases. The Lord is my helper, therefore,

I can be content exactly where he has me for the reasons I may not understand just yet.

And that's an important thing to remember too, because it's not like we fall into each and every one of these situations and immediately have the knowledge as to why we're there.

On the contrary, the large majority of the time, we have no idea why we're at the spot where the

Lord has us in any particular time. Sometimes we'll take advantage of that if it's the good times, and we won't think twice about why does the

Lord have me here, we just enjoy all of it. The tougher times though, it's a little bit easier for us to ask those questions and to be like,

Lord, why do you have me here? It may be months, it may be years before we have the answers, but the point is we are content exactly where he has us, even without that knowledge just yet.

And we can rest in his sufficient grace for as long as he has us there, that is contentment.

Now, as much more on that topic as we could talk about, let's shift to the second area, area number two,

Christ's sufficiency for our fulfillment, for our fulfillment. Now, I realize it may sound a little bit redundant to discuss both contentment and fulfillment, those sound kind of maybe one of the same, at least some considerable overlap there, but there are some very important distinctions to be sure.

Contentment is the ability to have peace in wherever God has us right now.

Contentment that we just talked about is the ability to have peace wherever God has us right now.

Fulfillment is that feeling of satisfaction with what God has for us right now.

There's the difference, fulfillment is the feeling of satisfaction with what God has for us right now.

Whether it's what we asked for, what we dreamed about, or not, we have a satisfaction in the will of God in where he has us right now.

There's the difference between contentment and fulfillment. And this reality of Christ being sufficient for our fulfillment in life is particularly important today.

The human mind has been absolutely ravished by the cultural emphasis on instant gratification, on notoriety, on the trendiness of the day or whatever.

The next big thing is the fear of missing out. These are the things that drive the human will today, and they have for all of human history.

There's just different terms with each generation. Those are some of the terms for our day. The next big thing, the fear of missing out, instant gratification.

These are the things that we go to thinking that it will deliver the fulfillment of our heart's desires.

Sadly though, that can be a problem even as it relates to the inherently good things. So think with me for just a second.

Everything I just mentioned, there's probably not a person in this room that would say, yeah man, those are some pretty silly things.

We obviously aren't going to find fulfillment there. There are people that do, or that seek for fulfillment there, and it's a sad thing.

But here's where it gets tricky, for lack of a better term again. Here's where we really have to dig in and start thinking about it as individual believers,

Christians, and understand just how potent and important the sufficiency of Christ is for each of us.

Because even in the things that are inherently good, there can be a misprioritization.

You shouldn't pick that word. For example, marriage, having kids, having friends, living life with each and every one of those people.

If we ever convince ourselves that our fulfillment could ever be found in any one of those groups, we are guaranteed to be disappointed.

Now, like I said, these are things that are inherently good. These are things that God ordained. This is marriage we're talking about, having kids, being fruitful, multiplying the earth, having

Christian friendships, in other words, fellowship among the brothers and sisters. These are things that are inherently good, and yet, even they can step into the place of Christ where he should be, and those are the things we look to for our ultimate fulfillment, when in reality, when we do that, utter disappointment is around the corner each and every time.

Why? Because people are finite. Even our spouse that we love with all of our hearts, even our kids, even our pastors, those in our church, they are finite.

People are finite. They are fallen creatures that have just as many issues with sin as you do.

So why would we ever think that the people in our lives will be able to see the desires of our heart?

Why do we think they would be able to fulfill the desires of our heart? Even when we express the desires of our heart, our articulations are finite, and they fail us.

We can't even express what our heart's desires are, let alone someone interpreting it exactly the way in which we want them to to find that utter fulfillment and joy.

So for the same reason that you cannot fulfill the every need of someone else, they cannot fulfill your every need.

You cannot put anybody in the place where Christ is meant to reside at the forefront of our minds.

No one can replace the sufficiency of Christ, because in everything and everyone else, you will find insufficiency.

Now, where does that leave us exactly? Does this mean that we need to become those nuns and those monks that I mentioned earlier, because only

Christ can fulfill our every need? Of course not. God divinely ordained that men and women be given in marriage, and that that marriage and that other earthly pleasures be enjoyed to the fullest degree.

Let me read a couple of verses to y 'all. I don't need to go here. You can jot them down and look at them later, but just listen for a second.

Behold, that which I have seen, it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink and to enjoy the good of all his labor, that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which

God giveth him, for it is his portion. Who gave it to him? It was God. These are the physical provisions of life.

These are the pleasures of life. That's Ecclesiastes 5 .18. Listen to this one. Live joyfully with the wife.

Live joyfully with the wife, whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun.

Who gave it to him? God. All the days of thy vanity, for that is thy portion in this life and in thy labor, which thou takest under the sun.

That's Ecclesiastes 9 .9. And there are a couple of dozen more passages in like manner that we could cover.

We are meant to enjoy the pleasures that God gives us. We are meant to absolutely, to the fullest degree, enjoy our marriage, to enjoy our children, to enjoy our social lives with our church family, with our brothers and sisters around.

What's the point, though? The point is, the first step to actually enjoying all of them in a way that actually is fulfilling is to make sure

Christ is at the center, that it is his sufficiency first and foremost we are relying on for our inner fulfillment, not any of those people involved in any of those

God -ordained things, because our fulfillment cannot be found there. The point here, again, is not that we are to neglect that which

God has given us in his grace. That is the sin of those people that I mentioned earlier that think everything material is just trash.

It's evil. It's garbage. Get rid of it. You know, walk the earth with nothing more than a bicycle at most because everything else is just too much, too earthy, and all of that is evil.

That, of course, like I said, Paul had to fight this in the first century. We still fight it today. That is a great evil, but we have to be careful to not put anything material, and I say material.

Jesus is still a man. He's on his throne. He's in the body that was crucified on the tree. We can't put anything material, anything in our lives, in the place that he is meant to reside or not to neglect that which

God has given to us in his grace. The point is to never put the creation before the creator.

What is that? It's idolatry, and we can do it too by thinking that there's a particular person in our life that we have to have or else all is lost.

It is not true. It's never been true. There's only one person that if he were gone, that if he were not in our lives, all would be lost legitimately, and that is

Christ, and of course that should be the drivetrain of our evangelism. That should be why we want to share his gospel.

Don't put the creation before the creator. You will never find a totus in your spouse, or your kids, or your friends outside of Jesus Christ.

Now, it starts to show us a little bit of what it looks like when

Christ's sufficiency does step into the right place and how we can begin to actually feel what we're looking for because every single person in this room, myself included, every single human being that has ever lived seeks that desire for fulfillment, for inner fulfillment.

God put that in us because that is part of what drives our creative abilities. It's part of what drives our desire to provide for our families, and so on, and so on, and so on.

That desire for fulfillment is a great thing. It's just, where are we looking for it?

The Bible covers that. Psalm 37. It says, trust the

Lord and do good so that thou dwell in the land and barely thou shalt be fed.

Delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart.

What else is the desires of our heart? It's the things that we are thinking about.

Use our mental capacities, reasoning, looking at the things that the Lord has set before us in the places, the country, the state, the county, the city that we are in.

What are the things that we do here? What are the fulfilling things that we accomplish in the place God has to fill in our lives, whether that be building institutions, whether that be serving our community, whether that be simply having the ideal place to raise your family, to raise your kids, all of these various things.

Those are the desires of our heart, and when those are fulfilled, well, there you go.

Fulfillment. You are fulfilled. He shall give you the desires of thine heart.

Look at verse 5. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.

All of the desires of our heart, that is fulfillment, and it comes from the

Lord. This is interesting. Think about this with me for a second.

There are conditions here. There are conditions for finding this total fulfillment in Christ.

What are those conditions? They are trusting him. These are all from the verses we just read. Trusting him, doing good.

What does that mean? Who finds good? By what standards, what we are doing good? Be God. That would be his law.

That would be the gospel. That would be all of scripture defining what good actually is.

Do that. Do good. Delight yourselves in the Lord. Commit your ways to the

Lord. These are the conditions that are given so that we can have what?

Fulfillment. Utter fulfillment. Total, genuine fulfillment. Exactly what every human that's ever lived has ever wanted.

Genuine fulfillment, but it comes and it flows from the Lord, and that happens when we actually turn to him and want to engage in a relationship with him and not just leave him out there as an optional deity that we can go to and ask whatever we want and get them or not get them.

That's how every other religion works. That's how every other false religion works. That's how the cults work. That is not how the actual

God and creator of the universe works, though. He designed everything with the intent on us having a relationship with him.

That's why we were created in the first place. In 1 Timothy, we learned that there was a promise made before the foundation of the earth.

There was a promise made between two people, that being the father and the son, before a single human was ever even created, before they were created, let alone thought of.

Humanity as a whole, and I'm talking as a human here, humanity as a whole was in the plan, was in the grand scheme.

Adam was not created yet, neither were any other humans, and yet a promise was made to redeem a particular people so that Christ could have and dwell with these humans he loved before they were even created.

That's when we were created, to have a relationship with him. So go figure. Every single one of these conditions for us to achieve this utter, total, genuine fulfillment that comes directly from the

Lord, the sufficiency of Christ, begins with us just doing our part. The ball is always in our court when it comes to relationship with the

Lord. It's not like he is busy doing things. No, standing there waiting for us to engage with him, trust him, do good, do his good, delight ourselves in him, commit our ways to the

Lord. When a person finds himself with a feeling of a lack of fulfillment, perhaps, perhaps it's because he's not doing this.

Perhaps he's not actually trusting in the Lord. Perhaps he hasn't been trusting the Lord or delighting in his ways or committing himself to his ways.

That takes a lot of trust to commit yourself to the Lord's ways and not your own.

That takes a lot of trust. And so perhaps if a person is not feeling the life, it's because they haven't been trusting him in committing themselves to his way.

That feeling of fulfillment in life greatly hinges upon whether we are actually trusting

Christ in the first place. So often, it seems to be an abundance day in particular, people will look far and wide.

If they, sometimes they don't have to look all that far. If they have to look far and wide, they will.

In order to garner some form of empathy from anyone else, from literally anyone that they can find in order to feel heard and in a strange kind of way to feel fulfilled because of being heard.

Again, that is putting people and them empathizing, and in many cases, a fake way with your toil, with your troubles, with the things that you could be taking to the

Lord. And they tell you they're sorry. And they tell you that, you know, they'll be before you.

And they may not even be lying. They may be 100 % genuine, but this odd thing happens.

You leave that conversation with the feeling, the need for more. You need to have that next conversation.

You need to find the next person who can empathize with all of your struggles. You need to find the next person that you can vent to, or worst case scenario, and I'm not accusing anybody of this,

I'm just talking through the natural progression of things, gossip with. These are things that people search for, yearn for, because they feel that in some weird kind of way, they will find fulfillment in that.

But never forget this. There is only one, one and only one person that can truly and fully empathize with the grief that you have, with the sorrows that you're dealing with, with any kind of hardship at all.

Let me say it one more time. There is only one person that can truly and fully empathize.

We throw that term around a lot, especially in this day and age. And by the way, just one more quick qualifier. Believe me,

I am aware that there are people that receive the spiritual gift of empathy, that are able to empathize maybe better than other people.

And that is a wonderful spiritual gift. I am not diluting in any way, shape or form, the people out there, and maybe some of you in this room that have the

God -given ability to go to a person and genuinely help them and point them back to Christ, starting with empathizing with them, and secondly, pointing them back to Christ.

That's not the part that we have an issue with. The part is when the other party seeks to go to those people in order to find their fulfillment, rather than to Christ.

And so there is one and only one person that can fully and truly and genuinely empathize, and that is

Jesus himself, because he's the only one that knows your heart, even the parts of your heart that you could not properly express to any other person if you tried.

If you yourself, the person with the issues, can't express it, how could you expect anyone to fully empathize with it?

They can't. Only Christ can do that, because only he knows your heart. We have taken up a lot of time already, but we have a little bit more.

Christ is the only one sufficient for your inner fulfillment, but now turn with me to Colossians chapter 2, and let's end with talking about Christ's sufficiency against the influence of men.

Against the influence of men. He is sufficient for our contentment.

He is sufficient for our fulfillment. But there's another issue that we run into often. Especially, I keep saying especially, as if these are new problems.

They seem especially for me because, you know, all of a sudden you see, you start observing all of these things, you start experiencing these things yourself for the first time in life, and then it's especially, right?

They've been happening forever. But the influence of men is not something to sleep on.

Peer pressure is tough, but even more than peer pressure, the experts, the philosophers, the religious leaders, these are guys that sound really, really smart, and in many cases they are smart.

If you define smart by book knowledge and by the world's wisdom, and that can be a very intimidating thing.

That can be a very intimidating thing. It could be something that even hurts our faith a little bit.

Gets us doubting things that we never thought we'd actually doubt, or at the very least questioning things.

Now, I'm not saying questioning things in and of itself is a bad thing. We talked about skepticism a little bit in Sunday School.

There can be a way in which critical thinking, critical thinking is obviously important, but there can be a way in which skepticism, it can be important.

But the point here is that the influence of men can get us questioning things, foundational truths, that we thought we would never deal with in the first place.

So look at Colossians chapter 2. In this passage, we find the preeminent example of Christ's efficiency in our lives in general.

We'll get to that in a second. We also see some other things. Now, within a matter of a few weeks,

Dad, of course, will be giving us a very deep exposition of this chapter. Today, I just want to read it and point out a couple of pertinent things, given the topic we've been talking about.

Look at verse 1 of chapter 2. For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and do all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the

Father and of Christ, in whom are all things, excuse me, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

In this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words, for though I be absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, joining and beholding your order in the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, established in the faith, and as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy, in vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete, that's sufficiency, in him which is the head of all the principality and power, in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

In you, being dead in your sins, in the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you of all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.

And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ.

Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility, in worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the head, from which all the body, by joints and by bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.

Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, touch not, taste not, handle not, which are all to perish with the unusing, after the commandments and doctrines of men, which things have indeed a show of wisdom, and in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.

So much is in that chapter. There's one thing in particular I want to draw out, and that is the influence of men. But I want you to consider for a second that the protection against the influence of men is in the context of reminding us about Christ's victory over the principalities, the powers, the spiritual realm, the demon world.

And right in the middle of talking about being careful of the worldly philosophy of men,

Paul is reminding us about Christ's defeat of the demons and of the devil. Isn't that weird? Because think about it.

Rationalism, right? Materialism. It totally disregards anything in the realm of possibility of being spiritual.

There being a spiritual plane to anything. Paul could not care less. He dealt with it too.

We deal with it now. Yes, we deal with the new atheism. We deal with the new philosophical ideas, the new frameworks.

All of our loved ones that are going to college or, you know, that's around the horizon for them, or maybe you've already been to college, you know exactly what

I'm talking about. The arguments against anything in the spiritual realm, of course, is immense.

And yet Paul is like, who cares? Christ defeated all of it. He defeated all the principalities and powers.

Don't let the philosophies of men spoil you. It's all right there. So let's take note of a couple of things.

The people that are living, or I should say attending, the church at Colossae were being told by false teachers that they needed more than Christ.

That they needed more than Christ. The exact opposite of the conclusion we are reaching in this study.

That Christ is efficient in all things. They were being told that they needed more than Christ. Christ plus their rudiments.

Christ plus their philosophy. Christ plus their doctrine and their commandments. Now men, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, want us to believe that rationality is the starting point from which there you then begin to argue for your particular philosophical framework of choice and then move out from there.

Now here's the real kicker. They say start with rationality, but they are the ones that define rationality.

They're the ones that get to define it. What does Paul think of that? He calls it vanity. That's verse 8.

Now why? Why can Paul be so confident that these things are such vanity?

How can he just say these things with such ease when it feels like such a battle to us? Why is it such vanity?

Because look at verse 9 and 10. In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And even more than that, even though Christ is the fullness of deity, we are complete in him.

That's why it's such vanity. That's why Paul could say this with such ease because he realizes his position in Christ.

We are complete in him and in him is all of deity. The entire Godhead is right there, verses 9 and 10.

All the fullness of God is in Christ and Christ is in you and you are complete in him.

What persuasion of men could possibly draw us away from the incomparable son that we rest within in whom we are complete?

What kind of argumentation could you ever receive that could thwart that, that could actually get us off track?

Well, it can happen. It can spoil us. That's the whole purpose of this chapter.

So what do we do? We rely on the sufficiency of Christ. We go back to him. We remember that in him he is sufficient in all things.

Then all of a sudden we can approach this with the ease that Paul approaches it with. It can be strong, perhaps even strong enough to spoil us.

So we have to beware. But once in him, his sufficiency is enough against the influences of such men.

Human philosophy doesn't have the answers for defeating the demon world.

Philosophy doesn't have the answers for defeating the principalities and powers, but Christ does.

That's verse 15. No man can judge you in what you eat or what you drink or your disregard or your observance of certain festivals, whether you do it or you don't.

No man can tell you that those particular things, those, no man can create this, this kind of manmade formulaic approach to getting right with God.

And he certainly cannot project that on you as if it has any power over you because of Christ's sufficiency.

That's verse 16. No man can pull you into their higher religious experience in order to be closer to God.

Men that are constantly on the search for this higher mystical view of the universe, wondering, you know, what the meaning of the universe is by means of psychedelics, among other things, visions that they have that are unique to them.

Only they know what the vision was and only they can give you the insights from this vision. No man can do that and feel that they have some sort of religious support and superiority over you.

Why is that? Because Christ is sufficient. That's verse 18. No man can tell you that your holiness is dependent on your view of the material provisions that God gave us himself.

That's verses 20 and 21. And to what end is all of this? To what end is the mysticism, the asceticism, the legalism?

Where does all of this get you in the end? Where is this going to take all of these philosophers?

Where is it going to take all of these guys that have these perfect rudiments and commandments and doctrines?

Look at verse 23 one more time, and I'm going to read it in the New King James because it makes slightly updated

English, makes it really pack a punch. When you get to Paul's conclusion here, it says, these things indeed have an appearance of wisdom.

Paul even grants that. He even lets us know, look, these things can have an appearance of wisdom in self -imposed religion, false humility in the neglect of the body.

But what happens in the end? But they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

So in the end, all of these legalists, all of these mystics, all of these hyper -religious people that try to bring the gauntlet down on you and say that you need their stuff in addition to Christ, in the end, every single one of them will fall prey to their own sin.

Every single one of them will indulge in the sin habits of their youth, which is a big irony, especially for the legalists, as the

Pharisees were called, the hypocrites, because they're saying you have to live this holy life, and yet they're committing adultery, and yet they are doing the very sins that they say you can't do in order to fit in their inner circle.

In the end, there is no value in any of this stuff against the indulgence of the flesh.

They will be indulging in their sin no matter what. It is by Christ's sufficiency alone that we avoid this foolishness that Paul lays out in chapter 2.

So let me tell you, we are no better intrinsically, we are no better intrinsically than the very men that are spoken of so harshly by Paul in this passage.

In other words, we are depraved as well. Now, we have something they don't if we believe in Christ, but intrinsically, we are no different than them.

We could just as easily fall prey to any one of these things. It had to start for them somewhere. It could start with us too.

We're not intrinsically better. We are all depraved. If we take our eye off the Lord, if we stop relying on his sufficiency, if we fail to rely on his sufficiency in our lives, we will fall prey to such terrible ploys and pitfalls that add to the saving gospel of Christ and distract humanity from their own impending judgment.

Go figure, the devil has all of these whimsical ideas he throws at humans that they fall prey to, and it distracts them from their need of a savior.

It distracts them from the fact that the next time the Lord comes, it will be in judgment, not as a humble servant, not as a man of sorrows, but as a coronated king that's coming to judge them.

They're all distracted from that. Now, as we await, as we as believers, those believing, those that are being saved, as we talked about last week, as we await the glorious return of our

Lord, knowing that we who believe in his name will be received into his kingdom, let us remember that in order to feel the contentment, in order to feel the fulfillment, and to feel the protection from God -hating men in this life, all we have to do is return to his side and fall into his rest and into his peace.

I'll end with this. Paul tells us, in such trust have we through Christ to Godward, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.

Our sufficiency is of God. That's 2 Corinthians 3, verses 4 and 5.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful day. Thank you for bringing us all together once more, allowing us the opportunity, the enormous opportunity to abide in your word as a group, as a congregation, as a local congregation.

Thank you for enlightening all of us with your spirit as we progress through your word, as we turn to each and every page of scripture, and we rely on you to show us the meaning and the sense and the intent behind every one of the words that we dive into here.

We thank you for sending your spirit so that we can do these things. Lord, we thank you most of all for the sacrifice you made for us so that we have hope, so that we have a sufficient one to lean into because everything else around us, including ourselves, is insufficient.

Thank you for giving us the answer to these problems. Thank you for giving us an answer to our discontentment if we have it, to our lack of fulfillment as we have it, or to all of the people around us trying to confuse us with all of these philosophical constructs that don't even come from your word.

We thank you, Lord, for providing us with the answer to all of it, with the antidote to all of it, that being you and your sufficiency.

We ask you to be with us for the rest of today. We ask you to be with us as we fellowship one with another here in just a moment.

Protect all of us as we go home afterward, and we ask all these things in your name. Amen. You are dismissed.