Colossians Intro. Jesus Is Enough: The Powerful Reality of Christ's Life In Us

Well, good morning. It's good to be together with you this morning. And as we move into Colossians, you know what's interesting is that there's a lot of tie between, there's a lot of connection between what we, actually even where we finished studying in Romans, because of course we did the whole book and then we went back to do, you know, 512 through chapter eight. And where we left off at the end of chapter eight ties in just amazingly with where we're going in Colossians now.

And so I want to draw some of that out this morning. And before we do that, I should mention the one handout, I guess, that was in your bulletin this morning. It's titled, For This I Have Jesus. And this is something that we just picked up off the back rack there at the back of the church.

You know, I read this, oh, I don't know, a month ago, and then I started studying Colossians and preparing this message, and I completed it, and Alyssa had kind of had it in her mind to maybe print some copies of this to hand out, and I went back and read it last night, and I realized my message so closely parallels what this woman wrote in this paper. And so I encourage you to read it later, but a lot of the truths are very parallel. And so it fits really well with what we're going to be talking about this morning. But if you look at where we ended at the end of Romans, I know you've probably got your place in Colossians there, but I'll just read the last three verses of Romans 8.

But in all these things, and what is he talking about? He's talking about the trials and difficulties. That's what Romans 8 has a lot to say about. In all of these things, we overwhelmingly conquer. But that key phrase there, through him who loved us.

And then, as Courtney mentioned this morning, for I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And so we're coming off of this theme in Romans that is all about Christ's life in us, And, you know, I actually gave a title for this morning's introduction message as the powerful reality of Christ's life in us. And I didn't even realize that Christ's life in us is exactly the title of the last series in Romans 6 through 8. So we're really just moving from talking about the fact that you are inseparably joined to Jesus Christ as your life to now in Colossians examining the power, the tremendous power of that life.

And that's where we get this theme that Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough. So I just wanna open in prayer and then we're gonna get into Colossians a little bit. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the opportunity to be in your word this morning. I thank you for the things that you have revealed to us in your word, things that are so important, things that we could never spend too much time on. And I just pray that this morning you would just illuminate our understanding to these things and that they would go deep into our hearts and that they would, really impact our lives in a very real way. So I just pray for that this morning in Jesus' name, amen. So one of the things that I really want to drive home this morning is the practical the practical application of what we're going to be studying in Colossians.

As we said, this is all about the Lord Jesus. It's about the fact that Jesus is enough. And Jesus is the focus of the epistles of the Colossians. And I want us to realize as we go through this study over the next several months, this study will probably take us up until Christmas is kind of where we've got it scheduled out. I want you to see that this isn't just theology. This is incredibly practical, very, very practical. The things that Paul is teaching are intended to be practical in your marriage, in your family, in your career, every aspect of your day-to-day walk.

And as I said, we titled this series, Jesus is Enough. because that's the whole point. And sometimes if you've studied Colossians in the past, sometimes people will say the theme of Colossians is the sufficiency of Christ or the supremacy of Christ. And that's true. But when we say it that way, I feel like that can seem kind of just like a theological point and it can be disconnected from your personal reality. But if you understand personally that Jesus is enough then you know that no matter what situation or circumstance you find yourself in, right, if I have Jesus living in me and I do as a believer, then I have enough. He is enough. And that's very practical. And that's what we wanna look at this morning. Why is that? Why is it so practical to know that I have Jesus living in me? That's where we're headed. We're going to talk about that theme a little later on, but we want to first get ourselves oriented.

We want to look at who wrote this letter, who is it written to, what are the circumstances behind the writing, and really anything that helps give us context, right? Because without context, words can be very, very confusing. Have you ever jumped into the middle of a conversation or overheard some just piece of a conversation and it just seemed really strange? So context is really important. Context matters. So doing this kind of study, maybe it seems a little dry or academic to you, but it's actually a really important part of understanding the Bible.

If you've got yourself in Colossians still, hopefully you're in chapter one, we just wanna talk about who wrote this, who's it written to, and the name Colossians, we got a little chart here, the name Colossians comes from the fact that this letter is written to the Christians who lived in the city of Colossae. Okay, in case you hadn't caught that, the letter to the Colossians is written to the believers at Colossae. So that's the audience of this letter. And the letter is written, of course, by the Apostle Paul.

So looking at verses one and two of chapter one, Paul, and we'll go through this in detail next week. Today was just the introduction. So we're gonna be jumping around. We're just looking at the big picture. But verse one and two, Paul writes, This is an introduction.

He gives his name first. In the Greek manner, you'd give your own name first. So Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy, our brother. So Paul is the author. Timothy is accompanying him. He's not the author of it, but he's with him and kind of sending his greetings. Timothy, our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren. which is a term for believers, these are Christians, in Christ, brethren in Christ, who are at Colossae. Grace to you and peace from God our Father. So we know quite a bit about Paul already, right? We know the Apostle Paul. But what do we know about Colossae? Does anybody know anything about Colossae? We'll put up a map here. Colossae is, now this is probably impossible for you to see, but Colossae is right here. Okay? And this is Asia in biblical terms, which of course is modern day Turkey. Okay?

So you'd be more familiar with Ephesus over here on the coast. Okay, and down here we have Miletus. You'll remember that when Paul came back through, he wanted to see the Ephesian elders. This is Miletus where he met them and he called them down so that he wouldn't go up in person. He wanted to just have a dedicated bit of time with the elders and not, you know, see the entire church at that time. And so anyway, Colossae is way over here.

And it's located on the Lycus River, which is a tributary to the Meander River, which actually flows down and empties into the ocean here at Miletus. And this is about roughly 100 miles between Ephesus and Colossae. That's about 100 miles per scale, which may not seem awfully far to 21st century people.

If you kind of calculate it out, that's probably a seven to ten day walk, which would be the way most people would have gotten around. So that's a little ways away. If you can imagine somewhere where you've got to drive seven days to get there, a seven day journey, that'd be a long way. And they would kind of have felt about the same way about it, right? So this is kind of in the backwoods of Asia.

Colossae is located in this region called Phrygia or Phrygia, depending on how you want to pronounce it. And it's really close here to Laodicea and Hierapolis. Now you might recognize the name Laodicea because it's one of the seven churches that is addressed in the seven letters of Revelation. In chapter 4, verse 13 of Colossians, Paul actually mentions those two cities.

He says that Epaphras, we'll talk about him in a little bit, Epaphras has a deep concern for you and for those who are at Laodicea and Hierapolis. So they're kind of, he lumps them together. He thinks of them... Together. And then in verses 15 and 16, Paul actually gives this instruction to the Colossians. He says, greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and also Nympha and the churches in her house. When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans and you, for your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea. So, which is very common in this day that, you know, you'd send a letter to one church and then they would circulate it around so that everybody could read it.

So, they didn't have photocopiers, right? They couldn't just mail off, you know, five letters. It's like, just pass it around. Now, copies were made later, but these churches were in very close proximity. Our nephew, Caleb, visited Turkey a couple of years ago, and he went to Laodicea and Hierapolis, I believe, and he told us that Colossae is within visible sight of Laodicea, so it's quite close. Now, I don't know elevations and stuff, how far, I mean, I think I looked up how many miles between, but whatever the case, he says within visible sight.

But he said that there's not much to see there. He didn't even go there because Colossae, he said it's just a hill with some rocks on it because Colossae has never been excavated. So we don't know a lot about it because it hasn't been of great interest to secular archaeology. And there's not a lot written about it in history.

So, in fact, this is the only place where the word Colossae is even mentioned in the Bible. This is the only reference to Colossae. We think of it maybe a little bit bigger in our minds because we've got one of the books of the New Testament to the Colossians. But really, it kind of, you know, in a lot of ways, an insignificant place, we might think. So how did there come to be a church at Colossae?

And this is also very interesting because we might just kind of naturally think, well, Paul planted it. Because didn't Paul plant all the churches in, you know, at that time? Well, what's interesting is that there's actually no record of Paul ever visiting Colossae. You know, we have records of Paul going to Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, all the other places he's writing letters to. He actually visited and established churches there. But this is the only place that Colossians mentioned. It's not mentioned even in the book of Acts. There's no record of Paul traveling there or doing any ministry or evangelism there, okay?

So we, you know, we think that Paul had probably never been there. And, you know, we, not just because it's not mentioned in Acts, but actually because of some of the things that he says in this letter. In Colossians 2 verse 1, he says, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, again, connection, and for all those who have not personally seen my face. So apparently, they had never seen Paul. They'd never seen him face to face. But a third reason that we think that Paul had probably not been to Colossae is that in chapter 1, he talks about how the Colossians heard the gospel. And he says that it wasn't from him.

So in Colossians 1, 3 through 7, he says, We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. which you previously heard in the word of truth the gospel which has come to you just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow bondservant who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf.

So we know that it was Epaphras who brought the gospel to Colossae. and not Paul. Paul said that he heard the report of the Colossians' faith in the gospel. And, you know, I think there is something, just a little side note, something important we can learn from this because we often think of Paul traveling around and planting all the churches. But, of course, Paul was not the only evangelist in the early church. And here we have an example of the the multiplication factor that we talked about in Sunday school a little bit at work in the church. Paul entrusted the gospel and the truth of the word of God to faithful men who would pass it on to others. And we believe that's what happened with Paul and Epaphras. We know that Epaphras was a native of Colossae because Paul calls him one of your number. later in the book of Colossians, but how did it happen that Epaphras brought the gospel to his hometown of Colossae? Where did he hear the gospel?

And then bring it back home, so to speak. Well, if you flip over, hold your place and flip to Acts 19. We don't know for sure, but a lot of scholars agree with this, and it could be, and I think it holds quite a bit of weight, that Acts 19 gives us the answer to that question.

This is Paul's third missionary journey, and it's on this journey that he stayed put in Ephesus for over two years. You remember back on the map that Ephesus was on the sea. So Ephesus was a major port city, which means that people would travel there. You had to get your goods from out in the backwoods of Colossae, right, to port cities like Ephesus. And so it was a hub of first century commerce, which made it a very strategic location if you wanted to get a message out.

And so for two years, it says that Paul trained believers there in Ephesus in the school of Tyrannus. And it turns out that this is a very effective strategy. So just reading there, We'll read Acts 19 verse 1 and then skip down and read verses 8 through 10. So it says, it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus and found some disciples. This is Paul's first time in Ephesus, and it says, and he entered the synagogue, down to verse eight, and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some of them were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the way before the people, he withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.

And this is kind of the key here, it says this took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. And so Colossae would be included in that all Asia. So it's possible, quite possible, I think, that it was during this time that Epaphras was trained by Paul and then returned to his own hometown with the gospel. And probably also those surrounding cities, Laodicea and Hierapolis, because remember we read about Epaphras' deep concern, not only for the Colossians, but for the Laodiceans and the believers at Hierapolis. And so it could very well be that this is how the gospel went out. And that was a very effective way of reaching an entire region with the gospel.

And we won't go into detail on that, but I think there are things that we can learn from that and apply in our own day. So what do we actually know about the church at Colossae? What do we know about it? Because this is the only place where it's mentioned. And so, in reality, we don't know a lot. As I said, we don't have much of a historical record about either the city of Colossae or the church there. This is the, everything that we know, really, almost everything, well, everything that we know about the church, the Colossian church, has to be deducted from this letter.

Now, except for possibly one thing, okay? Because if we study this letter and then compare it with Paul's letter to Philemon, you know, the little letter at the last of Paul's letters in the New Testament, we can connect that Philemon lived in Colossae.

Because in Colossians 4.9, Paul talks about Onesimus.

And Onesimus is with Paul and sending his greetings and Paul calls him, one of your number. Same thing he said about Epaphras actually. So if you remember, if you recall Philemon, we know that Onesimus was this slave who ran away from his master Philemon and ended up coming in contact with Paul in Rome and ended up believing the gospel and getting saved. And then the book of Philemon is Paul's letter to Philemon, Onesimus' master, instructing him to receive Onesimus back as a fellow brother, no longer just his slave. And he gives him instructions about that.

And, you know, between that and actually a few other details that we won't take time for right now, there's actually a pretty strong case to say that Philemon lived in Colossae. And if that's correct, and I think it is, then we know that the Colossian church actually met in Philemon's house because in Philemon one, or well, it's only verses one and two. Paul writes, to Philemon, our beloved brother and fellow worker, and to Apphia, our sister, and to Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house. And of course we know that the church at this time often met in, you know, kind of whoever had the biggest house, right? Whoever had space and could host. And so the Colossian believers probably met in Philemon's house.

So that's one of the few things we know about the Colossian Church. And even that's kind of, well, what is that? Not terribly significant, but we know a little bit. That gives us a little bit of background. So most of what we know about the Colossian Church has to be drawn from the specific things that Paul talks about in this letter. Okay, so we kind of read between the lines a little bit. Sometimes it's more direct than others.

But for instance, we see in Colossians 2 verse 5, Paul says to them that he is rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Jesus Christ. So these were, we could say, growing, maturing believers. But we also see that the Colossian church wasn't free from problems. We get the idea, well, we see pretty clearly, that there were false teachers around Colossae that Paul needs to warn them about. And in verse 8 of chapter 2, Paul writes, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. Okay, and then in verse 18 and following, Paul gets a little bit more direct, and he even indicates that the Colossian believers were falling prey to these false teachings. I didn't put this on the overhead because it's pretty long, but in chapter 2, verse 18 through 23, you can follow along there.

He says, let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking a stand on visions he has seen inflated without cause by his fleshly mind. and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. If you have died with Christ, and that's assumed true, to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees? Notice that, they were submitting themselves to decrees, okay? Such as, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which all refer to things destined to perish with you, in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men. We're gonna draw that out in a moment. These are matters which have to be sure the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

And that probably tells us why Paul is writing this letter. That's forefront in his mind, is that there is some false teaching that is coming into this church. And I need to explain to you guys a little bit more fully about that false teaching and the danger of it. as compared to holding fast to the head from whom growth is supplied, right? And so Paul has this concern, and we actually see his concern fairly clearly in Colossians 1. 28 through 2 verse 1. Maybe an unfortunate chapter break.

Paul says, we proclaim him admonishing, again, this is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is, like we said, this is all about Jesus in this letter. We proclaim Jesus admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor striving according to his power which mightily works within me for I want you to know how great how Great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea and for all those who have not personally seen my face So we see that Paul had this great struggle.

He was he was concerned, you know and Paul This is kind of an interesting thing, right, because sometimes we talk about do not be anxious about anything, but in all things, you know, and I know that Paul knew he could trust the Lord, right, and yet he also understood this is a danger, this is a threat, and he had a responsibility to address it. So it was concerning. He had a deep concern about it. He knew he could trust the Lord with it, and we know that he prayed about it because he talks about his prayer for them right in chapter one, but he also knew that he needed to address this difficulty, this problem.

So even though we don't know a lot, maybe historically, about the Colossian church, When we look at what Paul is saying to them and the issues that he's addressing, what we realize is that Colossians is totally relevant for us today. We need this letter as much as they did because the issues haven't changed. Just like the Colossians, we're really prone to buying into these religious ideas, these things that have the appearance of wisdom. They're really the same ideas today, maybe in slightly different forms, but not much. And we gravitate into them just as easily as believers have through all of church history.

And what Paul does in this letter is he contrasts two different ways of living the Christian life, or we could say one way of attempting to live the Christian life and God's way. So we have one, trying to live the Christian life according to man's wisdom, and then we have God's way. And you know, there's no question, we need to be really clear about this, there's no question that God desires for you and I to walk in a godly way, to live a righteous, godly life.

Look in chapter 1 in verses 9 and 10, and then hold your place here, because we're going to look at 9 and 10 for the moment. But this is where Paul is sharing his prayer for the Colossians. This is what Jim was reading this morning. He says, for this reason also, since the day we heard of it, what?

Well, their faith in Jesus Christ, right? So we found out that these people at Colossae had received the gospel, they were born again, he heard that, and from that moment, he says, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that what? So that you will walk. in a manner worthy of the Lord to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. You know, sometimes people hear us, we emphasize grace a lot here, don't we? And sometimes people hear the message of grace and they think, well, that means you don't care about what believers do in their day-to-day walk. And that's not true. That's not what grace means.

And Paul is very clear on that here. He's praying for them that they would grow in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that they would walk. in a godly way, in a way pleasing to the Lord. You know, there's no question about the fact that God desires for you and I to have a godly life.

The question is, how are we going to do that? How does that actually work? And that's where, you know, these two different ways come in. We have, on the one hand, man's wisdom. which is all the ideas that we come up with about how to live a godly life.

And you know, honestly, this all looks very good. This kind of stuff, I say it preaches well. It preaches really well because it's what people want to hear. You can get up and preach a message along those lines and you can fill a stadium. You can film multiple campus stadiums, right? And you can be on a big screen and you can tell people about all of the gimmick ideas about how to live the Christian life, and it's all man-centered. Everyone just wants, well, just tell me what to do. Tell me how to live the Christian life and I'll do it.

And so it sells, it preaches. This is ear-tickling kind of stuff, right? And then we have God's way. God's way of living the Christian life. And God's provision for the Christian life is simply that he has united us to his son, the Lord Jesus, in order that he, Jesus, would do the living through us by his spirit.

And that doesn't preach very well, okay? Frankly, it doesn't make a lot of sense to the fleshly mind, okay? But it's the truth. In Colossians 3, 4, Paul refers to Jesus as Christ who is our life. So that's God's way of living the Christian life, is his son Jesus Christ. The problem is that even as believers, right, we may know that that's true. We may say that, yeah, Jesus Christ is my life.

But when it comes to the practical application of that, when it comes to some real life difficulty, we don't really believe that we can depend on the Lord Jesus. You know, just depending on Jesus seems highly impractical in the face of some real life situation. And we're not really sure that simply trusting him is going to do anything. And we feel a lot more comfortable handling things in our own wisdom and in our own strength.

And so we need to become convinced of the power that is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. So what Paul does in this letter is he contrasts the power of Jesus Christ, who is our life, with the futility of man's religious ideas. And you know, it's only useful to know that Jesus is our life if we are convinced of who he is and of what kind of power he has. And Paul lays that out in very, very powerful terms in this letter. And we need to hear this because if we don't understand who Jesus is and what kind of power and authority he has, then we can't trust him and we won't trust him.

We'll always gravitate back to our human gimmicks. right, trying to handle things in our own strength. I had you hold your place in verses 9 and 10 of chapter 1. We left off with verse 10, right, about the fact that Paul's praying that they would have this godly walk and pleasing to God. But, you know, he says, walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please him in all our sex, bearing fruit in every good work. But how are we supposed to do that? How does that happen? Verse 11 answers that.

Strengthened with all power according to His glorious might. None of this is done in your strength. Your willpower isn't enough. Your strategies won't work. The best that you and I will ever produce is just some degree of human goodness. You know, some righteousness of my own, as Paul calls it, which is just filthy rights. It's worthless, useless. You will never, through your own strategy, through your own method, produce the fruit of the Spirit.

You know, His righteousness, true godliness, the strength that is provided for the Christian life is His strength. It is according to His glorious might. And we receive that power, how? By faith. We receive His power by faith. Remember what we saw in 129, we just kind of passed over it because it wasn't our focus at the time, but Paul says, I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.

And that's really the central theme of this letter. Sorry, I missed one of your blanks there for you. Faith was the word. The central theme of the letter is the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, if you've been united to the Lord Jesus, and that's what we really saw in Romans, that you've been joined to him and nothing can separate you from him, right? And if you know what kind of power he has, then you know that you already have all strength. for any circumstance, for anything that you face.

So that explains why Paul structures this letter the way he does. He's gonna get into some really practical day-to-day issues beginning in chapter three, verse 12. And it's there where Paul, kind of in a typical style, right? We see this in Paul. He's going to talk about relationships in the church amongst fellow believers. He's going to talk about husband-wife relationships. He's going to talk about parents and children. in that arena, he's gonna talk about work and how employees and employers should function, all very practical day-to-day stuff.

But before Paul gets to talking about those things, he has to give us a very clear picture of just who Jesus is. If we're going to live a godly life in all of those areas, then we have to know about the power and authority that Jesus has. Otherwise, we're going to hit the imperative commands in chapter 3 and 4, and we're going to automatically start to think that we can accomplish those things in our strength and by our strategies and our methods. So before Paul gets to that, he emphasizes who Jesus is and the fact that he is our life and the power that he has.

And we see that really clearly put kind of together in one thought in chapter two, verses nine and 10. Notice the, you know, how huge Jesus is in Paul's mind. For in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And in him, you have been made complete. And he is the head over all rule and authority. So what Paul is trying to show us is not only that Jesus is God himself, the fullness of deity dwells in him. but that Jesus as a man has been placed in the highest position of authority.

And that's really important because it's as a man that we are joined to Jesus. We're never united to him in his deity. We're not united to deity. We are united to the man, Jesus Christ. because he is the head of the redeemed race of humanity as a man. He had to be made flesh.

So once that he could die for our sins as a man, but also so that he could be the head of a whole new race of mankind. So that when we put our faith in Jesus Christ and we are made new creations in Christ, we become literally new creatures. We are part of a new kind of humanity.

And so Jesus, we have to see that Jesus as a man has all authority. Paul's trying to tell us that Jesus' humanness doesn't imply weakness. That's what seeing Jesus, the glorified risen man, Jesus, at the Father's right hand is all about. That's the position that Jesus holds.

And we share in his same position because we are joined to him. We are identified with him so that we share his position. Now, we have to recognize the significance of that position, because we're going to talk a lot about that in Colossians, right? Set your mind on things above. Where? Where Christ is seated at the right hand, right?

We talk a lot about position here at Holly Hills, and it can be a really abstract concept. And to be honest, I hadn't really encountered Christians who talk about our position much before encountering Holly Hills. And it can be kind of abstract, and I don't want it to be abstract for you. I want to help make it as concrete and practical as I possibly can this morning.

Think about Joseph back in Genesis 41. You're thinking, why are we talking about Joseph all of a sudden? Well, think about what happened to Joseph in Genesis 41. Do you recall? Joseph had been sold into slavery and then wound up in prison and the whole story.

But then the Lord brings him before Pharaoh and he interprets the dream for Pharaoh. And Pharaoh is so impressed that this is the way he responds. He says, so Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has informed you of all this, There is no one so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house. And according to your command, all my people shall do homage. Only in the throne I will be greater than you. Are you beginning to see a connection?

Pharaoh said to Joseph, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring, which was like, that was the symbol of, because with the signet ring, you could make a declaration and seal it with the highest authority in the whole realm, right?

And it carried all authority. So he took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold necklace around his neck. He had him ride in his second chariot and they proclaimed before him, bow the knee. And he set him over all the land of Egypt.

There's a direct parallel between what happened to Joseph and what happened to Jesus. And I think God designed it that way, so we could see this parallel. It foreshadows Jesus Christ. Joseph was elevated to the highest position of authority in the entire land of Egypt, subject only to Pharaoh. And that's exactly parallel to Jesus Christ. Jesus has been elevated to the highest position of authority in the universe.

Before Jesus ascended to heaven, to take that place, he said this to his disciples, you'll recognize this as part of the Great Commission, but we sometimes pass over this part. It says, and Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Now, if you think about that, that's the biblical term for the whole created order. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So Jesus was about to ascend to heaven and receive that authority from the Father, to be placed in authority over everything.

And that's the significance of the fact that Jesus is positioned or seated at the right hand of God the Father. When we talk about being seated in the heavenlies, in Ephesians, right? When we talk about fixing our eyes on Him in that place at the Father's right hand, were to be thinking about the position of power and authority that Jesus has been given by the Father. That's why we fix our eyes on Jesus in heaven.

Okay? The power and authority that he has is the power and authority that you need in your daily walk, in your daily life. And when we recall the position of power that Jesus has been given by the Father, then we know that there's no such thing as an impossible situation. His power is always available and it's always sufficient. Jesus is enough. And so when we talk about position, it's not, sometimes we say location, right? I mean, location, location, location. But it's not just about the location, it's about what it means to be in that location or to be in that position. Think about this.

Is there any power in an office that is oval? No. Okay, you could build for yourself an Oval Office. In fact, when I was up to the age of four, I lived in the White House, the White House on Russell Street in Russell, Manitoba. But there was no power in holding that position, right? So in the same way, the Oval Office has no power, but if you hold that office, you have some serious power, don't you? If you hold the position of office in the Oval Office, you are at the helm of the United States of America. You have power.

In the same way, because Jesus holds his position in the heavenlies at the Father's right hand, it's not the location that matters so much, it's what it means to hold that position. Jesus is the most powerful person in the entire universe. And when you understand that, and you connect that with the fact that you are united to Him as your life, that Jesus Christ is your life, then you begin to understand how practical that is in your day-to-day life. When you and I are depending on the Lord Jesus, then there is unlimited power for our day-to-day walk. And that means that when the whole world is falling apart around you, maybe it's just your car is burning up on the side of the road. This happened to some of us this last week.

But when your world is falling apart, I don't have to be afraid. I don't have to be afraid. When temptation seems so strong, I don't have to handle it in my strength. When someone hurts me, I don't have to react out of self-defense. And it goes on and on. We could keep making these applications, but this is very, very practical.

Because no matter what the situation that you find yourself in as a Christian, you can never say that you do not have what it takes to walk in a godly way, right? Because you have been strengthened with all power, but we've gotta be very, very clear on this, because this has nothing to do with your power. You have been strengthened, and you have been strengthened by someone else. Because this all has to do with who Jesus is, his power and his ability, his strength and his authority, and the fact that you've been joined to him as your very life.

And when you understand that, then you can begin to trust him moment by moment. And when we're walking through things that threaten to overwhelm us, things that threaten to take us down in total defeat, Then we can say, in myself, I know that I'm insufficient to this. I do not have what it takes to walk through this in a godly way, but I know who Jesus is. I have an inkling of his power. and I know that he lives in me for every moment, including this one, right? For this, I have Jesus. And so no matter what I'm facing today, Jesus is enough, and he's enough for today, and he's enough for the next day, and the next, and the next, as we walk on until the day that we are face-to-face with him and we really, really know who he is. But Jesus will always be enough.

Heavenly Father, I just pray that you would make this clear to us and real to us for our day-to-day walk. As we begin this letter to the Colossians, things that they needed to hear almost 2,000 years ago, we still need to hear them today. We're so prone to relying on our ideas, our wisdom, our strength, the things that seem to make sense to us in the moment. We need to recognize the vanity of those things, the impossibility of living the Christian life by those methods. And we need to understand that you've given us your Son, Jesus Christ, as our life for every moment. and who he is, the kind of strength and power and authority that he has, so that in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer, but it's not us who has overwhelmingly conquered, it's Jesus Christ, and in him, through him, we overwhelmingly conquer.

So I pray, Lord, that as we go into this study over the next several months, that you would just really make these truths clear as we begin to examine some of the details and some of the facts about why this is and how this is, and that we would learn to trust this to be true. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.