“Did God actually say?” These words set in motion the fall, mankind’s loss of fellowship with God. But this tragedy set the stage for redemption in the Promised Savior to conquer the cunning serpent, Satan. All the pain, sorrow, and loss in our lives trace back to when Adam and Eve abandon God’s Word for Satan’s lies. But the Gospel of Grace has the final word. We see what was lost when God’s Word was abandoned and how God’s final word of grace triumphs over sin.

As we conclude our series in Colossians we see how it looks to live out of the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus. Last week, Paul applied these Gospel realities to our everyday relationships. This week, Paul calls us to a larger kingdom mindset; called to a life of prayerful watching, anticipating, and expecting God’s work in our lives and to be a people who exhibit Christ to the world around us in a post-Christian world in need of the saving power of the gospel.

Paul begins to wrap things up at the end of the letter by spelling out what the glories of Christ mean for even our most ordinary relationships. In our passage this Sunday, Paul details what it might look like to do everything in the name of the Lord. The lordship of Christ means everything for the places in life God has called us as we explore what it might look like to do marriage, family, and work life in the name of the Lord.

This week looking at the well-know story of Jonah, we’ll turn to chapter 4, where we will contemplate Jonah’s displeasure and anger at his enemies receiving mercy and in doing so, we must also search the condition of our hearts and ask ourselves this question: Are we okay with our enemies receiving mercy? In thinking through this question, we must first bear to mind the great mercy and forgiveness that our Heavenly Father has shown us in His Son our Lord, Jesus Christ.

In the final section of Colossians, Paul unpacks what it means to live our lives in the fullness of Jesus. While the opening emphasizes the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ for all things pertaining to our status before God, the closing turns to the practical topics of application. Paul and other New Testament writers offer the basic message that how you live always comes from who you are. Join us as we consider what growth and maturity in Christ look like in the life of the believer.

In our journey though Colossians, Paul has shown us that to be in Christ is to be filled with the fullness of God. So why don’t we feel more full? In the second half of Colossians, Paul addresses this tension and shows how the reality of the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ is pressed into every aspect of our lives. We are encouraged to establish our Christian lives in remembering where Jesus is currently, reorienting our hearts there, and finally remembering where our lives even now are currently hidden.

In Colossians 2, Paul continues to address false teachings and beliefs. Yet even though issues of Old Testament ceremonial law sound unrelated to our struggles; we too live in a time of spiritual anxiety.. The world and its desires surround us and even solutions found in the church can drive us away from Christ instead of toward him. None of us or our churches are immune from this problem. Paul teaches that we must find our sustenance and strength in the fullness we already have in Christ.

This Sunday Paul shows us what it means to live out Christ-exalting and Christ-filled realities. A challenge to living out of our identities in Christ are the ever-present threats to the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus that surround us. Paul unpacks these threats and helps us see the chief importance of our in-Christ reality and identity. To be in Christ is to be someone who lives already out of the fullness of Christ, sealed in baptism, and secure in the work of the cross and the hope of the resurrection.

This Sunday we’ll see what it means to live in light of these realities as the people of God and consider what it means to be those who bear faithful witness in our rapidly shifting culture. Paul reminds us of the shape of his ministry which is a pattern for all believers, the heart of the mystery that we proclaim and return to time and time again, and finally the goal for each of us; full maturity that arises out of our inheritance of the riches of the glory of Christ that is ours in the Gospel.

This week, Paul offers the prayer for this Colossians that he’s been praying since he’s heard reports of God’s work in their midst. This prayer contains the heart of what we need as followers of Christ in this world. Like this Colossian congregation, we need the kind of growth in knowledge that doesn’t just lead to learning more about God but the knowledge that leads to living rightly, faithfully, and in a Christ-like manner. We need God’s strength and power that is already ours in the Gospel to accomplish this.