Complete | Fullness to New Life

``Hey, listen. We live in a world of more. More effort, more success, more spirituality, and before long, we start to believe we need more from God, and not more of God, just more for God to finally be enough. That that's the pressure facing the church in Colossae when Paul was writing his letter. They were being pulled towards religious performance, spiritual experiences, and and cultural ideas that all whispered the same lie. Jesus isn't quite enough. But Paul writes to say the opposite. In Christ, you are already complete. There is nothing to prove, nothing to add, and the whole new life is available to you now. Not just after you die, but a life transformation for your life now. [00:01:13] (58 seconds)  #ChristIsEnough

What Jesus offers us is the strength and the power to have victory over our own sinful desires. That's again, please don't hear that in any kind of arrogant way because that's not a Paul. Paul obviously obviously is talking against those things too about having any kind of error. It should create a humility in us. That god would see fit to allow us to have the power of the resurrection to overcome our own problems. Not on our own, but through his spirit. The pressure to add something is still alive today. Jesus plus discipline. Jesus plus experience. Jesus plus success. If you start adding to Christ, you slowly drift from him. [00:17:38] (62 seconds)  #ResurrectionPower

If you're already full, why go back to the empty ways of living? That's what Paul's saying. Because you've already been raised with Christ. You know, it's a beautiful thing about baptism. It's a picture. We die to our old life and we're raised up just like Jesus was buried. We go under the water and we're brought up out of the water. It's it's this this picture of resurrection. We leave the old in the water, and we come up out of the water new, being recreated in the image of our creator. So now, we have accepted Christ. This is what's that that picture is what's happening. You now have the power and calling to live a completely new life. [00:23:46] (50 seconds)  #RaisedWithChrist

This is not behavior modification. It's life transformation. Better yet, I'd rather say it this way, it's identity driven transformation. Because when we begin when we begin to understand, as followers of Jesus, as followers of Jesus, what was it Paul said that that Jesus is committed to complete the work that he began in us? Right? And and he said that in Philippians. Right? And so so, this isn't this is identity driven. When we understand who it is that god that that that in Christ, who we are now in Christ, it begins to change us. Do not let that go to your head. Let it be expressed in the way you love others. Right? That's completely different than some kind of religious thing where we become holier than thou. Instead, we have a compassion and a love because we understand what God is bringing us out of, then we have a compassion for where other people are apart from Christ. [00:20:48] (72 seconds)  #IdentityTransforms