Walking in Christ (Colossians 2:4-15)

I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.

For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ.

So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, being rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.

Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world rather than Christ.

For the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by Him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

You are also circumcised in Him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ, when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.

He erased the certificate of debt with its obligations that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you that you have given us your word, Lord, the Bible, that we can hold in our hands in multiple different uh translations.

And we just thank you for the opportunity that we have to own it and to have it in our hands, uh, each and every one of us.

Lord, this church that Paul is writing to did not have that luxury.

So we thank you that we do, and we pray that we would take advantage of it, that we would just be so thankful for your word, and that we would, as Ben was saying, that we would be saturated in it.

So, Lord, teach us how to study your word effectively, not just for head knowledge, Lord, but for a change in our hearts.

That we would be able to read it and apply it to our lives, find all the answers that we need in it.

So would you help us each this year to make that a priority?

Not just as a New Year's resolution, but as a life resolution.

Lord, so would you uh show us yourself in your word here this morning?

Would you do the things that you desire to do in the deepest places inside of us through your Holy Spirit?

We pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So, as I said, this morning's text is going to be repeating some themes that we've already seen in Colossians.

And we'll have a focus this morning on the one true gospel.

He's already focused on that a lot through this book, but that's really where the focus is going to be.

And particularly staying grounded in it, staying grounded in the one true gospel, not being swayed by other doctrines, not being swayed by other winds of doctrines, as he says in Ephesians.

And it's going to be reiterating that Jesus is all we need.

We've seen that pretty much every Sunday.

But Jesus is all we need.

It's never Jesus and something else.

It's Jesus.

He is the one true gospel.

We're also going to see the Colossians are doing well with this, actually.

He's talking a lot about it, but they're doing pretty well with it.

But they're being bombarded on all sides by different winds of doctrines and people coming in and trying to convince them of different things.

And so Paul is just going to be telling him do not add to the gospel that you first heard and believed, that you first hoped in.

You know, this letter is really an encouragement for them.

Hey guys, just keep going.

Keep doing what you're doing, stay faithful, stay focused on what you first learn, and keep on growing in Christ.

And if you remember last week, Paul just got done saying in verse 2, and you can look at it with me.

He just got done saying, I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery, Christ.

In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The Holy Spirit, through Paul doing the writing, desires this Colossian church to have riches in their knowledge of God in Christ.

Because in Christ, as it says right here, are hidden all.

If you're a highlighter or underliner, that word all right there are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

It's not 80%, it's not 85%, it's all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ.

Now, with that, look at why God desires this for this church in Colossae.

Look at verse 4.

I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.

You know, I would imagine that the arguments that this church was dealing with probably sounded very reasonable.

I would imagine, especially to newer believers, that these arguments might seem enticing and like, yeah, that makes sense that that could be a part of the gospel.

You know, people coming in saying, you know, oh yeah, I believe everything that you believe about Jesus.

But have you heard of the secret knowledge?

You know, a lot of people in your church haven't heard about it, but let me tell you about this secret knowledge, and I'm gonna let you in on it, but only you.

You know, arguments like that, and you know, saying things like this secret knowledge is what will truly enlighten you.

It's what's gonna bring you to the supreme divinity that you are calling God.

It's Jesus and, and then fill in the blake.

And people are deceived because it sounds reasonable.

You know, people aren't coming in and saying, My cat is Jesus reincarnate.

So after church, let's go worship him.

You know, that doesn't sound reasonable, does it?

But in our day and age, we're gonna see things like, you know, I read this passage in the Bible, and God gave me a revelation that we have been misinterpreting for 2,000 years.

And for a donation of 1999 or greater, I will send you my book and let you in on this special revelation that God only gave to me.

That sounds a bit more reasonable than worshiping a cat, but you know, because they're talking about scripture and things like that, but still, you know, we have to deal with these things in this day and age as well.

Think of Satan's arguments to Jesus when he's tempting Jesus in the wilderness.

They sounded reasonable, didn't they?

He was using scripture, even, out of context, of course, to argue with Jesus.

So Jesus combated that with scripture that was in context, because he understood it, obviously.

You know, it's no wonder that Paul wanted them to have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery.

Again, Ben and I didn't plan this, I promise.

But please know the word.

Read your word.

Read the Bible.

Never become dependent upon somebody else to explain it to you, including me.

If this is all you're getting every week, it's not enough.

I promise.

I want you to be able to look at your Bibles and read your Bibles, and if you have questions, ask them.

If you have concerns, ask them for yourself.

Know the word for yourself.

Study it, understand it.

You know, if someone ever say it, ever tells you, you know, all of these reliable Bible translations that we have, they all got it wrong.

What this verse should really say in English is this.

Just shut it off.

Turn it off.

Don't believe people that are doing things like that and saying, only I understand it.

I've studied it so long that let me tell you what it really means.

No, we have our own Bible.

Read it, study it, do what you need to to saturate yourself in it.

You know, if through the Bible in a year sounds daunting, you know, because we have those programs back there, which I highly recommend if you haven't done it.

I think every believer should do it, just do the New Testament.

You know, there's 260 chapters in the New Testament.

If you read one chapter a day, only on the weekdays starting tomorrow, you will finish.

I did the math.

You will finish the New Testament on December 31st of this year.

One chapter a day in the New Testament, only on the weekdays.

So if you miss one, you can catch up on Saturday or Sunday or something like that.

Look, I'm gonna be honest, if you don't have the time in your day to do that, but you have 10 minutes for social media or 10 minutes to read the news, you have your priorities messed up.

Read your Bible.

God wants to fill you with all the treasures of his wisdom and knowledge, as we're talking about right here.

But you have to allow him to.

It's not through osmosis where he just downloads it into us.

We need to saturate ourselves in scripture so that we're not deceived, just like he's telling this church, by arguments that sound reasonable, as we see right here in verse 4.

Now, look at verse 5.

For I may be absent in body, but I'm with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are in the strength of your faith in Christ.

Paul, as it's been mentioned a couple times, has not been to Colossi.

And you can see how bad he desires to visit this church, can't you?

But through their mature faith, their acceptance of Christ, and because he thinks about them so much and he prays about them so often, he can say he's with them in spirit.

You know, have you ever prayed for somebody that hard before?

Where you felt like you were actually with them in spirit, where they're constantly on your mind, and you just can't wait to hear an update for whatever it is that you're praying for them about.

That's Paul with this church right now, constantly on his mind, constantly praying for them.

He's never met most of these people, but he feels like he's there with them because he's praying for them so much.

And he's rejoicing here because of their maturity.

You know, he's not calling this church out on some major issue like we'll see in some other letters.

This is a letter to encourage them to keep going, to stick to the truth, to stick to the gospel that they first heard.

You know, what's interesting in verse 5 are the words ordered in strength that we see here.

These are actually military words that were used in the ancient Greek for military.

Paul's writing to a city filled with retired Roman soldiers.

Remember that?

And the church is under attack right now.

So he uses these military words to encourage them to stay strong in their faith as they're under attack by all of these heresies that are coming in from all sides.

You know, in chapter 1, verse 23, if you want to look at it with me, he's really reiterating in this verse what we saw there.

He says, if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel you heard.

And we're going to see he's going to similarly encourage him, encourage them here in verse 6.

Look at that with me.

Chapter 2, verse 6.

So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him.

Sometimes this word Lord is also translated master, meaning he to whom a person or thing belongs and has deciding power.

Over.

Deciding power over.

You can't have two masters, can you?

Jesus said that outright.

He said, No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.

Can't be Jesus and anything else.

And he goes on in verse 7.

He says, Being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.

If you look at this real closely, verse 6 and 7, Paul kind of mixes up some of his metaphors here, doesn't he?

But it's obviously on person on purpose.

It was through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

But what all three of these have in common, these metaphors, are an ongoing process.

They all have growth involved in some way.

Verse 6, it says walk.

You know, our walk is following Christ, moving forward, becoming more like Him, living out our faith, which is a process that requires constant growth from us.

Verse 7, he says, being rooted.

So now he's talking about a plant.

Talking about a firm base.

You know, roots are the foundation of a plant, right?

But unlike the foundation of a building, roots can get bigger.

They can go deeper, they can grow stronger over time, unlike the foundation of a building.

And just remember, what's the issue that Paul is addressing here?

He's addressing different winds of doctrine coming in.

And roots are what keep trees standing in the wind, aren't they?

We are rooted in Christ, but make sure we're being rooted as well.

This ongoing process.

Let them grow deeper, let them grow wider and stronger in the word of God.

And then he says in verse 7, the third metaphor we see, being built up in him.

So again, being built up.

This is an ongoing process.

This is an architectural term that he's using here of being built up constantly.

You know, and in this context, this is building an already, building on an already laid foundation with Christ as the chief cornerstone.

So don't stop building on the foundation of Christ.

Don't stop building on the word of God.

We should be more established in our faith this year than we were last year.

We should be more established in Christ as a follower of Christ this week than we were last week.

This is an encouragement from Paul to just continue growing, continue walking, continue to allow those roots to go deeper, continue to build up.

So that verse 8 doesn't happen to us.

Look at verse 8.

Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world rather than Christ.

Remember, Colossae was on this major trade route.

We covered that the first week that we were talking about.

This is where East met West in the Roman Empire.

This was a melting pot of everything, this city.

But verse 8 could be addressing a number of different things.

Could be addressing the Judaizers, you know, the ones that are saying you need Jesus and all the elements of the law from the Old Testament as well, which he's going to address in verse 16.

He could be addressing Jewish mysticism.

And he's going to address that in verse 18, you know, with the worship of angels and things like that.

He could be addressing asceticism, which he's going to address in verse 21.

So he's setting all of this up for next week's message.

He could just be addressing straight-up idolatry, you know, with physical statues and temples all over the place of people just looking for various gods that they could worship for good luck in their life.

Maybe even the influence of Eastern mysticism is creeping into this as well, into this city.

We don't know for sure, but by what Paul is addressing and the things he's talking about, it might be all of those things that I just mentioned.

So Paul just keeps pointing them back to the one true, simple gospel that they first believed.

That first brought them hope.

Made them overflow with gratitude, as he says.

You know, I love the saying regarding Scripture and the study of Scripture, and I believe it more and more as I get older.

If it's true, it's not new.

And if it's new, it's not true.

At first time I heard that, I was like, wait, wait, uh.

The more I think about it, the more that I've seen.

If it's true, it's not new.

And if it's new, it's not true.

I believe with all my heart that God wouldn't allow 2,000 years of church history to go by for us to all be deceived in some way.

So that somebody in 2026 can say, you know, we've been looking at this wrong for 2,000 years.

And God gave me this special knowledge that He's never given anybody else before.

So you need to listen to my special revelation and do what I tell you to do.

And send your checks in.

You know, that always ends with that, it seems like.

God has given us his revelation, his word that we're holding right now, and it's all we need.

Know it.

And don't be deceived by arguments that sound reasonable.

Look at verse 9 with me.

For the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ.

In chapter 1, verse 19, Paul basically says the same thing to them.

He says, For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.

We discussed that at length as we were going through those verses.

But he's repeating this idea once again and drives home this point again.

Christ was not a ghost.

He had flesh and blood, he had a biological mother, and he was fully God, all at the same time.

And he takes it one step further this time, though.

Look at verse 10.

And you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

Let's just stop there for a second.

Look at that verse again.

Let it soak in.

The entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by him.

What else could we be hoping for and trying to add to Jesus?

Or trying to add to our salvation?

You know, Christ desires to make a home in us and dwell in our hearts.

Ephesians 3 tells us that.

The head over every ruler and authority desires to dwell in our hearts.

He desires to take residence in us.

And all we have to do is let him, really.

So let's tie this back into Paul's point here.

If we have the fullness of God in us, why would we bow down to anything else?

Or try to earn our salvation as if we could in some way or add to it in some way.

What else are we desiring?

What else?

I'm just going to keep asking that question because the more we think about it, what else do we possibly think we can add to that that's going to be better than what Jesus has already done and what Jesus already wants to do in our hearts?

Look at all he's done here, starting in verse 11 for us.

You were also circumcised in him, Christ, with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ.

So Paul's writing to a vast majority of Gentiles in a very Gentile city who are probably not circumcised.

And if the Judaizers were trying to influence them, they're the ones saying that.

That you need Jesus and the law, Jesus and the Old Covenant.

They're the ones saying you need to follow the law to a T, you need to acknowledge these festivals, you need to acknowledge these dietary restrictions, and you need to have physical circumcision.

And it goes on and on with all of their rules and laws.

He's saying you've done the circumcision you need of your heart, not physically by another person.

You don't need to be physically circumcised.

Jesus has done that to your heart.

And I just imagine all the men in Colossae going, we don't have to listen to the Judaizers.

The old circumcision of the law was physically removing the flesh, the foreskin of a male.

Something done with human hands, symbolic in a lot of different ways, but it was something that God asked the Jewish people to do, his chosen people under the old covenant.

But God even mentioned several times in the Old Testament that they needed the circumcision of the heart as well.

The New Testament, under the New Covenant, it's just the heart.

That's all God is requiring under the New Covenant.

You know, the circumcision of Christ, it's not done with hands.

This is, we're talking about a spiritual circumcision of the heart here.

A cutting away of our spiritual flesh, our carnal nature.

The old man scripture calls it.

You know, it's the part of us that we can't take with us.

It's the part of us that still longs for things that are not good for us.

That is still crying out and desiring different sin.

That's what God wants to cut out in the circumcision of Christ.

And this really goes along with what we're going to cover in chapter 3 of Colossians 3.

Paul's going to talk, he's going to say, Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.

He goes down and talks a little bit more about it in verse 8.

Put away all the following anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self.

This is where chapter 2 is heading, right here to chapter 3.

You know, the new self that's mentioned here in 3.8, 3.9, actually, it's the new life that we have in Christ, which requires that Jesus circumcise our heart.

A cutting away of that old nature.

And please hear me in this.

Only God can do this.

Only God can do that in us.

It's only by the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us that can strengthen us to say no to those old things that still tempt us from that old man, that old nature.

And it's called the circumcision of Christ because Jesus made a way for this to happen.

For his fullness to dwell in us and empower us to say no to these things.

To put our old man to death.

Look at verse 12.

It says, When you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.

So baptism is symbolic, just like circumcision.

When we baptize here at Abide, we like to dunk people because of the symbolism.

You're going under the water, and that's symbolic of being buried with Christ.

And then when you're coming out of the water, that's symbolic of being raised from the dead with Christ.

We were dead in our trespasses and sins, according to Ephesians chapter 2, verse 4.

Ephesians 2:4

It says, But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he has for us, made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead in trespasses.

You are saved by grace.

And we have to notice too in verse 12, it says, through faith.

That's a very important term that we don't want to miss in this verse.

God already raised Christ from the dead.

But the way we join in that resurrection, you know, from dead in sins to life with Christ, it's through faith.

You know, though though we're called to obedience in being baptized physically with the water, it's not that act that saves us.

The act of baptism does not save us.

It is symbolic of what God has done in saving us.

And it's simply an act of obedience because God told us we should be baptized.

Now look at verse 13.

And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.

We were in bad shape before Jesus, weren't we?

You know, remember in chapter 1, verse 21, Paul explains where we were before Christ.

He says we were alienated and hostile in our minds as well as express in our evil actions.

And then do you remember what he said after that?

Then we cleaned ourselves up.

We made a big effort to be better.

Then Jesus took a second look and was like, hey, they're becoming kind of attractive.

Maybe I'll give them a chance towards eternity.

No, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Look at verse 13 again.

And when you were dead in trespasses, and then the uncircumcision of your flesh, when you were still there in that state, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.

He desired us in that horrible place that we were in, and he loved us so much that he died in our place.

And it was when we were in that state that verse 14 comes in.

Look at verse 14.

He erased the certificate of debt with its obligations that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

How can we think that we deserve or can earn or can add to our salvation?

Or that we need to clean ourselves up first, as I was just joking about, before salvation, or before we can be forgiven so that we can feel worthy of Christ.

You know, from verse 14 on, actually, this was actually our text at Easter two years ago, which I'm sure you guys probably have that message memorized by now.

So we're gonna skip down to the bottom.

No, I had to look it up because I thought, I think we talked about this already.

It is the message I'm gonna take a couple of concepts from the things we talked about there, but the word, first thing in verse 14 is the word erased.

It means wiped out, cancelled, blotted out.

So we should have this image in our head of something being washed away and erased forever.

Not just set aside, not like you know, when we erase something with a bad eraser from a pencil, you know, and it's like, oh yeah, you can still see the outline and it's all smudgy and stuff, but this is erased, wiped clean, gone forever, like it never happened in the first place.

Jesus' blood was spilled so that your certificate of debt could be erased.

I've never used blood to erase something off of a piece of paper, personally, but that's Jesus' method of washing away our certificate of debt.

And we don't use that term a lot in our modern-day, you know, and ages, a certificate of debt, but think of it as a bill.

You know, we get our gas bill every month, and they send us a bill for the amount that we used in that previous month.

Those are the charges we accrued and we now owe to the gas company.

But sin is a bill that we do not have the ability to pay off on our own.

We simply do not have that ability.

And I want to use that same example I used two years ago at Easter.

There was a story years ago in the Associated Press that went something like this.

There was a man in Malaysia whose father passed away.

When his father passed, the son had his father's phone disconnected and he paid his father's final bill of about what would be equivalent to 23 US dollars.

Three months later, the son was shocked when he received a bill from the phone company equivalent to$218 trillion.

Along with a threatening collections letter informing the son that he must pay the bill within 10 days or face prosecution.

So the story was published in the Associated Press, but there was no resolution.

They never printed what happened after that, unfortunately.

But the phone bill represented a debt that no human on the planet would ever be able to pay.

I looked it up recently, a couple days ago.

Elon Musk's net worth hovers around 200, I'm sorry,$342 billion, okay?

This phone bill was$200 trillion.

Did the math.

If Musk paid everything that he had, he would get this phone bill down to$199 trillion$658 billion.

If he paid every cent that he has.

His net worth barely makes a noticeable dent into this phone bill.

And he's the richest person on the planet right now.

We each have a debt that we can't even make a dent in.

And the due date for this payment is coming.

During crucifixion, they would nail the accusation against the one being crucified to the cross above their head.

But Jesus went to the cross to pay our debt, to take the debt that we owe and cannot pay.

And he nailed that to the cross for us.

Jesus is offering to nail our certificate of debt to the cross and erase it through the spilling of his blood.

Because the wages of sin is death, as Scripture tells us.

Not just a physical death, the wages of sin is a spiritual death as well.

Eternal separation from God in hell.

That's what we owe.

You see, Jesus didn't have a bill of his own.

He was perfect.

He was sinless in every way.

Which made him the only one that could pay the debt for us.

And he loved us so much that he did.

He paid that bill for us.

While we were still sinners, while we were still hostile toward him, he paid that debt for us.

Look at what else he did.

Look at verse 15.

He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly.

You know, the King James Bible translates this as having spoiled principalities and powers.

So finish this sentence for me.

To the victor go the spoilers.

We all know that one, right?

The idea here is that Jesus won the battle, and not to the point where his enemies ran away so they could regroup and maybe come back and attack later.

He disarmed his enemy and he took the spoils of war.

A complete and utter victory for all time.

In 1 Corinthians 2.8, it says, none of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, so of God's plan for salvation, because if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

The thought that we're that the thought that they were defeating him and forcing him to this death through crucifixion and Jesus not going to the cross, it's defeated by this verse right here.

The defeat, the very, he came to defeat the very those very ones, those principalities, those powers.

They thought they were defeating him, but he went willingly.

You know, this is probably referring to a Roman practice that they used to do.

Remember, Colossius filled with all these Roman, retired Roman soldiers.

The Romans used to parade their prisoners and their spoils of war as they entered Rome after winning some major battle.

They did that to both disgrace their enemies and to triumph over them.

That's what Jesus did by raising from the grave.

Forgiveness of sin was on the cross.

But the disgrace of his enemies in the triumph over them were in the resurrection.

But we have to ask, I think, the question though, what were these rulers and authorities armed with in the first place that they needed to be disarmed of?

If we keep this in context, they were armed with a certificate of debt that was being held over each and every one of our heads.

So Jesus held it over his head and was crucified.

The payment was death.

The erasing was done by his blood.

The only currency acceptable for the certificate of debt was a certificate of death by Jesus Christ.

What did Jesus say right before he died on the cross?

It is finished.

The debt had been paid.

There was nothing else for him to pay.

It was finished.

Remember what I asked you to memorize two weeks ago, chapter 1, verse 22?

Holy, faultless, blameless.

Do you remember that?

Holy, faultless, blameless.

That's how God sees us when we are in Christ.

Holy, faultless, blameless.

And the enemy's gonna try and bring up past debts.

And when he does, we need to remember holy, faultless, blameless.

The debt that we accrued has been erased by the blood of Jesus Christ, and now we are holy, faultless, blameless.

The resurrection was to declare us free from guilt.

So again, do you see how ridiculous it is when we try to add to anything that Jesus did?

Try to add to our salvation in any way.

Try to add to our faith.

Try to say we need Jesus and something else.

As if we have anything to offer, or as if somebody else has anything to offer.

Another accounting term there.

He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

My encouragement to you is to make sure that what you owe has been paid in full.

And that you believe it is paid in full by Jesus alone and not by your works.

Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you will be saved completely, not partially, completely.

Right in your seat, you can do that right now and be saved for all eternity and have Jesus erase that certificate of debt with his blood.

He already died for us.

We just need to accept that in faith.

If you've already done that, let's just be so thankful that we have a blank certificate of debt that's been erased.

There's nothing on it.

Satan's gonna try and hold up a piece of paper, but just remember holy, faultless, blameless.

No, Christ erased that with his blood.

He washed it away.

We are wholly, blameless, and faultless in him.

Let's pray.

Lord, help us to remember this, we pray.

When there's guilt, when there's past memories, when there's regret, shame, all of the things that the enemy wants to load on top of us and regrets from the past, all those things, Lord, we thank you that you have made us holy, faultless, and blameless in Christ.

Lord, help us to live like that as well.

You have erased that certificate of debt.

That debt has been reconciled through Jesus Christ on the cross.

Lord, give us a heart of thankfulness and gratitude, especially as we're about to take communion here this morning.

Lord, help us to just be so thankful for all that you've done for us.

And Lord, I pray if there's anybody in this room that has not made this commitment that today would be the day.

Just realizing there's nothing we can do on our own.

We don't need to clean ourselves up first.

As while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

In that state, Lord, you still desire us.

So I pray that we would give you our lives in faith here this morning.

Accept that gift of Jesus Christ, have that debt erased for us and to follow you as our Lord and Master.

You desire for us way better things than we desire for ourselves.

The future you desire for us is better than anything we could plan on of our own.

So, Lord, help us to surrender to your will, to surrender to you and to allow you to live in and through us.

We thank you that you desire to make a home in us.

All your fullness in us.

We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us, as our counselor, as our helper, as the power that we need to defeat Satan.

We can't do it on our own, but we thank you that you have filled us with your fullness, and that you desire to live through us.

Lord, have your perfect will and way in us.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.