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Fuel for the Fight

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9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.  11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
We talked about the fact that we are in a battle.  This is a battle of rival claims on our heart and how to see the world.  So how do we fight those rival claims?  All of our hearts are hard wired to willingly and traitorously wave the white flag and give into sin.  As Christians, we must fight against any way of thinking that does not depend on Christ.  Paul writes this whole letter to help us fight against untrue and dangerous ways of seeing the world that tempt and lure us away from Jesus Christ.  This world is constantly laying siege to our hearts. So what does God give us as fuel to fight this battle for our allegiance?

It is Jesus Christ himself.  We fight the things that do not depend on Christ by depending on Christ. We fight by seeing, knowing, trusting and loving Jesus Christ more than whatever is held out to us.  We take hold of Jesus and what he has done for us as our only ammunition to fight the battle.  Jesus himself battles as an unbeatable, unyielding warrior for your heart as we submit to him by faith.  Jesus, just like God the father, is rightly jealous as God, wanting every inch of the battlefield of your life and heart.

Paul says here of Jesus “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”  Do you want the true, real, and substantial God that really is? Do you want the lasting experience, knowledge and satisfaction of who God is and what He is like?  Look no further than Jesus Christ. God sent him to be a perfect picture and representation of who he is.  Looking anywhere else will give you a distorted, dangerous and untrue picture of who God is. Just as you look to the written Word of God for a true picture of what God is like, you look to the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ, whom the whole written Word of God is about, to see God clearly.  This is armament to resist the world’s counterfeit notions of the God of the Bible.

He continues, “You have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.” This is the spiritual powers and authorities that threaten you & promise calamity and danger if you do not submit to them.  If, however, Jesus is head and authority over all things and if you are in Christ, you are not only protected from but you also you share in the results of his power and authority over them. You take shelter from their demands, rules and desires because you are safe and filled in Christ.

Similarly, the false teachers were giving out all sorts of rules that people needed to work really hard to obey in order to overcome the flesh. The problem is trying to battle the flesh (your sinful desires and natural rebellion) without Jesus Christ is like taking on the whole US military with a BB gun. Instead of this, vs 11 says that Jesus has defeated sin and death for you and gives you the power (only in Him) to overcome those things.  Only in Christ do I have a new heart that actually wants to obey and has the power to say no to sin. 

Christ not only changes the way I fight sin and the war in my heart, he changes my very identity (vs 12). You were raised with him from death to life.  Who else or what else in the world has triumphed over death and sin?  Remember that next time sin comes to tempt you. Here is the issue. Do you find your identity and life in the things that you do for God, the rules you keep, the kind of person you are?  Or do you find your identity in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Everyone is in search of the thing that makes them who they are.  The only identity that fits us and does not crush us when we fail to live up to it is being found in Jesus.  To know that I was a sinner enslaved to sin but all that sin was put to death, buried with Jesus and that I was raised to new, full and satisfying life with Him.  That is the fuel I need for this fight.  That is who I am in Christ!  And that makes all the difference.

In Christ, My Only Hope, Pastor Steven


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