Greater Than Every False Hope: What It Means to Be Complete in Christ

There was a naval commander who had been in the service for many years — decades, as a matter of fact. He was legendary among his men for the battles he had faced and the service he had rendered to his country. And they noticed that every morning when the old man came up to the bridge, he went through the same peculiar ritual.

He would take a key out of his pocket, reach down and unlock a bottom drawer, and pull it out. Inside was a box, sealed, with a combination on it. He would spin the combination, open it up, and withdraw an envelope that was also sealed. He would pull out another key, unlock that, unzip the envelope, and remove a single piece of paper. He would unfold it and stare at it intently for about thirty seconds.

On that piece of paper was written:

Port is left. Starboard is right.

Now, before you laugh at the old man, consider what you are actually looking at. That is not a story about a fool. That is a story about an honest man — one who had been at this long enough to know exactly which things he could not afford to get fuzzy on.

Sometimes, no matter how long we have been doing this, we need to be reminded of a few basic truths.

That is precisely what the Apostle Paul is doing in Colossians 2:6-15.

The Problem at Colossae

The church at Colossae had a problem, and it was not the problem you would expect. Nobody was denying Jesus. Nobody was walking away.

The problem was subtler and, frankly, more dangerous. Teachers had come in suggesting that Jesus was a wonderful beginning — a fine entry point, a good foundation — but that the truly serious believer would want to move on to something deeper. Some secret knowledge. Some additional discipline. Some higher tier of spirituality that the ordinary Christian in the pew had not yet accessed.

Last week we talked about that heresy. It has a name — Gnosticism — and it has never really gone away. It just changes clothes every few centuries.

Paul’s answer is not a more advanced teaching. Watch what he does. He takes them back to the basics.

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6-7)

As you received him, so walk in him.

How did you receive him, folks? Not by being impressive. Not by qualifying. You received him by admitting you had nothing and taking what he offered. That is the only way anybody has ever received him.

And that, says Paul, is also how you walk.

There is no graduation from the gospel. The Christian life is not received one way and then sustained by another. Whatever is out in front of you this week, you will meet it exactly the way you met him at the beginning — with open hands.

Where Are You Rooted?

Notice that word therefore at the front of verse 6. When you see a therefore in the text, you always have to ask what it is there for. Paul is pointing back — back to the struggles he has been describing, the ones we all have.

And then he asks, in effect, two questions.

Where are you rooted?

And how deeply are you rooted?

Most of us can answer the first one. We know the right name. The second one is harder, because that question is not answered by what we say. It is answered by weather.

Roots are invisible by design. Nobody admires them. You cannot photograph them. They do their work in the dark, slowly, on a timescale that has nothing whatsoever to do with how quickly you would like to be a different person. And you discover how deep they actually went only when something leans hard against the trunk.

Now look carefully at Paul’s grammar, because he is doing something deliberate. Rooted is a completed action — God’s work, already finished, done to you. Built up and established are ongoing.

Do you see what that means? You are not working toward being accepted. You are building on ground that already holds.

Put the Blocks Away

Then comes the warning, and it contains one of the stranger phrases in the New Testament:

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Colossians 2:8)

“The elemental spirits of the world.” That needs a little explanation.

The Greek word Paul uses here is stoicheia. You do not have to remember that. What it means literally is things lined up in a row. What it refers to is the ABCs — the building blocks.

Some of us are old enough to remember teaching our children the alphabet with little wooden blocks, letters painted on the sides. They could stack them. They could build words with them. Some of you are nodding. Some of you are wondering how old I really am.

That is Paul’s image. When you listen to the sophisticated new teaching going around Colossae, he says, it is like watching grown men and women sit down on the carpet and play with alphabet blocks.

And here is why that image is so useful to us: Paul’s objection to false teaching is not primarily that it is wicked. It is that it is small.

You have Christ — in whom, verse 9 says, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily — and you are down on the floor arranging blocks.

This is exactly why false hope is so difficult to spot. It almost never arrives announcing itself as a lie. It arrives as an upgrade. A technique. A system. A discipline. A philosophy that promises you the very thing you already possess in Christ, only faster and with better branding.

It is not usually evil.

It is usually just juvenile.

So Paul says: see to it. Watch. Not because you are fragile, but because captivity rarely feels like captivity at the beginning. At the beginning it feels like progress.

You Have Already Been Filled

Then Paul lays down two enormous claims side by side, and the second one is about you:

“For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.” (Colossians 2:9-10)

First: in Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. Not a portion. Not a representative sample. All of God, in a body, in history, with a name and an address.

Second: and you have been filled in him.

Past tense. Already accomplished. Not a thing to be worked toward on a better week, when you are sleeping properly and your quiet time is going well.

Let me say that again, because I think we hear it and let it slide right past. You have been filled in him.

Nearly every false hope we chase is a variation on a single belief — that we are not enough yet, and that the missing piece is out there somewhere. And there is always something on offer. There is a whole industry built on the suspicion that you are running low.

Paul’s answer is not try harder to get filled. His answer is that the filling already happened, in Christ, and what you lack is not more of God but a clearer sight of what you were handed the moment you believed.

You are not a Christian who is running on fumes. You are a Christian who has been filled by the One who holds all rule and authority.

The Record Nailed to the Cross

And then Paul tells us how it was done, and it is the most concrete thing in the passage:

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14)

Paul is describing a document. An itemized record of debt, legally binding, with your name at the top.

Most of us keep a copy. We can produce it on short notice — the thing said in anger, the year we would like back, the pattern we have confessed so many times we have quit believing our own confession. We do not always call it a ledger. Usually we just call it knowing ourselves.

God’s answer to that document was not to dispute the line items. God’s answer was to cancel it — and to cancel it publicly. Nailing it to the cross. Driven through. Held up where anyone could see. Settled where it cannot be quietly reopened at a later date.

And verse 15 adds that in doing it, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame. The very powers that had a claim on you were marched through the streets as defeated.

That is what stands behind Paul’s phrase back in verse 7 — abounding in thanksgiving. G.K. Chesterton said that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. Gratitude, in the Christian life, is not a personality type. It is the only reasonable response to something that has actually happened to you.

So Then

Every false hope makes the same offer. Identity. Security. Fulfillment. Some version of you that is finally sufficient.

None of them can carry the weight, because none of them ever paid the debt.

Jesus is greater than all of it. That is the whole message of Colossians, and it is why Paul can be so relaxed about the sophisticated alternatives on offer. He is not worried that they are too strong. He is grieved that they are too small.

So — where are you rooted? And how deeply?

If the honest answer this morning is not very, that is not a reason to go looking for something more advanced. It is a reason to go back to the paper in the drawer.

Port is left. Starboard is right.

Christ is enough, and you are complete in him.

Frequently asked questions