The sermon by Steve Hopkins focuses on Paul's letter to the Colossians, particularly emphasizing Colossians 2:4-7. It explores the theme of 'walking in Christ' as believers have received Him, highlighting the sufficiency of Christ over any additions or supplements. The speaker discusses the challenges faced by the Colossian church, including false teachings and persuasive arguments from false teachers. He emphasizes the importance of being rooted and built up in Christ, relying solely on His teachings and grace for spiritual growth. The sermon encourages believers to rest in God's unchanging grace, which initiated and continues their journey in Christ. Hopkins also stresses that sanctification and spiritual maturity come from living life entirely dependent on Christ, not through secret knowledge or additional rituals. The teaching concludes by urging believers to maintain a life of gratitude and to reject any supplements to Christ, affirming that in Him, they have all they need.

We are continuing in our study of the book of Colossians, the letter of the Apostle Paul to the church at Colossae, and we are going to be picking up with Colossians chapter two, verses four through six this afternoon. If you wanna turn there with me in your Bibles. But before we stand for the reading of the word of the Lord, Paul begins all of his pastoral letters by commending the saints to the grace of God. And he ends each of his letters sending the saints on their way with the blessing of grace. And before we stand for the reading of the Word of the Lord, I just want to encourage you, No matter what is going on in your life right now, no matter what you may be facing, no matter what you may be struggling with, Rest on God's unchanging grace.

The grace of God initiated your life in Christ. The grace of God is carrying you on your way right now, and the grace of God will see you safely home. No matter where you're at or what's going on with you right now, rest in the grace of God. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's stand for the reading of the Word of the Lord, Colossians chapter 2, verses 4 through, let's read through 7, verses 4 through 7.

Follow along as I read. Now this I say, lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words, for though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with a thanksgiving. Let's pray. Father, We worship You, we praise You, we adore You, and we thank You for Your love, for Your mercy, for Your kindness, especially in the free salvation given us in Your Son.

Oh Father, Jesus told His disciples, if you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you may ask anything of Me and it will be done unto you. Lord we are abiding in Christ and His word abides in us. And we ask Father that you would grant us, according to the riches of your glory, to be strengthened with might by your Spirit in the inner man, and that Christ might dwell in our hearts by faith, that we being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the people of God what is the breadth and the length and the depth and the height and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. And we ask this, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's be seated. The title of the message this afternoon is, As you have received Christ, so walk in Him. As you have received Him, so walk in Him. In Rome, this is where we've been with the Apostle Paul in chains for Christ and the gospel. This letter to the Colossians was born.

The Apostle Paul labored for this church from prison. He labored from prison, struggling and agonizing in prayer. And that for a people that he had never even seen face to face. And yet a people that he loved so dearly and cared for so much. And as we ended our last session, the apostle was pouring out his heart to the church at Colossi and all the believers in this area, which is modern Turkey in the Lycus Valley there, and he wanted them to know how great a struggle he had for them and for all those who had not seen him face to face.

And he wanted them to know that he was laboring for them from that prison cell, that he was agonizing for them in prayer from that prison cell. And he wanted them to know that he was laboring for them from that prison cell. That he was agonizing for them in prayer from that prison cell. And he wanted them to know that Because he wanted their hearts to be encouraged, he said, being knit together in love with his heart. And he wanted them to have assurance and to enjoy all the riches that come from the full assurance of understanding and knowing the mystery of God, that it is Christ.

Christ is God's mystery revealed, Paul told them. And he was saying, to know Christ is to know God. And to know him is to have wisdom and knowledge because Christ holds all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in himself. And so as we pick up with verse four this afternoon, Paul says, I'm saying all this for a reason. This I say for a reason, lest any man should deceive you, lest any man should lead you astray, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.

I say this in order that no one may delude you. He says, if you understand who Christ is and that all you need is in Him and all that is to be found in Him, you won't be drawn away from Him, and you won't fall prey to any of the additions to Christ being peddled by the false teachers that have come in among you. And so Paul says, I'm saying this, lest any man should lead you astray or deceive you with enticing words, no matter who he may be, no matter how eloquent his speech may be. No doubt some of the false teachers in and around Colossi were excellent orators, maybe even great preachers. Some of them were probably amazing word crafters, skilled in philosophical argumentation.

And Paul's saying, I don't want you to be deluded by these guys. No matter how wise, no matter how knowledgeable they may appear, no matter how great their powers of persuasion may be, no matter how plausible their arguments may sound. And it's interesting here, look at the text there, Paul doesn't deny that false teachers produce reasonable sounding arguments. He doesn't deny that. He admits that the arguments of of deceivers can be very persuasive.

He doesn't deny it, but he says that the antidote is to know Christ, because to know Him is to know God. Christ is Messiah, God incarnate, and all the wisdom and knowledge in existence is hid in Him. And you know, our situation in the churches of America today is no different. False teachers move in and out of the churches all the time. Some false teachers are leading churches in America.

Many churches in America are led by false prophets and false teachers. But we have a very similar situation just in the churches of America today where there is, where Christ is, it is proper place and He is there all in all, and where the Scriptures are taught and proclaimed and expounded in truth. But we have this situation also in America today where churches have to be careful because there are so many supplements being offered to Jesus. So many supplementals, so many additions to Christ, so many false teachers moving in and out of even the most doctrinally solid churches. And you know, we've had to deal with some of that right here at Burnet Bible Church over the years, over the decades.

Been here three decades last month in the same city. We've had to deal with some of it. 20 years ago or so a young man showed up at Bernadine Bible Church when we were meeting over at the community center over there on Water Street. And he comes in for the service, and then during the fellowship, he sits down and he's eating with us at the fellowship meal. He starts in with this questioning of the deity of Christ.

It turns out he was part of some kind of a Hebrew Israelite cult, and Don and I corrected him with the Scriptures, opened the Bible, said, here's the Word of God, showed him what the Word of God says, that Christ is God incarnate. And what did he do? He storms out in the Huff. And then there was the guy that showed up one Sunday when we were baptizing children at the river. He came to church and then he followed us out to the river and we're baptizing some new believers in the church, children at the river, and he starts spreading his particular perversion of Scripture.

Erichal will remember this guy. We told him he wasn't welcome to do that in this church. And he shows up anyway, I think it was the same night, in Erickson's impacting. And then there was a guy who interrupted Sunday worship when I was out sick one Sunday years ago. We were meeting at the Baptist Center.

Anybody listen to this tape, they go, man, these people meet all over the place. Yes. And I think Michael and, I don't know if it was Michael and Levi or Michael, one other guy, one of the other men corrected him. He stood up, he was interrupting, he was sitting at the back, and he gets mad and he heads out the door. Then there was a guy a few months ago that comes in and he's talking with Eric and I after the service and I don't even remember exactly what he was pushing but he thought he had some gift of knowledge and he thought he had some some direct you know connection that that other people don't have with God.

And we corrected him with scripture. And right before he stormed out the door, he said, I didn't come here to be taught. I came here to teach you all. That's what he said. It's the pride of it all.

But this is nothing new. This goes back to the churches, the early churches. And Paul knows that the antidote to false teachers and false teachings of every persuasion is the knowledge of Christ, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and who is the treasure chest of all the wisdom and knowledge in existence. And every attack, make no mistake about it, on the sufficiency of Scripture is ultimately an attack on the sufficiency of Christ. It's all about Him.

The essence of deception is to lead people astray and deception almost always advances in this way through plausible arguments. A plausible argument, that'll be the ESV's version here, is a statement or argument that seems reasonable. That appears to be reasonable, but what he's saying doesn't seem to be really that far off. Paul understands this, and he's not denying again that the believers at Colossae may have heard some things from some powerfully persuasive and even charismatic types with arguments that sound pretty reasonable on the surface. He's not denying that.

In fact, he's saying it's to be expected. And this was exactly what was going on in the churches in and around Colossae. And Paul says, I want you to know as you're dealing with all this, look at what he says here. Why don't you just love the apostle Paul? He says, even though I can't be there with you personally, I'm with you in spirit.

What a comfort that must have been to the church, to know that the Apostle's heart was with them even though he couldn't be. He's saying, I'm not here with you personally as I wish I could be. I'm chained to a guard 1, 200 miles away. But know that I'm with you in spirit and I'm rejoicing. Look, look at this.

I love the Apostle Paul's how he's always building the churches up. Even at Corinth before he brings up all the stuff, He's building up the church. He's always strengthening them and encouraging the people of God by telling them all the good that he does see in them. And that's what he does here. Listen to what he says.

I'm with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. He's gonna deal with all these false teachers and all these false prophets, but first, man, I'm so, like he said at the beginning, remember? I just, I've heard of your faith, and I've seen your love, the evidence of your faith. And here he's saying, I'm with you in spirit, even though I'm locked in this prison cell and chained to this guard, and I'm rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. And if you look at these, you look at this in the Greek, you find that Paul is making use of a couple of military terms here.

In those words, good order and steadfastness or firmness. The good order Paul was talking about, it's from a military term that means literally ranks. Paul praised them for not falling out of their ranks while they faced the enemies of Christ in what was truly a spiritual battle taking place at Colossi. You remember at that time, and for centuries thereafter, The Romans, you know, when they went out to war, the Roman legions and all, they would line up their soldiers in lines. It's a crazy way to do war, right?

Just line everybody up. These guys line up and everybody shoots at each other and drops. It's a crazy way. But This was the method of warfare for centuries until the modern era. So you'd have this array, and this is what he's referring to, you'd have this orderly array of soldiers in an unbroken line, shooting at each other with arrows and catapults at that time, and later on, of course, with muskets and cannons.

But Paul used this military imagery to applaud the Colossian believers for remaining in their ranks. You guys, thus far, you've remained in your ranks. Your line has been unbroken and intact, even through all that you're facing. Of course, there probably was a few who were being swayed to some degree. And this letter was so necessary because who knows what Epaphras was seeing going on.

But he was fearful enough to travel that 1200 miles to give the news to the apostle Paul, so that Paul, knowing Paul could help the church. But He lifts them up, He's saying, there's not been any breach in your lines. You haven't broken ranks, but you've remained an orderly array of soldiers under Christ, your commander in chief. And so Paul applauds them, and he says, I'm with you in spirit and rejoicing, beholding your good order and also the steadfastness of your faith. That second military term has to do with keeping firm or maintaining a solid front.

Paul is saying, I'm rejoicing to see that you have a broken ranks and succumb to the false teachers. And I'm overjoyed to see you remaining firm in the faith of Christ and not wavering, but keeping up a solid front as you stand for the faith against the onslaught of false teaching all around you and that's mingling in among you in the midst of all the paganism and the idolatry and the immorality that's all around you. I'm rejoicing. You haven't broken ranks. You've maintained a solid front against all these things.

Things that should sound familiar to us today in America, in the midst of all the paganism and the idolatry and the immorality and the false teaching that's all around us. We also have to not break rank and keep a solid front. Because we face many of the same things today. The believers at Colossae had not been led astray up to this point. They had kept up a solid front amidst all the delusions and Paul wanted them to know that he was rejoicing over them because of it.

And then in verse 6, look at verse 6, Paul does something that he hasn't done before in this letter until now, Look at verse 6. This is a first in the letter, in his letter to the Colossians. He issues his first imperative, his first command. No other commands. He hasn't said, look, do this, do this, do this, do this.

No. He's, there's a reason for that, right? He's laying all of the foundation. It's Christ, it's Christ, it's Christ, it's Christ. Okay, now, here's something I want you to do.

Okay? He says, as you therefore have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in Him, His first command, walk in Him, okay? So walk in Him as you received Him. And I could spend an hour just on this first part of the verse, but I'm going to try to reduce it down to five minutes. Receiving Christ is believing on Him, trusting His person and His work without any addition, okay?

Without anything in addition to Him. That's how The Colossians received Christ. The Colossians received Christ by trusting in Him and what He had done for them alone, okay? Not by trusting in Christ plus human traditions and man-made philosophies and angelic mediation, which we'll get to later, or angel worship, or anything else that they were now being peddled. This is how they received Christ.

Not with any added supplements, not with any additions. And that's the way Christ is received when he is received by anyone. When a person receives Christ, he or she receives Christ without any additions and with an empty hand. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. The old hymn goes, this version says, we're all empty vessels into which God pours His salvation.

That's what every one of us is. That's part of what I think Paul was saying to the Colossians. He wants them to think back to the moment they first heard about Christ from Epaphras and received Jesus in their hearts. He's saying, did He lay a set of rules on you, Epaphras, when you received Christ? No?

No? Did he lay some dietary regulations on you? No, he didn't? What about ascetism? Do you say you need to really be rigorously denying the comforts of the body, of your body?

No, he didn't say that? Okay. Anything in addition to embracing Christ by faith in what he has done for you? How did you receive him? No?

Okay, Paul says, you received Christ by trusting him for who he is and trusting in what He alone has done for you to secure your eternal salvation, so walk in Him as you received Him. Walk in Him as you received Him. Walk in Him trusting Him for your acceptance with God and relying on what He has done, not on what you have done or could ever do. So walk in Him. Walk in Him, relying on Him, trusting in what He has done alone to secure your eternal salvation and bring you to God.

Walk in Him as you received Him, as you received Christ alone for your acceptance with God. So walk in Him in whom and by whom alone you are accepted of God." He's dealing with these false teachings that have come in among them. I don't think that's all Paul's getting to here. Look again, he says, therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. This is the only place in the New Testament where we find a reference to the title and names of Christ that are in this sequence, okay, and I think it's for a reason.

Therefore, as you've received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. I think he's saying, you Colossians received Christ as the Christ, which means the anointed or the Messiah, as the one who came for you and all of His people. You received Him as His name is, Jesus, which means Yahweh of salvation. You received Him as your Savior, but you also received Him as the Lord, the sovereign Lord over all and the sovereign Lord of your life. So walk in Him as you have received Him as the Lord.

So walk in Him. So live your life in Him in a way that is consistent with the profession you made of Him when you first believed. Did everyone hear that? So now walk in Him, not adding additions and all kinds of things to, this will make me more pleasing to God, this will draw me closer to God, this will give me a higher knowledge about, no, no, no, no, no, He's been through that. No, Christ, in Him alone you received Christ with nothing in your hand, and you received Christ without any additions or supplements to Him.

Walk in Him that way, but walk in Him as the Lord. Live your life in Him in a way that is consistent with the profession you made of Him when you first believed. Your life patterned after His. The life of your Lord is the pattern for your life. So walk in Him.

How? In Him, in all His ways, in love, in patience, in humility, in meekness, in holiness as your Lord walked. And in the strength of your Lord, not in your own strength. John Gill says here, by faith in Him, walk in Him, always looking to Him, leaning on Him, deriving grace and strength from Him, under His influence, by His direction, and through His assistance, even as you've received Him, so walk in Him. Again, this was Paul's first imperative, the first command in his entire letter, his entire letter thus far, and it has to do with our sanctification, of course, when he has this issue, this imperative, this command with our spiritual growth.

And it's clear that he wants the Colossian believers to understand that sanctification doesn't happen like the false teachers among them have been saying. You don't grow in holiness by graduating to a higher level through some supposed secret knowledge like the Gnostics were bringing in. You don't grow by adding a list of manmade rules or regulations or going back to Jewish customs and feasts. Spiritual growth comes by continuing to live your life entirely dependent on the all-sufficient Christ in whom you first believed. That's what Paul's saying.

You wanna get that? Anybody come into sermon review? Here's what I want you to say when you come to sermon review. What was the sermon about? Spiritual growth comes by continuing to live your life entirely dependent on the all-sufficient Christ in whom you first trusted.

It doesn't come any other way. It doesn't come by whipping yourself. It doesn't come by kicking yourself. It doesn't come by throwing yourself down. It doesn't come by crushing yourself under the weight of the memories of your sin.

It doesn't come that way. Spiritual growth comes by continuing, okay, to live your life entirely dependent on Jesus, on your all-sufficient Christ, the Christ who saved you, the Christ in whom you first believed. So it is with us today, As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. So walk in Him." Paul says, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith just as you were taught. You see that?

That's the next passage there. Sandra and I are having a wonderful time watching our grandchildren, you know, go from crawling to kind of standing and kind of wobbling and then to taking the first steps and then walking. We don't see all their first steps, but we get to see the progression and the walking and all, and you know, from their mother's milk to solid food. And it's really, you know, It's really a picture of the Christian life and the progress of sanctification. We go from milk to, you know, then the baby food and then something a little bit more, you know, what do you call it?

There's a progression to the things that are harder to digest and chew and all. See, they go from milk to strong meat is the way The apostle Paul put it. And from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity over the course of our years. And As we've seen in our text, from being initially rooted in Christ, when we receive Christ, rooted in Him, to being built up in Christ, to being established in the faith of Christ over time. Every footstep, I'm listening, every footstep taken in are all sufficient Christ in whom we first trusted.

When we think of being rooted in Christ and built up in Christ we get a couple of pictures, You know, maybe you remember the tree with its roots going down, or we get a picture of a tree with its roots going down in the rich soil and maybe a house being built on a rock. Jesus gave these kind of parables, right? He has this, the parable of the seed that's sown on good ground, and the roots go down, it really take root. And the other of a house that's built on a rock. Rooted in Christ is, comes after we have received Christ.

Now we're being rooted in Him. Our roots are going down into Him and they're going further and further down into him. And then building the house on the rock of Christ is just this progression, it's just ongoing progression. But I think that the apostles making it clear that every believer experiences this growth. If we're believers, we experience growth.

We're going to experience growth. Some faster than others, some slower than others, but every believer experiences this growth, and that This growth is not by our strength but wholly dependent on the strength and sustenance that we derive from Christ. The tree gets it from the root, right? Okay. Not from any supplemental sources external to Christ.

So I think this is where he's really bringing them back to again and again. No other self, our growth comes from being rooted and grounded in Christ, from our relationship to Him and our relationship with Him. Our growth is dependent on our connection to Christ. The power to live the Christian life is the same power that initiated our life in Christ. He is the vine and we are the branches.

Paul's saying that's what it looks like. We're establishing the faith in our faith just as we were initially instructed, rooted in Christ, built up in Christ, and established in the faith of Christ. And as we draw to a close, we need to understand, we need a full understanding and a mature understanding. And of course, that's only possible through the inculcation of the Scriptures. So look at what Paul says here.

He says, as you have been taught, as you've been taught, a plant grows as a plant is fed. So we need to be fed by God's word daily. It's one of the first things we talk about in our elder meetings with the men of the church. It's so crucial, right? Providing time for yourself to be in the Word every day, providing time for your wife, providing time for your children to be in the Word every day.

It's absolutely crucial for our maturing in Christ. That's how it happens. And Paul says, here's what follows. So we close here, the result is a life of overflowing gratitude. Isn't it amazing as we're, the more we mature in Christ, the more that we grow, the more grateful we become.

So grateful. Sometimes it's because God points out more sin in our lives and all, and we just have so much more to thank Him for because we say, wow, look at what you did for me in giving your Son for me. But the result is a life of overflowing gratitude. Receiving Christ, ruing in Christ, growing in our knowledge of Christ, establishing the faith of Christ as we've been taught by the Word of God, resulting in overflowing gratitude to God for Christ and all that we have in Him. This is the Christian life.

This is the Christian life. So as we close, brothers and sisters, never supplement Christ. When the false teachers come on the scene offering their supplements to Christ for your spiritual growth, this will really help you. Tell them, no thanks, no thanks. In Christ I have all I need.

Let's pray. Father, oh blessed Lord, how we thank you God for the grace that brought us to trust in Jesus, and by which we are rooted and established in Him. By your almighty grace, we are in Christ. And by your almighty grace, we will abide in him. Oh Father, we just praise and thank you for the truth of your word communicated here in this text today.

Oh, let it be implanted in our hearts, oh God. And God, give us more of this grace, this grace of yours, Lord, as we go on our ways entirely dependent on our all-sufficient Christ in whom we first trusted. For it's in His most blessed and holy name we pray these things, amen and amen.