The sermon by Peter Allison, titled 'Jesus Christ: The Fullness of the Godhead,' expounds on Colossians 2:9 and the theological implications of the divine nature of Jesus Christ. It emphasizes that in Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, meaning that Jesus embodies the complete essence of God, not as a shadow or figure, but in true substance. The speaker explores the concept of believers being complete in Christ due to their union with Him. This union grants believers access to every spiritual blessing and resource, as Christ fills them with wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. The sermon details how Christ’s victory over sin and death ensures believers' freedom from sin’s dominion, allowing them to live a life of righteousness and fellowship with God. This victory is illustrated through the fullness of pardon, life, and power that believers enjoy in Christ. Furthermore, the sermon highlights the transformative power of trials and the importance of living by faith, which channels God's grace into believers' lives. The message concludes by encouraging believers to rest in the victory, grace, and power of Christ, whose fullness dwells within them.

Please turn in your Bible to Colossians chapter 2. Our scripture reading this morning begins at verse 9. It begins at verse 9. Hear God's Word. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power.

In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Buried with Him in baptism in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross, having disarmed principalities and powers. He made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them in it." Thus far the reading of God's Word, the grass withers, The flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

Almighty Father in heaven, we have heard your word with our ears. We ask that you would open those ears and open the understanding of our heart and open our eyes, that we may see you as you are revealed in these words, that we may have an understanding of them. We ask that your Holy Spirit would work through these words, that they might be in us powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword. Father give to us faith as we hear these words, that we may not simply know that they are true, but that we may rest in them. Father, we ask all of it, through and because of your Son Jesus Christ.

We ask it for now. Amen. Last week we looked at a very similar passage in the first chapter that proclaimed the glory that proclaimed the glory of the pre-incarnate Son of God. That He was the Creator. That He was the express image of the invisible God.

He was the firstborn overall creation. That by Him all things were made, and without Him There was nothing made that was made. Not only were all things made by Him, and in claiming that He is the Creator, He is the implicit claim that He is God. But not only were all things made by Him, but all things we saw last week are made for Him. And that He is the One who sustains all things.

So His work of creation and providence, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God. He is the Creator. He is the Sustainer. And He continues by His power to uphold this world and all that is in it. And He has been that from all eternity.

There never was a moment when the Son began to be, but He always has been. So we saw then His preeminence as the second person of the Trinity. His preeminence over all things. All things visible and invisible. Principalities and powers.

We saw that he had this glory. And this preeminence as God. As the second person of the Trinity. But what does that mean for us? What are the implications of that for us today?

And this passage that we've just read tells us what the implications are that Jesus Christ is God. It repeats something that Paul said in verse 19, verse chapter 1, For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell. He elaborates a little bit on that where we pick up in verse 9, for in Him that is in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It dwells The fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, bodily. It dwells bodily in that it's not in a type or a figure or a shadow, but in substance, truly, substantially.

The fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus Christ. The full glory of God now dwells in Christ. It's not just some similarities or attributes, but the very essence of the Godhead, the substance of the Godhead is with Christ. Jesus Christ is fully God. He's, as Isaiah said, He's the mighty God.

He is Emmanuel, as it was proclaimed at His incarnation, at His birth. He is Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus Christ is God with us. Now God had revealed Himself. Christ was revealed in parts in the Old Testament.

There were times that God's glory was shown to His people. God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. That was God appearing. Moses was told to take off his shoes because the ground he was standing was holy ground. He was in the presence of the living God.

But it wasn't the fullness of the Godhead. God appeared to Moses later when Moses asked to see his glory. God said, no, you cannot see my face, but he allowed him to see. God passed by, God put him in the rock, God passed by and allowed Moses to see his hindered parts. He saw a part, something, of the glory of God, but it wasn't the fullness of the Godhead.

The angel of the Lord appeared to Abraham. The angel of the Lord also appeared to Samson's parents. And they recognized that when that angel of the Lord appeared, as they offered that sacrifice to him, that they had seen the living God. But it was a part. It wasn't the fullness of the Godhead.

But in Christ, the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. The glory of God dwelt in the wilderness tabernacle, the Shekinah glory cloud. And it dwelt in the temple. But now, but that was a part, That wasn't the fullness of the Godhead. But now the fullness of that glory dwells in Jesus Christ.

Dwells bodily in Christ. So what does that mean for us? We are complete in Him. We are complete. As the ESV says, we have been filled in Him.

The fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Jesus Christ. And we have been filled in Him. We have been completed. We have been perfected. It is not that all of the perfections of God are now in us, but rather we have been filled by Christ.

He has filled us and made us complete. Our Union with Christ means that the fullness of the Godhead that is in Christ is now for us by our union with Him. Jesus told his disciples in John, In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Because the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Jesus Christ, substantially in substance dwells in Christ, and because we are in Christ, we are, Paul says, complete. We are perfected.

That means that every spiritual blessing in the heavens, every resource that we could ever need, that we could ever have, is available to us because we are in Christ. And the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ, in substance, substantially, and essentially. And so Christ then fills us with all the treasures of wisdom. Paul told to 1 Corinthians 1.30, But of Him are you in Christ Jesus, Who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. But of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God, the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus Christ bodily.

Because we are in Him, then He has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. See, we are foolish, we are blind, we are ignorant, but in Christ, when Christ fills us, Because the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. When Christ fills us, we are made complete. We are made wise. He teaches us His Word.

He brings us teachers to teach us His Word. And He fills us, He completes us. He brings us trials even, which impress upon us the lessons and the wisdom of His Word. You see, these trials give us an opportunity to put into practice the things that we have been taught. We all know that it's one thing to hear something, it's one thing to be told something, it's one thing to know something.

But it's another thing to be able to do it, to be able to know, to have experienced it. Just like for some of you that were at that class yesterday. They could have just told us, well this is how you do CPR. This is how you do it. And We could have looked at the words as they described how to do it.

We might have even looked at somebody doing it. But it's very different when we are given a body and then we have to do it. That's something of what trials do for us. They teach us. They enable us to put into practice, to do the things that we are called to do in Christ, the things that Christ Himself has done.

A little later in Colossians 1, Paul said, To whom God would make known what is the riches of his glory, of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, Christ in you, the hope of glory." You see, because the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Jesus Christ, we can know the fullness of grace. We can know the fullness of being complete in Christ. That we have everything that we need, every grace that we need, to live and to walk as God calls us to walk. We are living our life in Christ. Christ is the glory of the gospel.

He is the author and the finisher of our faith. He testifies to his work. He is the very subject of the Gospel. And those perfections, those excellencies, The perfections of God are displayed in redemption even more brilliantly, even more brightly, than they are displayed in creation and providence. As wonderful, as brilliant as those are as we saw last week, they are displayed even more brightly in redemption.

Paul told the Ephesians that it was through the church, that His manifold wisdom was made known to the hosts of heaven. It's through the church. It's through His redeemed people. As He fills us, as He works through us, that His wisdom, His glory is displayed even more brightly. Paul told the Galatians, I am crucified with Christ.

Nevertheless, I live, Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. The life that we now live in the flesh, We live by faith in the Son of God. Faith is that channel through which the grace of God is received. It's appropriated by us, by faith.

And so it's not, Paul says, It's not me that lives. It's not us that is living this life in the flesh, even now. It's not us. It's Christ that lives in us. It's Christ that is filling us.

And that is why Paul can say here that we are complete, we are made perfect, because Christ is living in us. And the life that we are now living in the flesh, the things that we are doing, we are doing because Christ is living in us. He's dwelling with us. Emmanuel, God with us. He's filling us.

And He's making available to us every grace, and every treasure, and every resource that we could ever need or want. We simply need to look to Christ, to ask Him. In John 14, Jesus said that we are able to ask anything in Christ's name and He will do it. That the Father may be glorified Christ is there claiming the power to do all things he's proclaiming that he is God Jesus Christ is God In him the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in substance in essence substantially And because of that we enjoy the fullness of His grace. We are made complete.

But we also, Paul goes on to say, we also enjoy the fullness of righteousness. We are no longer under this threat of eternal punishment. In Him you are also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the sins of flesh by the circumcision of Christ." Circumcision of Christ is not when Christ was circumcised on the eighth day, but a circumcision that Christ does that is done without hands, in which it is said that the body of sins of the flesh is put off. So that we are no longer under the dominion of sin. We are no longer slaves to sin.

We are no longer ruled by sin. Paul goes into great length about this in Romans 6. I'm just going to read what he alludes to here in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh. We enjoy the fullness of righteousness. We who are sinners and guilty enjoy the fullness of righteousness, of being declared just.

He says in Romans 6, How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with." There's the exact same words. The body of sin is done away with.

That we should no longer be slaves to sin. And how do we have this? Because Christ is in us, filling us. For He who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.

Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once and for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We're dead to sin.

It doesn't have dominion over us anymore. Because we have the fullness of righteousness. God has declared us to be just. And He is making us just. Likewise, He who died to sin once and for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God.

Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Reckon is to consider, is to count, is to regard yourself as dead to sin. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lust. Do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

But God be thanked that though you were slaves to sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered, and having been set free from sin, you become slaves of righteousness. We enjoy the fullness of righteousness, the freedom from this dominion to sin. When we are under the dominion of sin, we cannot do anything but sin. We are in bondage to it. We are slaves to it.

But having been declared righteous, declared just, We are no longer under its dominion. We enjoy the fullness of righteousness. We have the freedom to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the freedom to live our life in fellowship with Him. Those who are walking in the flesh, they can't please God.

They are not in fellowship with Him, but those who are in the Spirit are the children of God. So we have the fullness of righteousness, we also have the fullness of life, buried with Him in baptism, in which we were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. See, death no longer has dominion over us. Because Christ, Because the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ, and because Christ is filling us, and because Christ has won the victory over death, death no longer has dominion over us. The stain of death is removed.

We don't need to fear death. That separation of our body from our soul, It's not natural. It's not how we were created. It is a result of sin, but that sting is gone. It's only now a temporary thing, a temporary condition.

It's been a short while that when our body is separated from our soul, the body rests in the grave until the resurrection. And that which is sown in a corruptible body is raised in an incorruptible body. Then we can say that all of the sufferings of this time, and that includes even death, because death is a trial. Death is A battle. As we battle sin, if you've ever been with anybody who is dying, it's a battle.

Even for saints, it's a battle. To lay down for the last time this body of sin, and yet the sting is removed. The victory, Christ has triumphed over death. We don't need to fear it anymore. He has defeated it.

Not only has he defeated the sting, defeated death, removed Only has He defeated death, removed its sting, such that even in death we have a living hope. But also, The fullness of life means that we have communion and fellowship with the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When Adam sinned in the garden, you remember he became afraid. His life became a life of fear. And when God came to speak with him in the cool of the evening, he hid because he was afraid.

He lost that ability to have fellowship with God. He lost communion with God. Maybe you have lost fellowship. You know what that is like. Maybe it's through death or some other thing.

When you lose that fellowship, part of you dies. And that's in the Bible what death is. It's separation from fellowship with God. It's not separation metaphysically. God is everywhere present, even in hell.

But it's separation from Him in the ability to have fellowship and communion with Him. Because the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily, and Christ dwells in us. We have the fullness of life. We are restored to having fellowship with Jesus Christ. Fellowship with God the Father.

Fellowship through the Holy Spirit. We are comforted. We can be delivered from fear. Jesus was able to tell His disciples time and time again, don't fear. Do not be afraid of the sea, of the waves, of the storm.

Do not be afraid of the devil, of Satan, of his demons. Do not be afraid of the sea, of the waves, of the storm. Do not be afraid of the devil, of Satan, of his demons. Do not be afraid of the Jews. Do not be afraid of Anybody that can only destroy the body To have life to have the fullness of life is to enjoy fellowship with God in Christ without fear.

It is the ability to experience the fullness of joy at His right hand. The fullness of joy. The fullness of His comfort. The fullness of His presence. He is the vine and we are the branches.

We have our life in Him. He fills us just like the root of a tree nourishes and fills the fruit that is on the tree. That's the analogy that Christ uses to describe how we are in Him and how He fills us. So even the fruit that we bear, we bear because we are in Christ. We can't bear fruit in our life any more than a fig tree, a fig branch can bear fruit when it is cut off from the root.

Any fruit that might have started there disappears when it is cut off from the root. We also have fullness of pardon. And you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he is made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of the requirement that was against us, which was contrary to us. He has removed the debt of our sin, the handwriting of requirements that condemned us because we have broken the law of God. We have fullness of pardon.

When Satan seeks to accuse us or to remind us of our sin, we can Remember that the handwriting of ordinances that once against us has been removed. It's gone. The shame of our sin has been removed. The burden of our sin has been removed. The guilt of our sin on our conscience is removed.

We have, Before Christ, we have that burden on our conscience. We can try to escape it, we can try to pretend it's not there, we can try to busy ourselves with other things in the hope that we will anesthetize our mind from our conscience that accuses us. And the Bible even talks about people whose conscience has been seared with a hot iron, so that They cannot sense the burden of their sin. And yet it is there. It is there until it is removed by Jesus Christ.

Not some of our sins, Or even most of our sins, but all of our sins. The guilt of all of our sins is removed. Not just the little ones, but the big ones as well. We have fullness of pardon at His right hand. We also have fullness of power.

Having disarmed principalities and powers, Christ made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them in it. And so when our life is lived in Christ, This life that we're living in the flesh, we don't live it in ourselves, but it is Christ living in us. We are able to live in the victory of Christ's resurrection. We are able to live in His victory over death. We are able to live in his victory and his ascension and being seated at the right hand of God.

In fact, such that we are said to be seated with Christ in the heavens. We are said to be seated with Christ in the heavens. Paul said that Even when we were dead in sins, we were made alive together with Christ, and raised up together and made us to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Sitting together. That is the victory that Christ fills us.

We are even said to share with Him in His rule. We are said to wield the rod of iron with him that he wields. The disciples rejoiced when they were sent out because the spirits were made subject to them. We have been given the promise that if we resist Satan, he will flee from us. This authority is not something that is built into our salvation.

This victory isn't something that is built in, but this victory is Christ. He is the all-powerful one. And it's only as we are in Him, and we live in Him, and as He lives in us, that His victory is manifest in us. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.

Faith is that channel through which the grace of God is received, through which those benefits of salvation are appropriated by us. Faith is the channel. When John says that the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith, Whoever is born of God overcomes the world. He's saying that faith is the means, the channel through which this victory is poured into us and it is received. Saving faith is that channel through which we receive the grace and power of God.

We have this power, this authority, we live in this victory because Christ is living in us. The Word of Faith Movement speaks as if our words are containers into which we release power as we speak. But our authority doesn't come from our words. No authority in our words. Our authority is only in that we have been conquered by Christ.

He is Lord of our life, and He is dwelling in us. In the life that we live in the flesh, we live in Him. And so it is His work that is in us. It is His victory, it is His power that is manifested in us. Being conquered by Christ means that our will is submitted to His will.

It's not our will, but His will that we want. So that the desires of our heart become aligned with His desires. So that the thoughts of our mind become aligned with His thoughts. That our words, that we think His thoughts after Him, that we bring every thought captive to Him. See, victory, living in the victory of Jesus Christ is not getting what we want.

It is being conquered by Christ so that our life no longer belongs to us, but belongs to Christ. So that our will is in submission to His will. Paul said in the next chapter of Colossians here, For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Our life is hid with Christ in God. It's Jesus Christ that is in us.

That brings to us the fullness of pardon, the fullness of righteousness, the fullness of life, and the fullness of power. And the moment that we are cut off or separated from Christ, we cease to have any power at all. We die. To have the fullness of power, to live in the victory that Christ has won means a lot of things. Means that we are able to forgive those who wrong us.

That's not, that's a supernatural ability. The way of the world is vengeance, cold vengeance. We're able to love those who are hard to love. Jesus said if you love those who love you, anybody can do that. Living life in the victory that Christ has won is being able to love like Christ loved those who are unlovable.

Living life in the fullness of power and the victory that Christ has won is being able to rejoice in trials. It's being able to see God's hand of blessing coming to us in them. It's being able to abound in joy and peace. It's being able to give thanks in all things. It is being able to smuggle Bibles through the Iron Curtain against all odds.

Because Christ is over all. He's all powerful. He's triumphed over principalities and powers, making a public spectacle of them. Such that people can take suitcases of Bibles right through guards who are supposed to be stopping that, and have the guards pick up the Bible and start to read for hours and begin to ask questions. And then say, well we need more of these Bibles in our country.

That's the victory that Christ has won. He has triumphed over all these powers and principalities. And in Christ, with Him, we can do all things through Him who strengthens us. Living life in the victory that Christ has won gives us the grace to pray great things and ask great things from the Lord. Gives us the grace to pray aggressively, to pray for Christ's kingdom to come, to pray that His will would be done in and through us.

And It's to believe and to rest in His victory, in His power, that not a hair can fall from our head, apart from His knowledge. A lot of times we like to focus on being told how to do something. How to do this and how to do that. But as those in whom Christ dwells, those who are living in the fullness of Christ's victory, we can only live as we are in Christ, as we feed on Jesus Christ, as we are indwelt by Christ. And it's because the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Him that we are filled.

It's as He lives in us, as our life is hidden in Him. And the life that we now live in the flesh, we live by faith. And it's Christ that lives in us, not us. It's then, as we are united to Christ, that we can live in the fullness of His victory, we can live in the fullness of His grace, in the fullness of His righteousness, in the fullness of His pardon. Of His pardon.

May God, may You be filled with the fullness of Christ, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells. Let's pray. Father in heaven, our minds cannot understand at times the riches, the fullness that we have in You. For it is a peace that passes understanding, that guards us. It is a comfort that is beyond our ability to comprehend, that strengthens us, such that we do not need to fear man or death, or any created thing.

For we are persuaded that neither height nor depth, nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We ask the Lord that You may fill us, even this week, that in every circumstance and in every need, we may look to You. We may seek of you and of your right hand. The power, the grace for our every need. We ask this Our hymn is 630.

Our hymn is 630, Eternal Father, Strong to Save. To save. Him was written by William Whiting, who was the master of a school. He wrote it when, the occasion of his writing this hymn was when one young man was preparing to come over to the United States, crossing the ocean, and He was afraid of the sea crossing because it wasn't the simple thing that we think of it today. And so, drawing from his own experience facing a storm at sea, a very severe storm at sea, he wrote this hymn to encourage this young man and that he would not fear in this transatlantic crossing.

He took it from Psalm 107, Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters. They see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commands and he raises the stormy winds, which lift up the waves of the sea. They mount up to the heavens, they go down to the depths. Their soul melts because of trouble.

They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm so that its waves are still. Then they are glad because they are quiet, so He guides them to their desired haven. O that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men.

Let them exalt Him also in the assembly of the people and praise Him in the company of the elders." This hymn is a prayer. It's a prayer based on Psalm 107 that the Lord will protect those who are in danger in the sea specifically, but who are in danger anywhere in this world. It's a special prayer today because in our midst is Christina and her husband is in danger, going into danger's way. And so I thought it would be appropriate that we as God's people should lift up this prayer for Eric. Let's stand to sing.

The Lord ever is King, O hear us, let him cry in deep prayer, the deep hell of the sea. The Savior, Almighty, the sea. O Savior, all my dinner, O with thy grace I enter to one and far apart in the O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's the time and the birth of the King, the land and the heaven, rise to the deep, the hills, the plains and the sea. The tune of that song is named Melita, which is an ancient word for Malta, so named because because of Paul's shipwreck was on that island of Malta. Jesus said to the church at Laodicea, He wrote this letter encouraging them to faithfulness.

This was a church that he didn't have anything to commend them for. This was a church that he said, because you are lukewarm, and either hot or cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth." But he exhorted them to faithfulness, to be zealous, and to repent. But he also said these words. He said these words not to the church that he had nothing to rebuke them for, but to the church of which he had nothing to commend them for, or he didn't commend them. He said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me. And to him who overcomes I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I overcame and sat down with my father on his throne." This is an invitation to God's people, an invitation to those who are in His covenant To come to Him, to have fellowship with Him, to eat with Him. And there is that promise of victory in Christ that to Him who overcomes, He would grant to sit with Him on His throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne. So Christ knows our us. He knows the sins that we have committed against Him.

He knows the thoughts of our heart. He knows All the times that we have been unfaithful to Him, if we haven't said it or done it, certainly what we've thought. And yet He offers us the fullness of pardon, The fullness of righteousness, the fullness of power and victory. And He bids us to have fellowship with Him. And this sacrament, this table, is the seal of that covenant promise.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, We thank you for this bread and this cup. We thank you that you