The Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ
Colossians chapter 1, the first verse. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, and Timothy our brother. To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who are at Colosseum, grace to you and peace from God our Father. We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints. Because of the hope reserved for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world, also it is bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you. Also, since today you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epiphras, our beloved fellow bondservant who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit. Thanks Rick. We'll just invite Rick up now to bring a word. I did bring me chair this morning because I wasn't sure I was going to be able to stand up for two hours. I'll see how I go. Colossians. Commence the series today. You might recall that I brought four messages from Colossians nearly three years ago. I think the first one is somewhere in April, 23. ah Because of that study, the time I spent studying, producing those messages, Colossians has become one of my favourite books in the scriptures. and I'm looking forward to this series too. want to see what Matthew draws out of it because I found it so beneficial in my faith and there are sort of little nuggets in there and if I get a chance I'll share with some at the end. won't put it in the main part because if I get the two EIs well I won't do it, okay? In my study Bible, and I've got an NIV study Bible and I tend to use that because it's sort of more like my vernacular than some of the other ones, so I use it. And it has these few sentences to start with. The letter to the Colossians is a beautiful blend of theology and practice. It combines some of the deepest and most sublime, beautiful teaching about Christ with some very basic instruction. As strongly as any other book in the New Testament, Colossians reminds us that Christ must always be preeminent in a Christian's affections and worship. And certainly Colossians does give us a clear and an elevated description of Jesus. As fully God, Jesus is fully God. and he's fully sufficient to grant us salvation. called it, just my take on it, as you see on the overhead was that ... supremacy of Christ and his complete sufficiency basically. And that's what it's really about. then chapters 1 to 2 are about bit more theology and chapters 3 and 4 are about how we apply that. There are a number of short pithy statements as I said before that I often go to because they just, in uh just a short pithy statement it reminds me of the hope that I have in Jesus and that it's not up to me, he's already done it. My main task today in this message is to give you a bit of an idea of the history of Colossians, the Colossian Church and the letter and why it was written and then to explain the first eight verses. I said to me this morning, because she was reading it this morning, said, how can you get a sermon out of those eight verses? Well I did. and When I first read it too, I thought, how can I get a sermon out of this? But I did. I guess you'll see it as I go along, how I got there, why I got there. The first thing, where is Colossi? So if you have a look up there. Right there in the middle now we've got down the bottom here we've got the Mediterranean Sea, Jerusalem down in the lower right corner. In the top left hand corner you've got Rome, Italy. Colossi is right there in sort of south west Turkey, it's in Turkey, the south west Turkey and what was the Roman province of Asia. It's 193 kilometres east of Ephesus, so it's Chinchilla to Toowoomba, thereabouts. It's east of Ephesus and it's about 32 kilometres south-east of Laodicea. In that area there's Colossi, Laodicea and Areopolis. It was on a major Roman road that goes from Ephesus across to the Euphrates River. Ephesus is of on the Aegean Sea and if you actually look up on that map a little bit higher you'll see the Straits of the Dardanelles, that's where Gallipoli was. So it's roughly in that area. Consequently, because it was on that Roman road, there was a very significant influence of cultures and the religions of the people in the area as they passed through, as they lived there, and including on the church. There a lot of emphasis there. So how and when did the church, was it established in Colossi? You'll know the Apostle Paul, he used to go on these missionary journeys. And on his second journey, actually came back, on his way back um to Jerusalem, he sort of stopped off at Ephesus, but he left everybody else there and he shot through. He went to Jerusalem and then he went back to Antioch in Syria, and I think he was there about a year and then he set off on his third missionary journey. And you'll see on that third missionary journey, he starts there in Antioch of... Syrian Antioch on the right, yeah on that side of it. think, hang on, no, that side of it. And then he goes up into the middle there where it's got Galatia, where I've got the Colossi's there. uh What does it tell us? uh AD 52 to 57 is when he did the third missionary journey. and he set out from the Syrian Antioch and he visited and encouraged the churches he'd established in Galatia and Phrygia in the middle there of Turkey. Then Acts 19 tells us that he travelled through the interior regions until he reached Ephesus. Now the interior regions is a bit open but he may have actually gone past Colossi but he didn't actually stay there and he sort of worked his way across from from uh Syrian Antioch or that area in Frigia and Galatia and he worked it across further west to Ephesus. And he spent two to three years in Ephesus preaching to the people in Ephesus. But while there, people from the wider surrounding area would have heard the gospel. While we say Paul never visited Colossae, he certainly didn't spend any time there and he didn't establish the church there. However, it appears that a convert to Christianity, a fellow called Epaphras, was probably converted under Paul's ministry while at Ephesus and then he took the Gospel back to Colossae. And we see that in verses 1 to 7 that Paul calls him a co-worker. It appears that Epaphras was either a leader in the Colossian Church or he had a significant oversight of the Church. So when and why was the letter written to the Colossian Church? Now, the letter was written between AD 60 to 62. So that's a couple of years after the third missionary journey. So the church could have been a couple of years old there, but Paul was in prison in Rome. While he was in Rome, he wrote a number of letters. One to the Colossian Church, one to Philippian Church, one to the Ephesian Church, and one to Philemon, I think. um It appears that he was assisting, he was in Rome and it appears that he was assisting Paul ministering to him while he was in prison. While there he reported to Paul some of the difficulties the church was facing and the nature of the difficulties was concerning enough for Paul to write to the church. to address the issues and to encourage them to remain faithful to the original message they'd received and believed. What was the nature of the difficulties facing the Colossian Church? Well, the issue was about false teaching. The precise nature, we don't actually know what the precise nature of it was. Paul doesn't talk about that. But we can get some ideas from some of the answers that he gives, some of the teaching that he gives and some of the implications that there. We can get bit of an idea. generally referred to as the Colossian Heresy. And it had these components. Ceremonialism was a part of it. And uh ceremonialism was there are strict rules about the kinds of permissible food, drink, em religious festivals, circumcision. And there were other things like asceticism. Oh, you shouldn't touch that drink, you shouldn't touch that food, you shouldn't save... And you have to, you know, the idea was that you had to treat yourself harshly. You couldn't do so many things. There was issues about angel worship, which in that area was part of the pagan religion as well. It is implied because of the things that Paul addresses, and particularly in chapter one, it looks like a hymn and it talks about the supremacy of Christ. And so we assume from that that one of the big issues was the depreciation of Christ. Christ was not enough according to the... em The other thing alongside of that was the insistence on secret knowledge. this is early Gnosticism that was gaining ground. Gnosticism basically said that you get salvation by some secret knowledge. The other thing was there was a need for reliance on human wisdom and human tradition. The elements seem to fall into two main categories. Jewish and Gnostic, it's likely that the Colossian heresy was a mixture of an extreme form of Judaism and an early stage of the Gnosticism. Gnosticism effectively depreciates Jesus, saying he is not really God and it suggests that salvation is escape from the body, achieved through special knowledge and not through faith in Jesus. So here's the core of it. And we see Paul answering that in the rest of chapters one, particularly. Since the body was considered evil, it was to be treated harshly. The aesthetic form of Gnosticism in the background of it's part of the letter to the Colossians too, addressing those false things. I may come back to look at a few of the wonderful things that I've, those one liners, but I'll move on at this stage. So Colossians sets out to deal with the threat of the false teaching and the understanding circulating in the society and threatening to enter the church. There was this real risk that Paul identified and so Colossians is to deal with this risk. So what are the first eight verses of Colossians have to do with addressing the issues presented? Well, when I was in Rocky, one of my uh mates there at church, he was a banker. He used to tell me this, I've heard it in other places too, in the diligence uh for banks to detect uh fake bank notes, they don't actually spend much time at all in getting their trainers how to uh recognise a false note, they teach them how to recognise a uh true note. Because when they can identify what a good one is, a uh real one is, then they're able to go and identify what a bad one is. They look for the key markers of authenticity and you know in our own currency there are markers of authenticity that are extremely difficult if not impossible to copy. And then when there's something that's not typical on a genuine note, the bankers are alerted to it and they can take action. And that's sort of what Paul is doing here, that in these first couple of verses... He's pointing to the truths where the Colossians began. He talks about the circumstances and the truths that underpin their faith and he talks about the evidences of its positive effect on their life and on the world at large. And then in the rest of Colossians, Paul uh goes ahead and he expands on the underlying truths regarding Jesus and what he's accomplished. then in chapters 1 and 2 and then in chapters 3 and 4, he gives counsel as to the implications of that. how they are to live their lives as those who bear the image of Christ. So he says, is what I see, the circumstances of the truth of faith. then he goes on undressing. So, to begin with, in years gone by as I've reading the letters of the apostles, the first few verses often seem to me like just a formality. But in 1 Timothy, I have to remember that in 1 Timothy, Paul says that all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness. So, in preparing for this message, I decided to I need to just have a bit more of a look and challenge my sort of thinking that maybe it's just a nice casual way of introducing, just a nice polite way to introduce a letter. So I had a look at the letters of Paul and of Peter, of James, of John and of Jude. Except for James where James goes straight into it and John, 1 John, there's a similar pattern, yet even in 1 John there's something similar. They all have a similar pattern of what they're doing. In each of the letters the author is addressing some serious issues and is giving important counsel and commands. And the greetings serve as an important preamble to the instruction that follows. we must see this introduction, these first two verses particularly, and then the first eight verses here in Colossians are an important preamble to what he's going to be dealing with from verse nine of chapter one through to the end. So, let's have a look at verse 1. It says this, and this is out of the NLT version. This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and from our brother Timothy. So, as in most letters, in Colossians 1.1, Paul states the authority under which he's operating to bring this instruction. He reminds them that his apostleship is ordained by God and not of his own or some other person's authority. The instruction he's going to give is really foundational and serious and important. So he needs them to understand that he's not just talking rot off the top of his head. He's not bringing something that's his own ideas. comes because God has selected him, chosen him as an apostle. The Colossians would have been familiar with Paul's story. Epaphras would have brought the Gospel to Colossae as a co-worker of and so they would be familiar with his Paul story of the Damascus Road and the authority that Paul had. But Paul also lists Timothy and I think that's another important thing that we see Paul doing and probably the others as well. list others, sorry, in this case it's Timothy because Paul wanted them to understand firstly that he wasn't just operating as a lone wolf but he was also, he was suggesting here's someone else you can go to. See Paul's coming to the end of his ministry and he may have been aware that he didn't have a lot longer to go and he was introducing other people as credible people to go to. The council he was bringing could be corroborated by the wide leadership of the early church. You know I often go online to see what others think on a passage of Scripture or on a particular topic. And it doesn't take long before I realise that there's a lot of false or at the best weak teaching out there. I've learned that I have to establish and confirm the sources of counsel that I receive. whether it be online or whether it be people to I listen to in sermons or in conferences. And the early church certainly was in least the same position. So Paul is at pains to ensure that the Colossians recognise the truth and can trust those who bring the teaching and counsel. So he's saying, what I'm bringing to you is authentic. Because he wants them to go on into eternity with the truth. So let's go then to verse 2. What's verse 2? we just sort of see this as, I'm writing to you blokes there in Colossae and this greeting. I'm writing to God's holy people in the city of Colossae who are faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. May God our Father give you grace and peace. Again, I often used to just look at this and say, he's just identifying who he's talking to. And this piece and the Grayson piece seems to be a pretty common thing, so it's just a formality, but more and more we look at it, it's not. In the first part of verse two, Paul identifies his audience. He calls them the holy people in the city of Colossae, or other translation calls them the saints, they're believers. But note he also adds the descriptor there, they're faithful, faithful. Given that the issues that he will deal with are matters of central importance to Christianity, including the descript of faithful is significant. Faithfulness to the Gospel, faithfulness in their subsequent faith and their expression of faith is most important. Faithfulness is a big issue for the Christian Church and Paul often talks about it. And then look at the next line, May God our Father give you grace and peace. It focuses us to the core issues. What are the core issues of the Gospel that is actually under threat from the false teaching? The grace that God has shown us The peace that we have are actually a threat from this false teaching. So we must not treat them merely as polite greetings but as a reminder of the core truth of the Gospel and our faith that arises from the Gospel. The false teaching that threatens the Colossian Church is that a person needs more than what God gives for salvation. They need more than grace. That's the threat. It says you need to adhere to rules and religions, practices and have secret knowledge. The false teaching depreciates the grace of God and threatens the peace that we have as the result of that grace. So the next thing to note is the word give in that little line. Grace and peace we receive from God as a gift. It arises from God himself. calls it a pain to make this point. We have no right or claim to receive grace and peace but we have them because of God, because of His choice. Grace is the undeserved favour of God to us. We no longer are under His condemnation. We cannot earn it. Peace and peace, it's not simply the absence of discord. It is the state we as Christians are in because God has dealt with our sin and has put us right with God. It is about the relationship we Christians have with God. No one, nowhere, it's a state where there is no enmity between us, between God and us. Paul addresses these truths a little bit later in chapter one. Where he says in verse 21, he says, and you were at one time strangers and enemies in your minds as expressed through your evil deeds. But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through death to present you holy without blemish and blameless before him. See that blameless, blameless. That means God's got nothing he's ever going to bring up against us. That's grace. Grace and peace displayed in what God has done for us. And in Romans chapter 8 verse 1 Paul says it to the Roman church too, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. We stand before him in his grace and in his peace. It's a critical issue to understand as Paul's going to deal with this threat. It's about grace and peace. So let's move on to verse 3. We always give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you. There can be a couple of different translations. This one says we always give thanks and others say we give thanks and when we pray for you we always give thanks. There is a thankfulness there. Thankfulness is a common theme in all of Paul's letters. In the first place, peace. In the first place, thankfulness is always directed to God for what we have received. Our salvation and our eternal promises. Because of His love, grace and mercy. So that's where our first thankfulness goes. But in the second place, the thankfulness of Paul is for the Colossian Christians. In this verse, Paul is communicating to the Colossians that they are the subjects of his prayers to God. They are being upheld in prayer by the leaders of the church and is encouraging them. because of the progress in their faith. because of the way it's expressed. The progress in the fight, they express... The next verse is going to reveal that. This verse and the next verse is telling the Colossians that they have started well. They have grown in faith and they have grown in the expression of their faith. So he's thankful for the progress they've made in their faith. Their faith is real, their faith is genuine, he says. It's a good foundation upon which to build uh and against which to identify the error and so to avoid heresy. So he's saying, where you start is good, keep your eye on that. But then we're going to build on that. What happens in the rest of Colossians is that he builds on that early... Let's look at verses four and five. For we have heard, and this is what he's thankful for, says, because for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all God's people, which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the good news. So he's saying, What is it particularly about the Colossians that causes Paul to thank God for them? Verses 4 and 5 he says, Firstly, it's what we've heard. their faith in Jesus and their love for God's people. These are evidences that something has changed. From when they first came, they were heathens, they came to faith and something changed. When a person becomes a Christian, things change. From who the people were before they became Christians and how they lived their lives in relation to others and particularly in relation to God and the brothers and sisters in the church. The Christian church is to be different, to display the character of Christ in how it worships God and how they live together and care for each other. That's the first thing. The second thing Paul goes through further in verse 5 in reminding the Colossians about where their faith and love came from. So he says, I've noticed your faith, I've noticed your love. Where does it come from? Their faith has grown out of the confident hope of what God has reserved for them in heaven. And that hope, where did that hope come from? That hope came about when they heard and understood the gospel that was preached to them at first. Note the progression that we see here. For most of them, verse 7 tells us it would have, as verse 7 sort of says, it would have been by the ministry of Epaphras. Firstly, they heard the gospel. when he first brought the message to them after his conversion in Ephesus. So there was a start to it. Look at verse 7, you learned about the good news from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ's faithful servant and he is helping us on your behalf. Epaphras brought this message and he spoke the gospel to them. They heard the gospel. There's something else I want to pay particular attention to when we pick it up in the end of verse 6. It sort of helps us understand verses 4 and 5 a little more too. The same good news that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives. And then this part, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God's wonderful grace. See that bit about there, understood. They just didn't hear it. And I guess we can say that Epaphras was faithful. in helping them to understand. He just didn't tell them the message, he helped them to understand what it meant. Paul's point is that preaching and understanding of the true gospel is foundational to the Christian life. Truth is essential because it leads people to correctly understand the issues of sin, of redemption through Christ, the promise of eternal life, the hope of heaven. and a correct counsel about how we ought to live in this life until we finally get to heaven. Understanding, not just hearing, essential. Paul in writing to Timothy expresses the same sorts of thoughts there in Timothy chapter 1 verses 13 and Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you. Guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in you. See, it's a little bit more than just hearing it. It's about understanding it. It's about being able to give a reason for your faith. Jude writes something similar in verse three of his short letter. I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God's holy people. Contend for the faith. To contend you need to know about it, you need to understand it. To guard the deposit as Paul counsels Timothy and to contend for the faith as Jude encourages requires understanding and knowledge. That's when you can identify error, that's when you can resist it, when you understand the faith that we have. So I want you to follow again, just follow the reasoning here. Paul says, we understand the truth about God's character, His plan for salvation of mankind, His promise of heaven and His commands about the life of Christians, then hope will come into our hearts. That's the first thing. When we understand, then hope comes into our hearts. Then from that hope, what comes from that hope? See, we start with the preaching and the understanding of the Gospel. Hope. germinates in our hearts. From that hope will grow a deepening belief and trust in God and the person of Jesus. Faith grows. And our love for people, the people of God will grow too. If we jump to verse 8 we read, He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you. Here Paul reminds the Colossians that love that they have for each other has come from the as the Holy Spirit transforms their heart. It's not their own doing, but the actions of a gracious loving God who transforms them from sinners into redeemed saints. So in these few verses, Paul has laid out for the Colossians an understanding of how they have moved from unbelievers through hearing the Gospel faithfully preached, to understanding what they've heard, to the birth of hope in their hearts, and then to the deepening of faith and love that the Holy Spirit's given them. It's a clear picture for them, and with that background, he prepares them to receive his further instruction in the rest of the book, the rest of the letter, to prepare the teaching on the Gospel. that will remind them of the truth and help them to avoid the dangerous false teaching that would derail their faith in the expression of godliness. If you've been paying attention, you'll have also picked up that I haven't finished with verse 6 yet. The same good news that came to you is going out all over the world. is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God's wonderful grace. In verse 6, he mentioned that the Gospel has changed their lives. Remember, he talked about it in verse 4. That's where we started in verse 4, changed lives. But here he spreads the map a little bit, or lot wider. The Gospel is going out all over the world, he says, and it is bearing fruit and changing lives. Some transactions, they say, is increasing. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is powerful. It changes lives. So he's saying to the Colossian Church, what you're a part of is bigger than you. It's bigger than Colossi. It's powerful. But what you saw happening, he says, what you saw happening anew in Colossi, it's happening everywhere. Wherever the Gospel goes, wherever it's preached faithfully, wherever it's understood, faith grows. The Gospel is powerful, it's influence widespread, and it's not limited. They are part of God's larger story. This is one thing that often I get excited about, we're part of a larger story, a bigger picture. We can sometimes just get overwhelmed in our little nook and cranny I guess, we just get overwhelmed but we need to remember the Gospel is going out all over the world. been going out since Jesus rose from the dead, since He assigned those twelve blokes and then Paul, as apostles to spread the message of the Gospel of Jesus. They and we have the privilege of being recipients of God's grace and mercy and peace, as well as being bearers of his image and the conduits of his love and his grace to a larger world. This is an important perspective for them to have and for us as well. Paul wants them and us to understand that they must stay with the gospel as preached, as it has in his... proving to be truth and powerful. They must protect it against corruption and against dilution. So that's the first eight verses. It's sort of like Paul saying... Where you started is good. Where you started is truth. You came to who you are and it changed your lives. Stick with that. But then I'm going to fudge a couple of verses from next week that Matt will begin with next week because they give us the link about what comes next. from these first eight verses to the rest of it. So we have not stopped. This is verses 9 to 11. We have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will honor, always honor and please the Lord and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power, so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy. Note what he is praying for them, that he's praying for them into the future. His vision for them is not status quo. They started well, but there's more to do. There's further to go. What he prays for them there, knowledge, wisdom and understanding. He prays for them a God-honouring life. He says, want a life that produces good fruit. I want you to have a deeper relationship with God. I want you to have endurance and patience and I want you to have joy. From here he sets out to address the issues that are threatening the church at Colossi. First eight verses, to me they set a scene of where they're starting and where they need to. progress from. It's not the end, it's the beginning. As I said before, are so many little nuggets of truth that I often go uh to. uh If I can encourage you, just read Colossians. Go home and read it this afternoon. Read it tomorrow. Read the day of luck. I've sat on this for at least six weeks. Just these first couple of verses and last year, a couple of years ago when I preached, I sat on Colossians for a long time. It just keeps coming out as you spend time in it. The Spirit of God will open your eyes. Here's just a few verses. For God wanted his, this is chapter one, this is where Paul's beginning, and I guess in chapter one and two, he's dealing with some of the foundational doctrinal issues. For God wanted his people to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles too. And this is the secret, Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory. In one of the older translations it says, Christ in you the hope of glory. Just that little nugget that caught my attention years ago. There's another one in chapter two, it says, I want them believers to have complete confidence that they understand God's mysterious plan, which is Christ himself. addressing the issue of the supremacy of Christ, answering the challenge of the false teachers. Christ in you the Habakkuk, and here's the beautiful one, just one, in him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That's an answer to the Gnostics. Then in chapter 2 verse 7, he says, let your roots go down into him and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth. encouragement to go further, go further, go deeper. Verse 9, for in Christ lives all the fullness of God in the human body. Again, addressing the false teacher, addressing the Gnosticism, addressing that... Chapter 2 verse 13 to 15, see that piece of paper hanging off the cross over there? That's stab that came from my readings. You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. and God made you alive with Christ for he forgave all our sins. He cancelled the record of the charges against us, the piece of paper, the symbol, the record of our charges, was a legal, like he was talking in legal terms, he says he took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over the cross. That's chapters 1 and 2. They excite me as I read them. They give me great thanks for the God who loves me so much. Then Paul in chapters 3, there's just a couple of two there I'll share with you. To new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honour at Christ's right hand. Think about things of heaven, not the things of earth. Since, since what he talks about in chapters one and two, since that's the truth, set your sights on heaven. And I often look, chapter three, since, put off, put on, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Verse 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Feel your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. There are just a couple of things that just excite me. I go back to chapter 3 verse 16 so many times because it reminds me of what God has in mind for us as a church to share together in the richness of what he's provided for us in Jesus. Father, I want to thank you for your word. I want to thank you for its instruction, for its encouragement, for its correction when we are wrong, for the training that it gives us. pray for the next couple of weeks, month, as Matthew opens up this book of Colossians further that we see more and more deeply the wonderful love of Jesus, the sufficiency of Christ as our Savior. Thank you for this message. thank you for the brothers and sisters I get to share it with Father. And I pray that you will make us strong together as we bring the message of the gospel of Jesus to Chinchilla and to our state.