Recently, my wife and I have enjoyed putting puzzles together. It’s our current attempt to spend better time together and reduce our screen time. And let me tell you—there are few things more satisfying than finally putting that last puzzle piece in the massive puzzle that you’ve spent days or weeks putting together.

Putting that last puzzle piece in our puzzle got me thinking about life. It often feels like our life isn’t quite complete.

At the beginning of each year, it’s typical for us to make new commitments or resolutions. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. But our resolutions are often motivated by trying to find that one missing piece that will make us feel satisfied with who we are, that will help us feel successful, or that will make our lives complete. We spend all this time and effort to find that final piece that will complete us.

At different times, I’ve tried to fill that missing space with different things. When I was younger, it was sports, academic pursuits, and even various forms of sin. I pursued these things thinking they would meet my needs. As I’ve gotten older, the pieces I try to use to complete me are more subtle—people pleasing, increased self-discipline, and daily comforts.

We are convinced that there’s still something we haven’t found or tried or done. There’s a missing piece, and we still need to find it. We need to discover the secret, or life won’t be good enough. We start to feel defeated and exhausted and worthless, until we come upon this ancient letter—the letter to the Colossians.

The False Teaching Threatening the Colossian Church

The apostle Paul wrote Colossians to a church he had never visited or even interacted with. He heard about them from his friend Epaphras who started the church (Colossians 1:7).

There was a heresy threatening the Colossian church. This deceptive teaching promised people such a close union with God that they would achieve “spiritual perfection.” Their lives would be complete—if they entered into certain prescribed teachings and ceremonies.

The heretics taught that there was a “more complete knowledge,” a spiritual depth, that only special people could enjoy. So there were secret meetings with special teachers that the Colossians could attend and get special knowledge. And if you got just a little more knowledge, if you understood a few more secrets, if a little more of the mystery was peeled back, you would have the insight that you need to experience a complete life.

The people deceiving the Colossian church also added a form of Jewish legalism to these pagan mystical beliefs. The teachers believed that adherence to the Old Testament laws could make you more spiritually complete. They thought rule following could make them more right with God.

Thus, at that time, the Colossian church was hearing from their culture that special knowledge and following certain rules and customs were what they needed to complete their life. But the worst part of this false teaching was that it attacked the person and work of Jesus Christ. 

The heretics believed that Jesus was merely one of God’s many “emanations,” which goes against the Bible’s teaching that he is the very Son of God, come in the flesh (John 1:14; Colossians 2:9). They thought Jesus was a helpful—even inspiring—way to a complete life, but they denied the biblical truth that he is our life and the only way to find completeness.

What Colossians Teaches Us About Completeness

Because of these false teachings, one of the major themes of the book of Colossians is “completeness.” Colossians teaches that Jesus is better than anything or anyone, and that our lives are complete when they are found in him. He is better than anything else we can seek to fulfill our lives.

We need this message in an age where we’re constantly surrounded by people and institutions feeding us the same lies—claiming to have what we need to fill what seems to be lacking in our lives.

Jesus’ very name means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). But these false teachers claimed that God was keeping his distance from us! When we trust the Son of God, there is no need for intermediary beings between us and God (1 Timothy 2:5). He has given us full access to God and welcome in his presence (Ephesians 2:18; Ephesians 3:12; Hebrews 10:19).

It’s Jesus Christ who makes us complete. Period. He makes us right with God and redeems our lives for his glory. He repairs what is broken. He fills up what is empty. He is what we have been looking for this whole time.

So there’s nothing wrong with establishing a new habit that will help your life become healthier. But don’t fall into the subtle trap of believing that habit will fulfill you or make you more satisfied with your life. Your discipline does not make your life complete. Only Jesus can fill that role. That’s on his job description, not yours! 

I want you to see this truth in God’s Word. I hope that as we look at Colossians, you will be filled with hope. I hope that what you discover in the first chapter of Colossians will totally change how you see your life and renew your energy to live out your holy calling and purpose.

How the Colossian Church Began

Let’s look at Colossians 1:1-7. 

This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy. We are writing to God’s holy people in the city of Colosse, who are faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. May God our Father give you grace and peace. 

We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of 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. 

This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It 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. 

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. (NLT) 

Paul writes these words to a fairly young congregation full of new Christians. They live in a cultural melting pot, many believing in a sort of religious dualism.

The Colossian church started after a local citizen named Epaphras encountered the gospel message. The gospel shattered his Colossian lenses. Epaphras learned the truth that God didn’t keep himself separate from this physical realm and hidden from humans. Instead, he came to us in complete fullness, and in bodily form (Colossians 1:19; 2:9). If that’s not surprising enough, Epaphras learned that God also doesn’t dwell in some far-off realm, but he now dwells within believers through his Holy Spirit!

Full of zeal, Epaphras founded a small church in his hometown. However, as people joined this new church, many tried to fit Jesus into their preconceived beliefs. 

Paul begins Colossians with: We’re proud of you! We’ve heard all about your faith, your love for people, and your hope in what God has prepared. Your faith, hope, and love are literally world-renowned! The gospel is bearing fruit in your life; people’s lives are being changed (Colossians 1:3-8)! And so we’re praying for you (Colossians 1:9-11). We’re praying that you will have: 

• A complete knowledge of God’s will, 
• Spiritual wisdom and understanding, 
• That you will live in a way that pleases and honors the Lord, 
• And produce good fruit with your life, 
• That you’ll be strengthened with all of God’s glorious power, 
• And all the endurance and patience that you need. 
• And that you’ll be “filled with joy [because God] has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light” (Colossians 1:12 NLT). 

After this encouragement, and before Paul addresses the Colossian heresy head-on, which he does later in his letter, he gives us a magnificent picture of Jesus in Colossians 1, which destroys the heresy at its root. We are about to read some of the most glorious words ever written about Jesus. 

Jesus Gives Us Access to God

If you remember, there was this subtle and deceptive notion in the Colossian culture at that time that matter was evil, and thus, a holy God could not come into contact with evil matter. So the people thought God must have these emanations—angels and spirits—to interact with his creation, even though he kept his distance. And because the physical realm acted like shackles keeping them from drawing near to God, they needed to find a way to break free from all things earthly to become pleasing enough to God for him to allow them to be in his presence.

Paul is about to correct all this wrong thinking. He is going to tell them about one figure who is the very fullness of God and who is the very way to come to God (John 14:6). He is completely God. He is the complete picture. And he makes us completely right with God. There is no alternative needed!

His name is Jesus, and he’s the missing piece. Look at how Paul describes Jesus: 

For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. (Colossians 1:13-14 ESV) 

Do you understand what Paul is saying here to the Colossian church?

This is a group of Christians living in a culture that says you need to do more rituals and obtain more special knowledge and get God to send a few more messages to you through his angels and spirits in order to be freed from the darkness of this material world. And Paul cuts right through that to say, You don’t need extra rituals, special messages, or divine mediums; you have Christ! He has wrestled you from the darkness himself and given you full access to God. No special rituals are needed! 

Let’s keep reading. We have more to discover about Jesus. 

Jesus Is God Our Creator

Not only is Jesus our Savior, but he is also God, our Creator.

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. (Colossians 1:15-17 NLT) 

Jesus “is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15 ESV). In other words, when you want to see what God is like, look at Jesus. Jesus is what God looks like. 

Notice “all things were created through him” (Colossians 1:16 ESV). So if you read the first 2 chapters in Genesis, they are about all the creative activity of God. Genesis 1-2 is about God bringing everything into existence out of nothing. Genesis 1-2, then, according to what we read in Colossians, is simply a news article about what Jesus was up to at the beginning of time! 

He made everything. And it’s all about him.

Why is the sunset so beautiful? For Jesus. Why are there 60,000 species of beetles? For Jesus. Why does E flat minor sound like it does? For Jesus. What is going on with the different flavor notes in Costa Rican light roast coffee? It’s all for Jesus! 

“Everything was created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16 NLT). He’s the point of it all! It’s all about him! “He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together” (Colossians 1:7 NLT). Not only did he make everything, but he is still holding it all together. 

In fact, because I am reading this text, which tells me that Jesus created everything, I know that Psalm 33:6 is speaking about Jesus. It says, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth” (NIV). When all the stars were flung into existence, that was just a breath from the mouth of Jesus!

Jesus Is Our Savior

Let’s keep reading.

Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. 

This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. (Colossians 1:18-22 NLT) 

Now this is where Colossians is starting to baffle me. “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ” (Colossians 1:19 NLT). We’re not just talking about an “out there somewhere” God. All of that glory and power and brilliance and creativity is completely present in this one man, Jesus.

The God who invented chocolate and tidal waves and molecular biology and supernovas entered a young woman’s womb to walk through the struggle of humanity, bearing all of God’s wrath against your sin and mine so that he might save us (Matthew 1:23; 1 Peter 2:24)! The Star-Breather became my Sin-Bearer!

If this gets you stirred up, excited, grateful, tearful, or even a little more courageous and fearless, that’s the Spirit inside you shouting, Yes! He’s the glorious one. And he chose you. He redeemed you. He rescued you. He made peace with you. And he’s giving purpose and clarity and meaning to everything about your life! 

Jesus Lives in His People

And so Paul continues with this glorious revelation: 

I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church. God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire message to you. This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people. (Colossians 1:24-26 NLT) 

And what is that secret? What is this special knowledge? What is that thing that all of the saints in the Old Testament didn’t know? What’s the mystery that has been hidden for generations?

Paul doesn’t say you need to do a special ritual to get it. You don’t need to go to a secret meeting to find it. He lays it out right here:

For God wanted them 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. (Colossians 1:27 NLT, emphasis added) 

That’s it! It’s not that Jesus supplements all of your efforts. It’s not that your rituals and incredible discipline finally got God’s attention and so he sent Jesus to help you out. It’s not that Jesus improves your life. It’s not Jesus plus anything. The secret is not Jesus and you. The great mystery that is now revealed is Jesus in you.

Do you get that? 

The Star-Breather who became your Sin-Bearer, this glorious Jesus Christ lives in you, if you have put your trust in him! This is the hope of glory!

Adam literally talked to God in a garden, but he didn’t know this (Genesis 3:8). Abraham saw God provide a substitute ram on the mountain, but he didn’t know this (Genesis 22:13). Joseph received visions and dreams from God, but he didn’t know this (Genesis 37:5). Esther was used by God to save an entire nation, but she didn’t know this (Esther 4:14). David was so close to God he was called a man after God’s heart, but he didn’t know this (Acts 13:22). Solomon had all the world’s wisdom, but he didn’t know this (1 Kings 4:29-31). Daniel saw hungry lions kept at bay by literal angels, but he didn’t know this (Daniel 6:22).

You are the one God has entrusted with this glorious mystery (1 Peter 1:10-12)! He isn’t just “up there” to help you when you need it. And he wasn’t just here for a short time to give you a good example. Christ lives in you.

Three Responses to the Truth About Jesus

Here’s where the glory is: the mystery of God’s divine rescue mission fulfilled in Jesus Christ is revealed in and through your story! Christ and his glory is the hope in your story!

So what am I left to do? There are at least three ways we respond to what is revealed about Jesus in this passage in Colossians:

1. Revere Christ

Worship Jesus for who he is and what he has done. The Star–Breather became our Sin–Bearer! So each of us owes it to him—regardless of how we feel, no matter what happens to us during the day—all of us owe it to Jesus to honor him, submit to him, and worship him because of who he is and what he has done.

There is no higher purpose your life can have than to make Jesus famous with your life.

He left his throne in heaven and suffered and died on a cross for you—to pay the penalty that your sins deserve, to deliver you from the just wrath of God against all your sin. He atoned for your sins so that you might be brought near to God (Ephesians 2:13). He has offered you eternal life, out of his love for you (Romans 6:23; John 3:16). And to anyone who has put their trust in Jesus, he has given you his own Spirit to live in you and be with you forever (John 14:16-17; 1 John 4:13).

What can you possibly withhold from him that he doesn’t deserve? 

2. Revolve Around Christ

Make your life revolve around Jesus Christ. Nothing else will complete you. Turn to Christ to complete you. Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Jesus in you is the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27)!

Other things may make minor improvements to your life, but they aren’t the answer to what is missing in your life. Christ is. He is the complete answer.

So stop acting like you still belong to the kingdom he rescued you from. Devote your life completely to Jesus and let everything you do revolve around him. This is what it means to “continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it” (Colossians 1:23 NLT). Paul says that the reason he points people to Jesus is because when their lives are revolving around Jesus Christ, then they will be complete. 

It’s Jesus who makes your life complete. No one and nothing else will do. So revolve around him—completely.

3. Reveal Christ

So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. That’s why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me. (Colossians 1:28-29 NLT) 

So what do we do? “We tell others about Christ!” (Colossians 1:28 NLT). We are now the ones entrusted with the mystery that all creation yearns to know. We are the ones sent to announce and proclaim the good news of Christ!

I want to show you something really, really cool. It just punched me in the face this week as I was studying. 

In Colossians 1:28, it says “So we tell others about Christ” (NLT). The literal phrase is “őν ήμεϊς καταγγέλλομεν”. It literally translates to, him we report/announce. But there is some intentional word play happening I don’t want you to miss. 

Later in the letter, he is going to attempt to refute the deception that you need an angel to mediate God’s messages to you (Colossians 2:18). And when he refers to angels, the literal word is άγγελος (angelos). But instead of agreeing that we need to generate extra favor with angelos, in order to receive the secrets of God, Paul says that each of us who have received the gospel is a καταγγέλλω (katangello), proclaiming God’s complete will (Colossians 1:28).

We’re the άγγελος! We are God’s special messengers, chosen to announce his mystery! So here’s the challenge from this: reveal Christ! Christ lives in you to tell his story to others! 

Give your best effort to tell about the gospel of Jesus Christ with all of your life (Colossians 1:28-29).

Jesus Christ Is What Makes You Complete

It’s not your amazing self-control or improved discipline that is going to make any significant difference this year. It’s not even your efforts plus Jesus. We’re not subscribed to “Jesus Plus” around here. It’s not Jesus plus anything.

It’s Jesus plus nothing that means everything. Jesus himself—his presence at work in your life—that’s the mystery of God on full display in fragile and broken humans. That’s the glory in your story.

The Star-Breather became your Sin-Bearer. And he is now embodied in his people—he lives in you—this year in this place.

So, we revere Christ. We revolve around Christ. We reveal Christ. We reveal the story of Christ in us, the hope of glory! Jesus alone makes life complete.