Jesus Alone.

Well, happy Sunday, everyone. Hopefully you were able to grab some coffee and pastries. We are in week two now, starting our series through the book of Colossians.

We have what we call the Daily Rhythms app, which guides you through spiritual practices. Morning prayer, midday acknowledging God's presence, and evening exam and gratitude. The app follows along with a reading plan through the book of Colossians. If you haven't downloaded it yet, go ahead and get the Daily Rhythms app and you can follow along on our reading plan.

We also have paper journals in the back. That's our Daily Rhythms journal, and it also has daily readings through Colossians as well as a devotional. We hope that you'll follow along, not just on Sundays, but throughout the week as we really dive into this book together.

I'm really excited. I was telling someone this morning, I'm like, this is my third time preaching through the book of Colossians, and I wrote an entire devotional on it. And still, even this week as I'm opening this up, I'm like, wow, there is so much in this text. This is the living word of God. It's alive, it's active. Every single day God wants to speak to us through his text.

I encourage you, if you don't have a Bible, we have Bibles back there. Take a Bible, grab one of the journals, download the app, spend time in Scripture hearing God's voice. It's going to transform you. We're going to read together. Last week we read through Colossians 1:1-14, and today we're going to pick up in verse 15.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God

It says this in verse 15:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

Colossians 1:15-20

This is good news. We keep going in verse 24 and it gets better. Paul says:

Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you and I filled up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness, the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but now is disclosed to the saints. To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end, I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

Colossians 1:24-29

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much today for your word. God, I thank you for your word that is alive and active. God, I thank you that for each and every one of us here today, you hold us together, you complete us, you make us whole. God, you reconciled us and you want to speak to us today as your children, as those made in your image, as those that you are delighted to be with.

We take a moment right now and we open up our hearts and we say that we are ready to receive. I invite you right now in your own ways. Would you just take a moment to talk to God? God, I invite your Holy Spirit to speak. God, I welcome your presence. God, would you convict me? Would you challenge me? Would you cleanse me through your word? God, would you work in that energy and that power? Would your Holy Spirit draw me closer to you? God, this is our prayer today in your precious name. Amen.

Understanding the false teaching

Before we get more into this, there's a lot today because we have a lot of Scripture. Take notes on your phones. If you have pen and paper, feel free to engage. There's a lot happening here.

I want to set the scene of Colossians even more. Last week we read the first part of Colossians, which Paul is coming to the church in Colossians. He starts by addressing himself. He's like, hey, it's me. My name is Paul. I'm an apostle of Christ Jesus. Grace and peace to you. Then we read about this Thanksgiving prayer that he gives. He's essentially saying, I've heard all of these things about you. He's encouraging them. He's like, you're doing great. This is awesome. But then he goes right in to sharing the gospel and talking about who Jesus is.

So when you read this at first, it's kind of like, well, if they're following Jesus, if they're doing so well as the church, then why is Paul having to explain who Jesus is? Here's what's happening.

First of all, the church of Colossae. Colossae was not a cool city. It was not influential like some of Paul's other letters. If it wasn't for this church, we probably would never know about this city. It's not one that would be on the map.

It was founded during Paul's missionary journey to Ephesus. A few men, Philemon and Epaphras, came to one of the church meetings that was happening in Ephesians. They're like, okay, we're going to follow this Jesus. Then they went on, and one of the first gatherings we see would have been in Philemon's home. This became the meeting place for the early believers there. This is what they would reference, the first house church there.

I love this because it shows us we're going to read about this church and their influence and what God's doing and people coming to know Jesus. But it shows that you don't need fancy buildings. You don't need all the crazy things. We're here in an old Tai Chi center that we found on Craigslist one night. God can move anywhere when the people come together and they open up the word of God. It's powerful.

That's how the church started. And then Paul's writing to them from prison. He has this reputation and some people are wondering, who is this radical man that keeps ending up in jail? Jail's kind of bad. So why are we going to listen to him? He's never met these people.

What's happening is that Epaphras, who was kind of like their pastor at the time leading them, goes and comes to Paul. He's basically asking for help. He's like, I don't know what to do. We're running into some things here. And then Paul writes this letter.

But the other thing that's important to know is they're getting this letter before Epaphras came back to see them. They have all these false teachers that are teaching them all of these things. And then their pastor leaves them and is like, all right, bye guys. I'll see you. Sometimes like I miss a week or two, but you know, it's like if I'm just gone and you don't know when I'm coming back, and then somebody else, you get this letter from this person in prison and they're like, do these things. And you're like, what? Who do we listen to? What's happening?

Communication obviously isn't like it is today. They don't know when they're going to see this guy again. What's happening? Paul is in prison and he's writing this letter. It's so cool that he keeps continuing to preach the gospel. But why is he writing this?

What is he going to be addressing over these next few chapters? He is talking to them about the false teachers that are threatening the purity of the gospel of Jesus. I want to explain to us Gnosticism today because there was a lot of kind of talk of mixing some Eastern religions and other things that were bleeding into the purity of the gospel. The main thing we see is Gnosticism.

This comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge. Even when people refer to themselves as agnostic, they don't realize that comes from that root word, from gnosis. So they're believing here that salvation came through this secret knowledge. The physical world was evil and must be avoided. They also taught that because the physical world needed to be avoided and all things were evil, that meant Jesus had no physical body. Jesus did not come as fully human, fully divine.

They did believe Jesus was real, but they denied that he was the fulfillment of all things. I want to break this down for us because here's why this is so scary. They were not denying Jesus completely. Rather, they were denying that Jesus completes us. And I want to say that again so that you can write it down and remember it. They were not denying Jesus completely. They believed he's good. Follow Jesus, yes. But they were denying that Jesus completes us.

Do you see that difference? I think sometimes we read about these things and we're like, that was a struggle for the church back then. But I wonder today, where are we still falling into that? Do we believe both in Jesus completely and that Jesus completes us? Do we believe that today, that he is everything, that he is the fulfillment?

The promise of this secret knowledge was essentially that if you could achieve spiritual perfection or spiritual fullness, you could enter into these certain different practices or things prescribed to them. Many of these practices were rooted in this idea that all earthly things were evil, including our own physical bodies.

When you read a lot of different thoughts and theologians, they believe that this came from people asking the question, why is there evil in the world if creation was made holy by God? Why do bad things happen? Why is there evil? That's a question we're all longing for an answer to.

So they started to answer it by saying, there's evil because creation must be evil and our own bodies must be evil and everything on earth must be evil and we must avoid it at all costs. So it led them to believe that a holy God, if you're following here, if all things are evil, then they're saying a holy God would not come and blend with an unholy human body because our human flesh and our bodies are so evil. So God would not come as fully human and fully divine. Therefore, Jesus had no body and Jesus was not physically here walking on this earth.

This led to that teaching that God did not come in human form, meaning Jesus didn't have a physical body. As you can see, this is not lining up with the gospel of Jesus as we know it. The gospel that we see all throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul is going to reference over and over is that Jesus came, he left heaven, he came into this world as fully human, as fully divine. He experienced all things and he took all things to the cross and he did defeat every dark thing. He did deliver us and rescue us and redeem us. He lived as human and as divine.

But essentially, what they were teaching was that yeah, you need Jesus, follow Jesus, plus all of these other things. Special wisdom, spiritual rituals, mystical experiences, self-denial, moral perfection, to be truly right with God. They were being taught that Jesus did not complete them. These are simple practices that on their own were not evil, were not bad. But because they were believing that these things were going to complete them when in reality that's only Jesus.

Now as we touch on this, I think it's important because even us as our church, we have what we call our rule of life, our set of spiritual practices. So it could be like, well, wait, are we doing that? Because we're like, pray every day, read your Bible every day, fast, all of these things.

Here's the difference. Those things aren't going to save us. But we read the Bible so we get to know our Savior, right? When we fast and we remove things from our flesh, it's not believing that those things and fasting is going to save us or sanctify us. It's us removing those things so we can center our attention on the one that does. That's the difference, right?

Spiritual practices, they don't save us, but they connect us to our Savior. They help us engage with God's Holy Spirit more. But you are complete. You have access to the fullness of who Jesus is. No spiritual practices are going to give you more or less or more complete you. You are complete. It is final. That's important for us to recognize.

Jesus holds it all together

Verse 15 starts. The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. In him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. He's the head of the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

For God was pleased to have his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

Jesus holds it all together. Period. That's it. He holds it all together. He's the image of the invisible God. He is the visible expression. That's where, even when we talk about our spiritual practices that we do, it's modeled off of the life of Jesus that we see because he was the visible expression of that when he lived on this earth. We sometimes even pray the Lord's prayer that he prayed in Scripture because it's things that we see Jesus doing. He was that expression.

The firstborn over all creation. What's important here is this doesn't mean that he was created, but it's referencing that he holds the first place and the first strength and the authority. Jesus was there at creation. This is the mystery of the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus was there at creation, but this firstborn meaning that he holds the highest rank. He is God, therefore he is the creator. Everything was made through him and for him.

Paul, as you see, because they're believing all these created things are evil, is trying to make sure they know. No, no, no. We're saying today like creation points to the beauty of who God is. Our bodies are temples into the Lord. We point to the beauty of creation. You are all beautiful people here in this room. You should say amen to that. You're beautiful people. You display the glory of God, the body of Christ. This is beauty. You can look at people and be like, wow, this is creation. It points to God's glory that he made us the way that he did.

He's before all things and in him all things hold together. One thing I want to catch here is I love that it says he was pleased to have his fullness dwell in him. God wasn't reluctant to let his fullness dwell in Jesus. Jesus wasn't reluctant when he left us his Holy Spirit to fully dwell in us. This is a gift. He's honored that his spirit and his presence lives within us. But do we live today as if he's God, as if he's first, as if he's the one holding it all together? Or are we still trying to hold things all together?

Do we still think that we have the secret knowledge that can hold it all together? Do we think that we're something that we're not, or are we really trusting Jesus?

I have two ways I want us to picture this today. I think I've told this story here before, so if you've heard it, sorry, but I'm telling it again because it's memorable to me. I was with this child and all of a sudden they come walking in to see me. They're holding their Gatorade from Quick Trip and they're holding their water bottle. They weren't wearing their backpack, but they had their backpack kind of on one arm. They also had something else in their hands and my favorite, a bag of Cheetos from their mouth. Because you can't leave the Cheetos behind.

They're walking in to meet with me for our session. All of a sudden, the Cheetos fall and spill everywhere. The cups fall and all this stuff happens. They instantly get so upset. They're like, oh, I messed up. They're so sad. I get down on their level and I'm like, you only have two hands. It's okay. You can't hold all of this. You only have two hands. It was like this light bulb moment of like, oh, maybe I'm not supposed to hold all of this.

I want you to picture this. This is me walking out of the door every day. I've got my work bag. Let's pretend this has like my laptop, two laptops in it, because I need my personal and I need my other one. I have my water bottle, my water cup. I need that. I need my purse because that's where I like to keep my keys separate from my bag and then sometimes put the bag in there. I need coffee. I probably reheated it three times before it made it into the to-go cup. But sometimes if my to-go cup's dirty, it's in the mug, so I don't have a lid.

Oh, but I didn't eat breakfast. So I need my breakfast too. On a good day, this is all I'm carrying out the door. And anyone else uses like your feet and other parts of your body to open and close doors like you shouldn't. I'm locking the door. I'm kicking it shut. And then I get upset when my coffee spills and I get upset when I drop something. Recently I spilled an entire smoothie on my white tennis shoes. I'm probably running late out the door and I'm like, ah, and I think, is this not how God's looking at us?

We get disappointed when we can't hold it all together. We get upset when things don't all fit in our hands. We get upset when we can't solve our own problems, when our plans aren't working. And he's looking at us like, this isn't bad news that you can't hold it all, that you only have two hands and your feet really shouldn't be shutting the doors. This is good news because Jesus is the one that holds it all together. He is the one that completes it. He is the one that has the strength and the power to do it.

Yet we find ourselves in these situations all the time. We're not talking about externally where the Holy Spirit is going to levitate your coffee cup to your car, right? Not that kind of stuff. But we're talking about all the mental, all the emotional, all the strategizing, all of the okay, well, I'm going to figure out this, this, this, this, this.

Can I tell you the best thing that I've started to do in my prayer life? When I don't have the answer, I go, okay, God, sometimes I'm a little feisty with him. Tell me what to do. I don't know. You got to figure this out because it's yours. When we're leading this church, when we're making decisions, I'm like, all right, God, you got to figure it out. It's not my church. It's yours. He holds it all together. And this is good news today. This is the best news.

Yes, we need more amens and more excitement for that. This is the best news that he's the one that holds it together and not us, and we can release it to him.

Because he's the head and he's the source. In verse 18, it says, he's the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

Again, God was pleased for all his fullness to dwell in him. Now this Greek word for head here, one of my favorite definitions of that that we see all throughout Scripture is head being the source. A really simple picture of this is, is Jesus our source? Is he the head? Is he the source?

If you go out and you try to use a hose, but it's not connected to the source, nothing is going to flow through it. Sometimes from the outside, our bodies look like something should be flowing through. But if we're not connected to the source, that is Jesus, what's flowing through? What is flowing through? Are we connected to the source? Is Jesus our head? Is it his Holy Spirit that's flowing through us?

Ways to check that within our heart is to really think like whenever you're squeezed or there's pressure, what is coming out of you? Is it fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness that we read about in Galatians? Or is it anger and is it bitterness? Is it offense? What flows through you? If it's not what it should be, if it's not the fruit of the spirit, check the connection. Get connected to the source. Open up your Bible and read Scripture. Show up and pray with people, pray with friends. Connect to the source.

The temptation of modern Gnosticism

I was recently having a conversation and someone was talking about how it's hard being in the church because of all that religion has done that's harmful, all that harmful legacy. And I'm like, yeah, it is hard because that's true.

And I can't help but think that if I'm looking back at this Gnosticism teaching, we're like, wow, I can't believe they fell for that. And then I think, how are we following this reality or this false teaching that something other than Jesus completes us? The Gnostic teaching was essentially Jesus plus anything else will complete you. For us, it's really looking and saying, at the end of the day, right now, is there something in your life that you are tempted to think, if only I had this, it would complete me?

I want you to really think about that. If you don't know right now, write it down and pray and ask the Lord to show you. Like, what are these things in your life that if you're like, if only I had this, or if only I would have had this, it would complete me? What is your secret mystery of knowledge? Is it that you want to know where you're going to be in five years? And then you're like, if I knew where I was going to be in five years, life would be easy. That's false. That's fake.

But here's some things that I have found from pastoring this church, and also when I think about the years of working on campus with college students. I think right now, some of the temptations are we think if I just find the right church, right? If I find the best teaching in the world, like a pastor that not only studied Hebrew but Greek and is fluent and this and that, then that's going to complete me. If I find a church that has the best worship team and it's like chills every Sunday, then it's going to complete me. Like then I'm going to really be close to Jesus. If I find a community where nobody ever offends me or hurts me, then yeah, I'm going to be close to Jesus. I'm going to be complete.

Another kind of false teaching I think that we speak a lot is when it comes to marriage and singleness. There's this reality sometimes of living in this lie and this false teaching of, well, if I just pray enough and I read my Bible enough, God's going to bless me with the most perfect spouse. When I have that, I'm going to know like it's a sign that I did all the right things. And then that's going to complete me. I'm never going to be lonely again. I'm never going to be anxious again.

And none of the married people in the room are saying amen to that because marriage doesn't complete you. Having kids doesn't complete you. Having the house that you always dreamed of doesn't complete you. Having the perfect career and your salary going up every single month doesn't complete you. Jesus completes you. That's it. Nothing else.

Jesus alone completes us. We might get to experience some of the other blessings on this side of eternity. But Paul's going to go on and talk about joy and suffering here. We're probably going to experience a lot more of that type of blessing on this side of eternity. But we have the hope of glory, the hope that this is not our home.

That's why Paul was able to keep going and even from prison, he's like, I'm not going to use my time to just sulk. I'm not going to be mad and bitter. I'm going to keep preaching the gospel because I know this is not my home. I have the hope of glory.

And so I share this because I want us as a church, I want us as a family to be people to say, we're not going to give in to the temptation that anything else will complete us. But that means that we each individually have to take responsibility.

I think that we think that if we could find the perfect pastor, the perfect leader, so that I never have to open my Bible but I can go to them for all the answers, that's going to complete me. Can I tell you, this is where I think we need some massive repentance in the church, not just our church but everywhere, of recognizing that each and every one of us, when we say yes to following Jesus, we are born into the body of Christ, into his family, and we have a responsibility.

Each and every one of us here has a responsibility to be a disciple and to go and make disciples and to preach the gospel. I'm honored that like for this season, I get to serve as a pastor, as a shepherd leading this, but I'm a human. I am a human following Jesus. Every leader in this church is a human following Jesus, just like you. We may have different roles, but I have seen where we put people on these pedestals.

We look to them and we're like, well, yes, I'm following Jesus. But then this person told me that if I also do this, this, and this, and this, that's really what following Jesus is like. That's really what completes me. Jesus completes us. That's it. Jesus is the source. You have access to the fullness of who God is because of Jesus and the Holy Spirit that he left with us.

So you don't need all these other religious things. You just need Jesus and surrender to Jesus. Can we be people that we take responsibility? I'm not saying that those teaching here aren't going to handle the word with care because we are, right? I'm not saying that those that are leading and within our church aren't going to be held to this accountability and these standards because, you know, we're preaching the word. No, we are. And we have to take responsibility.

The source cannot be people for us. The source cannot be other podcasts or teachings, other worship music or influences. I as your pastor can't be the source for you. I will never be enough. I'm going to fail you. I'm going to disappoint you. Every human leader will. Every human will.

Jesus' work on the cross was complete and final, and now we have access to the head. We have access to the source. First, we can go directly to him. But instead, it's easier for us to put other people on pedestals and look to them for answers. Because then we don't have to deal with the tensions and the mystery of the unknown. We don't have to deal with the waiting and the wondering and maybe actually digging into Scripture for ourselves. So instead, we continue and we scroll for these revelations instead of taking time to get down on our knees and wait for the Lord to show us. We're quick to quote all these other people except for Scripture.

We get so stuck in chasing this secret knowledge of thinking there's something out there I'm missing. If only I had it, then I'd be complete. This, my friends, is modern day Gnosticism. This is still a temptation for us today that we must rid ourselves of. We must run from that. We must not keep chasing these spiritual highs and neglecting spiritual holiness while doing it. We must get from a place of thinking that the power comes from anything other than Christ. He is the head. Christ is the source.

Reconciliation through his physical body

Paul continues to dig into this more and more when he's saying he holds it all together. He's the source. And then he starts to talk about how he's reconciling all things. He's reconciling all things. He's making us clean time and time again.

Once you were alienated from God, but now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body. Note that again. Why it's important to know they were saying he didn't have a physical body. Paul's going to continue to reference this over and over again. His physical body, through death to present you holy, without blemish and free from accusation.

Again, the body is seen as evil. So they completely disregard the body. Not only is the body so significant in the fact of it was his blood that was poured out. This was no easy death. He endured the most painful type of death for us to completely cleanse us. The shedding of the blood was what paid the price for our sins that we don't have to go back to the old covenant where it was the shedding of animals' blood.

Every time you sinned, every time you messed up, we now come to Jesus and we say, forgive me of my sins. I repent, I turn towards you, and his blood is enough because of that physical body.

Here's the other thing that's so tricky of the enemy. If we believe our physical bodies are worthless and evil, then we might find ourselves just eating Cheetos all day. We might find ourselves not taking care of our bodies, neglecting our physical health, neglecting our physical well-being, not caring about any of that. And then what happens? Nothing good happens from that. Our life is probably shortened.

But the body is a holy physical temple where the presence of God dwells within us. It's something for us to care for. This tricky temptation of the enemy is to say, don't care about your body. Don't even think about it. It's evil. We get to bear the image of God. We're beautiful. Each and every one of us bears a different piece of God's heart. We get to bear the image of God. He created us good. He created us as his children.

The mystery revealed

Verses 24 through 27. I rejoice in what was suffered for you and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness. The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of the mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Catch that. What is this mystery? Christ in you, the hope of glory. He's like the thing that you're searching for, the thing that you think is out there that you can't find, it's right here in front of you. It's right there. We have it. There's no need to keep searching. It's there.

Paul's saying this hidden knowledge has been revealed. And it's not complicated. It's Christ. He came and he's now in you. When you say, I surrender the fullness, he's pleased to now dwell in you and you have the hope of glory. This is what sustains us for suffering.

The reason that Paul was able to endure so much and suffer so much is because you don't just do that for anything. You don't just suffer for fun. That's not fun. But he did it. He did it for the sake of the gospel because he understood who Christ was.

Maturing in Christ, he's the one that we proclaim so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. Paul's goal was not popularity. It was that we would be mature in Christ. That we would be people that see the purity of the gospel and trust Jesus with everything, that he is the one that holds it all together.

I love this last line and I'm going to invite Sean to come up as we get ready to close today. That this last line, I just love so much. I can't stop thinking about it. I labor, struggling with all the energy that Christ works in me.

Who works? Christ. It's him in us. It's his strength. It's his power. It's his energy. It's his peace that works through us. We on our own cannot hold it together. And that's good news because we were not created to do that.

We were created to play a part in spreading the gospel and sharing the gospel. We were created to partner with Jesus and seeing his kingdom come. But we're not building the kingdom. We're not building the church. We are partnering with God and we're getting out of the way so that he can do his work and that his glory is shown through us.

Jesus alone

So what is the main thing that we need to walk away with? Jesus alone. Jesus alone is our source. Jesus alone is our source of life. And because of that, Jesus alone is the one worth living for.

So now what do we do with this? We need to release anything else that we're holding on to and we need to reconnect with the source and that's Jesus. And when I talk about anything else that you're holding on to, I have two ways that I feel like we need to think about this today.

I'm actually going to invite you to just stand with me today. I think there are two different ways that God is inviting us to think about this. The first is like, are there physical things that you're holding on to that you're putting your trust in other than Jesus? Are there things right now that you are like, I trust more in having a steady income, in having good grades, in having this type of friendship or community than I do Jesus? Just ask God to show you.

And then the next part is releasing. Is there anything right now that if you're honest with yourself, you have been living in this reality of saying, if only I had this, then everything would be complete? I just feel like today that there's a cleansing that the Lord wants to do in this room of just saying it's only Jesus. For us to walk out of this place of saying only Jesus.

So I want to just give us a moment to just sit with that and ask the Holy Spirit to show and reveal anything to us. I'm going to have the worship team play Jesus at the center again for us to close, but I want to give you space and invite the Holy Spirit.

Would you come and would you show us anything that we are holding on to that we are trusting more than you? Anything that we are relying on to be the source other than you, Jesus? Holy Spirit, would you convict us today? Would you cleanse us today?

God, if there's anything that we've been holding out for, thinking that if only I had this, like there's some secret mystery, whether it's knowledge or something else, and feeling like if only this would happen, if only this would have happened, then I'd be complete, then I wouldn't feel pain. God, would you show us and would you cleanse us today? Lord, would you help us to be a church and a people that says it's only you?

Because you are the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, the one in whom all things hold together. I thank you, Lord, that you hold us together. Father, I thank you for the good news that we don't have to strive, that we don't have to worry, that we don't have to come up with the solutions on our own, but that it is you.

God, I pray, would you help us to have the courage and to have the boldness to let go of anything else that we are thinking that is going to complete us? That we are trying to have complete us. Anything that we are going to for the source of our joy, for the source of our comfort, for the source of our peace, for the source of our loneliness, for the source of our hope.

God, if there's anything that we are going to that is not you, would you just convict us? Would you remove it from us? Would you cleanse us from it? Would we be people that we look to you as the first, as the one with all authority, all power, the one that we say, I don't have the strength, I need the energy of Christ.

God, I pray that over this room, that we would have the energy of Christ, the power of Christ, the strength of Christ in us. That we would be so connected to you, Jesus, that your source, that your water, that your peace, that the fruits of your spirit just flow with ease. Nothing standing in the way, nothing blocking.

So we just thank you, Jesus. We thank you, Jesus, that we can be weak, and it's in our weakness that you make us strong. That we can be people that only have two hands and only play a part and get to partner with you and say your kingdom come.