As we continue to look at Colossians and the correct posture we hold before the Lord, that He would have no rivals in our lives, the remedy Paul offers to the Colossians and their fight against false teaching is the same remedy he would offer anyone else – a full understanding of Christ and His work and what it has accomplished on behalf of all believers.

Look at verse 2 again as we looked in our last post. Look carefully at how Paul describes the believers. First and foremost, where does it say that the believers are located? IN CHRIST. Even before their physical location was given, Paul reminds them of their spiritual location if you will. Look at Col. 1:27-29. Christ in you believer. You IN CHRIST as well. That is your spiritual location. Our source of true hope. It truly is the gospel of hope thru Christ

We could and probably will spend the rest of our lives unpacking this truth, what it means as being IN CHRIST. This is truly what we are calling Life WITH God. This whole letter of Colossians is putting forth the claim that Christ is sufficient and that what we have been offered in the gospel is God Himself thru Christ, in whom the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form (2:8-9).

When we grasp this, the things of this world lose their draw and appeal to us. WHY and HOW? Because we have found something greater in Christ. We discover that being IN Christ is sufficient for every spiritual need and physical battle we face. Believers have been brought to a fullness IN Christ. Not thru externals.

What Paul puts forth is the need for believers to orient themselves around the full understanding of what being “IN” Christ means and brings with it for their lives and its sufficiency. Fix our minds on this reality of the sufficiency of Christ’s work. Look at Col. 3:2-3. Set your minds somewhere other than this world. On our spiritual location not our physical location. On our true home. Where we find our true identity and existence.

We are hidden in Christ. With this comes security, fullness, completeness, and sufficiency. Christ meets every spiritual need we have, and therefore we have no need for what the world and its false teachers are offering. As believers we are IN Christ and that is enough. See yourself that way today believer. See yourself located IN Christ and all that this brings with it. That is what I want us to catch a glimpse of. What it means to be IN Christ.

Believers are securely located IN Christ and in Him have everything we need for life and godliness to be pleasing to our Lord. Everything we need for life and godliness is IN Christ. This is one of Paul’s favorite phrases in all of his writings, with some variation occurring over 160 times. What Paul writes over and over in his letters is for believers to recognize what being IN Christ means for them and how it impacts their lives in their physical location. To be IN Christ is to belong to Christ thru belief in the gospel of Christ. This is how believers are to see themselves. See yourself IN Christ, WITH God believer. You are His. Relationship.

That is salvation. We have been transferred into God’s kingdom (see Col. 1:13). As sinners, we were IN Adam (Romans 5:12 and following). But now, IN Christ, not only are we a new creation, but we exist spiritually in a new location. IN CHRIST. New spiritual location. New family. Secure. Fullness.

Look at Eph. 2:4-7. Raised up, seated, full relationship. Present reality. We are now located IN the Kingdom of God. And this transfer and new location for believers carries with it a re-orientation of our entire existence. We have an entirely new identity. New family. And we are to build our lives around this new identity that is secured thru the work of Christ.

Not only has God made us alive and raised us with Christ as Paul says in Ephesians 2, but God has also seated us with Christ in the heavenlies IN Christ Jesus. Spiritually we are alive IN Christ and are seated with Him in our homeland. Look at Phil. 3:20. It is from here that we derive all of our spiritual blessings and benefits. In being seated with Christ and being IN Christ believers have a heavenly status with heavenly power to overcome the power of sin and death in the physical world we live in currently.

It is our union with Christ, being IN Christ, that gives us the right to be seated in the heavenly places. Although we are there, we remain here on this earth for the reason of living out a resurrected life in connection with the resurrected Christ before a watching world. God enables us to do this as we abide in the Word and the Word abides in us. We live out the Word, reflect our homeland and its ethic, before a watching world. But it is God doing it thru us thru the Word. In Christ. Christ in us.

A fuller understanding of our position in Christ changes everything. Christ is sufficient. We exist for Him and not for us. He alone is unrivalled by all of these other things. That is Paul’s point. Not rules, not science, not tasks. Think back to what we have seen thus far to shed light on the beauty of what God actually did in sending Christ to dwell in us and us in Him. Life UNDER God sees the world as governed by a moody, inconsistent God who must be pandered to keep Him on your side. Life OVER God places laws and science at the center of everything, that God wound everything up and let it go and is not involved in day to day occurrences. Life FROM God assumes the world orbits around us and we serve God only to get stuff. And Life FOR God sees activity at the center of everything. All of these fall short of truly understanding what being IN Christ offers.

In the gospel, we have so much more than we could ever have imagined on our own. God went so far beyond our imaginations in what He actually did. The beauty and scandal of Christianity is that God satisfied His own righteous demands thru the work of Christ, and in return offered us a relationship with Himself, which is to be at the center of everything. Life WITH God. It is a relationship that is at the core of Christianity. IN Christ.

At the center of everything is not a list of rules and rituals to follow (Life UNDER God), nor the implementation of principles (Life OVER God), God didn’t send a genie to grant us our every desire (Life FORM God), nor did He give us a work to do to earn His favor (Life FOR God). Instead, God offered us Himself. Just as it had been in Eden before sin when He dwelt among His creation. And how we experience this relationship is thru the Word. Time in the Word, praying, fellowshipping – all Word centered.

We can’t starve ourselves of the Word and expect to understand nor experience what being IN Christ means. What the relationship God has offered us thru the gospel is meant to be. This is what Paul says this in Col. 3:16-17. Word richly dwelling in us flows into God getting glory thru our lives because the Word begins to control us, empower us, and we reflect Christ, the Word, thru our lives. But it all is sourced in being IN Christ. Relationship changes everything.

And it is this relationship, being IN Christ, that dictates and governs every aspect of a believer’s life. Even down to what we call ourselves. Like a family name defines what family we belong to, being in Christ defines and dictates and guides every aspect of our being. May this truth govern our lives and may we shine bright during these times all to the glory of Christ. Different on purpose.