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The following blog is a summary of a message preached by Pastor Eddie Lawrence.

Watch the Sermon HERE!

Many Christians spend their lives trying harder, doing more, and hoping it's enough. But what if the key to a fruitful, free, and mature faith isn't trying harder at all? It's trusting more deeply in who Christ is and what He has already done. This is the heart of what Paul teaches in the Book of Colossians, and it's a message the church desperately needs today.

What Does It Mean to Preach Christ, Not Just About Christ?

In Colossians 1:28-29, the Apostle Paul makes his mission crystal clear: "Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily."

Paul wasn't preaching a system of principles or a checklist of behaviors. He was preaching a person. The Lord Jesus Christ was His bullseye. Everything else flowed from that.

It's easy to reduce the Christian life to boxes we check, formulas we follow, or habits we maintain. And while obedience and holy living matter, they are meant to flow from who we are, not be the means by which we become who we are.

You Are Already in Christ. Do You Believe That?

Paul writes in Colossians that "Christ in you" is the hope of glory. Not Christ trying to get into you. Not Christ waiting on the outside until you perform well enough. Christ in you, right now, as a believer.

Your life, as a follower of Jesus, is hidden with Christ in God. That is your position. That is your identity. And until that truth becomes more than a concept, more than something you've heard in church, it won't change the way you live.

Consider this: a glove has a purpose, but it is completely powerless until a hand fills it. You and I are the glove. Christ is the hand. When we yield to His indwelling presence and surrender to that union, we begin to function in what we were actually created to do. It's not the glove doing the work. It's the hand in the glove.

Is Salvation Something You Can Know for Certain?

Religion has long taught that if you do enough, and keep doing it long enough, you might make it to heaven. But that is not the revelation of Scripture.

"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." - Romans 10:9

"These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." - 1 John 5:13

You can know you are saved. You don't have to hope it works out. You can stand on the finished work of Jesus Christ and declare that you are a child of God. Your true identity is not who you were before Christ. It is who you have become because you are now positioned in Him.

Why Studying the Bible Isn't Enough on Its Own

Imagine going to a restaurant, sitting down, and spending 45 minutes studying the menu. You smell the food, you read every description, you can recite every item. Then you get up and leave without eating anything.

That's how many people approach their faith. They study about Christ, they talk about what He could do, they know the menu by heart. But they never actually partake.

Peter tells us we are to be "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). That's not a passive thing. It's an invitation to actually experience union with Christ, not just know about it.

The Word of God is essential. As Paul wrote to Timothy: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." - 2 Timothy 3:16-17

But the goal of Scripture is not information alone. It's transformation. Truth has to become incarnational, so deeply absorbed that it begins to manifest from the inside out.

What Does It Mean to Be "Perfect" or Complete in Christ?

When Paul says he wants to present every man "perfect in Christ," He's using the Greek word that carries the idea of full maturity. Not sinless perfection, but spiritual completeness and growth.

God's purpose for every believer is spelled out in Romans 8:28-29: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son."

Everything God allows in your life is being used to conform you into the image of Jesus. That process requires yielding. It requires being moldable. When we resist that shaping, we stay immature, and an immature believer can actually push people away from faith rather than drawing them toward it.

A muscadine grape picked too early is bitter and sour. The same fruit, fully matured, is sweet and rich. Christians who aren't growing in maturity can create bitterness in others. The call is to keep growing, keep yielding, keep pressing into Christ.

Are You a Rowboat Christian or a Sailboat Christian?

This is one of the most practical questions you can ask yourself about how you're living your faith.

A rowboat Christian relies entirely on their own effort. If they stop paddling, nothing moves. It's exhausting, and it's all on them.

A sailboat Christian is still involved. They hoist the sail by faith. They keep their hand on the rudder. They listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit. But as they move in obedience, the wind of God fills those sails and carries them forward. The Holy Spirit does what human effort never could.

That's the difference between grace-empowered works and self-willed religious effort. Paul described it this way in Colossians 1:29: he labored and agonized, but it was "according to His working which works in me mightily." It was God's grace supplying the fuel. Paul was involved, but the power wasn't his own.

What Is Grace, Really?

Grace is not just the means by which you are saved. Grace is the ongoing power to do the will of God. It's the supernatural enablement that comes when you step out in obedience and trust the Holy Spirit to move.

Grace can even change what you want. It can get you excited about doing something you had no desire to do before. That's how transformative it is.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." - Ephesians 2:8

Salvation is a gift. The Holy Spirit is a gift. Spiritual gifts are gifts. You cannot take credit for any of it. And that's not a reason for passivity. It's a reason for deep, humble trust.

What Was Confusing the Colossians, and What Confuses Us Today?

The church at Colossae was being pulled in several wrong directions. Some were drawn to Gnostic ideas that God was too holy to interact with the material world directly. Others were chasing hidden mysteries and secret knowledge. Still others were caught up in rules about food, drink, and religious observances.

Paul's answer to all of it was the same: Christ is the substance. Everything else is a shadow. He is to have preeminence in all things. Don't substitute anything for Him.

The same temptations exist today. We can be drawn to spiritual novelty, to complex systems of rules, or to philosophies that appeal to our pride because they require more of us. But the answer is still Christ and Christ alone.

Life Application

This week, choose to be a sailboat instead of a rowboat. Identify one area of your life where you have been relying on self-effort, willpower, or religious performance rather than trusting the Holy Spirit. Surrender that area to Christ. Hoist the sail by faith, keep your hand on the rudder through prayer and the Word, and let the wind of God do what you cannot do on your own.

Ask yourself these questions as you reflect:

  • Am I living from my identity in Christ, or am I still trying to earn it through performance?
  • Have I been studying the menu without actually partaking? Is my knowledge of Scripture becoming transformation in my life?
  • Where am I exhausted in my faith, and could that exhaustion be a sign that I'm rowing when I should be sailing?
  • Am I yielding to the shaping work of God, or am I resisting the process He is using to conform me into the image of His Son?

You are complete in Christ. Not because of what you have done, but because of what He has done. Rest in that. Grow from that. And let that truth become so incarnational in your life that when you are squeezed, it is Christ who comes out.