Last week the Minnesota Timberwolves traded the superstar Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics in exchange for seven players. What does it feel like to know that you are worth seven men? Obviously KG, as he’s known among NBA fans, must be pretty good. He is. He’s the total package. This 6’11’’ power-forward can shoot, dribble, pass, AND play defence. That’s why the Celtics were willing to trade seven players to get him. They figure that KG will give them their best shot at winning a championship.
Kevin Garnett may be worth seven men, but Jesus Christ is worth every person that ever lived. We know this because the heavenly Father traded Jesus away to gain for himself a world of sinners. Like Kevin Garnett, only better, Jesus is the total package. That’s what the Apostle Paul wanted to impress upon the Colossian Christians who were in danger of letting Jesus go in favour of man-made philosophies they thought more impressive. Today we want to learn together how Jesus is the total package so that we never let go of him.
Paul wrote to the Colossians because their pastor, Epaphras, told him about the false teachers that were hanging around his members urging things like the worship of angels, abstinence from certain foods, and the belief that Jesus wasn’t God. To reinforce what the Colossians had learned from their own pastor, namely that Jesus is the total package, Paul wrote: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority” (Colossians 2:9, 10).
False teachers could claim that Jesus wasn’t God but the truth is the whole divine nature, everything that makes God, God, resides in the person of Jesus. Let’s not pass over that truth so quickly. That’s a bit like saying that this pickup truck holds the sand from every beach, from every ocean, lake and river bottom, from every desert, sand dune, and playground sandbox in the world! That’s impossible you say. And so it seems impossible that the infinite God can be housed in a finite body, yet that’s what the Bible teaches about Jesus. The man Jesus is also the God Jesus.
Instead of trying to figure out how this can be, it’s more important to answer why. Why did Jesus have to be both God and man, and how does that give us fullness as Paul said? As the angels outside of Bethlehem proclaimed, Jesus came to save the world from sin. In order to do this Jesus needed to be human so that he could take our place and pay the penalty for sin, which is death. Think of it like this. If I committed a crime, I could hardly expect the judge to let my cat go to jail in my place. My cat is an animal and I’m human. In the same way, if Jesus is going to take our place, he needs to be one of us. Still, Jesus needed to remain God so that his payment for death would extend to the whole world. If your spouse or child gets one or two parking tickets and doesn’t have the money to pay for them, I’m sure you’d be able to pay them (though you wouldn’t be happy about it). But what if everyone in the world came to you with their parking tickets, would you be able to pay for every one of them? No. You would need to be Bill-Gates-rich to do that! In the same way Jesus needed to remain God-rich so that his death could be credited as payment for the sins of everyone that has ever lived.
And Jesus has paid for every one of our sins, or “missteps,” as Paul calls them (v. 13b). Missteps. That word makes it sound as if sin isn’t so bad. Well it’s one thing to misstep while walking through a pasture of cow pies and quite another to misstep while attempting to cross a tightrope that had been strung between two skyscrapers. There, just one misstep will plunge to your death. That puts sin in perspective doesn’t it? No matter the cause or how small the sin may seem to us, it puts us off the narrow road to heaven and plunges us into an eternity of hell. So losing your patience whether it’s because your child is refusing to do what you asked or because the clerk messed up, knocks you off the path to heaven. Bending the truth, even a little about where you were and with whom you were hanging out is enough to send you hurtling down to hell. Ignoring traffic laws because you think they’re dumb or because no one else observes them is as damning as driving home drunk and killing someone in the process. Sure Paul calls them missteps but make no mistake, our sins are a big deal to God and they should be to us!
Although the false prophets in Colosse were not denying the horrible consequence of sin, they were offering man-made solutions to a problem only God can fix. They said that you could save yourself from hell by praying to angels or refraining from eating certain foods. But that’s a bit like telling someone who has slipped and is falling that they should try harder to stay on the tightrope. Such advice is too late and worthless when your airborne! And so worthless is the advice the world gives about how we can save ourselves if we only tried harder to be good.
Paul had better advice, divinely inspired advice. He said, “Turn to Jesus - the total package.” Paul wrote: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ…When you were dead in your sins…God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:8, 13, 14).
God dealt with our problem of sin when he cancelled the written code, or certificate of debt as is another way to translate that word. No, he didn’t just toss it aside and said, “Forget about it.” He nailed our debt to the cross. For there, payment was made. The cross, therefore, is our receipt, our proof that all sin has been paid for. It would be like your banker handing you a receipt when announcing that someone had paid off your mortgage! I don’t think you’d toss that receipt in the trash heap. You’d put it out on the table for your spouse to see when he or she came home from work. And you certainly would hold it up to the face of any supposed bank employee who came afterwards to say that you still owed money on the house. So when sin is weighing you down, look to the cross. That’s your guarantee that sin has been paid for. When Satan would suggest that God could never love you, look to the cross for there is proof of God’s love. Paul spoke about the effect of forgiveness when he wrote: “…you have been given fullness in Christ” (Colossians 2:10a). As the gas burners fill the canopy of a hot air balloon so that it rises above the earth, so Jesus fills us with forgiveness so that we rise over Satan’s accusations and over death itself! Christ gives us other promises too that fill our life. Because he promises to take care of us we Christians rise above the stresses of life whether that’s trying to survive in retirement or adjusting to a new school. Paul was right when he said that Jesus is the total package!
Jesus is the total package but do you find yourself “bored” with him? If so, it’s because we’re like the one-year-old who looks blankly at a birthday package, sticks it in his mouth, and then tosses it aside, unopened, to look for something “more exciting.” Paul warns us against simply admiring the pretty package entitled “Jesus” before turning our attention to other things. God wants us to unwrap this package and take a long probing look at everything inside (Robert Bugbee). Paul put it this way: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 2:6, 7). Let us never sing: “Jesus loves me this I know…and that’s all I want to know.” Yes, Jesus loves us. Yes, Jesus died for us. But there is so much more to Jesus than these truths. “Unwrap” your savior by delving into God’s Word through Sunday Bible study and your home devotions and enjoy all the blessings he has to offer.
Kevin Garnett may be worth seven NBA players but what’s that got to do with you? Even if you’re a Celtics fan and KG brings home the championship the joy over that victory won’t last very long. Jesus, on the other hand, is the total package because he traded his life to save you, me, the whole world. In him we have total forgiveness. In him we have a reason to overflow with thanks no matter what our situation because in him, the total package, we rise above sin, death, and the devil. So unwrap your savior, and savor all that he offers as you hold on to him, not man-made philosophies. Amen.
