Take your Bibles and turn with
me to Colossians. Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1 and this
morning we'll be looking at verses 3 through verse 5, but I'll go
ahead and read again verses 1 and 2 along with it. And the title
of the message this morning is A Prayer of Thanksgiving. A Prayer
of Thanksgiving. Colossians chapter 1 and verse
1 says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and
Timotheus, our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren
in Christ which are at Colossae, grace unto you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God
and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love
to all the saints. for the hope which is laid up
for you in heaven, whereof you heard before in the word of the
truth of the gospel, which came unto you as it is in all the
world, and bringeth forth fruit, so it doeth also in you since
the day you heard it, and knew the grace of God in truth. Now,
last week we looked at verses 1, where Paul gives his salutation. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
by the will of God. And this salutation was not just
a formal greeting, but rather meant for the comfort of those
to whom he wrote. To this church at Colossae, he
had never seen them before. He had only heard of their faith
and love and hope in Christ. And he desired to comfort them
and assure them in their faith, to give them comfort. And he
does this by announcing his apostleship. Paul, an apostle by the will
of God. Now, Paul was an apostle not
by his own will, but by God's will. Isn't it amazing how God
took the most ardent opponent and turned him into the greatest
apostle? That was nothing for our God.
That was nothing for Him. But He did that to show His power
and grace, to make Him a fruitful Apostle. And as such an Apostle,
He received the Word not from men, but rather from God, from
Jesus Christ Himself. And the Holy Spirit came upon
Paul as He did the other Apostles, like no other man before or after
them. These men had a very special
office that only was unique to them. No one before them had
the office of an apostle and no one after them. But their
word was like unto the prophets before. When the prophets spoke,
matter of fact, that's what a prophet is. He is a teller of God's Word. He receives the Word of God and
he declares it. Well, that's what the apostles
did. They receive their word directly from God, and so this
word that we have before us is not just Paul's word as a man,
but rather as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. And
this should end all doubt. When you read this book, when
you read these apostles, their office should tell you that all
doubt is removed. All doubt is removed. Now, if
you say, well, Calvin said, or Luther said, or this man said,
that really doesn't matter because we're men. And so we must speak,
as Peter says, as the oracles of God. We must speak these words
as they are of God. And so this is what it was meant
for. Even so, as Paul learned, last
week we saw, as Paul learned, he received the office of apostleship,
we also saw that we should take our place in the church. Whatever
office we're given, whatever place we have, we should be faithful
in the body, whatever, and not covet another man's office or
another man's gifts. That's evil. And who doesn't
among us do that and need to guard against that? We should.
Every time I was telling Scott just before the service about
J.C. Philpott, I enjoy reading his
sermons and sometimes I can't read them because I covet him
so much. I covet his gifts. That's just evil. We shouldn't
covet a man's gifts. We should be content with whatever
we're given. And secondly, we saw this, that
Paul called these saints, this church, he writes to the saints
and faithful brethren in Christ. We saw that all believers in
Christ are saints and faithful Brethren, even because we have
been sanctified by God. That's what the word saints means.
It means set apart, made holy. And that's what every believer
in Jesus Christ is. You are a saint. You're a saint. A saint of God. You are sanctified
of God the Father in election. You were sanctified by God the
Son in His redemption. You were sanctified by God the
Holy Spirit when He called you to life and faith in Christ. Consider that as we were born
again of the Spirit of God and given a new nature, we were sanctified
by Him. You were created, isn't that
sanctification? You were made holy by God Himself. You were given a new nature,
the apostle says in Ephesians 4, that you were created after
God in true holiness. Holiness. Now we know this, that
holiness is not by measure, is it? There's not more or less
holiness. Holiness is an all or none principle. You are either holy or you're
not holy. And God, by His grace in sanctification
of the Holy Spirit, has created in us a new nature that is incorruptible. That is righteous. That is the
express image of the Son of God. This image is made by the new
birth, and yet we know this, that we still have this old man.
Is that not why we have trouble calling ourselves saints? Because
of this old man. This old man of sin didn't change,
did he? When you had a new creation in
you, the old man didn't change. He still is vile and corrupt.
And so what the Scripture expresses to us is that this Spirit of
God, this new nature, is just a down payment. We've not received
the full measure of what this is yet. We've not experienced
the full measure of Christ's salvation. And so then we struggle. We have a warfare that goes on
in our hearts. And yet, because of this new
nature, we are not only called saints, but we are called faithful
brethren. Is that not something? You are
a faithful brother. Faithful. Completely faithful. This is because of the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ. We don't give any credit to our
faithfulness, do we? We don't give any credence to
that. We don't lean on it, because
sure as we do, we'll fall. Man, I was faithful yesterday.
Watch out, you're fixing to fall. You're leaning on it and it'll
collapse underneath your weight. Don't rest on your faithfulness. But rather you are faithful in
the eyes of God because of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Isn't that what Romans 3 tells
us? Romans chapter 3 tells us that the righteousness of God,
which is by the faithfulness or faith of Jesus Christ. That's where it is. So we're
faithful because of Christ. And we know, we can see this
many places in the Scripture. In the Old Testament, doesn't
God always expose His saints to be sinners saved by grace? Abraham. I mean the father of
the faithful. That's what he's called. And
yet he lied to Pharaoh because he did not believe God concerning
the promise. He thought that Sarah would be
abducted. And he lied. Moses, when Moses
killed that Egyptian and buried his body, when he heard that
he was exposed, he ran like a coward. He ran and hid in the wilderness. But what does the New Testament
say about those saints? Abraham staggered not at the
promises of God in unbelief. Moses, not fearing Not fearing. Man, he sure looked like he feared.
Well, I'll tell you, in the eyes of God, he did not fear. Why? Because he had the righteousness
of Christ imputed and imparted to him. That's how God sees us.
I'll tell you, that's not how we see ourselves, is it, faithful
brethren? But yet, this is how God sees
his people. And now, we get down to our text. Paul here gives thanks for these
brethren. He gives thanks to God. Praying
always for you. He writes a prayer of thanksgiving.
And the first thing I want to say is that Paul did not thank
Colossae. He did not thank the saints for
their faith or anything. He gave thanks to God. To God. We thank God and the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you. Paul begins the
substance of this letter with a word of thanksgiving. We thank
God. Now, this should always be the
attitude of our hearts. Now, I can ask you this, is it
always the attitude of your heart to be thankful? No, but I tell
you, it should be the attitude of our heart considering what
we have been given. We should be thankful above all
people. We should be most thankful. Do you not see that it's inconsistent
or rather impossible? It is impossible to be thankful
and to murmur at the same time. Isn't that impossible? We try
to do both. God, I thank you, but. But you didn't do it the way
I thought. No, you can't have both. You
can't be thankful and murmur. Surely if we are murmuring, we
are not thankful, and if we are thankful, surely we're not murmuring.
Believer, let us pray for such a heart as this to give thanks
to God in the Trinity of His persons. For God alone is the
author and finisher of all of our salvation. For God alone
has given us life, both physical and spiritual life. He is the
God of all grace and He has given us all His graces. Do you not
see that, that God, whatever God has, He's given you? The Scripture says this, All
things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. All things are yours. Now, what
does that include? Well, that includes all things.
That includes all things. All things in eternity and all
things in time are yours, are for your good. No matter if we
can see if it's for our good or not, that's irregardless.
We should give thanks to God because He has given us Himself. That's what He's given us. Didn't
He say that to Abraham? I am thy exceeding great reward. I am. This is the promise of
Holy Scripture. I will be your God. and you shall
be my people. In this we have all things. All things. I want us to see
a few of these things. Just go over to Psalm 103. I want you to see some things
that to give thanks for. These things are ours. They're gifts of God's
grace. And so when you're confronted
with troubles and difficulties, you know, think on these things.
Think on these things. Consider what God has given you,
and this, my friends, will produce a thankful heart. Look what the
psalmist says in verse 1 of chapter 103 of Psalms. He said, Bless
the Lord. Praise the Lord. Exalt the Lord. Lift up the Lord. Give thanks
unto the Lord. Oh my soul. See, the psalmist is not talking
to anybody else. He's talking to himself. He's
talking to his own soul. I don't know this morning if
you will praise God, but I know this, I should praise God. I should be thankful to God.
Oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. And listen how he blesses his
holy name. He forgets not all his benefits. I used to be able to memorize
things. I was telling my wife the other
day, I used to be able to memorize large portions of things and
then be able to just recite them, just be able to pour them out. That was something I had most
of my life. And I know this, the Lord has
seemingly taken that away. I bleed through, I mean, these
thoughts, they run in and they run out just as fast as they
come in now. And I can't seem to grasp or
retain anything. This is why I need the Word of
God. To remind me. Because we can forget. We are
forgetful people and this is what we should remember. who
forgiveth all thine iniquities. How thankful should we be to
God who by Jesus Christ has washed away all our sins by His blood? They're gone. All your sins are
gone. I know you see them. But I tell you this, that's an
illusion. Because they're gone before the
eyes of God. God hath put away thy sin. Isn't that what he told David?
Even before David's confession, he said this, Thy sins have been
put away, pardoned. And God says, I, even I, have
blotted out thy sins as a thick cloud. I've blotted them out. How did He do so? By the blood
of the Son. This was no small cost to God. It was of infinite value. It
was of infinite cost that the Son of God bore our sins in His
own body on the tree. And I tell you this, you don't
forget this. He's healed all your diseases. who healeth all
thy diseases." This is the spiritual plague
of sin that we were born with. The spiritual plague of leprosy
that we are born with. He has healed us completely. Perfectly. Isn't that what it
says in Colossians 2? Paul said this, you are complete. You're whole in Him. Now, who needs to be made whole?
Those that are sick. Isn't that what Jesus said? He
was preaching to sinners, and they said, why does your master
eat with publicans and sinners? He said, well, they that are
holy, not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Isn't that what
He's done for us? Has He called us to repentance?
Has He called us to faith in Christ? Yes, give thanks He has
healed all thy disease of sin. Look at this, He's crowned us
with loving kindness and tender mercies. He has redeemed our life by the
life of His Son. Give thanks to God, the Holy
Spirit, who has taken these things and actually applied them. These
things are not just mental assents, but these are
our experiences. When I'm talking about, He healeth
thy diseases, I tell you this, you've experienced the grace
of God. You've experienced His... He's
exposed you of your sins, hasn't He? Hasn't He caused you to confess
your sins and flee to Christ? This is crowning you with loving
kindness. This is a manifestation of His
grace. Crowned us with loving kindness. And this also reminds us that
His love is forever. I wish I could say that of my
love. But I can't. My love is fleeting. It's cold. It's indifferent at times. But
I remember this. His love never changes. He has always loved me. He loves me even now. And He will always love me. Who
satisfieth thy mouth with good things. Doesn't He satisfy our
mouth with these good things? Isn't that what we hunger for? This is what the new man hungers
for. It hungers to hear these good
things. And you know what? I'm satisfied
with these good things. I don't want anything else. This
is enough. It is enough that Christ died
for me. It is enough that God is satisfied
with him. And so then we should be thankful
to God for His love, for His mercy in Christ. Thanks be to
God that He will, for all of His promises, His promise to
love us, His promise is, I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. His promise is, I've gone to prepare a place for you, and
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will no doubt come again
and receive you unto myself. I will come again. This is not
a speculation. He said, I will come again. And
this is no speculation. Listen, there is therefore now
no condemnation. to them who are in Christ Jesus.
How sweet are these things to every believer's ear, to everyone
who is a believer in Jesus Christ, because these things will never
be taken from us. Jesus said in John 10, he said
this, I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hands. Believer, I know this, we fall
constantly. But I'll tell you this, we may
fall, but we always fall on the rock, never off of it. We fall
on Christ and are broken, but we never fall off of Him. He
will never lose us. This is why we should be ever
thankful. If you have ever heard the voice
of the Son of God and believed, if you have ever been given eternal
life and no one can take this from you, no one can separate
you from His love or stop Him from giving you the kingdom. Nothing. Is this not cause enough to thank
God instead of murmuring? Isn't that reason enough to thank
God? Yes. We should thank God and not murmur
for His great grace. If you have heard His voice,
give Him thanks. If He has saved you by His mercy,
give Him thanks. Well, how do you know if the
Lord has saved you? How do you know if all of these
promises are yours? Look back at your text. Paul
gives thanks to God because he knows God is the cause and source
of all their salvation. But look at this, he says, we
give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying
always for you. since we heard of your faith
in Jesus Christ." Paul gives thanks to God for the faith of
these believers. He could give thanks to God for
their salvation because of their faith. Their faith. Listen, you
may know all about the election of God, but knowing the election
of God is not salvation. You may know TULIP. You may know
total depravity, unconditioned election, limited atonement,
irresistible grace, perseverance and preservation of the saints.
But listen, unless you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you
have no part with him. Faith in Christ is necessary. to believe on Jesus Christ alone. Unless you believe on Christ
alone, you have no union with Christ. And if there is no union,
then the promises of God are not for you. Now, Paul had never seen these saints.
He never preached to them. And they did not believe on Christ
under his preaching. But I tell you this, they did
hear a preacher. And his name, Paul mentions,
is Epaphras. He says Epaphras is a fellow
servant of the gospel. They heard the gospel by this
man Epaphras. And so Paul, seeing that his
gospel and Epaphras' gospel were the same gospel, he gives thanks
to God for their belief in Christ of that gospel. In Mark 16, verse 16, listen
to the words of the Lord. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. We preach this message to sinners. We preach to those who by no
means can please God by their deeds of the law or works of
the flesh. We preach to those estranged
from God, guilty of rebellion and high treason against God.
That's who we preach to. We preach to sinners. Because
this gospel message is for sinners. Sinners. This is our message. It was the message of Paul. It
was the message of Epaphras. And it is the message of every
gospel preacher. Come to Christ and be made clean. This is the message. Simple,
is it not? Just plain, simple. Forsake your
sin and come to Christ. This is our message. Believe
on Christ. Come and bring what? Nothing! That's the message. Now, a natural
man wants to bring something. This is the crook in the lot
here. They want to bring something.
I say, come to Christ as you are. Believe now on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and forsake your sin, forsake yourself, and trust
only in Him. And yet man says, well, I want
to come to Christ, but surely I've got to bring something.
You know what you should bring? Your guilt. That's what you should
bring. Your filth, that's what you should
bring. Your sin, your iniquity, your
transgression, you should bring all that to Him and say, I have
nothing. Save me. And I tell you, He will
save you. This is the message. Come, you who are blind, and
go away seeing. Jesus said, for judgment I am
coming to the world that they which see not might see. Who's
going to see? They which see not. Wasn't the blind man the one
in need of sight? You know who Jesus gives sight
to? Only those who are blind. If you say, I know that. What you're saying is, I already
see that. I don't need that. Well, Christ
didn't come to save you. He came to save the blind, to
heal the blind, to raise the dead. He came to save sinners. That's who He came to save. Are
you blind? Then come to Christ. Are you
dead? Then come to Christ and see. But as long as you say,
well, I see. Your sin, Christ Jesus said,
remaineth. See, faith in Christ, my friends,
is the only channel by which salvation comes to the souls
of men. Faith. Faith. Through our faith, though our
faith is not the cause of our salvation, it is surely necessary
for salvation. It is surely necessary. Just
as sure as the election of the Father and the redemption of
Christ. Listen, the Spirit will call His people to what? To faith
in Christ. Faith is necessary. Jesus said in John 6, 37, "...all
that the Father giveth Me shall..." What? "...come to Me." What is
coming to Christ? Is that not believing on Christ?
That's the same thing. Faith in Christ. That's what
it means. All that the Father giveth Me
will believe on Me. and him that believeth on me,
I will never cast them away. I will never cast them out. And I tell you, you may be like
that woman who had, that Gentile woman who came begging to the
Lord and He may refuse you. He may say, is it meat to give
the children's bread to such a dog as you are? Is that proper? You're a wicked person. Is it
just meat? You know what? That did not cause
that woman to go away, did it? It caused her to beg more! And I tell you, when Christ's
Word comes to you and says that you're not worthy, you're not
worthy, what does that do to someone who's not worthy? It
causes them to beg for mercy. See, Christ never turns away
anyone who comes to Him by faith. Never! Anyone! This is a miracle
of God's grace. And listen, all the elect of
the Father, predestinated of God, to be holy sons of God, were
given to Christ. He did pay for all their sins.
And the Spirit of God will bring all of them. And what is the
result of His calling? The result of His calling is
success. The Spirit never calls at a venture. Now, I preach the Word at a venture,
don't I? I cast the seed at a venture.
I don't know where it's going to land. I don't know what it's
going to do. Now, this drives me crazy. It does. It stirs up, man. Sometimes I
want to just place it here and place it there. That never works.
We at a venture throw it. But I know this, when the Spirit
of God takes it, He pierces the heart. He always gets His man. Irresistible grace. And the result
of this irresistible grace is what? Faith. Faith is always
the result of the Spirit of God. Faith in Christ. Let me ask you this, you who
do believe. You know of your election. You
know the election of God. You know it's sure that God from
before the foundation of the world chose a people. Were you
there? Did you see God make a covenant
with Himself? No. I know this, that every name
of the elect are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. I know that. I wasn't there when He did it.
And when Christ died, I wasn't there when He died. I didn't
see it. How then do I know my election
and my redemption? How do I know that God chose
me? How do I know that Christ redeemed me? This is the only
evidence we are given. Faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. Listen, the evidence of things
not seen. And see, my faith is not speculating. I'm not speculating my name was
written down. I know my name was written down.
I'm not speculating that Christ died for my sins. He actually
died for my sins. How do I know this? Because God
has given me faith. And faith is not just a decision. It's not just something that
man generates. It's not something man can produce.
Listen, faith is a grace of God. It is a gift. And if you have
faith, listen, That's not something to take lightly. It's something
you should be thankful for. Faith is a gift of God. Our faith in Jesus Christ is in the scriptures always presented
as present tense. This has always been a blessing
to me. Faith is always present tense. In other words, faith
10 minutes ago and faith 10 minutes from now will not help you. Only
faith now. Do you believe now? Don't look back and say, well,
I believed. That's not going to provide you any comfort. Well,
you know, when I get through this, then that won't provide
you any comfort if you're going to believe. That's not any comfort
to you. What's comforting is this. I
do believe. I now believe on Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ Friends, it's
not a one-time decision. It's not a mental assent to the
existence of Christ. It's not just to agree with the
work and salvation of Christ was successful. Any lost man
may be wrestled into consenting to these truths, but to believe
on Jesus Christ, listen, that is a work of God. It's a work
of God. Paul could be thankful for these
Colossians' faith because it was evidence of their election
and their redemption. It was evidence that God had
performed a work in them. And listen, if you believe, it
is because God has performed a work of grace in you. And secondly, look, he sees this
in this. He thanks God for their faith. And listen, he thanks God for
their love. And of the love which you have
to all the saints. Faith is the evidence of God's
salvation, but love is the evidence of faith. You get that? There's a lot of
people who believe In the scriptures, there were some that believed
on Jesus, but they did not continue with him. I'll tell you, there's
some false professors of faith. Now, how do I know if my faith
is real? How do I know if I'm not deceiving
myself? Well, here's the evidence that your faith is real. Do you
love the brethren? Oh, yes. Yes, I love the brethren. Go over to 1 John. Look at this. 1 John is full of this
reasoning. 1 John chapter 5 and verse 1. The Apostle says, Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. What is that? That's
faith. How do I know I'm born again
of the Spirit of God? I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And how do I know my faith is
genuine? And every one that loveth him
that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him." I love God. Now, how is love to God proven? How is it manifest? Can I manifest
my love to God to you? No. I could tell you I love God
all day, can't I? But how can you know it? Do I
love you? Oh, this brings joy to my heart
because I do love you. I do. Love is the fruit of faith. Faith is the fruit of grace,
and love is the fruit of faith. In that, just above this in 1
John 4, look at this, verse 20. If any man say, I love God, and
hateth his brother, listen, he is a liar. That's a liar. For he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment we have
of him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. And his
commandments are what? Not grievous to us. You know
what, it's not grievous for me to be with you this morning.
I love it. You don't realize the joy I receive
by being with you. That is, it is the highlight
of my week. I spend most of my time alone,
but this is my highlight right now, being with you. I love you. I do. And if you love the brethren,
Is there any glory in our love? Are we to glory in our love now?
Because I don't love you as much as I should. I recognize that. But I do love you. And as you
love one another, you should also desire to exalt one another,
to lift one another up. And I tell you, by you just sitting
there, You do that to me. You encourage me. You strengthen me by your love. And I thank God for your love.
I do. And lastly, he thanks God for
their hope. Look at this. Go back to your
text. He says he thanks God for their faith, their hope, and
for their love and for their hope. He said, for the hope that is
laid up for you in heaven. Hope. Believer, give thanks to
God for the hope that we have that's in heaven. What does that
mean? This world is not our home. I know the flesh wants to settle
down here. This world ain't it. I tell you what, I hope and expect
very little from this life. I hope and expect, I expect pain.
I expect suffering. I expect grief and sorrow because
that's all this world has to offer. But I have a hope that
extends beyond this life. And you do too. You're a believer
in Christ. Your hope is not in this world.
It's in heaven where Christ sits. And I'll tell you, you have a
good hope. What is hope? It's not a wish. Because that's
how we use the word, isn't it? Gee, I hope this. I hope that. No. Hope means assurance. Confidence. If you have any confidence,
it is not in you, it is all in Christ. And because God raised
him from the dead, he's in heaven now, ready to reveal that salvation
to you. Ready. May God give us hearts
of thankfulness for the faith, the love, and the hope, these
graces that he's given to us. And if we're thankful for these
things, we are not able to complain. Not able to complain. May God
bless us to you.