Turn with me to Colossians chapter one. It is indeed a treat for me to be here. Had our Lord been pleased to leave me alone, I don't know where I might be or what I might be doing. But I have seen it so many times, people go off and they're just happy and whatever it is they're doing, and Lord only knows what that is, but they're perfectly satisfied to stay there, perfectly happy. But I'm so happy he didn't leave me alone.

Paul thanked the Father for the Colossian saints. Your pastor just read to us, having made them meet to be partakers of the inheritance of enlightened saints. Saints who have eyes, blessed are your eyes, they see. Somebody who hears what you preach and acknowledge it, most of the time with smiles or tears,

We had one old fella, he came to church, a man he went to school with brought him, and he was going to Cowboy Church. And he came in there that Sunday and heard me preach, went home madder than a wet horn. He was, oh, he was mad. Thumped out, left, called his friend up, told him how upset he was about what he was hearing, and he said, He couldn't remember exactly what I said. He just knew he was mad. He said, well, why don't you come back and hear him again? He said, they don't charge admission coming here. And so he did. And he kept coming. And about the fifth or sixth week, I looked back there and I was preaching. And the big tears.

I look out here and I see faces familiar to me. It's a good thing. I like to see familiar faces, don't you? It tells me somebody out there is hearing and they're faithful and the Lord's preserving them in that faith and they come and worship God and are glad, like David, glad when they told him it's time to go up to the house of the Lord. I'm glad. And I see also faces that are not familiar and that's a good thing. I love to see faces of men and women who are coming and listening to the gospel. I don't know exactly what it is. The Lord uses different things you say from time to time and it captures their attention and they come to hear more and Peter put it, They come and they listen and they look at that light that shines in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise. That's what we're waiting for, that day star of Christ.

I'm so thankful to be among God's saints when they gather. I think about my own experience in the gospel and hearing the word. I've been witness to a man, I was trying to get him to come to a revival. And he said, why? And I said, I didn't know what to say. Nobody ever asked me why. And I said, well, we've got an evangelist down there. He said, well, what's he do? I said, he preaches the gospel. He said, you wouldn't know the gospel if you met it in the middle of the road. And I said, what do you mean I don't know the, well, he said, if you know the gospel, what is it? And for the first time in my life, I realized I didn't know what the gospel was. And I look back on how these preachers have preached to me, and to me, the gospel was no more than coming down an aisle or kneeling at a bench or, making a profession of faith, or joining a church. I didn't know what to tell him about the gospel.

But I hope, by the grace of God, to preach the gospel to you tonight, and I know what the gospel is. The gospel's a person. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. What's your hope, preacher? Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's my hope. I don't have any other hope. What about your actions? You have no hope in your behavior? None. Zero. Zero. I want to be like Christ, but I'm not. I'm just not. I wrote an article one time about the unpeople. God saves the unpeople. Ungodly. Unrighteous. Unbelieving. He saves the un-people. That's me, the un-people. And oh, how I hope these words will ring true to you tonight.

I was teaching my Sunday school classes. We're going through the book of Joshua. Joshua's the victor now, and he's old, tired, fought all these battles. And he's dispensing the inheritance that God promised to Israel. And he's given this one, and he'll go through and describe from this border to that border, this mountain to that river, and this lake to there here, and he's dispensing all this inheritance that God has promised to Israel. And he comes to Levi, and he said, Levi, you don't have any inheritance. All you get is Christ. That's what he's telling me. All you get is the sacrifices offered by fire. Well, who'd Christ die for? Levi. All you get is to eat the lamb. That's what you get. Oh, my soul, what a blessing. You don't get any of this, you get this. And boy, isn't that our heart's desire to have that. What about you tonight? Would you rather be somewhere else other than here? Oh, for a heart that yearns to gather with God's assembly and worship and sing praises unto God. Go into his house. Eat that lamb. All you get is the sacrificial lamb. Actually, the term he uses for God there means Jehovah Savior. That's your inheritance. In the last verse of that chapter, 13 in Joshua, this is your inheritance, the Lord God of Israel, God your Savior. but all to be gathered in that place, having an inheritance in Christ.

Now, Colossians 1 is a wonderful passage of scripture. Don't you love the scriptures? There's nothing else like, I read books, I've got a whole library of books. I read those books for hours on end and come away with a little something. But you can open the Bible up and you look at one verse and you can just go on forever thinking about that one verse. What a treasure, the Word of God. And this is a wonderful passage of Scripture. Being inspired of God, Paul makes some monumental statements. Probably statements that you've heard many times and just went in one ear and out the other, like they have to me. But he makes monumental statements.

In verse 23, he said, I, Paul, am made a minister. Do you know what a monumental statement that is? I, Paul, am made a preacher. God's made me a preacher. you know what a preacher is he's a man set apart by god with a message from god to a man or a man there's no other way that man's gonna hear if god don't send him a preacher isn't that what the scripture says over in romans ten how should you hear without a preacher i didn't say that god did and i don't mind repeating what he says to you

And I hear men talk about the gospel and then talk about preachers as if there was two different things involved here. There's not two different things. If you hear the gospel, you're gonna hear it from a man. You're not gonna be sitting in your closet and this big bubble comes up above your head and all of a sudden you understand the gospel. No, that's not how it comes. It comes through a man. God's gonna send a man. How shall he preach except he be sent? He has to be sent.

And I know we write these occasions off, well, he's a friend of the family, so he's asked me to speak. That's not how I look at it. I look every occasion when I'm asked to preach, to me, is an effectual door that God has opened. He's opened it for me.

I made a minister, what a statement. This man, that old Pharisee who hated God and hated God's people, he's now standing before men and he's saying, God made me a preacher. God made me a preacher. If I'm not God's preacher, then whose preacher am I? I'm just preaching myself. Paul said, we don't preach ourselves. We preach Christ.

And you know, Over in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 5, I don't know if you've ever studied that scripture much, but the apostle said, who then, he's talking about the stewardship of the gospel given to him, he said, who then is Paul? We like to say, and I've already said it three or four times, Paul said it, Paul said it, John said it, Luke said it. Well, who's Paul? Who's Paul? What's the big deal about Paul? Or John? Or Gabe or Darwin. What's the big deal?

Now watch this. Who then is Paul? Who is Apollos? They're ministers by whom you believed, but that's not the end of it. Even as the Lord gave to every man. How many men? Every man. Every man. God has a preacher for every man he's chosen. I believe that. That one man may call 25. I don't know, I don't know how many people were called by Paul a lot. I know the Corinthians, he told them, he said, I've begotten you through the gospel. And I know that the gospel is a message, and I know it's made effectual by the spirit of God. But it's brought to men by man, and the spirit of God makes his message effectual.

Paul said not that we're sufficient to think anything of ourselves. Our sufficiency is of God. He said this to the Thessalonians. He said, God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel. Our gospel. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter two. Let me show you something here. This is an astounding statement and I've read it, I've had men, he introduced me as a preacher. I've had that done so often and said it so often and not realized what a monumental statement that is.

Here's a man, sin of God, called of God. His providence arranged around him and you. and brings you together, brings this man to his people. He's a preacher, he's a son of God. And what I'm saying to you tonight is that for any man to lay claim to the office of a preacher is a monumental statement. He better have good reason, good reason. He's a man sent of God with the word of God, God's messenger, God's ambassador, if you will.

And you and I are victims, I like to think of it, as a victim of a false concept of biblical offices and truth. We were raised in a world that's just A preacher's the butt of every joke. I don't know how many times when I was in Arminianism, people make fun of the preacher. But pastors and preachers, they're sin of God. It was actually in Ephesians chapter four, he said they were ascension gifts of Christ. You have a pastor, I'm confident with good reason that he's sin of God. That's a monumental statement.

Now listen to this, 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13. For this cause also, thank we God without ceasing, because when you receive the word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God. This gospel's being sent to you of God and he sends it to a preacher. And sometimes I get up and preach and I just tremble thinking about it. Don't you? We had a elderly lady die in the church, Brother Russell's mama, and she was so faithful to come and I said at her funeral, I said, you know, most funerals I've attended in the past, people get up and they spend a lot of time trying to prove to everybody that this person's sad. Well, they're dead. They're past that point. You're alive. You're listening. But they're dead. There's no point in coming in there and trying to prove anything. They're gone. I'm there to preach to whoever's left.

But I said, here's the thing that troubles me when one of my members dies, have I said everything I needed to say? Have I left something out? Have I skipped over something? Have I left something out so I won't offend everybody? Or did I tell them like Paul said, the whole counsel of God? Did I hold something back? I tell you, it makes you tremble when you realize this office that we claim to have, a preacher, I'm standing before God, and that's what Paul said. He stood before God as God is his witness. And he makes this thing, and listen to this. The word of God which affectionately worketh also in you that believe. Oh, my soul. And I tremble when I think about that.

Preaching is a burden, and it's too big for a man to carry. I spend most of my time talking with the Lord. I can't bear it. It's just more than I can do. I know I'm gonna fail when I stand up here. I know before I get up here, it's not gonna come to you like he gave it to me. I wish I could. Oh, I've sat in my study sometimes and just so overwhelmed, I just sit there and bawl, you know, thinking about what a great thing and what a gracious thing the Lord's done for me and opened these passages that none of these old divines have ever seen or talked about and opens it to somebody like me. And I just sit and look at it and wonder and just sob. And I know it's not gonna come out like I saw it. Oh, how I wish it would. It's a burden.

But our sufficiency, Paul said, is of God. And preachers commune a lot with God. Anybody can grab an outline. It's the simplest thing in the world. You buy some books, you go in there, you find a good outline, stand up and talk. Anybody can do that. But it takes a man called of God to preach. He's not just preaching to your ears, he's preaching to your heart. He's not just gonna teach you some doctrine. He's gonna point you to a person. He's gonna tell you something about that person's glory. I'm a minister of God, Paul said. God calls his preachers angels in the book of Revelation. What's an angel? He sent a minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. Preachers are angels in that respect. He calls them stars. Why? Because they're a light that shines out of darkness, and they're there for both revelation and they're there for direction. You look to the stars, the old captains on them ships, steered them ships by the stars.

God puts a man someplace, he keeps him there until he's done. But false prophets, he likens them to shooting stars. They don't stay where they're put. got the pastors, I believe, satisfied wherever God puts them. The glory of it's not in numbers, the glory of it's in what he does with the individual. Do I have to have 700 people to be satisfied? No, no. But oh, what a satisfaction it is to be where he puts you and know it.

Now, I titled the message tonight, The Hope of the Gospel. And having stated the reconciling work of Christ, he says this. He's gonna present you, he read it to us. Unreprovable, perfect in the sight of God. God who sees everything, looks at you, and can't find one thing to make any better. Think about that.

Oh, he tells us clearly about the reconciling work of Christ, and he said, here's who it's for. If you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.

What is this faith and hope? Faith is reasonable expectation, that's what faith is. Reasonable expectation. We believe and we act according to our faith. Religion has a faith that they call blind faith, and that's a good description of what they had, blind.

Paul said they walk in the vanity of their minds, alienated from the life of God, their understanding darkened through the ignorance that's in them. They have a forgiveness without, with a memory. God forgives him, but he still remembers. God says of his people, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. You think about that. You think David might have contemplated on that after he sinned those horrible sins and looked back on everything and God still was with him He was gracious to him. You think he thought back on these things?

What is hope? If faith is a reasonable expectation, then what is hope? Well, he tells you in Colossians 127, Christ in you, the hope of glory. What's your hope, preachers? I asked a fellow who had been visiting with us what his hope was, and he started in this big, long, it's just a statement of Calvinism, really, is all it was. It's just a big, long statement, and so on. I said, yeah, but what's your hope? What's your hope? Christ is my hope. Be ready always to give a reason for the hope that's in you. Christ is the reason. And listen to me, it's not Christ and you, it's Christ in you. In you. And the gospel's a message of hope, and all this hope is in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Look back at verse 21 of our text. And you, is he talking to you, talking to me? Yes. And you, that were sometime alienated. Enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. What's that talking about? A reconciliation's a two-fold work. God must be reconciled to men, and then men have to be reconciled to God. Christ is sufficient for both.

Verse 22, he says, in the body of his flesh, this is how reconciliation comes to pass, in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy. Anybody here know what holy means? Is that when you wear your hair all up and a little bun in the back and a dress down to the ground? Is that holiness? Holy has to do with the whole character of God. And when he talks about reconciliation making you holy, he's talking about making you in perfect harmony with God's character. How God saves sinners, he makes them perfect. That's exactly how he saves them, in his son. And in his son and by his work, he reconciles us and he makes us holy and unblameable.

Who's gonna bring anything to the charge of God's elect? God justified us. Christ died for us. Who's gonna? And even if they bring the accusation, it's not gonna mean anything to the judge. God justified us already. And Christ died. Perfect harmony with his character and name without blame. Christ was charged with all of our sins. The blessed man is the man to whom God will not impute sin. He won't do it. But what if he does this? He still won't do it. He doesn't impute sin to his elect. Their sins are charged to Christ. That's why Christ had to come into this world and suffer and die on the cross. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He bear our sins. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. And by way of eternal union, he says this over in Ephesians 1, he chose us in Christ. How come? That we might be holy, might be without blame, and always before him in love.

What's that mean? We're all out there loving him and he sees that love? No. No, that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about his love for the sinner is secured in Christ. And no matter what that sinner does, God looks on him with love. He loves him.

Hard to believe, isn't it? Look at that father looking for the prodigal. Sees him a great way off and goes running out to him. He loved that boy. But that boy took his money and wasted it. Lived with the hogs. Just like us, same thing. But the father loved him. He ran out there, put his arms around him, had this little speech he was gonna tell him. He never got to tell him the speech. The father wouldn't let him. Ran out, hugged him, kissed him. Brought him home, put the ring on his finger. Oh, we might be before him in love.

Having predestinated us. under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. And by way of this eternal union, we'll be before him in love, we'll be perfect before him.

People fight on that eternal justification. If justification was not in place before the fall of man, God would have burnt this place to a cinder as soon as Adam sinned. Justification was already in place, and they say, well, you preach eternal justification, you're taking away the reason for Christ to die. No, I'm establishing it. He had to die. I have to drink this cup. Not an option, I have to drink it.

All right, we're reconciled to God, but man must be reconciled to God now. How does God do that? through the ministry of reconciliation. In 2 Corinthians 5 verse 18, he said, And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.

Well, what's that? That's reconciling men to God's reconciliation. That's what it is. We're being reconciled to His reconciliation. That's exactly what we do. And that's what we're trying to preach, is we're trying to tell men you're accepted of God in the blood, in his reconciliation. God's grace and mercy, he's talking about in the crucified Christ, his love manifested in his death on the cross while we were yet sinners. God's good pleasures and the riches of his grace in his provision of Christ before the world was.

I preach to sinners about an eternal Christ. Christ is an office. It's an office. And Jesus was appointed to be the Christ. And when he came, he came in the office of Christ to save his people. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. That's why he came. All the promises in the Old Testament are concerning Christ. It's all in Christ, everything. Forgiveness for sin, read Ephesians chapter one. I just wrote a message on it, according, was the name of the message. And somebody said, am I saved? And I said, well, it's all according. It's according, you can read Ephesians. chapter one and see it there.

But listen to this. Here's this ministry of reconciliation, 2 Corinthians 5, 19, to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. You're talking about every man and woman, all of Adam's seed? No, I think he's talking about the world to come. That's what I believe he's talking about. That's the only real world there is, is the world to come. But here he's saying he's reconciled the world unto himself, and the only other way I can see that really coming to pass is the world as it concerns the Gentiles. The heathen, that's what we are, heathen. And he shows us God's mercy in the crucified Christ, his love secured in the crucified Christ. And he shows us something about Christ's ascension into glory.

He raised him from the dead. He spent over a month here proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was him that rose from the dead and that the Father rose him, and why. And then he ascends into glory. He's got witnesses watching him step onto a cloud. Wouldn't you like to be in there that day? Watch him step on that cloud and ascend up into glory. And you know what it says? We went up with Him. Read Ephesians chapter 2. We went up with Him, and we're seated with Him right now, victorious at the right hand of God, sitting there in Christ.

And here's why he said he did that. This was all about that eternal union with Christ. Listen to this, Ephesians 2, 7. That in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Isn't that what you're trying to do every Sunday, every Wednesday? Trying to point people to Christ. There he is right here. Well, I ain't got any hope. There's your hope. I just don't feel like I'm forgiven. Well, forgiveness is not in a feeling, it's in a person. Look to him. The feeling will come. It'll come. God applies that blood to your heart, it'll come. It's all in Christ, that's what I'm trying to preach to you. Christ is all. How many times did Paul say that? He's all.

Years ago, there was a battle fought for the independence of Texas. Old Sam Houston led the battle. It brought defeat to Santa Ana and his army, and later on after Texas become a republic, old Sam Houston was elected president. He was the top dog. And he made it a law that any man that fought with him at the battle of Santa Santa, anybody that fought with him entitled to free land in Texas, belong to them, any man. And as it happened, there was a man named Nobby Horsham, and he was a character. And he was brought to trial and accused of wrongfully taking a portion of land from a man, and old Nobby, he wasn't a very respectable man, looked as though old Nobby was going to jail.

Come the day of his trial, and to the surprise of everybody, Sam Houston showed up at the courthouse, went over and sat down beside Nobby. He's going to be Nobby's counsel, Sam Houston. And when it come time to hear him, old Sam got up before the court. He called Nobby to the witness stand. And they swore him in, and old Sam Houston said, I just have one question for you, Nobby. He said, where were you on the 21st of April, 1836? Well, Sam, I was with you. I was with you at the Battle of Sanford. Well, Sam looked at the judge and looked at the jury, and he said, I rest my case.

Where were you when Christ died? Huh? Were you with him, in him? That's the hope of the gospel. Christ in you, the hope of glory. I rest my case. That's it. Thank you.