We're going to be doing a series
of sermons on the book of Colossians, Lord willing. It doesn't mean
that I will necessarily do each one of them sequentially, but
I've been reading this book for a while now, and I just felt
like I wanted to go through it with you. In Acts chapter 26,
the Lord Jesus is talking to the apostle Paul. And in Acts
26, he says in verse 16, rise and stand upon thy feet for I
have appeared unto thee for this purpose to make thee a minister
and a witness, both of these things which thou hast seen and
of those things in the which I will appear unto thee, delivering
thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I
send thee. those Gentiles and those people
that Paul was being persecuted by, the Lord Jesus was going
to send him to them. To open their eyes, this is the
purpose, to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to
light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified
by faith that is in me. That's the word of the Lord Jesus
Christ to the Apostle Paul. And I think it is a good place
to start from when we look at the book of Colossians. Colossians was located in a place,
doesn't help me much, called Phrygia. And the apostle Paul
went to that area in Asia Minor to preach the gospel. And in
that place, there were many who believed, who heard the gospel
and believed. But then when the apostle was
writing to the Colossians here, in this book, he was in prison.
And he says this in chapter 2, he said, I would that you knew
what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea
and for as many have not seen my face in the flesh. So there
were many people in this church and in that area, Laodicea was
nearby, who had not seen Paul and yet Paul is writing to them
because of his great love for them and his love for the gospel. God had given it to him. It was
entrusted to the Apostle Paul as what is called in chapter
1, verse 25, he says, a dispensation of God, which is given to me
for you. So he's talking about the gospel
of Christ, Christ himself gave to the Apostle Paul. And as a
gift to him, it was also a stewardship given to Paul to preach that
gospel to the Gentiles in particular. Paul was sent as an apostle to
the Gentiles, and the Colossians were Gentiles. And though he
did not see many of them in the flesh before, he heard about
them from a minister, a pastor of that church. And if you look
in verse 7, he says, has you also heard of Epaphras? The name Epaphras, I think it's
pronounced that way based on the pronunciation key here in
the King James Version, was a fellow servant of the Apostle Paul. So that means that The Apostle
Paul, even though he had been bestowed this tremendous stewardship
by the Lord Jesus Christ himself, by the will of God, yet he viewed,
he thought of those with him, like Epaphras, as being fellow
servants to Christ. And in fact, if you look at verse
one of Colossians, and this sermon today is just an overview of
this book. And I want you to see in this
overview the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ as it's related
to us here in this book. So, in verse one, though, the
apostle Paul introduces himself to the Colossians, and this is
a pattern that he follows in all of his epistles. He says,
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus,
our brother. Again, he's leveling himself
with all believers, our brother. Timothy was a spiritual brother
of Paul. Paul was a brother to Timothy
in the Lord Jesus Christ. The highest position in the church,
if you could say it that way, and that's not even a proper
way of saying it, but I would say it this way, the lowest position,
meaning the one that has the largest amount of service, which
is what we tend to think as a high position. It's actually the lowest
position, but that was the place of the apostle. In no way was
the apostle Paul taking to himself some kind of honor because he
was an apostle. He identified with all believers
as their brothers and fellow servants. But it was the Lord
Jesus Christ who sent him to be an apostle to the Gentiles,
which included the Colossians here. In fact, the word apostle
means sent one. And in Hebrews chapter 3, the
Lord Jesus Christ himself is called the apostle, the one sent
by the Father. of our profession, the apostle
of our profession. So as the Father sent the Son,
so the Lord Jesus Christ sent his apostles. And there were
only 12. There were only 12 apostles. Remember Judas, who was openly,
or I mean publicly, chosen by Christ to be a disciple, fell
from his apostleship. And when he sinned, when he betrayed
Christ, he fell and he was replaced in the book of Acts. It was through
a man, it was another man that was identified there. But it
seems as if the real intention here was that the apostle Paul
would be the one sent. Tim won't be able to get back
in, I just heard that latch on that door. If you wouldn't mind just opening
the door for him so when he comes back in. Otherwise, he'll be stuck. So this is the first verse here. The apostle Paul was given this
gift to be a servant of Christ to the Gentiles with the gospel. The gospel was the gift given
to him. And this was under the the authority
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, why does he say all that?
Well, he says it because He wants the people in Colossians and
all the epistles he wrote to Ephesians, Philippians, and so
on, he wants them to know that Christ himself sent him. It was his authority that made
him an apostle. And therefore, what he had to
say was by the revelation given to him by the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, that carries, that means
that his words have a significant weight to them. And he also adds
here, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God. So
what we see in the overview of this book here is that God himself
is going to have a people, he's going to save them from their
sins, It's not clear that that's the meaning here, but as you
read through it, it becomes clear. And it's his will that it be
done through the preaching of the gospel, starting with his
son and then handed off, as it were, to his apostles who would
then preach it and God would give gifts to other men throughout
time and history. And those would be not just apostles,
but pastors and teachers, and those who would carry forth the
gospel throughout the history of the church. And so, this is
the will of God. This is God's doing. It started
with God. It's not something that we invented.
In other words, you could say it that way. It's not by our
initiative. We didn't send ourselves. We're here as servants of Jesus
Christ. We're here to promote him. We're
here by the will of God to promote God's will and God's glory. So that's the first thing we
see here. This book is going to open to us the will of God
and the purpose of God and the work of God and the glory of
God. And so that's done in all of
his epistles, but it's done here. in this way, Paul as a unique
chosen servant to Christ. Now, you can also look in various
places in 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul was taught by Jesus
Christ himself. Christ appeared to him, Christ
made known to him the mysteries of the gospel, He opened his
mysteries to the Apostle Paul in order that Paul would take
those mysteries and preach them among the Gentiles. We wouldn't
know it unless it had been revealed, and it wouldn't be given to us
unless it was written. God's Word written, and this
is such a treasure. How do you know anything? My
little granddaughter, whose name is Anella, is getting to that
age. She's going to be three in November. But she's taking an interest
in the things of the Lord as she hears them from her mommy
and daddy and through whatever other means God is pleased to
bless. So she's asking these kinds of
questions. She's interested in it. She asks
her mom about these things. And one of the questions that
come up is, how do we know? How do we know it's true? How
do we know anything? And the answer is, God has to
tell us. The only way we know is if God
tells us. The only way a child knows is
from their mother and their father. And so God says, for example,
in Hebrews 11, verse 3, through faith we understand. So faith
is given to us in conjunction with the Word of God declared
to us. God gives us that gift, that
enabling grace to be persuaded of the truth of what God says.
It's believing God's Word. And so through faith, we understand
what? That the worlds were framed by
the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not
made of things which do appear. How do we know? God said so.
That's how we know. When I was little, there were
seven boys in our family and two girls. But when I was young,
before the two girls were born, we lived also next to my mom's
sister. And she had five boys. So there
was a lot of boys. And then she had a brother who
had a couple or three kids or three or four kids. And they
lived nearby, too. And so there was always this
pecking order. amongst the boys and you can
imagine a bunch of little kids running around and making this
hierarchy of reporting and authority amongst them. So the oldest was
named John and we had a way of resolving all issues would say
Johnny said. Johnny said. Well, what if John
changed his mind? Well, Johnny changed. So we just
say, Johnny changed. And it was funny at the time.
But all these things build up, don't they, in our experience,
to teach us the way things truly are. How do we know God said
so? And how do we know God said so?
He spoke through his son. But how do we know he spoke in
his son? Because men who were his apostles told us. And how
did they tell us? the scriptures, you see. And
this is where we must begin. The only way we know anything
is because God said so in his written word. It doesn't help
to say somebody back then said so, or one of the church fathers
wrote this. It doesn't help at all, at all. Negate all of it, put a zero
on it. The only thing that makes difference
is what God has said in his word. How do I know God made the world?
Because God said he did. And how do I know that I'm a
sinner? Because God said I am, and he bears witness to it in
our conscience too, doesn't he? And how do I know that Jesus
Christ is God's son, and that he is God overall? Because God
has said so in his word. So, these things are given to
us, and they might seem obvious, but it's necessary that we stand
firmly and firmly alone on the Word of God written. Now it's
true that even though the Word of God is written to us, we can't
really understand it and nor will we believe it unless something
else is added. which is the Spirit of God has
to take the things of God's written word and apply them to us. So we stand dependent upon God
not only to reveal and write, but also to reveal it, illuminate
our own minds to it. And that's part of the overview
of this is that that illumination That which is given to us by
God to know the truth that He has spoken in His Word concerning
Christ, that illumination by the Spirit of God brings with
it what is called faith, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
the understanding of the truth, the persuasion of it, being convinced
of it, that the Lord Jesus Christ is who God has revealed him to
be and has done what he said that he did. with the accomplishment
of it. So this is part of this book
of Colossians. It's all in here. I want to just
take you through some of these things as you can see this. Notice
in verse 1, by the will of God. So here, Paul is an apostle of
Jesus Christ by the will of God. So what we see here immediately
is that he's directing the Colossians in love. He has an intense love
for these believers. He had heard about them from
Epaphras, and Epaphras had told him about these who had believed
on Christ, and suddenly Paul is in love with these people.
He is. You know, that teaches us something,
that when we who believe on Christ hear about someone else who also
has been given this same grace to hang their eternal life on
in admiration and dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ, we
love them. we naturally have this affection
toward them. Here is a kindred spirit. Here's
someone I can speak to at a heart level. Someone who can identify
through all the troubles and the joys and the peace and the
assurance of what God has said concerning his son. And so we
have what's called fellowship. We're all fellows on the same
ship, as it were, on our sojourn to glory, the promised inheritance
God has told us in the gospel. But here we see that the will
of God is given to us, and then he goes on in verse two, the
apostle, he says, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ,
meaning we're all brethren of the same Father. We're all of
the same, we're children of the same Father. We're brethren to
Christ and children of the same Father. And notice he goes on,
he's writing to these saints and faithful brethren in Christ,
which are at Colossae. And he says, grace be to you
and peace from, notice, God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So he talks about God. as our
father. What a blessing that is. How
is he our father? How did he become our father?
How is it that we became the children of God so that we would
call him our father? And how would we know it? Well,
this is one of those things revealed in the gospel. It was by his
will. It was by His provision for us
to make us His children. He first, in His eternal will,
adopted us. Then He provided a redeeming
Savior to buy us back out of our sin and to remove our sins
from us and make us holy and blameless in His sight. and to
bring us before him in love. And he did all these things by
the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he declared this to
us, and he gave us his spirit to know it even in our hearts,
so that in our hearts we cry, My Father, Abba, Father. And we say that with full reference
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he opens this way, he's
drawing our attention to God as our Father, the will of God,
God our Father, grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, one of the things you'll
see when the Apostle Paul writes in his epistles, this is a pattern,
is he'll say something in the beginning and you don't recognize
it, but then you go, oh wait, as I'm reading, he said it again. And then later, oh look, he didn't
only say it again, but he's now developing it into a whole. And he's revealing something
that I hadn't really thought of before. And this is the way
that he writes. So that even in the opening salutation
of this epistle to the Colossians, he's doing this here. He has
an intent in everything that he says. Now, no man has this
kind of wisdom. but a person given this wisdom
by the Spirit of God to know the things of Christ and to be
able to present them and declare them to us in a way that is truth
in its inception, in its beginning, and also in its expanded form. It's consistent throughout, and
it also gives us a greater understanding as we go into it. And this is
the nature of the gospel. When we first hear Christ, we
understand things as if I'd never known that before, because that's
true. But then we realize that we grow in this understanding
and in this grace given to us by God. And that's what he's
introducing here, that there's not only grace given in the beginning,
but the same grace is also preserved and expanded and increased to
us from the same God who gave it to us in the beginning. So
he says, God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and peace, peace. We're saved by grace. The effect
of grace is peace. Grace was given to us before
we knew it. Peace is something that God established
and made known to us in our experience. He established that peace before
we knew it, but then he made us realize it in the enlightening
of the revelation of the gospel when he persuaded us of the truth
of it concerning Christ, and we entered into the truth of
it by faith, and then we knew peace. We knew peace, and then
we realized this is from God. This is grace from God to know
this peace with God, and to know this peace with Christ, and to
know it among all of God's people. Peace with God. Once we have
peace with God, we will be at peace with God's people. That's
a great gift, isn't it? So he prays for this. Not just
in the beginning, but an expansion of it. He goes on, notice. continuing to build on this theme
of God our Father. Verse 3, we give thanks to God
and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.
Now, the apostle writes in a way that you would say is You need
to put some periods in here. You need to break it up in your
thoughts. It just seems like a stream of, it's like a waterfall
just keeps coming in this large stream that you can't imagine. When are you going to stop? And
that's the way this first chapter begins. He opens up, and as you
just heard Brad reading this, he starts out in the beginning,
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy,
our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ,
which are at Colossae. Notice, everything has a meaning. Saints, faithful, brethren, in
Christ. All these things are true of
all of God's people. you who are at Galassi, grace
to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
That's a prayer, isn't it? But notice in verse 3, he then
directs our attention. Not only does he bring our God,
our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ to our attention, but
he says, I'm speaking to you, and at the same time I'm praying
to God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. So he says, we
give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying
always for you. But he doesn't stop there. But
notice this. He's thanking God, the Father,
for them. And this is essential to know
this. If God, the Father, is to be thanked, then the credit
belongs to him. All things are of God. This is essential that we know.
Everything that we have is of God. Not only physical life,
but most especially our spiritual life. Our understanding, our
faith, our hope, our love, everything comes from God, God our Father,
and our Lord Jesus Christ. And so he says, we give thanks
to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. All right. So then he says, we're
praying always for you. I admire that, don't you? To
always be praying for the saints. This is something we need to
learn, isn't it? Love is concerned with others. Love is not concerned with itself. Love is concerned with others.
And when we're talking about gospel love, we're not talking
about, well, I like Joe, or I like Barbara, or whoever it is we're
thinking about. I'm trying to name names that
we don't have in our congregation here. I'm talking about this
person because they're so nice to me. I just love them. That's the way the world thinks.
And that's the kind of love the world has. As soon as Joe and
Barbara change, and they're no longer as nice to me as I want
them to be, then I don't feel like they love me anymore. And
I don't love them as much. So that's a quid pro quo, as
they say. You do something for me, I'll
do something for you. That's not love. First of all, it's
not love just to love on a physical level. That's not the love that
God is talking about when he talks about gospel love. Men
and women who are married but don't know the Lord love one
another, but that's not a gospel love. And so what he's talking
about here is a spiritual love, a love that comes out of faith,
knowing what God is, who God is, and what he's done in his
goodness, in his humility, in his mercy, in his grace, in his
justice, in his righteousness, in his wisdom, in his sovereignty,
all that God is to us in the revelation of who he is by Jesus
Christ. And then seeing what he's done,
all these compel us through faith to love the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the apostle loves these
people. in a spiritual way, and therefore
he prays to God for them. He's always lifting them up,
thanking God for them, and asking God to do what he, what follows
here. Notice verse four, praying always
for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of
the love which you have to all the saints. That's spiritual
love, not just Hey Joe, you know, it's great to see you again.
No, this is a love. This is love that is produced
by the grace of God in the hearts of his people. So he says, since
we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love which you
have to all the saints. Faith is towards Christ. This is also important. When
we talk about faith, we're talking about Something that we depend
upon, we look to and depend upon the Lord Jesus Christ as he has
revealed himself to us as our Savior, as our Lord, and all
that he is. And those are just terms, Savior
and Lord, that encapsulate the body of who he is, the great
information about him that's given to us. But here we say
our Savior and our Lord, the one who saved us and who is our
sovereign. We have faith in Him. Faith is
toward the Lord Jesus Christ who brings us to God, through
whom we come to God, through whom we know God, by whom we
receive all blessings from God. Faith in Christ. We come to God
by Him. We ask God to receive us for
His sake. because of Him, in Him, as Him. All these things are true. That's
what faith in Christ includes. And because we have this faith
in Christ given to us by God, He also gives us love for Him.
How can we know Him without loving Him? Those two things are always
compatible, and they're not one without the other. You can't
have faith without also having love. And you can't have love
without faith. And there's something else, the
love you have is toward the saints, his saints. And then he goes
on, he's thanking God now, look at verse 3. We give thanks to
God, and then jump to verse 5, for the hope. which is laid up
for you in heaven." So not only is Paul thanking God for their
faith, for their love, for their salvation, but he's also thanking
God for the promise he's given to them in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and he has promised them what is in heaven. What is in heaven? Which is something yet to come.
Hope has to do with things that are not yet given to us. We anticipate
and expect them through faith, but the Spirit of God persuades
us of them to not only believe that this is true, but also to
expect them and to wait for them because of Christ. Faith and
hope are directed toward the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, hope
If you were to say it, in its essence, is Christ. Christ is
our hope. 1 Timothy 1 verse 1 says, Christ
our hope. He's the one we look for and
expect. And he's the reason why we have
this expectation. We wouldn't have no basis for
expecting heaven unless Christ was our hope, our mediator who
brings us to heaven. We have nothing in ourselves. It would be sinful to think that
God would give heaven to us without it being given to us on the basis
of what he has done in Christ and who Christ is towards God
for us. It's because of our relation
to Christ that God accepts us. It's because of our relation
to Christ that God accepts us as He accepts His Son. And therefore,
He rewards us with what He gives to His Son because of our relation
to Christ, which God Himself has established. And that is
our hope. We have an expectation. We'll
stand before God in Christ. That's hope. That's something
we expect. We have an expectation. We'll
stand before the judgment of God in Christ, accepted in the
Lord Jesus Christ. We have an expectation. He won't
see our sins because in Christ, He has washed us from our sins
in His own blood. And these are all part of that
hope. And we believe these things even
though we can't see them because that's what faith is. Faith is
the spiritual sight that allows us to see as true what God has
declared to us in His Word, the Gospel. And so faith is the substance
of things Hope for the evidence of things not seen. And that's
what it means to believe. We believe things we don't see
and we hope for things we don't yet have. Why? Because God has
said it. Because Christ has purchased
it. Because he has declared it to us in the gospel that his
blessings from God were given to him from God the Father for
his people, for all those in him. And so this is part of it.
And Paul is thanking God for this hope, this substance of
heaven, this declared truth that is established by God's will
in heaven itself. All of the blessings of eternal
life and eternal glory and that intimate communion with God himself
in the presence of God accepted for Christ's sake. That's our
hope. That's our hope and we anticipate that. We expect it
and we look forward to it. Now, I want you to see what I
said before here, how the apostle introduces something and then
develops it. Notice this verse. Let's pause
here in the sequence of verses in chapter 1 and go to the last,
near to the last verse in chapter 1, verse 27. In verse 26, he says that Paul
was given the gospel as a trust, as a stewardship. In verse 26,
even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations,
but now is made manifest to his saints, i.e., through the apostle,
by Christ. Verse 27, to whom God, the saints,
to whom the saints, God would make known Make known, this is
how God makes his will, his mind, his work, everything known. God
would make known the riches of the glory of this mystery. You're expecting something really
big here, right? The riches of the glory of this
mystery among the Gentiles. These were sinners, which is,
this is it, Christ in you, the hope of glory. You see the hope?
What is our hope? Everything God has deposited
and given to his son. Everything he has given to his
son is our surety, our redeemer, our mediator, our representative,
our husband. Everything, our captain, our
high priest, our king, everything God has bestowed upon Christ. That is our hope and it's ours
because it because at this time in our life in this world, Christ
dwells in us. So the down payment of it, the
guarantee of it, is given to us by Christ himself who is in
us, and this is our hope of eternal glory. And now it goes on and
develops this same thing throughout this epistle here. But he wants you to know that
we're looking forward to this by the promise of God. It's certain
because it depends on Christ, and it is certain to us because
Christ is in us. He's not going to leave us. He's
not going to forsake us. When this body dies, that body
itself is going to be raised up again. And our spirits will
be then immediately with the Lord. To be absent from the body
is to be present with the Lord. Christ in you is that hope of
glory. And when we die in this body,
we will then be in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amazing
glory, amazing hope, isn't it? And so the apostle says here
in verse five of chapter one, he thanks the Father. I give
thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying
always, and thanking him for the hope which is laid up for
you. Now, how did they learn about this hope? He says in verse
five, where have you heard before in the word of the truth of the
gospel? Here it is. What's the truth?
The word of God. And what is that truth concerning?
What the gospel declares. That's the mystery that's unfolded,
given to the apostle to teach us. And that is what the apostle
is doing here in this book. And so he exalts, he praises
God's beginning with the Father and also the Lord Jesus Christ.
And as we read through this in verse, in chapter one, you can
see him doing this. He says in verse nine, he says,
for this cause, we also, since the day we heard, heard of your
faith and love for Christ, do not cease to pray for you and
to declare that you, notice this is part of his prayer now, he's
still praying, that you might be filled with the knowledge
of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. All
right, this is part of God's will. God is revealing His will
for His people through the Apostle Paul's prayer, which he had obviously
revealed to the Apostle. He's praying this way according
to the will of God, and this is His will for you. who believe
on Christ, for me, and this is why we go to God, we ask him
for this, fill me with the knowledge of your will in all wisdom and
spiritual understanding. Don't you want that? Don't you
want to understand God's will, his mind, and his wisdom? The understanding that comes
with a spiritual life given to us, with spiritual eyes, which
are eyes of faith, and a spiritual understanding, this is what we
want. And then there's a purpose for
this. Look at verse 10. There's a purpose for having
all of this understanding, spiritual understanding and wisdom, knowing
the will of God, in order that I inserted the words in order,
in order that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing,
being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge
of God. So we see that as a father and
mother teach their children, so God, our Father, and the Lord
Jesus Christ, who has made himself our brother, and many other things
in this relationship, Their intention here is to give us this knowledge
of God's will in wisdom, all wisdom, and spiritual understanding
in order that we might walk worthy of the Lord and to all pleasing,
being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge
of God. Notice there's an increase. There's
a growth. It's expected. How did we first
hear and how did we first learn? By hearing the word of God. As
newborn babes, Peter said, therefore, desire the sincere milk of the
word that you may grow, thereby, if so be that you've tasted that
the Lord is gracious. That's in 1 Peter 2, round verse
3. So here we see that God's intention
is that His children increase in their spiritual understanding
and the wisdom, that is the will of God and His wisdom, and that
this would produce fruit in them, a fruit produced by God in them
which would result in every good work, and they would increase
in this knowledge of God. This is part of the prayer. And
notice in verse 11, strengthened with all might, power, strength,
be strengthened with all might according to, notice, here's
the measure, His, glory is power, unto, what do we need this strength
for? enduring patience and long-suffering
with joyfulness. You see, the Apostle Paul is
now riding from prison. The Colossians are out there
somewhere, far from Rome, and they're enduring all kinds of
assaults and attacks by Satan and his kingdom. But in order
to strengthen them, the apostle prays that God would give them
grace and peace. They would know God's saving
grace. They would know it and have peace with God. They would
remember, they would hold in view the hope they have in heaven
declared to them in the gospel. They heard it from God. It's
the gospel of grace, gospel of truth. They heard it from Epaphras,
and now he's saying to them, that he wants them to increase
in this knowledge. He's praying to God to give them this spiritual
understanding so that they might walk worthy, be fruitful in every
good work, and increase in the knowledge of God so that they
might endure. in long suffering. Can you imagine
what it was like for Paul? The Lord said to him, I'm going
to make you an apostle to the Gentiles. Go. So he goes. He's
on a ship. He's on foot. He's going every
which way, however he can to get where he's going. And then
they grab him. They throw him in prison. Not
just once, but more than once. How frustrating would that be?
You would think, how can I fulfill? Lord, what are you doing? Well,
he had the gift of God's understanding of his will. It was God's will
that he be put in prison. This was his wisdom. This was
how he was going to get the gospel to these Gentiles. First he preached
to them, then he wrote to them. And by writing, we have it. And
here we are, Gentiles receiving this. Complete revelation of
the meaning of Scripture in the epistles of the Apostle Paul. What an amazing gift this is
to us. And what this does is it shows
us that as Paul endured all of these hardships for the sake
of Christ and the Gospel, so also we in our lives endure all
sorts of hardships. But God's strength by His grace
is given to us to endure these things. to endure them with patience
and suffering long under trials that just go on and on, but doing
that with joyfulness. That takes grace, doesn't it?
That's why we depend, we ask for it. And therefore, he says
in verse 12, giving thanks to the Father. Again, he pulls it
all together again. He keeps emphasizing God our
Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says
this in verse 12, giving thanks to the Father. So do you see
how this is being developed by God in this book here? He speaks of the will of God,
of the greatness of God our Father in his grace and in his truth,
how he appointed Christ and sent him and sent his gospel of Christ
to us and provides us his spirit to know these things and to support
us by this strength that he provides. He basically sees to all of our
salvation, doesn't he? And then he goes on, he says
in verse 13, speaking of verse 12 of this chapter. He says,
giving thanks to the Father, which hath made us meet. He made
us acceptable to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in life. Now that inheritance is the hope,
isn't it? But it's also the blessing of
the gospel declared to us. in the gospel, the inheritance
of the saints. What God has for his saints in
light, he has to make us fit for that. He has to make us acceptable
for that. We are not acceptable, so he
has to prepare us for that. How does he do that? Well, verse
13 says, he delivered us from the power of darkness, and he
translated us into the kingdom of his dear son, And verse 14,
speaking of His Son, in whom we have redemption. We've been
purchased and delivered from and given liberty to eternal
life and spiritual life through His blood, even the forgiveness
of our sins. You see, now, and you keep reading
this, and you say, Paul, slow down. It just keeps going, doesn't
it? It's like, where is a period
here? There's just colon and semicolon
and commas separating this long stream of gospel consciousness. And then in verse 15, notice
what he does. He mentions at the outset the work of God the
Father in redeeming his people through Christ. And then it's
like he steps back and says, who is the one who redeemed us?
And verse 15 through 18, he tells us who he is. He's the image
of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by Him
were all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth,
visible, invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or
principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him and
for Him. He's before all things, and by
Him all things consist. That's God, the Son, you see. That's God the Son. That's the
One who redeemed us. That should cause us to wait,
stop, and think, wait a minute, His blood? The blood of who? The blood of God. The Son was
given for us. How was He given if He was the
Son of God who is eternal? Well, it says in the next verse,
He's the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have
the preeminence. You see, He had to become a man
so that he could die and rise again and have this triumph over
death and put away our sins. And all this is contained in
these verses that expands on verse 14 about the forgiveness
of our sins. So you see then that he's got
a theme here in this book. It has to do with God, God the
Father and God the Son. And it has to do with his will
in saving a people called his saints and faithful brethren.
They're his brethren, they're children of God and made brethren
of Christ. It's by his will, it's by his
work, it's through his word concerning his son who shed his blood to
make us his children. And you see all this right here
in just these first few verses, right? But then what you see
is that he continues to expand and develop more thoroughly,
because these are people he hasn't seen for the most part. Chapter
2, verse 1, many as have not seen my face. There were many
who hadn't seen him, and yet he loves them and he wants them
to know the gospel because they're facing An assault of a tremendous
sort, an evil empire of all kinds of enemies are about to assault
and have been assaulting them because they've heard the gospel.
They've heard from heaven. And now the enemy comes in and
says, yeah, well, we're going to unravel that. We're going
to dismantle that. We're going to tear them down.
We're going to uproot them. And so the apostle is not only
writing these things just as a declaration, but as a defense. to bring them back, to make them
patient and endure under the faith that he has first given
to them through the gospel. God has given them this faith
and he wants them to endure in it. And so he says, now talking
about enduring and continuing, look at verse 2, chapter 1, verse
2. to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ. Do you see
that? This is someone who's continuing in the faith. Look at chapter
1, verse 23. If you continue in the faith,
You see, there's a continuance in this. We need grace from God
who first caused us to believe to uphold us and to preserve
us and cause us to continue and increase in this faith. And look
at chapter 2, verse 7. Rooted and built up in him and
established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding therein
with thanksgiving. You see? So the apostle is stressing,
he's making a big issue of faith here. And this entire book is
about that, is about this faith. And we'll have to see that more
next time. But I want you to see at the
outset here what he's doing. Look at chapter 3. This is still
in the overview. If you then be risen with Christ,
Seek those things which are above, where Christ sits at the right
hand of God. Set your affections on things
above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory.
There's that hope again. When he appears, we'll appear
with him in glory. But notice, he's declaring these
truths to us. about the way things are. You
can't see it, but this is true. God has said it, and this is
what you are to depend upon. This is the way faith is established. He holds up to us the declaration
of what we are in Christ, and holding that up to us, he says,
now you continue in this. This is how you were saved. Continue
in it. Grow in it. There's no pleasing
God apart from faith in Christ. You need to walk according to
his will and wisdom and things to please God. But there is no
pleasing God except by faith in Christ. And so, when you see
these things by faith, what is it going to do? It's going to
produce this thanksgiving, this joyfulness even under trouble. And it will also be a defense
against the enemies who are assaulting you, which chapter 2 describes.
And we're not going to get into that today. And so you can see
how in the book of Colossians, the Lord Jesus Christ uses the
apostle first to declare and then to revisit and to increase
the knowledge and to pray for the blessings in order that these
people might endure in the faith and their hope would increase,
their faith would increase, and most importantly, that their
love would increase for the Lord Jesus Christ And this is given
as a defense against all of the attacks of the enemies that were
coming against these Colossians. And I read in something that
in this place, which is where the Colossians were, in the city
where they were, just a few years after this epistle was written,
there was an earthquake and completely destroyed the city. Now, I don't
know if that's true. I read it by a scholar, and so
it's likely the case. But think about it. All of this
energy and effort and suffering on the apostles' part, all of
this grace given to them by God the Father through the Lord Jesus
Christ, was given to these people who were in a place that would
soon be destroyed. And that in itself teaches us
the importance, the urgency to lay hold on these things and
to hold fast to the gospel which was once delivered to us and
to look in hope for and therefore love the Lord Jesus Christ and
be thankful with joyfulness and endure under all kinds of trouble. Looking for the promises declared
in the gospel, deposited by God in Christ, given to us in him.
in which we hold to be true. That's why we love one another,
because we have this common faith, this common Savior, Lord, and
hope and love in Him. And we have the same Father.
We're all brothers and sisters in the same spiritual family. It's all by the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ, by the will of God, declared to us in the
good word of God. Amazing grace, isn't it? Let's
pray. Father, thank you for your word.
What a word. What a gospel. What good news. What a hope, an eternal hope
of being in your presence because of the blood of Christ and hearing
from you, seeing your face, being made like Christ, being satisfied
when we awake in his likeness. and know the love of God which
passes knowledge beyond all eternities and all height, depth, breadth,
and length. We cannot fathom it and yet to
be brought into your presence and to know this love towards
us from eternity to everlasting ages in the Lord Jesus Christ.
declared to us first in the gospel and reiterated in the gospel
and given grace by your spirit to hold to these things and to
continue in them. Lord, we pray for this grace.
We pray for this hope to trust you to experimentally expect
what you've promised is already done and sure in heaven itself.
And we pray, Lord, that you would most Mostly, give us this love
for the Lord Jesus manifested by our love towards one another
for the gospel of our Savior, for your son. And we ask and
thank these things, give you thanks for these things in his
name and for his glory. Amen.