Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the New Testament
epistle called Colossians. Paul's epistle to the church
at a place called Colossi. And this is the Colossian letter.
And this was a letter of encouragement to the people of God. And today
the title of the message is Hope and Truth. We're going to start
in Colossians chapter 1, where Paul opens this epistle, calling
himself, look at verse 1 of Colossians 1, Paul, an apostle of Jesus
Christ by the will of God, and then he mentions his student
named Timothy. Timotheus, that's our brother,
that's Timothy. And Paul as an apostle, what
was an apostle, one who was called to preach the word of God, but
in a special time and in a time where they received their message
directly from Jesus Christ in his person as the other 11 did,
Peter and James and John and as we go on. Paul, on the road
to Damascus, received the message and the power to preach the gospel.
And these were men who were chosen to bring together the truth of
the gospel to the church. And we talk about the doctrine
of the apostles. And there's no, listen, you know,
a lot of, I know when I was in seminary learning to preach a
false gospel, we acted as if John, for example, the apostle
John and the apostle Peter and the apostle Paul had different
messages than they didn't. They had the same message. Now
they had different styles and all of that, but it was the same
message. Well, here, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, And he says, by the will of God, not by the
will of men. This was not something that men
put Paul into. Paul was called to, he was converted
and called to preach. in the episode that is recorded
in the book of Acts, where he was struck down on the Damascus
road and sent to hear a man preach the gospel and given that word. And then he was sent to learn
it. And he says in verse two, he says, to the saints and faithful
brethren in Christ, which are at Colossae. Now, saints and
faithful brethren are one in the same. Now, a lot of people
don't believe that. They believe that, well, there are super-Christians
who are called saints, and then there's just us regular faithful
brethren. And that's not the case. All
believers are saints. The word saint means one who
is sanctified. And to be sanctified is to be
set apart. Well, all true believers have
been set apart, and there are several ways that believers have
been set apart. First of all, we can talk about
an eternal sanctification, separation, where God, the Bible says, that
God chose a people before the foundation of the world to save
and gave them to Christ. put all the responsibility of
their salvation upon Jesus Christ and in the Bible they're called
the elect of God. Now I know this is doctrine that
people do not like and don't want to hear but that is just
too bad because that's what the Bible teaches and they're identified
as God's elect. But that separation there is
eternal in the mind of God, in the purpose of God. They weren't
even born yet. The world hadn't even fallen.
I heard an old preacher say one time that salvation is actually
older than the fall. And it is, because 2 Timothy
chapter one, I believe it's verses nine and 10, speaks of a salvation
that was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. So understand
that. And I know somebody says, well,
what does that mean? Well, now hold on. There's also
a separation, as we are found in Christ, we can think about
his death on the cross, that when he died, he died for his
sheep, so they were separated redemptively, you might say,
even legally, because their sins were laid upon Christ, and they
were imputed to him, and he went to the cross to die for them.
And so Romans chapter six speaks of this, how that we were baptized
into his death and in his resurrection. When he died, if you're a believer,
now this is only believers, only those who believe in Christ and
rest in him can claim this biblically. And that's it, because faith
in Christ is the evidence of one having been separated. Only
believers can claim this biblically. Now you can claim it all you
want, but not biblically until you come to faith in Christ.
So all believers, if you're a believer, when he died, you died. When
he was buried, you were buried. When he arose again, you arose
again. Redemptively, representatively,
he died as my surety. My debt was placed to his account
and he paid it in full with the price of his blood. and he was
buried and rose again the third day because of my justification. My sins forgiven by his blood.
I stand righteous, justified before God based upon his righteousness
imputed to me. So there's a sanctification,
a separation, redemptively, legally. And then believers are also separated
out spiritually when they are born again by the Spirit and
brought to faith in Christ under the preaching of the gospel.
And that's called sanctification of the Spirit. 2 Thessalonians
2 and verses 13 and 14 speaks of that. When he talks about
we are bound to give thanks unto God for you brethren beloved
of the Lord because God hath from the beginning chosen you
unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth where unto he called you by our gospel to the praise of
the glory of his grace in Christ. So that's a separation. If you're
a believer, the Holy Spirit brought you under the preaching of the
gospel in some form, communicating that gospel to you through preaching
in some way, and he gave you life from the dead. You were
quickened, as the scripture says. You were regenerated. You must
be born again, Christ said. That's what he was talking about.
He gave you a new heart, a new life, a new spirit. And He gave
you eyes to see spiritual things, spiritual eyes, spiritual ears
to hear things, which you didn't hear before. And He gave you
a heart to love and to believe in Christ and embrace Him, and
to commit your whole self unto Him, your whole salvation unto
Him. And that's the first evidence
in my life that I was separated in eternity, separated redemptively. You see what I'm saying? So these
saints and faithful brethren in Christ, verse two of Colossians
one, and he says, grace unto you, all my salvation is by grace,
conditioned on Christ, none of it conditioned on me. and peace,
peace with God. And it's from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says in verse three, 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. Now that's what faith is. It's
not just believing. Faith is a gift from God to His
people, given by the power of the Spirit in the new birth,
and it's faith in Christ Jesus as He's identified and distinguished
and defined in the Bible in the glory of His person, God manifest
in the flesh, the perfect God-man, and in the power of His finished
work as the surety, the substitute, the redeemer, the preserver,
or the life giver, and the preserver of His people. You understand
that? Write these down. Number one,
the person and work of Christ. Paul said, I strive not to know
anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. What
does that mean? Well, that means that my salvation
is all conditioned on Christ, depending upon who he is, the
glory of his person. And who is he? He's God manifest
in the flesh, the perfect God man. It took God manifest in
the flesh to save me from my sins. He was made of the seed
of David according to the flesh, but he was declared to be the
son of God with power. by the spirit and the resurrection
from the dead. So the glory of his person, that's
the first thing. And then the power of his finished
work as my representative, my surety, my debt charged to him
as my substitute. He died in my place. That's why
he had to be both God and man. God cannot die, but man can.
Man cannot give life, but God can. So He's my surety, my substitute,
and my redeemer. He paid for my sins. They cannot
be charged to me. I must be given life, spiritual
life, eternal life from the dead. That's the power of His finished
work. Christ said it in John six and verse 37. He said, all
that the father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh
to me, I will in no wise cast out. He went on to say, this
is the will of him that sent me that of all which he has given
me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last
day. So here it is, Christ as my surety, my substitute, my
redeemer, my life giver, spiritual life comes from Him, my preserver. We're to persevere in the faith,
but the only way we'll persevere is if He preserves unto glory. You see that? And that's peace
from God our Father. and Jesus Christ. And he says
in verse three of Colossians one, 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
which you have to all the saints. Now that love means love of the
brethren in Christ. We are commanded. As believers,
as sinners saved by grace, as followers of Christ, we're commanded
to love our neighbor as ourselves. And we failed in that, that's
why we're sinful people. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. We miss the mark, but we're still
to strive to love our neighbor. And our neighbor includes our
worst enemies. Now, Christ made that clear.
Remember in the Sermon on the Mount, he told them, he said,
you've heard it said by them of, oh, love your friends, love
your family and your friends. Well, that's all. But he said,
I say love your enemies. But there's a special love, a
godly love, a divine love. You may have heard of the word
agape. That's a special love that brings us into fellowship. with other believers, the family
of God, which sets us apart from the world. We love our neighbor,
we want the best for them, but we cannot speak peace to them
and we cannot have fellowship with them. For example, in their
false religion, certainly in their immorality, we have to
be separate from them in the gospel that we believe. And that's
the love that he's talking about here. Love which you have to
all the saints. I am in fellowship with my spiritual
family. I'm not in fellowship with the
world. The world that stands against
Christ. I'm not with them. Now I'm to love them in the sense
that I'm to want the best for them. And the main issue of that
love there is I pray for their salvation. I have earthly family
members who don't believe the gospel, and I pray, Lord, save
them from their sins. Bring them to faith in Christ.
Bring them into the spiritual family. And so that's a separate
thing. Now look at verse five. Here's
where we're going. Here's the text. For the hope which is laid
up for you in heaven, where you heard before in the word of the
truth, of the gospel, hope and truth. Now, what is this hope? Hope here is not wishful thinking. Somebody said, I hope, I hope,
I hope. It's not just the repetition of words or believing something
hard enough or sincere enough. Somebody says, well, if you believe
it, Sincerely enough and hard enough, it'll come true, no.
That's not this hope. This is a hope that is grounded
in the truth of the gospel. And they come together. You cannot
have hope, this hope, godly hope, what we might call the hope of
God's elect, without the truth of the gospel. And if you have
the truth of the gospel, you'll have this hope in some degree. So what is this hope? Well, he
says, this hope is laid up for you in heaven. Now, who's the
you there? Not everybody without exception.
All without exception do not have this hope. This is the hope
of those who are immersed in the word of the gospel, the word
of the truth of the gospel, which they have heard. And the Bible says, that without
the new birth, without the power of the Spirit under the preaching
of the gospel, we won't hear it. The Bible says, faith cometh
by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You remember when
Christ began to preach in parables in the book of Matthew chapter
13. And he began preaching what we call the kingdom parables.
And he first began with the parable of what we call the sower and
the seed. I call it the parable of the
grounds, the different grounds. The seed there is the gospel,
the preached gospel. It's like a farmer going out
and sowing seed on the ground, and some of it fell by the wayside,
some of it fell on the stony ground, some of it on thorny
ground, but some of it fell on good ground. And of course, that's
not talking about man's inherent goodness, because there's none
good, no, not one. That's talking about those who
have been made so by God's grace and power. But here's what he
said that you think about it. The disciples ask him, why do
you speak in parables? And he said this, he said, because
they hearing, hear not, and they seeing, see not. Now, what was
he talking about? Was he preaching to a bunch of
deaf, blind people? Not physically. He wasn't talking
about those who are physically blind and physically deaf. He
was speaking to those who were spiritually blind, spiritually
deaf, deaf, and would not hear the word of God, the gospel,
in obedience. They didn't believe it. And he
told the disciples, he said, but blessed are your eyes for
they see, blessed are your ears for they hear. You understand
what I'm saying? The natural man, 1 Corinthians
2.14 says, the natural man will not receive, receiveth not the
word of God. the Word of the Spirit, because
these words are spiritually discerned, the things of the Spirit. He
cannot know them, they're spiritually understood. In other words, the
natural man will hear what I'm saying and he'll see, he can
read these words, but he won't believe it. Left to yourself,
you will not believe this message. Left to myself, I wouldn't believe
it. It takes the power of God in Christ to give spiritual eyes
to spiritually blind sinners, and spiritual ears to spiritually
deaf sinners. And when you see it, he says,
whereof you heard before, you heard it, you believed it. That's a gift from God, friend.
That didn't come from you naturally. If you really believe this gospel
that I'm preaching, and according to the word of God here, That's
a miracle. That's a gift from God. For by
grace are you saved, through faith, that not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So if you're a believer, you
don't have anything to brag about or boast in. God just simply
out of his sovereign purpose brought you to hear the gospel.
and He was gracious unto you. So when that gospel comes, now
what is the gospel? Well, it's the revelation of
the righteousness of God, Romans 1, 16 and 17. It's the revelation,
the uncovering of a truth. And that truth has to do with
the salvation of sinners by God's free and sovereign grace based
upon the glorious person and the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, which is called the righteousness of God. What
is the righteousness of God? It is the entire merit, value,
power of the work that Christ did in his obedience unto death
as the surety, the substitute, the redeemer, the life giver,
and the preserver of his people. Now, what that tells us is that
all for whom Christ lived and died and was buried and rose
again shall be saved. They shall not be lost. And that's
why he said, my sheep, hear my voice. I know them, he gave his
life for them. Their sins cannot be charged
to them. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Now,
from the truth of the gospel, the good news, It brings this
hope. And what is this hope? As I said,
it's not a pipe dream. It's not wishful thinking. It's
not just believing something hard enough. It is the certain
expectation of eternal life and glory based upon a solid, reliable,
trustworthy ground, basis. Well, what is this hope? What's
it based on? Well, Paul said it this way in
2 Timothy 1 verse 12. He said, I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that He is able, Christ is able to keep that which
I have committed unto Him against that day. That ground is again,
is the person and work of Christ. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. You see, there's the ground.
My faith is not, my believing it's not the ground of it, my
believing it is in the ground of Christ. You see that? There's
a difference. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name, on Christ, the solid rock
I stand. And all else is sinking sand. That's the key. What can wash
away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but His blood. This is
all my hope and peace. This is all my righteousness.
You see that? That's the certain expectation,
the assurance. That's what this hope is. It's
the assurance that comes from faith, from believing in Him
and resting in Him, knowing what I've committed unto Him. Paul
said, I know He'll keep that which I've committed unto Him
against that day. Well, what have you committed unto Him,
Paul? And Paul would say, my whole salvation is committed
to Him. It's in His hands. It's conditioned
on Him. And He fulfilled those conditions,
didn't leave them up to me. That would fail. If my hope is
in me and what I do and what I keep on doing and what I try
to do, That's a bad hope. But this hope, he says, is laid
up for you in heaven. How is it laid up for me in heaven? Christ is in heaven, ever living
to make intercession for me. How do I know it's for me? I
believe in him, I rest in him. I'm like Paul, I know whom I
have believed. And I'm persuaded that he's able
to keep what I've committed unto him, my whole salvation. It's
reserved. Peter talked about an inheritance
incorruptible reserved in heaven. I have a reservation that cannot
be canceled because Christ cannot be canceled. Why am I so sure? Because Christ is my surety. He is my righteousness. Jeremiah prophesied of Him as
the Lord our righteousness. When we sin we have a We have
a hope in heaven, we have a propitiation, that's a satisfaction in heaven,
and that's Jesus Christ the righteous. And he's the propitiation, not
just for my sins, but for the whole world, not everybody without
exception. Now that's not what that verse
means in 1 John 2 and 1 and 2, but God's people all over this
world, Jew and Gentile. He has a people all over this
world. And look at verse six of Colossians 1. He says, this
truth of the gospel which has come unto you as it is in all
the world, preach to the Gentiles, okay? And bringeth forth fruit
as it doth also in you since the day you heard of it and knew
the grace of God in truth. Hope and truth, nothing else. Hope and truth. And so as Paul
goes through this, He always gives the preeminence to Christ. And I'm gonna get to that in
a later message, the preeminence of Christ. Listen, in the salvation
of sinners, Christ always has the preeminence. And if Christ
does not have the preeminence in your mind and in your heart,
then there's no salvation for you. Christ is the only way. There's no other way. He said
it in John 14, six, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the
life. No man cometh under the father,
but by me. And I know that truth is offensive
to many people. Most people want to say, well,
there are many ways to God. You've heard what they call the
mountain analogy. There's a mountain. and God's
at the top, and the Hindu goes this way, the Buddhist goes that
way, the Christian goes this way, the Muslim goes that way,
but we're all going to the same place. That is not true. That
is not gospel. That's not the hope we have.
If that's the hope you have, it's a false hope. It's an empty
hope. It's no hope at all. But hope
and truth are found in Christ Jesus, the glory of His person
and the power of His finished work, His righteousness, His
blood, all of that to the salvation of all for whom He obeyed and
lived and died and rose again. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.