Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number seven from your Spiral Gospel
Hymns hymn book, number seven. Let's all stand together. The head that once was crowned
with thorns is crowned with glory now. A royal diadem adorns the
mighty victor's brow. The highest place that heaven
affords belongs to Him by right, the King of kings and Lord of
lords, and heaven's eternal light. The joy of all who dwell above,
the joy of all below, to whom he manifests his love and grants
his name to know. ? To them the cross with all
its shame ? ? With all its grace is given ? ? Their name an everlasting
name ? ? Their joy the joy of heaven ? Please be seated. Good morning. Let's open our Bibles together
to Colossians chapter three. Colossians chapter three. Ask the Lord's blessings on our
time together. Our merciful heavenly Father, How thankful we are that we can
come before thy holy presence in the name of thy dear son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for the faith
that you give to enable us to look to Him for
all of our righteousness and all of our justification before
Thee. We ask, Lord, that You would
send Your Holy Spirit in power, that You would rend the heavens and come down,
that You would open our hearts and open Your Word, Lord, that
You would enable us by your spirit to worship you. Lord, you've
brought us here to this place. We thank you for the gathering
of your people and for the worship of the saints. And Lord, thank
you for the encouragement that you enable us to give one to
the other. We pray, Lord, for work of grace
now in this hour and that you would cause us to look upon Christ
and to seek him and to desire him and to know him. For it's
in his name we pray. Amen. In his name, we pray in his name. That's the title of the message
this morning, this first hour in his name. And our text is found in Colossians
chapter three. The next verse that we have to,
to look at is verse 17 and whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all
in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the
Father by Him. Whatsoever you do in word and
in deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. What does
that mean? Certainly, we want the words
that we speak to honor the Lord. We know by experience what it
is to set a fire with our tongue as
James speaks of it. And we long and desire for the
Lord to put a guard over our lips. We want our words to be
good words. Apples of gold and pictures of silver. Proverbs
speaks of the chosen word and the careful word. We want the Lord to tame the
unruly evil of our tongue which otherwise would be set on fire
of hell as James tells us. We want to speak kindly to one
another, to all men. We want to speak with compassion
and with sympathy and with love and want
to edify one another with our words. That's the believer's
heart's desire. We want our deeds to be without
self-serving glory, to be done as unto the Lord and not as unto
men. desire for them to be qualified
as good works. The problem is that our works
and our words are never done with pure motive. Our works are always, our words are always chosen in
such a way as to present ourselves in the best light, are they not? And we ought to do that to some degree.
It's a fool that has no filter between his heart and his lips. It's what the scripture says
and how foolish we've all been when we didn't filter our words
as we should have. Is what the Lord's saying here
in verse 17 a command or an admonition to speak every word that we speak
and every deed that we perform in such a spirit of grace and
holiness that it would be worthy of his name? Is that what the
Lord's saying? That's our desire. If we could, we would. Paul said
to Will, To will to that end is present with me. That's my
heart's desire. But how to perform that which
is good? I find not. I'm not able to speak
all my words and to perform all my deeds as I ought. A lot of scribes and Pharisees
pretending to do that, seeking the praise of men. The Lord exposed
them in Matthew chapter 23 when he said, but all their works
they do for to be seen of men. They make broad their phylacteries
and enlarge the borders of their garments. And for pretense, for
pretense, They make long public prayers standing in the marketplace
that want everybody to know how spiritual they are. What does it mean to do what
we do and to say what we say in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ? Well, It is to trust the Lord
Jesus Christ alone for all our acceptance before God. To present his name as the only
cause and merit of our acceptance before God. When I speak a word or perform
a deed, I trust in faith. that the Lord Jesus Christ will
make that far from perfect word and far from perfect deed acceptable
to God. Here's what the Lord say. Whatsoever
you do in word and deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We pray in Jesus' name, knowing
that it's only his merit that makes our prayers acceptable
to God. We offer to God our worship in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that He's the one that
makes our worship acceptable to God. It's not that we are
so spiritual and so consciously aware of every word we speak
and every deed we perform as being done It's that just the opposite of
that. It's that the words that we speak
and the deeds that we perform fall far short, so far short
of God's glory that we need the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
to intercede on our behalf and to present those things acceptable
to God. That's what it means. So when
the Lord's saying, whatsoever you say, whatever words you speak
and whatever deeds you perform, do them all in the name of the
Lord Jesus. Giving thanks unto your Father. Thankful that these things would
be acceptable to God in the name of the Lord Jesus. Not because
we've performed them with some sort of spiritual ability to present
something that would be meritorious and acceptable to God. It's that
we do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Isn't this, this is what
faith is. This is our encouragement. That nothing, no word that we
speak, they're all tainted with self-serving motives and no deeds
that we perform, they're all inadequate. And so we trust that
the Lord Jesus Christ will make them acceptable to God. We're not pretending to be super
spiritual in order to impress men by making a pretense of long
public prayers and acting spiritual all the time. We're humbly looking in faith
to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to make our words and
our works acceptable to God. If the words that I speak and
the deeds that I perform are to be acceptable to God, they
must go through the Lord Jesus Christ. He must present them. He must intercede for me. There's a little article in your
bulletin that was written by Charles Spurgeon. To really appreciate
that article, you'd have to know that in the mid-19th century,
Charles Spurgeon was very, very well known in London. England,
Metropolitan Tabernacle that he pastored would seat 6,000
people and it would fill up and he had some influence in the
city and there was a poor, obviously very uneducated woman that had
lost her husband in the congregation and she came to Mr. Spurgeon with a letter that she
had written in hopes that he would put his name on it and
present it to the magistrate to receive some assistance from
the government as a widow. And he read the letter and he
said maybe one out of every 10 words on the letter was spelled
properly and none of the sentences were in proper order. and she
wanted him to put his name on it to present it on her behalf. And so he agreed to do so, but
before he did, he rewrote the letter. Keeping the spirit of her request
in the letter, he rewrote it and he spelled all the words
properly and worded it properly and presented it. What a perfect
picture of I mean, one out of every 10 words that we speak
might be spelled properly. Our sentences are so jumbled
up. We need one who's able to rewrite our prayers, rewrite
our letters, and present them acceptable to God. That's what the Lord's saying
to us here. Whatever you say, look at the text again. Whatsoever
you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Our words and our deeds are not
acceptable to God, but His are. And so we trust
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. to present our words and our
deeds to God in such a way as that they would be acceptable
in his sight. 1 Samuel chapter 17 is the story
of David going up against Goliath. And remember he asked Saul, he
said, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that is blaspheming
the God of Israel? And then when he met Goliath
on the battlefield, he said, you come to me with sword and
with spear and with shield, but I come to you in the name of
the Lord of hosts. The name of the Lord of hosts,
the God of the armies of Israel. And he will deliver you into
my hand that all the world may know that there is a God in Israel. So David is going against Goliath
in the name of the Lord, trusting the Lord. Now we know that David
and Goliath, there's a picture of Christ and Satan and sin and
death and hell and all the things that we need to be delivered
from and how the Lord got the victory by himself. When our Lord made his triumphal
entry into Jerusalem just before his crucifixion, remember they
were crying, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest. This is the one
who has come in the name of the Lord. So the Lord Jesus Christ comes
in the name of his father and presents himself to God in that
name. In Zephaniah 3, verse 12, God
says, I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor
people. The Lord's speaking of his elect.
I'm going to leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor
people. A people who can't speak words
that would be acceptable to me and they can't perform deeds
that would be acceptable to me. But here's going to be the difference.
That shall trust in the name of the Lord. This afflicted and
poor people are going to trust in the name of the Lord to make
their words and their deeds acceptable to God. In Acts chapter 2, when Peter
is preaching, On the day of Pentecost, he concludes his message with,
repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. You see, everything we do is
in his name. We have nothing to present to
God unless it's presented in his name. In another place the Lord tells
us we are made partakers of Christ if we hold steadfast, if we hold the beginning
of our salvation steadfast to the end. What is the beginning
of our salvation? In the beginning of our salvation
we have no experiences to look to, we have no works that we've
performed, we have no real understanding that we can look back on. We come depending on the Lord
Jesus Christ alone for all of our acceptance before God. And
so the Lord says that as you began this walk, For we are made partakers of
Christ if we hold the beginning of our salvation steadfast unto
the end. So holding the beginning of our
salvation is that we continue, we continue to come before God
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Looking unto Jesus, the
author and the finisher of our faith. who for the joy that was
set before him endured the cross and despised its shame. Here
we have this is this is what we're doing. This is this is
what we can't present any word or deed to God that would be
acceptable in God's sight unless it's presented in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he cleans it up and he presents it. to the Father
in a way that is acceptable to God. What is his name? Well, we know
what Jesus means just like your name is very important to you. Why? Because it's It's the sound that represents
you. When your name is spoken, when it's heard, you want that
name to have a good connotation and a good meaning with others
that speak it and hear it. So our names are not just audible
sounds. They have content to them. They have meaning to them. And
so it is to its infinite degree with the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. You shall call his name Jesus
for he shall save his people from their sins. So we come to
God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting that the Lord
Jesus Christ himself will accomplish the work of salvation for us. If that's to be, then a sacrifice
must be made that would atone for our sins before a holy God.
When we come to God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, whatever
words we speak and whatever deeds we perform, we do them all in
the name of the Lord Jesus. We are looking to the blood of
the Lamb. Scott, you read from Revelation
chapter 5 this morning where the angel had a, the Lord, God had a book
and it was sealed and there was no man able, scripture says able,
no man able to open the book, no man able to speak a word or
perform a work that would be acceptable to God. No man. And John wept. And the angel
said, weep not. For the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, he hath prevailed. He hath gotten the victory. The
Lamb of God that is without spot and without blemish has presented
himself not to us to be accepted or rejected by us, he's presented
himself to God. His name is Jesus for he shall,
he shall save his people from their sins. So when we speak
words and perform deeds, we understand that they all fall short of God's
glory and none of them are worthy of acceptance before God except
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who hath prevailed. He's put his precious blood on
that mercy seat. And that sacrifice goes all the
way back to the garden. Adam tried to cover his nakedness
by sewing together fig leaves, hiding among the trees, The Lord knew exactly where he
was, and so when God said, Adam, where art thou? Well, God wasn't
looking for Adam, God was exposing Adam. And the Lord had to give him
an adequate, inadequate covering. And so he slew a lamb, he shed
blood, took that lamb's fleece. You know that's a picture of
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, that first lamb
that was slain in the garden. was none other than the Lord
Jesus Christ. And how many tens of thousands, perhaps millions
of lambs were slain over the years, shedding their blood. And the blood of bulls and goats
could not take away our sin. They were but a picture of the
one who would come. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
as the Lamb of God that was without spot and without blemish hung
his head on Calvary's cross and said, it is finished, he saved
his people from their sins. He actually accomplished our
salvation. So when we come to God, we are
looking in faith to the name of the Lord Jesus. And we don't
speak his name in vain. You know, in religion, men throw
around the name Jesus with such ease. And when you listen to
what they mean by it, they've emptied it of its meaning. And that's what it is to speak
the Lord's name in vain, to take away the meaning of his name.
And by God's grace, we have some understanding of what Jesus means. that no word that we speak, no
prayer that we pray, no act of worship that we perform, no good
deed that we perform can be acceptable to God except it be done in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's what our Lord is telling
us. He's not telling us to, you know, be like those scribes and
pharisees who made a pretense of their long prayers and tried
to pretend to be so spiritual and had the accolades of men,
oh look how religious these men are, look how spiritual they
are, that's fleshly. As I said at the beginning, we
want our words and our deeds to honor the Lord and we've had
enough experience, every one of us have had enough experience
with speaking words we ought not to have spoken, and performing,
doing things we ought not to have done, to know the consequences
of those things. But here the Lord is telling
us, whatever you do in word and in
deed, do it all in the name of Jesus. The Lord Jesus. This is the same. You see, if
our prayers are going to be acceptable to God, they must be presented
by the Lord Jesus Christ. And it must be a blood sacrifice. Not only do we see that sacrifice
in the very beginning in the garden, but we see it with Cain
and Abel. Cain brought the labor of his
hands. He thought, well, I've really
worked good. I've worked hard on this garden. You know, I've
been pulling weeds and I've been tending this garden and look
at the beauty of these fruits and vegetables and I'll present
them to God. The works of his hands. God had
no regard. He had no regard for the offering
that Cain made. And Abel. brings a lamb from
his flock and he sheds the blood. God has regard for Abel's sacrifice
and Abel's sacrifice speaks to this day, the scripture tells
us, more excellent than that sacrifice of Cain. We see this in Genesis chapter
15 when God called Abraham and and confirmed his covenant promise
with Abraham with a sacrifice. He told Abraham, he said, you
take these animals and you divide them in half, you cut them in
half and you lay them out. And what happened? That night,
Abraham was in a, Abraham, first of all, the first thing that
the scripture tells us after Abraham laid out these sacrifices
is that he had to chase the birds off of them. the birds of prey
that were coming to peck at the sacrifice. Abraham had to chase
them away. And that's part of what we do
every time we preach the gospel. We identify that free will, work,
self-righteous means that men look to to peck away at the sacrifice. And we speak against that and
chase that away. And then Abraham was put into
a deep sleep and in that vision he saw a smoking furnace and
a burning lamp come between the sacrifices. A smoking furnace. Now you know what smoke represents
in the Bible. It represents our prayers. Smoke
goes up into the heavens. And we could mention many, many
examples of that in the scriptures, but that's what smoke represents. So whose prayers are acceptable
to God? Oh, that's why we conclude our
prayers within the name of the Lord Jesus, we pray. It was the
Lord Jesus who on Calvary's cross said, Father, forgive them for
they know not what they do. You and I have never sinned against
God and understood the real horrors of it. And thankfully so. Thankfully so. If we saw any
one of our sins as they really are before God, We'd crawl under
a rock. We wouldn't want anybody to see
us, we'd be so. But the Lord knew. He said, Lord,
Father, they don't know what they're doing. They can't speak
a word or perform a deed that would be acceptable to God. Everything
they say and everything they do is tainted with their sin. And so, Father, forgive them. Simon, Satan has asked to sift
thee. But I have prayed for thee that
your faith fail not. Now what is faith? Faith is doing
what we do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what
faith is. Faith is looking to Christ. Faith
is not performed when we are able to look at something that
we've said or something that we've done and think, boy, that
was good. That surely would be acceptable
to God. No, it won't be. Faith is doing
what we do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Simon, I prayed
for you. It's my smoke that has gone up
to the heavens. It's the sacrifice that Christ
made. How many times we've read about that? The Old Testament
sacrifices and when they burned the sacrifice, the smoke that
went up. That's what happened on Calvary's cross. The Lord
Jesus Christ was burned by the fiery wrath of God's justice. He's that Passover lamb. The
Lord said, eat every bit of it. Burn it with fire. Whatever you
don't eat, consume it with fire. Don't leave any of it. And the
smoke of His sacrifice went up before the Father. And the Father
was pleased with Him. And the only way that the Father
is going to be pleased with me and you is if we are found in
Him. Found in Him, found looking to
Him. And doing what we do and saying
what we say in the name of the Lord Jesus. That's faith. In religion, we're admonished
and shamed for not doing the things that we do for the glory
of God. As I said, we want our lives
to honor the Lord. We want our words to honor Him.
But here's what our Lord's saying. And it wasn't just a smoking
furnace, that's the prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ, but was
a burning lamp, the scripture says. And what is a burning lamp?
It's light. I am the light of the world.
Light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather
than light. Why? Because their deeds are
evil. Their deeds are evil. They won't
come to the light. The irreligious won't come to
the light because they're engaged in things that their conscience
is telling them is wrong. And the religious won't come
to the light because they're convinced that the works that
they're performing in their religious activity are somehow acceptable
to God. So they won't come to the light.
Light is coming to the world, but men love darkness rather
than light because their deeds are evil. So brethren, whatever you do,
whatever you do in word or in deed, do it all in the name of
the Lord Jesus. Looking to Christ for all your
salvation. looking to him as the one who
stood in your stead and the covenant of grace before time ever began.
If you're going to be saved, God's going to have Christ is
going to have to to present himself to the father as your surety
as the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Looking
to Him as the one who laid down His life for His sheep on Calvary's
cross and satisfied the demands of God's holy justice. Looking
to Him as the one who's seated at the right hand of God for
all of your righteousness before God. Looking to Him to keep you
from falling and to present you faultless. Whatever you do, In word or in
deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. The only way
it's going to be acceptable to God. Lord, this is messed up. You're
going to have to fix it. You're going to have to fix it.
You're going to have to present it in such a way. The Lord Jesus Christ
is my justification before God. He's my righteousness before
God. He's my acceptance before God.
We are accepted in the Beloved, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Notice the Lord tells us, the
Lord Jesus. What does that tell us? He's
Lord. The scripture says that he's
Lord over the living and over the dead. And he's not talking
about those who are physically alive or physically dead. He's
talking about those who believe and those who don't believe.
The spiritually alive and the spiritually dead. The Lord Jesus
Christ is Lord over them. Men say with that, So that declaration
we see in scripture, we'll not have this man reign over us.
I'm not gonna bow to him. I'm sorry, he does reign over
you. He does. I'm here to declare unto you
without any apology, Jesus Christ is your Lord. He's sovereign
over your life and he will do with you whatsoever he wills. And faith bows to that, faith
rejoices in that. The unbeliever bows up against
it. But faith rejoices, faith delights
that their Savior is also their Lord. That he's doing whatsoever
he wills with the armies of heaven and all the inhabitants of the
earth. And that no man can stay his hand or say unto him, what
doest thou? He's Lord in my salvation. He'll
have mercy upon whom he will have mercy and whom he will he
hardness. He's God, he's Lord. And whatever
he does is right. And if he sends me to hell, he's
just in doing that. Whatever you do, whatever you do, in word or in
deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Giving thanks to God and the
Father and do that by Him. You see that? We can't even offer
thanks to God unless we go through the Lord Jesus Christ. Do that
by him. Oh, how thankful we are that
God will allow us to come into his holy presence. That God would
call us from our homes and bring us here to this place to worship
him. That God would promise his presence and send his spirit
and give us his word. and show us the truth and shine
the light in our otherwise dark hearts. What gratitude, what
thanksgiving. But even our thanksgiving must
be presented to God by him, by him. Now, in closing, I want to make
application of this passage to what we're doing right now. We
saw last Sunday from the previous verse, that the word of Christ,
the word of Christ is the preaching of the gospel. Now this passage
in its context, I've tried to preach it in such a way as it
applies to everything in our lives, but in its immediate context,
the Lord is speaking of public worship here. In both verse 16
and 17, he's talking about what we're doing right now. So the
Lord says in verse 16, let the word of Christ, let the preaching
of Christ dwell in you richly. Value it. Above everything else,
he is the pearl of great price. Teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your heart to the Lord, this is public worship. We select hymns that glorify
Christ and we have conversations after having heard the gospel
that edify one another. And so verse 17 is a continuation
of that same thought. And whatsoever you do, particularly
in public worship, whether it be in word or in deed, do it
all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to the Father by
Him. Where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there I am in the midst of them. In the
name of the Lord Jesus. Most of us have been involved
in or at least observed the foolishness of man-made religion that gives
no glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord's speaking to his church
here. Might we take this admonition?
An instruction. Very serious when it comes to
our public worship. And do everything that we do.
And every word we speak and and and and the hymns we choose. Again, our worship is. has to
go to God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Might he be the... Someone has said, we conduct
our worship to the audience of one. We're not here to to glorify one another, here
to glorify Christ. All right, let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
that we have the name of the Lord Jesus to fix our petitions, our prayers,
our worship, our words, and our deeds, and present them acceptable
unto thee. We ask, Lord, that you would
receive this in his name. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen.