Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 186 in your hardback timbral,
The Church's One Foundation, number 186. Let's all stand together. A church's one foundation is
Jesus Christ, her Lord. She is his new creation by water
and the Word. From heaven he came and sought
her to be his holy bride. With his own blood he bought
her, and for her life he died. He lacked from every nation,
yet one for all the earth. Her charter of salvation, one
Lord, one faith, one birth. One holy name she blesses, partakes
one holy food. and to one hope she presses with
every grace endued. Mid toil and tribulation and
tumult of her war, ? She waits the consummation of peace forevermore
? ? Till with a vision glorious her longing eyes are blessed
? ? And the great church victorious ? Shall be the church at rest
? Yet she on earth hath union ? With God the three in one ?
And mystic sweet communion ? With those whose rest is one Oh, happy
ones and holy, Lord, give us grace that we, like them, the
meek and holy, on high may dwell with thee. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to be back in Colossians
chapter 3 this morning, if you would like to turn with me there
in your Bibles. I've titled this message, The
Word of Christ. The Word of Christ. The phrase,
the Word of God, is used many times in the Bible. And the phrase,
the word of the Lord is used many times in the Bible. But
if you'll notice with me in verse 16 of Colossians chapter three,
scripture says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly
in all wisdom. That's the only place you'll
find that, that way, that expression in scripture, the word of Christ
right here. What is the word of Christ? That's
our question this morning and pray the Lord will answer that
question and enable the word of Christ to dwell in our hearts,
richly in all wisdom, in all understanding. Let's, let's pray
together. Our heavenly father, we thank you that you have brought
us once again, each from our homes, You have put in our hearts
a desire to know Thee, to worship Thee. Lord, we thank You for
the promise of Your Word that assures us that where two or
three are gathered together, there You are in the midst of
them. And so, Lord, we trust that You
would be pleased this morning to open the windows of heaven,
that you would come down, that you would visit with your people,
that you would manifest your glory, that you would open up
your word, open up our hearts, open up the eyes of our understanding.
Lord, we know that what you open, no man can shut. And so, Lord,
we thank you that you've promised to do that. And we depend upon
you to that end. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. In our study of Colossians, we've
been reminded of the pattern that the Apostle Paul has in
writing letters to the churches. under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, he always begins with a salutation expressing
great thanksgiving and great praise to God for calling out
that particular church and expressing his love toward them. And then
he spends the next good portion of the letter defining and declaring
the gospel. He exalts Christ in salvation. He makes it clear at the very
beginning of these letters that salvation is of the Lord. That in the covenant of grace,
God has elected a particular people before time ever began.
That was all of him according to his own will and purpose. In redemption, the Lord Jesus
Christ successfully accomplished the salvation of his people when
he gave himself as a ransom for our sins. And how the Lord Jesus
has now ascended back into glory and taken his rightful place
at the right hand of the majesty on high. And how he, as our high
priest, intercedes for us and presents himself to his father
on our behalf. All of these things are clearly
declared in the first part of these letters. How God does all
the work of redemption. Yes, salvation's a choice. It
is God's choice, not ours. And it is God's work. It is God,
the Holy Spirit, that makes the people whom God the Father chose
and whom the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed. It is God, the Holy
Spirit, that opens their hearts, that reveals Christ to them. It is not the work of man. It is not of him that willeth
nor of him that runneth. It is of God that showeth mercy.
Child of God, in your walk of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ
does all the work. in sanctifying us, in keeping
us, in presenting us faultless before the throne of God. It
is his work, and this gospel is clearly declared in every
one of his letters, and must be understood if we to have any
understanding of the last part of the letters. So in this book
to the church at Colossae, in Romans we know that Paul spent
11 chapters declaring the gospel until he got to chapter 12 and
then only dealt with the latter part of the epistle in a few
chapters. when he made that transition.
In the book of Colossians, half of the book is given to the declaration
of the gospel, and the second half of the book is given to
the application of the gospel. If this is what the Lord has
done, then he reminds us to be diligent in looking to Christ
and in walking in this life of faith. The point that I want
to make this morning is that if we try to make application
to the latter part of the letters without understanding the first
part, we'll find ourselves attempting to serve God in the power of
our own flesh. This is a work of grace, and
it is the fruit of the Spirit. He's the one that must produce
it, and He does. But, you know, it's through the
means of the Lord encouraging us and teaching us and admonishing
us that the Spirit of God accomplishes this work in the hearts of his
people. So these things can only apply
to those who have life in Christ, who have Christ in them as their
life. That's why, notice with me in
chapter 3, the transition that the Apostle Paul makes in verse
1, if you then be risen with Christ, If Christ is your life,
if when Christ died, you died. If when Christ lived a perfect
life of obedience, that is your life before God. You're not looking
to anything that you're doing for the hope of your righteousness
before God. Christ is your righteousness.
And when Christ was risen, that we were risen together with Him,
when He ascended into glory, the only hope that I have to
be in the presence of God is to be found in Him. If therefore these things are
true for you, if therefore you've been risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. where Christ is at the right
hand of God. Set your affections on things
above, not on things of the earth. How earthy we can be. How the things of this world
can demand our affections and our attention. And so the Holy
Spirit, through the penman of the Apostle Paul, is reminding
us who we are in Christ and causing us to turn again and again and
again away from the things that would take us from Him. That's what He's telling us here.
If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your affections
on things above and on things of the earth, for you're dead
and your life is hid with Christ in God. We need to be reminded of these
things, don't we? And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, when he shall return, we shall appear with him in glory. And so the Spirit of God is reminding
us of our eternal home. He's reminding us of how vain
and how fleshly our attraction to the things of this world is,
and how we need to be reminded of this, how I need to be reminded
of this. And so in verse 12 of chapter
3, as we saw last Sunday, put on, therefore, is the elect of
God. If you are God's elect, if Christ is your life, you say,
how would I know if I'm God's elect? I can't look back into
eternity and see the Lamb's book of life and discover who it is
that God chose. How do I know if I'm God's elect?
Faith. is the substance of things hoped
for and the evidence of things not seen. Faith tells me that
Christ is my life. He's my all before God. He's
my righteousness before God. I have no life outside of Christ.
If Christ doesn't save me, I won't be saved. There's the evidence
of our election. Make your calling and election
sure. And that doesn't mean to look
at your life and try to figure out if you're living up to the
standard. No, no. It means to look in and
see, am I trusting Christ? Is Christ my life? put on, therefore,
as the elect of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercy and kindness
and humbleness of mind and meekness." Oh, so he's telling us these
are the fruits of righteousness. This is what God does by His
Spirit in the hearts and lives of His people. These things cannot
be done in the power of the flesh. They can only be done by the
work of the Spirit causing us to will and to do after His good
pleasure. There's a, I meant to, I meant
to, can I have the bulletin from this morning? Take your bulletin if you will.
This, this, this was the most profound and, and, and and simple mystery that I've
seen this subject phrased outside of Scripture.
You know, we just believe what Scripture says. You see a little
article by Maurice Montgomery, poor professors, that poor professor
who does not walk before the Lord in a spirit of obedience,
Child of God, you hate your sin. Child of God, you want to follow
after Christ. Child of God, if you could, you
would never sin again. You seek to love Him and to obey
Him. And without that, you entertain
a false hope. Yet, on the other hand, The very
moment a man begins to look at his own obedience as part of
his eternal hope, he has fallen from grace. Isn't that true?
Is that your experience, child of God? Isn't that good? That's
what we're saying here. That's what we're saying. It
is this spirit of obedience that God gives to his children. But
the very moment we begin to look at the evidences of our obedience,
we've taken our eyes off of Christ. and we've fallen from grace.
We find ourselves back under the law. That's a mystery. That's a paradox. A paradox is not a contradiction.
It is what appears to be contradictory, but in fact it's not. And what
we're talking about here is a paradox that only those who have two
natures can understand. Only those who have A new life
in Christ who himself has identified the old man can have some understanding
of. Now, when we get to verse 16, I struggled with this verse for
a long time trying to understand what the word of Christ was.
And and then the more I looked at it and prayed about it, the
Lord just showed me he's talking about public worship. He's talking
about public worship. Yeah, we ought to have. scriptures
in our hearts and in our minds, and we ought to be mindful of
those things and reflect on those things. David said that we should,
that we hide God's Word in our hearts, that we sin not against
Him. And what a blessing it is when
the Holy Spirit reminds us of those things. But here in chapter,
in verse 16, he's talking about what we're doing right now. What
you and I are doing right now. when we come to this place and
we join our hearts and our voices and our minds in public worship. Worship is a word of grace, is
a work of grace, I'm sorry, in the heart. Turn with me to John
chapter four. John chapter four. You remember the story? The disciples, like every self-righteous
Jew, wanted to go around Samaria. They had a disdain for the Samaritans. They considered themselves to
be holier than the Samaritans. And the Lord Jesus said, no,
I must, needs go through Samaria. I've got lost sheep, I've got
some lost sheep there. And there's one woman in particular
that's going to the well in the middle of the day. She lives
in this little town called Sycar. And she's got quite a reputation
in this community. No telling how many marriages
she's broken up. She'd been married five times.
And the man she's with now is not her husband. And she's forced
to go to the well in the middle of the day because the other
women that are there early in the morning in the cool of the
day would be talking about her and in embarrassment and shame
she had to go all by herself. And the Lord said, I had to meet
her. And the disciples go down into
the city, into the town to get some food, and the Lord's there,
and he has this exchange with this woman. And he talks to her
about the water of life, and they that drink of that water.
He was referring to himself. He said, they that drink of that
water shall never thirst again. And she said, oh Lord, give me
that water. And so the Lord has to expose
her sin in order for her to become dependent upon Him as her Savior. Isn't that always the case? When
the Lord first speaks, we see for the first time our lost condition. He told her, he said, go get
your husband. And she said, I don't have a husband. And she said,
and the Lord said, you spoke the truth for you've had five
husbands and the man you're living with now is not your husband. And she tries to divert the attention
away from herself. And she said, oh, I perceive
that you are a prophet. And she says in verse 20, look
at verse 20, our fathers worshiped in this mountain. Mount Gerizim. This was the mountain that the
Samaritans worshiped in. And you say that in Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship. You see, now she's
going to bring up this theological controversy and debate, hoping
to draw attention away from herself. And that so often what we do, the Lord's not gonna let it be.
He's going to deal with her very tenderly, very lovingly, right
where she is. And Jesus said to her, woman,
believe me, believe me. Oh, can we hear the Lord saying
to us, believe me? What a blessing. What God requires to believe
Him, God must provide. Lord, enable me to believe you.
Lord, cause me to believe you. Give me saving faith. Woman, believe me. The hour cometh when you shall
neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem worship the
Father, Men love to debate where to worship
and how to worship and all those different trappings of religion. You worship you know not what.
We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. Salvation was
of the Jews because the Messiah had to come through the line
of Judah. There would be no salvation apart from what God was going
to do through Israel and bringing in the Christ. But the hour cometh,
and here's our point, the hour cometh, and now is, when the
true worshiper shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth,
for the Father seeketh such to worship him. Now, don't confuse
that word seeketh. Don't think that God's, you know,
running to and fro looking for someone that will worship him
that way. No, this word means that the Lord is the one who
makes us to be able to worship Him in spirit and in truth. It
is the work of the Spirit of God that enables us to worship,
and it is the revelation of the truth of Christ that enables
us to worship. So this is what the Lord is saying
to me and you. Don't get caught up in the religious
trappings of spiritual activity or religious activity. Ask the Lord to give you his
spirit, that you'd be able to worship him from the heart, that
you'd be able to worship him according to the truth of the
gospel. Verse 24, God is spirit and they
that worship him must worship him in spirit. and in truth. Oh, and this woman who lived
in shame and in shadows now runs back down into Sychar and begins
running up and down the streets and announcing, come, meet a
man who told me everything I ever did. Is this not the Christ? Now she's She's found herself
in the presence of God and she wants others to be a part of
that work. This is what our text is talking
about. Go back with me to Colossians
chapter three. Let the Word of Christ. You know, my first impression
when I read this verse and realized it's the only place where the
Word of Christ is mentioned in the Bible, I'm wondering if the The people who put Bibles together
thought that this was reason to have red letter edition Bibles. You know, you can't hardly find
a Bible without it being a red letter edition. Where they take
the actual audible words that the Lord Jesus spoke in his earthly
ministry and put them in red. And then the rest of the scripture
is just in black as if, you know, one was more significant than
the other. That's not what he's talking
about here. That's not the Word of Christ. This is the gospel. This is the gospel being preached.
It's what we're doing right now. We're declaring from God's Word
the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what the
Lord is telling us is if you've been risen together with Christ,
if your life is in Christ and Christ is your life, If all of
your hope of salvation is in Him as your righteousness and
your justification before God, then when you come together for
worship to hear the Word of God as it's preached, revealing the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ, dwell, let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord. Oh, I love it when the spirit
of God puts a hymn on my heart and you end up, you know, thinking
about those words and singing them just in the normal routine
of your daily activities. But that's not really the reference
here. This is talking about what we're doing right now. Tom comes
up here and leads us in singing songs and hymns and spiritual
songs, making melody in our hearts. Why? Because we're rejoicing
in the word of Christ. And let this word dwell richly
in you. Give your undivided attention. It's so difficult for us, isn't
it? We can pay attention to anything
else easier than we can pay attention to the gospel. Why? Because this is a spiritual work.
This goes back to worshiping God in the spirit. It takes the
spirit of God. You can't have the word of Christ
or the gospel Let me show you one verse of scripture to support
what I'm saying here in 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1. It is the word of Christ. It
is the preaching of the gospel that God uses to give life to
his people. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the Word of God, the Word of God. Now let's make it
clear just in case there's maybe someone that doesn't know this. Philip said, Lord, show us the
Father and it sufficeth us. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
O Philip, have I been with you so long that you don't know that
if you've seen me, you've seen the Father for I am the Father
of one. The Lord Jesus Christ is the second person of the triune
Godhead and all the attributes and characteristics of God are
in him. And whatever we know of God,
we will learn in him. The Word of Christ and the Word
of God is the same. But here it is a reference to
the Word of God being preached for the salvation of God's people,
revealing Christ. You have your Bibles open to
1 Peter, look. being born again, not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever. So there's no salvation apart
from the preaching of the word of God or the word of Christ. Faith comes by hearing, hearing
comes by the word of God. We are of his own will begat
he us with the word of truth is the way James put it. So he
births us Right now. You see, if we're able, by God's
Spirit, to hear the truth of who Christ is, and the Word of
Christ is dwelling in us richly, then this is the means by which
the Lord, this is what the Lord's saying to me and you right now.
When you come to services, when you come to services, pray. Pray for yourself. Pray for your
children. Pray for one another. Pray for
your pastor. Because this is a work of the
Spirit. If we're going to hear the truth, if we're going to
be born of God, if we're going to have life in Christ, we're
dependent upon Him to do that. Look at verse 24. For all flesh
is His grass. That's what we are. When the Lord told the prophet
Isaiah in Isaiah 40, comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Speak
ye comfortably unto Jerusalem. Tell them their warfare is accomplished.
And Isaiah said, Lord, where do I begin? Tell them their grass. Tell them their grass. Tell them
that they have nothing, they can do nothing, they know nothing.
They have no ability within themselves. That will comfort them. And that
will be the truth that will cause them to look to Christ for everything. For all flesh, we come here. It was your flesh that got up
this morning. It was your flesh that dressed
you and got you fed and got you here. But now we're engaged in
something very spiritual, but your flesh is still with you,
isn't it? And I remember what the Lord, you remember what the
Lord said to the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane when
He said, when He said, could you not pray with me for one
hour? He said, the flesh is weak. The Spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak. How weak it is. You wear that
right now, aren't you? how difficult it is in your flesh. That's what the Lord is saying.
Let the gospel preached dwell in your hearts richly in all
wisdom. For all flesh is as grass and
all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth,
the flower thereof falleth away. That's all we are. We're just
flesh. The older we get, the more we
understand that that withering flower, now it's a wind of, it's
gonna blow soon and take that away, that chaff away. Now look
at verse 25, because here's my point that I want you to see,
and I know you know this verse. But, but, in contrast to the
fact that the flesh is grass and the flesh can do nothing,
but, The Word of God. Or the Word of Christ. Which
is the Word of God being preached about Christ. The Word of God. Endureth forever. And this is
the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you. There's
the Word of Christ. You see, there's a lot of people
that think just studying the Bible Preaching the historical
and theological and doctrinal truths of the Bible is somehow
declaring the Word of God. That's exactly what Peter said.
The Word of God endureth forever. And this is the Word of God,
which by the gospel is preached unto you. If Christ is not preached,
if the Word of Christ is not preached, if the person of Christ
is not lifted up, the Word of God's not being preached. That's as clear and simple as
I know how to make it. Yet the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ is not the subject of our message. That's why Paul
said, I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. We preach Christ. This is the
Word of Christ in our text. And it's the only, it's a phrase
that means the preaching of the gospel, which is what we're doing
right now, I hope. I hope that's what we're doing. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 says that
there is a proper time for all things. There is a time for political
discourse. There is a time for entertainment. There is a time for education. There is a time for social interaction. There's a time for all those
things. But this is the time of worship. May God in his grace
and by his spirit enable us to put those things away and to
devote our attention to the Lord Jesus Christ and to his gospel
and to the word of God, which by the gospel is preached unto
you. That's what this time's for. And if we come here for any other
reason than to worship God and to know Christ, then eventually
we'll fall away. We just will. If the church is faithful to
preach Christ and we're here for any other reason, That reason's not gonna be met
and we're gonna get offended and we'll fall away. But if we
come here, the cause to let the word of Christ dwell in our hearts
richly. What does it mean to make this
gospel dwell in your heart? Well, first of all, it means
to make application first and foremost to yourself. You know
how many times we're tempted to think, well, I wish so and
so would hear that. Or we think of someone else in the congregation
that maybe never heard the gospel before. And it's right for us
to pray for them and to think about them and to encourage them
and to hope that the Lord will have mercy upon them. But here's
what the Lord's saying. First and foremost, let the word
of Christ, the preaching of the gospel dwell first in your heart, There's the number one need,
isn't there? Yes, we hope and pray for our children, but so it's so easy for us to become
dull of hearing, isn't it? And so the Lord's reminding those
who have been risen with Christ to call upon the Lord to help
you worship Him. Lord, help me, help me to speak
the truth about Christ, help you to hear what's being preached
in the word of Christ. If he doesn't, then all that
we do here is in vain. How many times you've been to
church and you've thought, well, didn't really get much out of
that. Maybe it was the fault of the
preacher. Maybe it's your fault, maybe, I don't know, but here's
what this text is telling us. Here's what God say, and let
the word of Christ dwell in your heart, in your heart. As I said, from the garden of Gethsemane,
the flesh, the spirit's willing and the spirit is willing, but
the flesh is weak. And the disciples in Matthew chapter
15, after the Lord gave that parable of the sower and the
four soils, Lord, why do you speak to them in parables? And
the Lord said, because it's not for them to know the mystery
of the kingdom of God. This is for you. This is for
you. And you would think the disciples
would have said, oh, that's wonderful, we understand. But they didn't,
they said, Lord, tell us what the meaning of the parable is.
And that's exactly what our scripture's saying. Look, look at verse 16
again in our text. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly in all wisdom, in all understanding. That's
what we have to have, we have to have a proper understanding
of this gospel. The gospel has to expose us as
sinners. The gospel has to reveal the
Lord Jesus Christ and glorify Him as our Savior. That's what
the gospel does. And so we're listening and praying
the Lord will enable us to apply these things in wisdom. I thought about this thing of
being, of richly. Let the word of Christ, let the
preaching of this gospel dwell in you richly. If you're rich in something,
it means that you have a lot of it. Is that not true? Child of God, can you have enough
of Christ? You want more of Him, don't you?
Lord, I need more. The flesh, I was thinking about
what, I think it was J.C. Penney, just before he died on
his deathbed, they asked him, how much is enough? And he said,
a little bit more than I've got. Well, that'd be a sad way to
die, wouldn't it? And yet that's the way the flesh is, isn't it?
We never have enough. Always want just a little bit
more. And in that regard, it only exposes the sinfulness of
our flesh. But think about that on the spiritual
side. We never have enough. We're never
satisfied with what we have. And we're satisfied that Christ
is all our life before God, but we're not satisfied with how
much of Christ we have. Lord, I want to be richer. I want to have more of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And the more of Christ we have,
the less we are in want of anything else. Reminded of what David
said in Psalm 23, the Lord, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall
not be in want of anything else. Christ is all. Let Christ dwell
in you richly with all wisdom. The other thing about being rich,
if you're rich with something, you can afford to give things
away. You can afford to be generous
if you're rich with something. Is that not true? You got plenty
of it. You got your cups running over. That's what the Lord is saying.
Oh, Lord, make me so rich that Christ just comes out. And when
I'm fellowshipping with my brethren, that I'm able to teach and admonish
them with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. This is what this time is for. Obviously, there's conversations
that we have together that are concerning mundane things of
our lives, but all that the Lord would make us, that would make
Christ so rich in our hearts, it would be so filled with Him,
that when we talk to our brethren, we want to talk about what the
Lord has done, what He's taught us. Where else in your life can you
do that? You know, if you have a believing
spouse, you can do it at home with them, but there's no place
else. You see, this is public worship.
That's what the Lord's saying. Let this gospel, this preaching
of Christ from the Word of God, dwell in you richly. The third thing I thought about
being rich is if you're rich, you can afford the best. You
don't have to settle for cheap stuff if you're rich. And how that applies to the gospel. When the prodigal came home from
his riotous living, wasting his inheritance in the things of
the world and eating the husk that the swine do eat. He tried
everything else. He came home, what'd the father
say? Get the best robe and put it upon him. The best robe. Now he thought if I could just
be a servant in my father's house, no, no. No, a servant's coat's
not enough. Get the best robe and put it
on him for this is my son. The robe of righteousness, that's
the best. It's the best. When Martha was complaining because
Mary wouldn't help in the kitchen, what did the Lord say? Oh, Martha,
you're encumbered with so many things. But Mary has chosen that
one thing needful. The one thing needful. She's chosen the good part. the
good part. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly with all wisdom. Teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your heart, to the Lord. The Word of Christ. That's what
we're doing. And that's what the Lord is encouraging
us to remember when we come together to worship Him. Our Heavenly Father, bless this
word to our hearts. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. It's wonderful.