Good morning. You still have
your hymnal open. There's a line in this hymn that
goes so well with what I hope to be able to speak to you about
this morning. The last line on the first stanza,
where it says, one with Him eternally. And when God speaks of eternal
life, He's not talking about a life that starts now and lasts
forever. It's God's life. The truth is
that the Father has never, ever seen His children outside of
Christ. They've been with Him eternally,
before the foundation of the world, in time, and for all eternity. That's a glorious covenant. That's our only hope. It's good
to see you all this morning. Good to be home. I was just talking
to somebody, they said, oh yeah, we've already seen pictures.
I said, man, you just can't get in front of Facebook, can you? It's always out in front of you. We had a good trip, and the Groovers
send their love, and the brethren from the Pueblos send their love,
and it was very profitable. I was very encouraged, and it
was good to be with them. with our folks. And it's such
a blessing as your pastor to know that when I'm gone, you're
in very, very capable hands. And I'm speaking of Michael's
message from Sunday and Robert's message from Sunday and Hugo's
message from Wednesday night. What an encouragement that is
to my heart for them to bring such clear gospel messages to
you. I'm thankful. I just talked to Digna a little
while ago and she went home Friday and she's not able to get around
on her own. And her niece is coming down
from New Jersey on tomorrow night, I think she said. So if you get a chance to get
in touch with her today, I'm sure she'd be encouraged to hear
from you. Let's ask the Lord to bless His
word to our hearts. Let's bow together in prayer. Merciful and gracious Heavenly
Father, we come before Thy throne of grace in the name of Thy dear
Son, thanking Thee for the acceptance that we have in Him, thanking
Thee, Father, for that eternal covenant of grace whereby You
placed Your people in Christ from eternity past to eternity
future, and that You look to Him on our behalf. We pray now
that you would be pleased to open the eyes of our understanding.
Lord, we can't see Christ if you don't enable us, if you don't
reveal him to us. Your word will be a mystery to
us. The truth of your grace will be unknown. Father, would you
please speak to our hearts and show us his glory? show us his
accomplished work, enable us through faith to find our comfort,
our rest, and our hope in him. We thank you for thy word. We
pray, Lord, that you would anoint it from on high and that you
would bless it to our souls. We pray for our brethren in Mexico
where your gospel is being preached again this morning. We ask, Lord,
that it would go forth with power, and that our brethren there would
be encouraged, and that your lost sheep would be gathered
together in Christ. We pray for Digna. We ask, Lord,
for your hand of healing to be upon her, and we pray that you
would encourage her heart. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. The title of this Message from
Colossians chapter 1, if you'd like to turn with me there, Colossians
chapter 1. Can you see the invisible? That sounds like a contradiction,
but it's not. The natural man cannot receive
the things of the spirit, for they are spiritually discerned.
If the Lord doesn't enable us, if He doesn't open the eyes of
our understanding, if He doesn't speak to our hearts, if He doesn't
send His Spirit in power to reveal Christ to us, then we'll be left
only to those things that we can see with the natural eyes.
That's where the natural man is. He believes only that which
he can see physically, only that which he can hear physically,
only that which he can touch physically. Truth is there are
two realms of reality. One is the physical and the other
is the spiritual. The physical exists from the
spiritual. And it's not until the Lord enables
us to see beyond the physical. Michael, you preached on, almost
persuaded, and you used the example of the children of Israel last
Sunday morning. They saw the acts of God. They saw what God was doing.
They saw what God did. They only were able to observe
those things that were physical. They heard the mountain quake. They saw the Red Sea divided. They saw the manna come from
heaven. They saw the water come from the rock. Moses knew his
ways. Moses understood the message
behind those physical acts. He knew what God was saying about
himself and about how it is he saves sinners. That's our hope. We're not interested in just
everybody sees the acts of God. The natural man can see the acts
of God as easily as he can wake up in the morning and see the
sun coming up over the horizon and know that that's the work
of God. Anybody can see that. But to
have the Son of God rise in your heart and reveal to you His grace,
that's a work of the Spirit of God. That's the invisible that's
spoken of in our text. That's what the natural man cannot
see. And that's my hope this morning,
is that the Lord would enable us to see, to see and to hear. So I talked to a dear lady last
night for almost an hour and a half. And she's on her deathbed
and listening to our messages here. And I encouraged her to
listen this morning. I hope she is. But, you know,
I had to encourage her not to look for an experience. God will speak through His Word. And don't look for feeling. You know, the voice of God that
spoke to Elijah in the mountain. You know, the earth quaked, but
the Lord was not in it. The fire fell, but the Lord was
not in it. The rain came, the storms came,
but then what? The still small voice. the still
small voice. To hear the voice of God, one
must be quiet. Be still and know that I am God."
Oh, that the Lord would just quiet our mouths, comfort our
hearts, and speak truth to us, speak peace to our hearts. That's
our hope. Let me have you Bibles open to
Colossians chapter 1, verse 11, strengthened with all
might according to His glorious power. It's not of Him that willeth,
it's not of Him that runneth, It's not by might nor by power,
but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. That's Paul. Now he's offering
this prayer to God on behalf of the church at Colossae. This is my prayer for you. This
is my prayer for me. This is, I hope, your prayer
for me. that the Lord would strengthen us with all might, with all power
beyond ourselves, according to His glorious power. And His power
is glorious. He said, I'll not share my glory
with another. If He speaks to us, here's how
we'll know that He's spoken. He has gotten all the glory.
All the glory. Nothing I did to get into Christ,
nothing I can do to get out of Christ. It's a work of salvation
that God ordained before time ever began, and it's one that
He accomplished in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's one that He keeps throughout all eternity, salvations of the
Lord. He gets all the glory. It's not by man's intellect,
it's not by man's insight, it's by the power of God, His glorious
power. unto all patience and long-suffering."
That's waiting on the Lord. Lord, I want to know that glorious
power. I want to hear Thy voice. And again, we're not listening
for an audible voice. Someone said, you've heard God's
voice audibly? Oh no, it's much louder than
that. Much louder than that. An audible voice might be distorted,
but when God speaks to the heart, there's no distortion. It's clear. It's clear who Christ is and
what he's done. And he gets all the glory with
all long-suffering and joyfulness. Joyfulness. Count it all joy,
my brethren, when you fall into divers temptations. That's the
long-suffering, knowing that the trine of your faith worketh
patience. But when patience is complete, it make you what? Perfect
and entire, lacking nothing. Now that's where I need to be.
I need to be perfect and full and complete, lacking nothing.
How am I going to get there? How am I going to get there?
Only through the eyes of faith to see myself in Christ. If I'm
in Christ, I've got everything. If I'm not in Christ, I've got
nothing. And material possessions don't matter at this point, do
they? Giving thanks unto the Father.
He's the one who elected a people before the world ever began.
It's according to His purpose. that He chose a people in Christ,
placed them in Christ in the covenant of grace, has never
seen them outside of Christ. We in our own nature were at
enmity with God, but He was never our enemy. There's never been
a time He didn't love us. There's never been a time we
weren't perfect in the person of our substitute, which hath
made us meet The Father made us, remember God made Eve meat for Adam, suitable,
able to have a relationship with Him, unlike all the animals that
He had named prior to that. This woman was made meat for
Him. And so it is, the Bride of Christ is made meat for Christ,
and made suitable for Heaven. That's how we gonna, how can
a man born of a woman be right with God? How can we stand in
the presence of God? Only to be perfect. To be perfect. How are we gonna get there? Be
in Christ. Oh, to be found in Him, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that righteousness
which is by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. That's the only
hope we have. Christ is our life. We're not talking about Christ
being the most important thing in our life. We're saying that
outside of Christ there is no life. There's no life. There's only the physical. And
that's going to come to an end. And when the first death happens,
then the only thing the physical has to look forward to after
that is the second death. So there's no life in the physical.
The physical is going to die. And it's going to be separated
from God for all eternity. The only life to be found is
in Christ. and what glorious life it is,
what hope, what salvation, what an accomplishment He's made on
behalf of His people. Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. In Him,
John says in John chapter 1, in Him was life, and the life
was the light of man. Now in the physical realm, light
is necessary for light. You're not going to get anything
to grow unless you put it in the light. So in the physical
realm, life comes as a result of light. In the spiritual realm,
light comes as a result of life. The Lord has to breathe life
into your heart He's got to give you a new nature before the light
of the gospel is turned on. And Christ is our life. And that life is the light of
men. What hope. Look at the next verse. Who hath delivered us. He's delivered
us successfully from the power of darkness. The unbeliever is
under the power of darkness in that he doesn't have the ability
to believe. You know, men say, well, just
believe and God will save you. And they make man's faith the
instrumental cause of salvation, don't they? But the problem is
he's under the power of darkness. He can't believe. He can't believe. They say, well, how do I come
to Christ? Come to Christ for faith. Don't come to Him with
your faith, come to Him for faith. Lord, enable me to believe. Enable
me to see. Enable me to repent. Enable me
to hear. Come to Him for those things.
He's the only one to give them to you. If you come to Him with
those things, then that's your offering. That's your participation
in your salvation, isn't it? That's a works gospel. That's
a works gospel. He's delivered us from the power
of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear
Son. Enoch was translated, wasn't he? Enoch walked with God and
he was no more, for God translated him. He changed him. I've heard men say, well, you
know, Enoch just, he was so close in his relationship with God
and just walked in lockstep conformity until he got closer to heaven
than he was to earth and he just stepped into glory. No. No. He had to be translated. He had to be changed. And so
it is with you and with me. The Lord's got to give us a new
nature. He's got to make us perfect in Christ. Otherwise, we can't
step into glory. In the person of our substitute,
we're already there. We're already there. In the heavenlies,
in Christ, all blessings. Christ is seated at the right
hand of God right now. He's our intercessor in our time
experience. But in eternity, here's what
man can't see. Here's the spiritual. We look
at the physical, but here's the spiritual. I'm in Christ right
now. Right now. I'm already there.
Already in heaven. Already in glory. We're just marking time here. Already in glory. That's eternal
life. In whom we have redemption through
His blood, all to be redeemed. God required a purchase price
in order for us to be bought. We had to be bought with a price
and the only price that God was satisfied with was the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So He shed His blood on Calvary's
cross to redeem us, to buy us to God. He paid the price for
our sins and And what does he say? The forgiveness of sin. That's what you need. That's
what you need. That's what I need. We need to
be forgiven, not forgiven by one another. That's easy. I mean,
you can reconcile yourself to another person. You, you, you
know, you, you, but how are you going to reconcile yourself to
God? He's got to do it, doesn't he? He's got to do both ends. He's got to do the reconciling,
He's got to do all the saving, and He does it through the shed
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's got to put away our sin.
And He says, I separated them from you as far as the east is
from the west, and I remember them no more. There is therefore
no condemnation to them that are in Christ. And that's where
we need to be. We need to be able to stand before
God with confidence, come before His throne of grace with, what's
the scripture say? Boldness. You know what that
word boldness means? It doesn't mean cockiness. It
means freedom of speech. That's what it means. It means
freedom of speech. I can come into the presence
of God and I can bear my soul with Him, knowing that I'm accepted
in Christ before God. I've got a throne of grace. You
don't want to come before God before the throne of law. The
law will not be satisfied until it executes its full penalty.
And that's exactly what God did when the Lord Jesus Christ died
on Calvary's cross. He executed the full penalty
of the law for His elect on our substitute. And He's satisfied. He's satisfied. This is the gospel. This is the good news. That means
that you don't have anything to bring to the table. That means
you can't change what God's done. So what's the evidence that I'm
saved? Faith. Faith. He's enabled you to believe
the gospel, to love the truth, to rejoice in Christ Jesus, to
believe this message of salvation, to rest in Christ, and to rely
upon Him for all your righteousness. For He is the image of the invisible
God. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bottle, and we are complete in Him. He's the image of the, He's
not a shadowy image. The law and the ceremonies were
shadowy images. Christ is the substance. He's the image of God. He said,
if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, for I and the Father
are one. He is God. And everything we're
ever going to know about God, and everything we're ever going
to see of God in eternity, will be in the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we've seen Him, we've seen
the Godhead. He's the image of the invisible
God. You can't see God, you can see
Christ. The firstborn of every creature. Now that firstborn is a reference
to his resurrection. It's a reference to his resurrection.
God would not allow him to see corruption. He could not remain
in the grave. Why? Because he satisfied what God
required of him. The Lord Jesus Christ was doing
business with the Father on Calvary's cross, and the Father was pleased
with Christ. He's not pleased with you. He's
not pleased with me. He's not satisfied. Doing your
best is never enough. It's never good enough. He's
satisfied with Christ. He's satisfied with perfection.
And the resurrection is the proof that the Father was satisfied
with Christ. He raised Him from the dead.
And here again, our union with Christ when He was raised from
the dead, we were raised from the dead. That's why Paul said,
oh that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection. That I could believe more fully
that when Christ was raised from the dead, I was in Him and I
was raised. And I'm alive in Christ right
now. This is the invisible God. This
is the invisible truth of the gospel that the natural eyes
can't see. You can't work this out in your
mind. You can't reason this. This is
the glory of the gospel. This is something the Lord has
to reveal to you. This is not intellectual gymnastics
that men go through in order to massage their own egos and
make themselves feel like they've discovered something. This is
a work of God's free and sovereign grace in the heart. When He causes
you just to realize Christ is all. He's all. He's everything. 4. Look at verse 16. For by him were all things created,
both physical and spiritual. When God said in Genesis chapter
1, let there be light, He wasn't just talking about the illuminaries
in the sky. He was talking about the light
of the gospel. And He's the creator of both.
He creates physical life, and He creates light, and He creates
spiritual light. He's the creator of all things.
All things. Look, He's going to go on to
describe that. Look at the last phrase of verse
16, then we'll go back and look at the particulars of verse 16. All things were created by Him
and for Him. And for Him. Everything was made by Him and
everything was made for Him. He raises up the nations, He
raises up the reprobate, He raises up vessels of destruction that
He has made and ordained to destroy. He made all things. And all things were made for
Him. In the end, in the end, everything
will glorify God. It does now, we just, only faith
can see that. The wrath of man, the scripture
says, shall praise him. And that which remaineth, he
restrains. In other words, if men get some
idea of something they want to do that God's not going to use
for His glory, He doesn't let them do it. So everything that
happens in the world serves the glory of Christ. Everything. And that's down to the details
of your life and my life. What? Yes! All things work together
for good, for them who love God and those who are called according
to His purpose. Everything! Everything! All things are created by Him,
physical and spiritual, things and events, and all things are
for him. He's the end of all things. What did David say in Psalm 115?
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be glory
and power forever and ever. It's not about you. It's not
about me. It's not about us. That's what
religion's all about. It's all about you. You gotta
figure out how to live a better life. You gotta be a better person.
It's about Him. It's about Christ. All things were made by Him and
all things are made for Him. And if God gives you the faith
to believe that, that truth will deliver you from yourself. And
the more you fall in love with Christ, the more you'll fall
out of love with yourself. And that's your biggest problem,
and that's my biggest problem. The world says, oh, you need
to love yourself more. That's our problem. Our problem
is that we're head over heels in love with ourselves. And the
more you fall in love with Christ, the more you will fall out of
love with yourself. Everything that was created was
created by Him. The heavens were created by Him.
Now when the scripture speaks of heavens, it's speaking of
the atmosphere around the earth. The air that we breathe, the
clouds that we see, that's the first heaven. And then the scripture
speaks of the second heaven and that's what we see at night when
we look out into the galaxy and we see the stars and when we
look through the telescope into other galaxies and that's the
second heaven. And then Paul said, I was caught
up into the third heaven. Man can't see the third heaven. Here's the truth. The first heaven
is held together by the second heaven, physically speaking. The second heaven is held together
by the third heaven. One day God's going to bring
an end to all the physical. All the physical, the things
that men see, the things that men touch, are going to come
to an end. The only thing that's going to exist is the third heaven.
And that's where Christ is and that's where his people are.
And that's where you want to be. That's where I want to be.
How are we going to get there? Only in the person of our substitute.
He's already there. He created all things. He created
the heavens. All these things are created
by Him. He created the earth and everything that's in the
earth. Every detail that takes place in this world. Every event. And He's going to go on to explain
that. Look at what He says. The visible, the things that
men can see, the acts of God, the things that you can put under
a microscope and see in their minute details, the things that
you can look at through a telescope and see them in their vastness. He created all that. The visible. the invisible. Now what's that? He created the covenant of grace.
That was established in heaven in eternity past. He created
that in election. God chose a people before the
world ever began according to his own good pleasure and his
own will. That's what he created. That's
what he made. He created redemption. He redeemed
His people Himself and He did it for Himself. He's the Lamb
that was slain before the foundation of the world. A man can look
at the physical death of Christ that took place on the cross
and believe it as a historical event and convince themselves
that because they believe in that historical event that they're
Christians. That's the visible. That's the
visible. When you look down through history
and you see things that are undeniably recorded in history, that's seeing
nothing more than the physical. The spiritual now, that happened
before time ever started. That happened between Christ
and the Father. That happened in order to put
away all the sins of all of God's people. That's the invisible. He created that too. And the
natural man can't see it. He created the invisible truth
of love. This dear lady I was talking
to last night, she said, you know, I've never been religious
all her life. She's on her deathbed, and she said, I never knew that
God didn't love everybody. I just always believed that God
loved everybody. Christ died for everybody. God
wanted everybody to be saved. And she knows now that's not
true. Why? Because that's the physical. How is it physical? Well, we
make God out to be ourselves all together. You thought that
I was all together as thyself. You set yourself up on the throne
of God. And we just conclude, well, it just seems right to
me. If I was God, I'd love everybody. No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. You think way too highly of yourself.
You don't love everybody right now. I've loved them with an everlasting
love." That's the invisible. He created that love by Him and
for Him. The natural man can't see that.
He can't see that there's never ever been a time when God didn't
love His people. We didn't view them in Christ
and love them perfectly in Christ. 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is a description
of God's love. I know men love to read it at
weddings and they love to talk about how they love. That's Christ's love for His
church. The only evidence of that love
that you'll ever show in your life will be because you're looking
to Christ's love for his church. You look to your love for Christ
and try to figure out a way to be more lovely and you're just
going to get caught up with yourself. Getting caught up with yourself
is a bad place to be. It's a bad place to be. I know that there are some some
rare cases of chemical imbalances with people that cause depression.
But I'm going to tell you the number one reason for depression
is self-consumption. It's self-consumption. It's going down in a well. You
get consumed of yourself and you've got no choice but to be
depressed. You've got no choice. You just
get caught up with your own life in your own self. Isn't
it? Look to Christ. Oh, look to Christ. He's your life. Righteousness. It's the invisible. It's the invisible. The righteousness
of God in Christ. We have a righteousness that's
outside of ourselves. We can't see it. Men look to
themselves and try to figure out, you know, what their righteousness
is and our righteousness is in Christ. It's outside of ourselves.
All of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Justification. Men think, well, I'm going to
get justified because it was kind of like the Pharisee there
when he was in the temple praying. And the Lord asked which one
of these men went back to his home justified. The one who said,
Father, I thank Thee that I'm not like other men. I tithe,
and I fast, and I do, and I thank Thee that I'm not like that publican.
Or the publican that smote himself upon the breast and would not
so much as even look up and cried, God have mercy upon me. The sinner. The sinner. Which one went home justified?
Our justification before God is not in our works. Job chapter 25, one of Job's
friends by the name of Bildad asked Job, how can a man be justified
with God? And he went on to say, how can
he be clean that is born of a woman? The stars are not pure in his
sight. Now that was Bildad's question to Job. And here's the
problem with that question that Bildad asked. He didn't give
him an answer. He did not give him an answer.
And Job said, how hast thou helped him who has no power? Your question
doesn't help me. Yeah, that's a good question,
but I need to know what the answer to it is. And then Elihu speaks
up and the scripture says that his wrath was kindled, why? Because
Bildad and Job were justifying themselves. He told him about Christ. How
are we going to be justified before God? Isaiah chapter 45
verse 25, In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified. My justification is in my justifier. It's in Christ. So that he that justifieth, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and they that are justified are what? They're all as one. They're all
as one. No man is justified by the law
on the side of God, it is evident. The just shall live by faith. By faith. But you are justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what the Lord
created that's spiritual. Oh, there's so much more in this
verse. thrones and dominions and principalities and powers.
Let's take a break and we'll come back.