Colossians 1 13 Who has delivered us from the
power of darkness And has translated us into the kingdom Of his dear son The having just exhorted us to
give thanks to God the Father and Verse 12 which hath made us meet
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light Paul enlarges
here on what it is to be saved by God Giving thanks unto the
father which hath made us meet So let's begin there and see
that from this passage what it is to be saved by God Almighty
for him to save a sinner like us. Think of that first description
for a moment there in verse 12. When God saves a sinner, there's
a question of fitness. He's taken an impotent wretch,
a vile worm, without strength, can do nothing,
has no spiritual understanding, has no ability to get to God
or to do anything for God. When it says there that God made
us meet, that word means to make sufficient, to render fit, to equip one with adequate power
to perform duties. There we are completely worthless
to God. Worse than that, blasphemous,
injurious. Paul said, I was injurious, I
was a destroyer. In the church, the Lord said, how hard is it
for you to oppose me, to kick against the goads? But he equipped us with adequate
power to perform duties. And we know how the Lord does
that. He indwells us. Listen to Galatians 2.20. This
is how we live before God. This is how we're able to worship.
how we're able to serve him in some capacity, how we're able
to honor him. He equips us with adequate power. How does he do that? Paul said,
I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. My flesh is still dead. My works
are still dead work. The scripture calls them dead
works, but Christ lives within me. and the life which I now live
in the flesh now as a believer. I live by the faith of the son
of God who loved me. It's not about so much my love
for him. We're motivated by love for him. But the reason I live and am
able to live before God, as our text says, with adequate power
to honor Him, to perform duties, to worship, to serve. The fruit
of the Spirit is in me. I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do something
because of what He did. You see that, how clear that
is? And He did it first. He was my
savior before I was ever born. He's the lamb slain for me. He
gave himself for me from the foundation of the world, much
less before I was ever born. How does the Lord equip us with
adequate power to perform? He gives us his mind, 1 Corinthians
2.16. We just saw that recently, didn't
we? We have the mind of Christ. That would help, wouldn't it? He gives us his spirit. Listen
to Romans 8 and 9. You're not in the flesh, but
in the spirit. If so, be that the spirit of
God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
spirit of Christ, he is none of his. If you've believed on
Christ, if you belong to Christ, if you've been saved, By Christ,
you have the Spirit of God in you, the Spirit of Christ. That's how, give us adequate
power. Our flesh still has no power,
but Christ lives within us. We have the nature, the divine
nature. We're new creation. 1 John 4, 12, no man hath seen
God at any time. But if we love one another, God
dwelleth in us. And his love is perfected in
us. Hereby know we that we dwell
in him and he in us, because he's given us of his spirit."
That's not unclear, miraculous, unfathomable, but pretty clear. Unspeakable. To make sufficient. It says to
make, He's made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in life. Second Corinthians 3, 5. Not
that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves. Let's do anything. We can't even
think right. But our sufficiency is of God. Our, our sufficiency, our adequacy
to perform anything spiritual is of Him. It's our adequacy because he
works in us, but it's him who works in us both to will and
to do of his good pleasure. Not that we are sufficient of
ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the new
covenant. Abel, that's the word from our
text, made us meet. That's what happens when he saves
a sinner. Abel ministers of the new covenant,
not of the letter. For the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life. Whatever our role is in his kingdom,
He is our sufficiency. Now consider please verse 13
in our text, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness. You see how all of this is what
happens when he saves us. Look what he's done for us. He
delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated
us into the kingdom of his dear son. This is a further description
of what he's done for us when he saved us. He delivered us
from the power of darkness. You know now, this world doesn't
have the slightest idea they'd be highly offended if you told
them this, but by nature, we're taken captive by Satan and his
will. The Lord reveals that to us.
It's evident, isn't it? More at times than at other times,
but that's evident. Man going around boasting of
his free will. The Lord said to him, if the
Son will make you free, you'll be free. They said, what do you
mean free? We've always been free. Come on. 2nd Timothy 2 25 in meekness
instruct those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give
them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and That they may
recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken
captive by him at his will Delivered us from the power of
darkness we are by nature helplessly steeped in spiritual darkness
the power of our own nature to render us blind to God and the
things of God. The word delivered in our text
is a wonderful word. He's delivered us from the power
of darkness. Think about that word with me
for a minute. It means what you think it means, to rescue, to
save, but how does God rescue us? The very first definition
of the word is this, to draw to oneself. You see what he did
for us? You see how we're not in darkness
anymore? We're not slaves to the power of the darkness of
our own souls and the darkness of Satan. He drew us to himself. Christ himself is salvation from
the power of darkness. We, every one of us know, we
have loved ones who are still captive by the power of darkness,
just as plain as the nose on your face. We don't like to think
of it that way. We don't go around telling them
that, but we know that, don't we? We know that. And we know that the only way If they ever escape that is if
the Lord draws them to himself. To be brought to him is to be
delivered. Removed from one place to another. That's what translated means,
the word translated there, into the kingdom of his dear son,
drawn by God to Christ. No man can come unto me except
the Father, which hath sent me, draw him. And I will raise him up at the
last day, that which is most offensive to me. And they don't
want to be drawn. They don't want to have a ring
in their nose. They don't want to be an ox that
has to be goaded like Saul of Tarsus was. But the most blessed
thing that can ever happen to you is for the almighty Christ
of God to overpower you, to take you down, to break you, and draw you to himself. God. Does any of that now, listen
to this, no man can come unto me except the Father which hath
sent me draw him and I'll raise him up at the last day. That
word draw means to take from one place to another. Does any
of that sound like a decision you make to be delivered from
the power of darkness and to be translated into the kingdom
of God's dear son and to be drawn by God, can't come any other
way but to be drawn? It doesn't sound much like what
they preach, does it? When Jonah said, salvation is
of the Lord, you know why he said that? That was after he had wanted
out of the belly of hell since he got there, but couldn't get
it done. He was helpless. He was in the belly of hell and
could do nothing about it, and then God delivered him. God translated
him from the darkness of hell to a sunny beach, literally. What a spiritual picture that
is. That's how God saves sinners. That's what he did for me. That's
what he did for Paul. Apparently that's what he did
for Paul. He delivered me from the power
of darkness. and translated me into the kingdom
of his dear son. Free will has no place in any
of this. Free will is what we are saved
from. We are under the power of darkness,
the prince of darkness himself. And when we are in the kingdom
of the son of God, we're ruled by him. We're reigned over by
him. We're controlled by him. Is that too strong of a word?
And we ask him, we say, Lord, keep us. Protect us, guide us. Don't let us go. Don't let me
go for a second. That's what I want. This world
don't want that. But bless God, that's what we
want. So there's no free will involved
in it either way, either time, either side of salvation. We're controlled by his will.
That's the way we like it. We beg him to do that for us. We rejoice that it's so. Verse 14. Boy, this don't get
any worse, does it? This ain't getting worse. In
whom we have redemption through his blood. Even the forgiveness of sins. Not only then made sufficient,
but made worthy too. Oh, no sin anymore. No sin, no penalty
of sin, no power of sin over us. Knowing what we need to know,
being able to do what we need to do in this kingdom of His,
but also sinless, washed in the blood of Christ. And so without
spot or stain, Christ is both our sufficiency and our redemption
through the blood. Isn't that beautiful? We have
redemption through His blood. Christ crucified is our hope
and our message. Romans 3.24, being justified
freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through
faith in his blood. Do you believe in the blood of
Christ? Acts 17.2, Paul, as his manner
was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them
out of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must
needs have suffered. We have redemption through his
blood. And risen again from the dead,
and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. It is by
the blood of Christ that we are redeemed. And that word redeemed,
redemption, it means this. Think about this. Release, release,
effected, caused by payment of a ransom. I've been set free. because my ransom was the blood
of Christ. I was ransomed from sin. We're released from the bondage
of sin and from the bondage of the law, rightly held captive
by the law of God and condemned by that same law. And yet, released, exonerated
because the precious blood of Christ was sufficient. to pay
all of our sin down to God. We have redemption through His
blood. We have release effected by the payment of a ransom. What's
the ransom? Through His blood, through His
precious blood. We're not offered redemption
through His blood. We have it in that glory. You know, if we were offered,
if the Lord offered us freedom, we wouldn't have the sense to
take it. If he offered us redemption, ransom, freedom, forgiveness,
we would reject it right out, straight up. We have all of our
lives until we have it. We have it. We have forgiveness through his
blood. His blood being shed for us is
God redeeming and forgiving us. It's not the basis for redemption.
It is redemption. It is forgiveness. So that the
matter of redemption and forgiveness and salvation, this is important. I'm gonna start it over, listen
to it. The matter of redemption, forgiveness and salvation was
settled at Calvary by Christ, not at an old fashioned altar
by you. In whom? In whom we have redemption. Redemption is not a doctrine,
it's a person. It's not a decision, it's a person. It's not a religious act, it's
a person. And what he did for sinners.
May God teach us that once and for all. Verse 15, who is the image of
the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. He said, if
you've seen me, you've seen the Father. No man hath seen God
at any time, The only begotten son, which is in the bosom of
the father, he hath declared him. He hath set him forth. The light of the knowledge of
the glory of God is where? In the face of Jesus Christ.
And Christ is the firstborn of every creature. Not that he himself
is a creature. He wasn't created. We're told
in the next verse that all things were created by him. The idea of firstborn has to
do with preeminence. John Gill wrote this in his commentary,
that this means that Christ is the parent of every creature,
is what that's actually saying. He's the parent of every creature.
The meaning of it is clearly defined by the next words. Let's
look at verse 16, here's what Firstborn, being the firstborn
of every creature means by him were all things created. Here's what being the firstborn
of every creature means. The last part of verse C, all
things were created by him and for him. Here's what it means to be the
firstborn of every creature. the word preeminence in verse
18, that he might have the preeminence. That's what it means. And look at this next passage,
verse 16, for by him were all things created that are in heaven
and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created
by Him and for Him. And He is before all things.
And by Him, all things consist. This language is so immense.
Did you just get lost in that? It's so all-inclusive. It's just
overwhelming, isn't it? It's overwhelming to even know
what that's saying. He gives examples of invisible
things that are made by Christ because the visible, he doesn't
give examples so much of the invisible or the visible. He
doesn't talk about mountains and valleys and sun, sunrises
and sunsets and things like that because those things are easily
defined and recognized by us. Everything we see and even that
which we will never see, I love thinking about this. There
are things that God has created in this world that no man will
ever see. Why did God make them then? Well,
that's an arrogant thing to say. He didn't make them for you.
He made them for himself. That's what he did. He likes
them. That's why he made them. They're
precious to him. And you're never even gonna lay
eyes on them. Now he does give us the great
gift of laying eyes on some of the glories of what he's made.
He gives us the precious gift of spending time with some things
that he made and loving them like he does. And we're so grateful
for that. Everything that we can see, the
Lord Jesus Christ made it. and he made some of it for us.
It's all for him and some of it's for us. And it's so precious,
it's so beautiful. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ
was selfish though in creation. It says he did it for himself,
for him. But boy, it's good to be in on
it, isn't it? Selfishness is a sin in us. You know why? Because
we're unworthy. We don't deserve anything to
be done for us. That which is done for us is
done by Him, not by us. Covetousness is wrong in us because
we're nothing and we deserve nothing. But for Christ to do
everything for Himself is just right. It's good. It's appropriate. And what a
precious thing it is when he lets us in on that. He made everything exactly the
way he wanted to make it. Doesn't that make it special
to see things? We know that our sin, because
of our sin, this earth is cursed. That's why nothing gold can stay
in this world. But it's still beautiful. We marvel at what he made, and
we marvel at the way it's made. We marvel to think of why he
made what he did, and we're pretty much We're pretty much clueless,
but what he reveals, we marvel in it, don't we? People spend
a lifetime studying one aspect of his creation and never figure
it out. Thrones. He makes thrones. Did you know that? He's the king
of kings. Sinners tend to see thrones as
the highest place in the earth Christ made them And he did it
for himself Dominions authorities Everywhere
and everyone who has any position of authority whatsoever a king
a boss a parent a pastor a teacher He has authority over those authorities
He's the one who established him. He's the one who gave them
the authority. And he did it for himself. Principalities, you know what
that word means? Origins. Think about that one. He made origins. Whenever you
trace anything in the universe back to his origin, Christ is the origin of that
origin. You say everything was the result
of a massive explosion, the Big Bang. Have you ever heard of
the Big Bang? Okay, I kind of doubt that. It kind of sounds
stupid. And there's no evidence really
of it. They say there is, and you see what they say, and you're
going, how did you get that out of that? But let's just say for
a minute that they're right. Who blew it up? And whatever
blew up, where did that come from? He's the origin of origins. Most wonderfully of all, Christ
is the origin, the author, and the finisher of our
faith. Our faith in him originated with
him. Powers. Powers. He made powers. Ability. Christ is the creator
of ability. What ability? Whose ability?
All of it. All of it. Were you able to get out of bed
this morning? Some weren't Some weren't some didn't Are you able to worship Most
you never will Are you able to comprehend Ephesians
3, 14 through 21, to comprehend, are you able? Paul said, I bow
my knees to the Father and here's my prayer for you that you might
be able to comprehend what is the depth and the height and
the length and the breadth and to know the love of God, which
passeth knowledge. Are you able? Many are ever learning and never
able to come to the knowledge of the truth. But the ones that are, that's
because of Christ. The reason that this preeminence
in creation is mentioned in the context of
salvation and redemption. You saw that when we began. What
he's describing here is how God saves a sinner, what he does
for them. And then he begins to talk about
creation and his preeminence in that. And
the reason they're mentioned together is because all of the
universe, everything that God's made, the thrones, the authority
that he gives, the power, the ability, Everything that Christ
has made visible and invisible Revolves around his cross All
of it It revolves around his cross Turn with me if you would to
Ephesians 1 15 through 23 in closing What happened on Calvary is integral to where Christ is
now in everything that he's done. Look with me there at Ephesians
1 verse 15. Wherefore, I also, after I heard
of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in
my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of him. the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his
calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to us who believe according to the working of his
mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him
from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly
places. far above all principality and
power and might and dominion in every name that is named.
You see how Christ crucified is the one exalted. Christ crucified
is the one who made everything. The Redeemer, the Son of God,
the Savior. There's no God like Him, a just
God and a Savior. Every name that is named, not
only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and
hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head,
the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the
fullness of him, that filleth all in all. You see how that
Christ, sitting in absolute sovereign authority, having made everything,
having made everything for himself and how that he runs everything,
it all has to do with the salvation of sinners by him and in him. That's why he reigned. That's
why he made what he did. Listen to it in John 17, one
where brother Bob just read a while ago, listen to this. These words
spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, father,
the hour has come, glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify
thee as thou has given him power over all things. He sitteth upon
the circle of the earth and all the inhabitants thereof are his
grasshoppers. Why? That he should give eternal
life. The hour has come. The hour has
come. And you've given me all authority
and all ability. I've made everything that there
is and I've made it for myself and here's why. That sinners
might have eternal life because this hour has come. The hour of redemption. The hour
of God being glorified in all that he is. The hour of the cross. The time of love. The time of love. That he should give. One that
sits on the throne of the universe gives eternal life. That's who we're worshiping.
We're not begging Jesus to, you know, now that we've made a decision,
you know, I got saved. No, that's not how it works. He's the king of glory, but bless
God, he's the king of salvation too. May we see him as he is and worship
in our hearts. Let's pray.