Alright, let's go to Colossians
chapter 1. Colossians 1. Now Sunday we saw from verses 15
through 18 that our Lord Jesus is God. He's God. And we saw that He created all
things. And we saw that our Savior is
the head of the church. Now here's God's purpose. We
saw in verse 18, that in all things Christ might have the
preeminence. For it pleased the Father that
in Him should all fullness dwell. Now in our text tonight, we're
going to see what Christ has worked for His people. We're
going to see what He works in His people. And we're going to
see what He shall do for us in the day of judgment. Our subject is peace through
the blood. Let me give you the divisions
while we read it. First of all, Christ made peace
for his people through his precious blood. He has done this. He accomplished
this. Verse 20 says, and having made
peace through the blood of his cross, by Him to reconcile all
things unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven. Then Christ came to us
and did a work in us, and He revealed Himself. He showed us
what He had already accomplished. Verse 21, And you that were sometime
alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
hath He reconciled. And then thirdly, Here's what
Christ shall do for his people in the day of judgment. Verse
22, in or by the body of his flesh through death, it's that
body he came and died and now he arose and he's glorified.
And in his body, in him, by what he's done and who he is, he's
going to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in his sight. Christ gets all preeminence.
You see there Christ gets all the preeminence. That's from
the first day He calls you till He presents you to God. And all
fullness dwells in Christ. He's going to show you what He's
done for you. He's going to work this in you.
And then He's going to keep you until that day He presents His
people to God. Holy and without blame. Now let's
look at these three things. Christ made peace for His people,
made peace through His blood. Verse 20, having made peace through
the blood of His cross by Him to reconcile all things to Himself,
by Him I say whether they be things in earth or things in
heaven. When the God-man went to the cross, when our Lord Jesus
went to the cross, He didn't try to do something for His people,
He accomplished it. Having made peace, through His
blood, through the blood of His cross, having made peace. That's
past tense. He accomplished it. When Christ
cried from the cross and said, it's finished, this is what He
had finished. He had made peace between His
people and Holy God by shedding His precious blood. Peace means
that we've been reconciled to God, all His people. God has
reconciled all His people to Himself. Look at verse 20. It says, By Him, by Christ, to
reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven. Now you connect this
with verse 19. In verse 19, He said, It pleased
the Father. It was the will and pleasure
of God from all eternity that all fullness be in Christ. All
fullness for His people be in Christ. So by Christ, He reconciled
all His people to Himself. That's what He's saying, by Him.
By Christ, He reconciled all things to Himself. By Him, I
say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. He
repeats this. By Him. It's by Christ. He says,
by Him, God reconciled us. By Him, I say. Now the all things
here is His people. It's His people. He's referring
to His people here. All men sinned in Adam. This
is why we were, peace had to be made for us. And then we were,
we became guilty and we all offended God. So we come forth into this
world guilty. Now what did it take for God
to make peace and reconcile His people to Himself? God could
not, He could not be at peace with us because we sin. What did it take for peace to
be made so God could receive his people? He had to send his
own son. He had to send his own son. His
own son had to live as the righteous and holy man in the place of
his people. So he would be the holy and righteous,
the holiness and the righteousness of his people. He had to live
for us. Then He had to go to the cross
and shed His blood for His people. This is what it took to make
peace with God. And by that He justified His
people and He sanctified His people. He made us the righteousness
of God and He made us holy before God, having made peace. You see there, He made it. He
did it. He having made peace through
the blood of His cross. It pleased God to give Christ
all preeminence. It pleased God for all fullness
to dwell in Him. So by Him, by Christ, God reconciled
all His people to Himself. All His people to Himself. Christ
did this for all those God chose unto salvation. All those He
chose. Here's what the Scripture says.
Verse 9, it says, 2 Timothy 1.9 says, God has saved us and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began, but is now manifest by the appearing of our Savior,
Jesus Christ. What did he do? He abolished
death, and he brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel. He is that gospel. This is why
we preach him, brethren. He says, verse 20, whether they
be things in earth or things in heaven. You know, some of
the Old Testament saints were already in heaven when Christ
came. He was their surety. So they were righteous and holy
by Christ before he ever came. And they were already in heaven.
And when he came, he reconciled them to God. And then some of
his saints had not even been born yet. hadn't even been born
yet. But Christ reconciled all his
people to God by laying down his life, shedding his precious
blood. You know, the Old Testament saints looked forward to Christ
and the work he would accomplish. They believed he would come and
what he would accomplish. And now we look back to that
he did come and what he has accomplished. So whether it's people in heaven
or in earth, he reconciled all his people to God. Now secondly,
Then Christ came and revealed in us what he had done for us.
You know, he did this for us, and then here's where we were,
verse 21, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your
mind by wicked works, it now hath he reconciled. Verse 22,
in the body of his flesh through death, that phrase looks to verse
20, I mean to verse 21, and it looks to the next verse. or to
the rest of that verse. It looks both ways. This is the
state of all God's elect as we come into this world. You were
sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works.
Alienated, separated, shut out from fellowship with God, shut
out from God's promises and God's covenant, alienated from the
life of God. That's the That's the way of
all people. This is the natural mind, right
here. This is what sin has done. This
is the carnal heart. This is the flesh, the old man.
Ephesians 4.18 says, having the understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that's
in them because of the blindness of their heart. That was me and
you as we came into this world. By our first birth, we were alienated
from the life of God. We were completely alienated,
and we were ignorant of the gospel, and we were unable to give ourselves
life. So Christ came, and the Spirit
bore witness in our heart of God's record, of God's witness.
And what does the scripture say? John said, this is the record.
God's given to us eternal life, and this life's in His Son. He
that hath the Son hath life. We were alienated from the life
of God. Now we have Christ the Son as our life because of what
Christ did. What else were we? We were enemies. You were enemies in your mind
by wicked works. By Adam's wicked works, we were
enemies in our mind. By one man, sinner of the world,
and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men for that. In Adam, all have sinned. By
his wicked works, we were made sin, and then we were conceived
in sin in our mother's womb. David said, I was shaping an
iniquity. In sin did my mother conceive
me. That doesn't mean she was doing something sinful when she
conceived him. It means that's all he was in
the womb was sin. And so we came forth with a nature,
just like Adam, fallen Adam, just like our fallen ancestors,
like every other fallen man in this world. We were wicked in
our nature and every work we did was wicked. Sinners would
say, well, I don't hate God. I've never hated God. Well, we
didn't hate the God of our imagination. We didn't hate the God who only
went so far and let us go the rest of the way and so we could
do some of the works and pat ourselves on the back. That's
the God that most of the world's worshiping. A God that tried
to do something. You ever heard a preacher say,
well, God did all he can do, now it's up to you. No, that's
a bridge that only goes halfway across the river. I want a bridge
that goes all the way across the river. I want to know Christ
hath made peace for us. That's what he did. The true
and living God's who we hated. We hated the God who gets all
the glory. That's who we hated. And until
God intervenes, brethren, our wicked works involves rejecting
the very word of God against us. Now we can say what David
said in Psalm 51, against thee, and thee only have I sinned,
that you might be just when you judge, O Lord. But until God
works in our heart, We will reject that, we'll say, we're not that
bad. We got a little spark of goodness in us, we can take the
first step. Listen, Brother Henry used to say, if you can take
the first step, you can take them all. We can't take the first
step. There's somebody hearing this
right now, and this is their very condition. Somebody's hearing
this right now, this is their condition. They hear what God
says right here in His Word. You can read this so clearly
in the Word, What were we? Alienated from God. Enemies in
our minds by wicked works. What will it take? What does
Christ have to do to make... What's he going to have to do?
That poor man that hears this and he's lost and he hates what
I'm saying, what's it going to take to make him quit fighting
against God and for him and his heart to be reconciled to God?
What's it going to take? It's going to take Christ interceding
with the Father, and the Father sending the Holy Spirit, and
the Holy Spirit creating a new man that was not there. Creating
a new man in the righteousness and holiness of Christ. A new
man renewed in knowledge after the image of Christ that created
that new man. That's what it's gonna take.
Until then, a man won't believe God. It's gonna take God coming
and giving him faith to believe him. And then what happens? The Lord
reveals to us our very nature is sin. He reveals, but here's
the good news He reveals. He reveals that God our Father,
when He comes to His child and He quickens you, He makes you
first see you're a sinner. You're a sinner. You're a vile
sinner. You can't do a thing to save yourself. Then He's gonna
make you see that God the Father chose us in Christ before the
world was made. and that Christ came into this
life to lay down His life for a particular people. And He laid
down His life and He has made peace by His blood, by shedding
His blood. And He makes us know that God
now accepts His people in Christ, in the Beloved. He makes that one that He's revealing
this to, He makes you know He accepts you in the Beloved. And
that's a happy day, brethren, We were enemies, and this is
what he makes you see, what Paul said in Romans 5.10. When we
were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son.
While as yet we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of his son. He's gonna make you see 2 Corinthians
5. Let's go there real quick. 2 Corinthians 5. Here's what
he makes us see. 2 Corinthians 5.18. He makes you see this. All things
are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ,
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. He's given
us the gospel to preach of how he reconciled his people. Here
it is. To wit, God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them. Well, what did he
do with our trespasses? If He won't clear the guilty,
what'd He do with our trespasses? What'd He do with all our sins?
Look at verse 21. Here's why He won't impute sin
to us. For He hath made Him, Christ, sin for us who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's how He made peace. And
so what do we say? Look back at verse 20. Now then,
we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you
by us. We pray you in Christ's stead,
be ye reconciled to God. And that is a happy day. When
the Lord reveals this in you, it makes you see that God the
Father chose you, and Christ redeemed you, and made peace
between you and God, and the Spirit now has come and revealed
this in you, and it's all of God, that's a happy day. That's
a happy day. That's when He makes you know
there's now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
Because the spirit of life in Christ Jesus made us free from
the law of sin and death. We had terror before that. When
we were enemies in our mind by wicked works, we had terror in
our hearts toward God. The works that an unregenerate,
especially an unregenerate religious man, the works that he does in
his religion, He's not doing those works because he wants
to. Now there may be a few here and there and he wants to go
do something because it's going to get him some glory. But that's
still, that's just doing it for his own sake. But most of what
men are doing is because they're afraid of God. They're afraid
of God. They're hoping their good outweighs
their bad. They're trying to do enough good
to make God receive them. But when God comes, Perfect love,
when He sheds abroad the love of God in our heart, and we behold
perfect love in God, in Christ, in what He's done. This is what
John said, 1 John 4, 18, there's no fear in love. But perfect
love casteth out fear. Because fear hath torment. He
that feareth is not made perfect in love. But when you reconcile
to God, you stop having that legal fear of God. and you know
there's peace between you and God, for the first time we believe
on Christ. For the first time, we will go
to our Lord and confess our sins to God. We wouldn't do that before. Oh, we might confess here and
there, we did a little, but we will do what David did when he
went to God in Psalm 51 and said, Lord, have mercy on me. All I
am is sin. My nature's sin. I was conceived
in the sin of my mother's womb. You desire truth in the inward
parts. Lord, I'm just a sinner. You're just when you condemn
me. And he makes you confess your sins to God. But then he
blesses your heart to know The Lord said, I put all your sin
away. I put them all away. And that's when we're going to
know then that we are accepted in Christ, and we're going to
know that every work that we do is accepted in Christ, in
His righteousness, in His holiness. You know, our best deeds, whatever
you do, the best thing you've ever done in your life, had enough
sin with it for God to reject you for eternity if it was just
up to you. But it's Christ who makes our
works accepted to God. They come up through Christ and
His blood and His righteousness, and He's our acceptance with
God. And so now you don't go around doing what you do. First
of all, you do it because you want to. You've got a new heart
now. You want to. You want to serve
him. You see the works are finished. You want to do what you do because
of what he's done for you. That's your motive. That's a
constraint. And then secondly, you're not fearful and going
around trying to establish your own righteousness now. You know,
it's really and truly when God gives you faith in Christ, that's
the first time a man can really serve God and live unto God. Before, everything he do, he's
living to himself. Now he can live to God. He can
live unto God. That's when we follow him in
Believer's Baptism, we want everybody to know that when Christ died,
we died in him. When Christ arose, we arose in
Him. He's our life. We're following
Him. He's raised us to newness of
life. You want everybody to know it. You're not ashamed anymore
to confess Christ. And we begin to remember our
Lord at His table. We couldn't come to His table.
You can't remember somebody you don't know. We couldn't remember
somebody we didn't know. Now we come to His table and
remember what our Lord's done for us. Unleavened bread, we see his
broken body and in that cup of wine we see his shed blood and
we take it in. It's a part of us just like believing
on Christ. He dwells in you and you dwell
in him. And we continue to the end believing on Christ. Christ's
gonna keep His people believing in Him. We continue to the end
believing on Christ, united with His people under His gospel.
Now, I was gonna go on to the next verse, but I'm gonna save
that and just preach on that by itself. That's enough there
that it needs to be preached on by itself. But let me tell
you, let me just touch on it here a little bit. The Lord's
gonna keep His people. He's gonna keep you walking by
faith, trusting Christ to the end. Paul is working his way
toward a list of gospel precepts at the end of this book. And
you know what they involve? All of them involve this, chiefly
loving one another. That's what they involve chiefly,
loving one another. The charity, the bond of perfectness,
that's what they all involve. So look here, look at Colossians
3. I like to look at these while we're going through a book because
that way You see where we're headed. You see why Paul's declaring
this good news of this gospel. Here's what he says to us, look
here. He says in verse 12, put on therefore,
as the elect of God, holy and beloved, not to be holy, not
to be beloved, but because you are holy and beloved. He said,
put on bowels of mercies, that's toward one another, bowels of
mercies Just be so willing inwardly to be merciful. Vows of mercy,
kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering. We're
going to have to do that. That's humbleness of mind, thinking
of others better, meekness, loveliness, trusting Christ for everything. Long-suffering, God suffered
long with one another. We're just going to have to put
up with one another for bearing one another. and forgiving one
another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. See that next
thing? This is what all of it has to
do with. Above all these things, put on charity. Charity's at
the head of every one of these things, which is the bond of
perfectness. Let that peace of God, that peace
he's wrought for you, let that peace of God rule in your hearts,
to the which you're called into one body, and be ye thankful.
Why are we working toward that? What's that have to do with us
continuing to the end in faith? Because if you get mad and leave,
you're going to leave Christ, and you're going to leave the
gospel, and you're going to leave his people. People need each
other because we need the gospel, because we need Christ. He's
our life. And all of those things, all of those things he's talking
about, that's what the chief motive is. So we have each other,
and we have the Gospel, so we have Christ. That's because of
this peace He's wrought for us and made us love His Gospel and
love Him. Now lastly, here's what Christ
is going to do for us in the day of judgment. Colossians 1.22,
I said that this phrase looks back and it looks forward. Let's
look forward with it. In the body of His flesh through
death, our Lord Jesus came down and took flesh And He went to
the cross and He died, He really died, but He came out of that
grave and He arose. And Ephesians 2 says, we were
quickened together with Him and we arose together in Him and
we sat down together in Him. In Colossians 3, in those first
few verses, Paul says, Christ is our life at God's right hand.
We look into Him, got our affection set above, and when Christ who
is our life shall appear, we'll appear with Him in glory. And
in that last day, brethren, when we stand before God, Christ is
going to present His saints in the body of His flesh and through
what He accomplished by His death, our righteousness and our holiness.
Where did Paul want to be found? I want to be found in Christ.
We're going to be in Christ. Yes, we'll be there. but we're going to be in Christ,
we're going to be found in Christ. I want God to just look to Christ
and what He did in His body, through His shed blood, and what
He is to me in that glorified body there before God. And He's
going to, in the body of His flesh, that same body He laid
down for us, He's going to present His whole church in that glorified
body. And here's how He's going to
present us. and unblameable and unreprovable in God's sight. Brethren, do you really want
to come before God? God knows everything about us.
He knows all our thoughts. He knows us better than we know
ourselves. He never forgets anything. You
can't remember all your sins. You remember sins you committed
when you was 15? You may have one or two you remember,
but you don't remember all of them. And sins you committed
last week. Listen, the Lord, you don't want
to stand before the Lord in anything you've done, but look back at
verse 12. He said, the Father hath made
us meet We give thanks to the Father who has made us meet to
be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life. He's done
that for us now. Christ is our beatness for glory
now. And when we stand there, we're
going to be found perfect in Christ. Look at Colossians 1,
look at verse 28. We preach Christ, whom we preach,
warning every man, teaching every man in all wisdom that we may
present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. That's the only
perfection we're going to have in that day is in Christ Jesus.
And listen, this is what the Scripture says, Psalm 45, 13.
Let's just look at it real quick. Psalm 45, 13. Look here, now this is so of
every believer, every saint who's been sanctified to look out of
ourselves to Christ. This is so right here. You're
the king's daughter. Christ is the king and you're
the king's daughter. The king's daughter is all glorious
within, and her clothing is of wrought gold. Listen, with Christ
in you, you're a partaker of the divine nature. Christ, our
sanctification within, is your holiness. And then her clothing
is of wrought gold, Christ's righteousness. He robes us in
His righteousness. That's how we're going to be
found holy and unblameable and unapprovable in God's sight.
But now you just imagine, You imagine, listen, you imagine
Judgment Day, and there's everybody gathered together. And you just
imagine a stranger showing up there, coming before God, claiming
she's the king's daughter. And she's wearing a garment that
she claims she helped Christ make. That's what a bunch of
religious folks are going to claim in that day. Didn't we
do many wonderful works? We took that first step, God.
You did all you could do. That's what the preacher said.
We did the rest. You know, she wouldn't be all glorious. She's
not going to have on that perfect righteousness of Christ. And you know what she's going
to reveal by boasting in her works of iniquity? She's going
to reveal that in her heart, she's not all glorious within
either. She's going to reveal that her heart's enmity against
God because she not bowed to Christ. And that's somebody gotta
cast out. You don't want to come to God
in your works. You don't want to, you want to
be found in Christ, not have, Paul said, not have in mind all
righteousness, but the righteousness which is of Christ, by his faithfulness. But Christ's gonna keep his people
believing on him. He's gonna keep us grounded and
settled. walking by faith, trusting Christ. He's not going to let
us move away from the hope of the gospel which we've heard
preached. And you know what He's going to do? He's going to keep
washing us, and He's going to keep washing our feet, and He's
going to keep purging our conscience, and He's going to keep us robed
in His righteousness. In and out. In, within, and without.
He's going to keep us by what He's done for us. And in that
day, Ephesians tells us He's going to present His church to
Himself. a glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but it shall be holy and without
blemish. Just look at that right there,
brethren. You're going to be found that day, if you trust
Christ and you come to God in Christ, you're going to be holy,
Christ is going to present you holy and unblameable. Not even, can't even be blamed
for anything, unblameable. Well, surely we don't think that's
going to be by anything we do. Unblameable. And unreprovable. Can't be reproved. Unreproved. In God's sight. You know, you can fool me. In
my sight, you can make me think you're holy and unblameable and
unreprovable. But God's sight? We're going
to be that way in God's sight. You know what we're going to
do? We're going to praise God our Father. for making us meet
in His Son, and we're gonna praise Christ for all our days. You know what we're gonna do?
We're gonna give Him all preeminence, all preeminence. That's exactly
what we're gonna do. Let's go to Him, brethren. Our Father, our God, Lord, how
we thank You that You did all this work by sending Your Son
Lord, it just seems too good to be true to hear all this great
work that You did for Your people. You're so holy and so high above
us, and You came down and did this work for Your lowly people. Lord, keep us looking to Christ. Keep us walking by faith. Keep
us humble. Loving one another, forgiving
one another, being merciful to one another, long-suffering. We need the gospel. Lord, we
pray you keep the gospel here, and you keep us coming to hear
the gospel. And Lord, we long for that day
to be found only in our Lord Jesus Christ, holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in your sight. Lord, we thank you. We thank
you. Oh, Lord, keep us, Lord, for his sake. And in his name
we ask it. Amen. All right, Brother Adam.