Well, once again, may the Lord
bless us as we turn our attention to the epistle of Paul to the
Colossians and the second chapter, and this evening we'll read and
meditate on verses six and seven. So the epistle of Paul to the
Colossians, chapter two, and verses six and seven. As ye have,
therefore, received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him,
rooted and built up in him, established in the faith as ye have been
taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. It's wonderful
to realise how concise the Bible is. In just a few words, it encompasses
wonderful, great and blessed truth. So as we come down to
this sixth verse, the Apostle says, As ye have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord. Well, very simply, that really
means having therefore believed. in Christ Jesus the Lord. Well, what a great and wonderful,
wonderful blessing that is, if God has given you and me grace
to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Really, that is the fundamental
requirement in the Word of God, to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. But of course we won't believe,
we won't want to believe, unless we realise that we have a need. We won't know about having a
need until the Holy Spirit reveals to us that we do have a need,
because we are born in sin and shaped in iniquity. And we need
to be delivered from our sin. We need to have all our sins
forgiven. We need to have all our sins
washed away. And a wonderful blessing is when
the Holy Spirit directs us to the glorious Saviour, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Indeed, the Saviour of sinners,
the only one, the only one who has ever lived and no other will
live like the Lord Jesus Christ. who is the only begotten Son
of the Father, full of grace and truth, that one who came
into this sinful world to die on that cross at Calvary in order
to fulfil the requirement of his Father that all our sins,
that's your sin and my sin, might be forever taken away. Well, what a blessing, therefore,
if this is true. And so we can come tonight and
be very grateful. There's a statement like this,
as ye have, and again, it is personal to each one of us, as
ye have therefore received or believed in Christ Jesus, the
Lord. Wonderful favour, wonderful blessing,
because if you and I are blessed with that wonderful faith to
believe, then we can believe that one day we shall be in glory
in heaven with Christ, which is far better. But of course,
if we have not believed If we have not received Christ Jesus
the Lord, that will not be true. As you have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord. Then the apostle directs us to
three points. If that is so, and it's a walking
out really, the evidence of this belief in our heart is set forth
in our spiritual life. And so the Apostle says, so,
firstly, walk ye in him. Secondly, be rooted in him. And thirdly, be built up in him. Well, we have a tremendous example
in the Lord Jesus Christ, how he walked when he was on the
earth, in that perfect life. And that's the example for us
today, as we see what he did and how he did it. There are
many examples of what he did and what he did not do. We're
told when he was reviled, that means when he was spoken against.
What was his reaction? He reviled not again. He didn't answer back. He received that situation. He received criticism. What was he doing? He was doing
the will of his Father. And so we today, many, many years
after the Saviour was on the earth, yet we should bless God
that we have set before us in the Bible, his great and glorious
example, how we should walk in this day, in the age in which
we live. When the Saviour came into this
world, it was a dark day. There'd be no open revelation
really for some 400 years since the book of Malachi was written.
And there was much darkness. And so it is today. There's much
darkness around us. The glorious days of the Reformation
have long since passed. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday
and today and forever. And may that be a great truth
that rejoices our heart. And so, so walk ye in him. And then to be rooted. And often, you know, the Word
of God refers to the Church of God as trees, And a tree needs
a root. And a tree needs a good root. Because a tree has to resist
all the storms, the wind, the rain, etc. which comes upon it. And if there was no root, that
tree would easily be blown over. Sometimes we see trees which
are blown over. And very often we see the roots
which exist and sometimes they're very shallow and not very deep
at all. And so we need to be rooted in
Christ. We need to have therefore roots
which go deep down from which we receive spiritual knowledge
of the Saviour. What a blessing then it is if
we are concerned that we have a good root system, a good understanding
of the truth of God, so that it stands us in good stead when
we face the tempests of life, the spiritual tempests, the opposition,
to realise that God is with us and we're not blown over, but
by the grace of God, we stand firm and we stand strong in the
Lord, not in ourselves, but in the Lord. And what a wonderful
blessing that is. And then he goes on to say, and
built up in him, That means, of course, that we
need to have a good foundation using the analogy of a building.
We've had the analogy of a tree, now we have the analogy of a
building built up in Him. And how important it is that
you and I have a good foundation. Again, the Apostle picks up this
theme when he wrote to the Corinthians in the third chapter. In the
11th verse he says this, Well, what a blessing for us today.
If we have received, if we have believed in Christ Jesus the
Lord, and that our religion is founded upon that rock, the
Lord Jesus Christ. So again, when the storms of
life come, we shall not be moved. The Lord spoke, didn't he, that
wonderful parable. And he described it of two people,
one who built his house upon the sand. Easy building, easy
digging. Not hard, simple. And he erected
a building and the building stood firm until the rain came and
the floods came. Because that turned the sand
into really just quicksand. And therefore, instead of being
a good foundation, it all fell away. And the result was the
house fell down. But the other example was a man
that built his house upon a rock. And we're told, there's two accounts
of it, one in Matthew and one in Luke, and in the Luke account,
we're told that the man digged deep, dug well down, to get through,
we might say, the topsoil, onto the rock, onto the good foundation. And that's true in a spiritual
sense. We need to get through, as it
were, the topsoil, that which is just on the surface, and dig
down till we come to that sure foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we find that, what do
we find? We find the blessed Saviour there, the one who died
upon Calvary's cross to deliver us from the wrath to come, to
shed his precious blood that we might be redeemed. Oh, it's
a wonderful subject, isn't it? What glorious truth it is. And
so then, to be built in him on the rock, Christ Jesus. And then
the apostle says, and established, we can say established in the
faith, in the faith. And we read that chapter in Romans,
that 10th chapter, it's a very instructive chapter, and we read
it through, but verses 17 and verse 20 just read like this.
So then, faith, God-given faith, cometh by hearing, and hearing
by the word of God. What a blessing then if we hear
God speaking to us through his word and blessing us with living
faith. It goes on to say in verse 20,
but Isaiah is very bold and said, I was found of them that sought
me not. What do we see there? We see
God's grace in giving us a desire to seek him, his work. I was found in them that sought
me not, I was made manifest unto them that asked not for me. We see the great and glorious
work, don't we, of our God. Established in the faith as ye
have been taught. And he's referring here, of course,
to God's servant Epaphras, who we read of in the first chapter,
we've already spoken about. And he was a man of God, a servant
of God, who spoke the truth. And therefore the apostle was
able to speak to these Colossians, who of course, remember, he hadn't
seen, as ye have been told. So he understood, so he'd been
told, and he could rejoice in it. And therefore he comes and
then says, abounding therein with thanksgiving. See, if the
Holy Spirit has blessed us with these great and wonderful evidences
of the life of God in our soul, surely there is reason to abound
with thanksgiving to our God. What a blessing it is then to
thank God for all his mercies and for all his blessings and
for all his favours. Well, these are two short verses. There's a lot of great truth
in them. May we meditate on it and receive that which will do
our souls eternal good. Amen.