Good morning. Let's be turning
to Colossians chapter 3. This chapter is written for believers. It's not a chapter on how to
get yourselves saved or how to be accepted with God. This is
written to living creatures, those made alive by Jesus Christ. Now in this chapter, Paul makes
this statement. He says, Christ is all and in
all. And for the new man, those born
of the grace of God and Jesus Christ, this is a banner of life. This is our hope. We believe
this. By experience, the experience
of his grace, Christ Jesus is all. He's everything to the believer. He's all our salvation. Do you believe that? Do you believe
that Christ is all? Has His grace taught you that
truth, that Christ is all? I want to look together with
you at nine admissions of grace, that's what I'm calling them,
nine confessions, nine admissions of grace that Paul addresses,
that he weaves in here in these verses, these first 11 verses
that give us this banner, this understanding that Christ really
is all to the believer. He's everything. My whole salvation
is contained in Him, really truly. Not plus Him, not me plus a little
Jesus or Jesus and me. It's all of Him. He's everything
to the believer. So these nine admissions of grace,
they are confessed and believed by everyone to whom Christ is
all. So the gospel reveals that our
Lord Jesus Christ came in the flesh, that he died as the sacrificial
lamb of his people. His death was done to atone for
the sins of the people, and atonement is a covering. And so He, by
His blood, provided a covering for the sins of His people, to
put them away, to settle our debt with Holy God. His blood
is an atonement for our sins. He went to the cross, not for
His own sins. He went to the cross in obedience
to the Father. This is why the Father sent His
Son to go to that cross as the substitute in the place of His
people to make that blood atonement. That's what he did for his people.
When he died, he accomplished that purpose for which he came.
It's called his redemption. He purchased his people. He bought
them. When he died, he bought his people. They are his own. And then they
took his lifeless body, his dead body, down from the tree and
they laid it in a grave. And the father, being well pleased
with all that the son did, Meaning that the son accomplished everything
the father sent him to do. So the father was well pleased
with him, therefore he raised him from the dead. Thus the scriptures
say, justifying you that belief. Meaning that your hope in him,
you will not be ashamed for that. God has justified that hope. He's saying, yes, it is right
for you to believe in my son, because he is the salvation of
my people. That's what that justification
means. Not because you believed, but your faith is justified by
God, because he raised him from the dead. Your sins are put away,
you that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, having shown
himself to his disciples for many days, proving that his body,
his resurrected body, was standing before them, testifying and speaking
to them. They saw that. They knew it.
It was a fact. Then, right before he left them,
he gave the great commission to the church, telling them,
go and tell people of this thing. Make disciples. Teach them. Declare. Proclaim the gospel. And those
that believe, baptize them. Bring them into the church. Preach
this gospel, feed and nourish my sheep. Do this." He gave us
this great commission, and then he ascended to the right hand
of the Father, and now, right now, sits in session as the King,
ruling and reigning heaven and earth. Right now. And this is
the witness and confession of the Church. These truths are
foundational to our faith. We believe these things. All
of God's people believe these things. This is what we testify
of. And out of those things, Paul
indicates, or in conjunction with those things, in that truth,
we are given an understanding of what that means. The Lord
teaches us these truths in the heart. These are not just some
distant doctrines that we give assent to. We are taught these
things in the heart. They have meaning. Our lives
are different, we're not our own anymore, we're Christ's,
we're our Lord's. And these are revealed in these
first 11 verses that Christ is all to the believer, that sinner
who believes Christ and trusts Him for all their righteousness. So first, verse one, if ye then
be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where
Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. So, in addition to what
I just said, that this is why Christ came, and that He died,
was buried, and rose again, the confession of the believer, what
we're saying is that when Christ died, it was for my sin. I'm the sinner. He didn't just
die for the sake of some generic death. He died because his people
are sinners and have a debt to holy God. And he died to settle
that debt, to pay that debt for his people, because we cannot
do it. So we're confessing that Christ's
death was for me, because I'm the sinner, because I offended
holy God, because I rebelled against him. I did this. And for his love's sake he came
and laid down his life for me. And that's the understanding
that his people are given by holy God. And that's understood,
that understanding is contained in what Paul said, if ye then
be risen with Christ. What we are taught by the Lord
is, I was with Christ. When he died, he took me up and
carried me in his body. And he put me to death to the
law. He satisfied and settled the
law which was against me. He established for me a perfect,
holy righteousness, perfect in all things. I couldn't do that
under the law. I wasn't able. I'm still not
able to do that myself. Christ did that for his people. And so our hope is I was in him
when he did that on the cross. That's my hope. that when he
died, I died in him, and that he's my righteousness. The Lord
teaches us that sin cannot go unpunished. My salvation is not
accomplished by my works. It's not accomplished by my giving
assent to some cardinal or important doctrines of the faith and then
working some practices in that so-called faith. That's not what
saves us. Christ is the Savior. Jesus Christ,
by His own death, saved His people, delivered us from our punishment,
our death, the wrath of God. And the Lord teaches that to
His people. He makes us to know it was for
me, for my sins. I'm the rebel. I'm the sinner.
I'm the one who's transgressed the laws of God. I've trespassed
against Him. And I don't have what it takes
to settle that debt. I can't make that right in myself.
And so this is what the Lord teaches us. It would be hard
to say it more beautifully than what Paul said in Galatians 2.20. He said, I am crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me, to settle my debts, to make me righteous
before my Father. And so it's impossible for this
flesh to understand that, to enter into that, to comprehend
that, but the Spirit which he gives, by the spirit we understand
that it was for my sins and his blood cleanses me of my sins. Again, Romans 6, 6, knowing this,
that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, and
that not serving sin is very broad, It includes our laboring
in the flesh in terrors and doubts and fears and worries, laboring
in the flesh to try and keep the law, to try and make a righteousness
for ourselves. The scriptures teach, the Spirit
teaches us that is laboring in sin, that's serving sin. Continuing
to try and make a righteousness for ourselves when the Father
has provided the one who saves his people entirely. That's rejecting
the salvation of God. That's rejecting the light of
God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Because we're saying,
nope, that's not enough. I don't believe that. I'm going
to keep doing what I'm doing. And Paul says that's serving
sin. But that's the very thing that Christ saved his people
from, laboring in fears and doubts and worries and spending and
sacrificing and giving all of these things to save ourselves.
Christ came and said, put that away. That's not your life. That
is not your salvation. That is no salvation. That's
laboring in sin. Those are wicked works, because
the salvation of God is here. in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
revealed in Him. Now, if we be dead with Christ,
Romans 6, 8, we believe that we shall also live with Him. And so we that were crucified
with Christ believe that we have also been raised together with
Christ. And He is our life. He's our
all. He's our salvation. And so that's
the first confession of the sinner saved. I died with Him and I'm
raised with Him. newness of life. Second, verse
two, set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. And what that's speaking to that
this affection is we have a new heart. We have a new spirit. We're not old creatures. We're
not laboring in this flesh. Yeah, we're in this flesh, but
that's we're not laboring by the works of the flesh. We have
a new heart. Our hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our hope
of salvation, and it's a good hope. Ezekiel 36, 26, the Lord
says, a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I
put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your
flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And so we have a new
heart. And in this body, that new creature
cries to the Lord and waits on the Lord and trusts the Lord
by faith that he has done this. He is our salvation. And so this
fleshly nature, this flesh, it's not changed. We still see sin
in our members. Our bodies wait for the redemption
of Christ. We wait for his return when he
comes and raises us again from the grave. Or those that are
alive shall see him and be transformed. They shall be like him as he
is for we shall see him. We shall see him in that day.
But the Scriptures say this right now for us, we through the Spirit
wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. Galatians 5.5. But
if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait
for it. Romans 8.25. We have a good hope, a hope of
salvation that Christ has done this and we're walking by faith.
Because this flesh, we see sin in its members, we see that we
cannot save ourselves, but God has provided Jesus Christ. Thanks
be to God who provided his son. That's who saves me from this
wicked body. That's who saves me from my sins.
That's who saves me from this body of sin. That's who delivers
me from the law of sin and death, Jesus Christ. He's the one that's
done it. So presently our flesh is still
an old creature, weak, dying, corrupt, full of sinful lusts,
but that has no bearing on our eternal inheritance. Christ does. And that's not a license to sin.
We don't sin that grace might abound. We're thankful to the
Lord for what he's done. So thankful to him for what salvation,
what life, what inheritance he's given us in himself. He's made
us new creatures by his life and power. Second Corinthians
5.17, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. That is the old things meaning, not this old flesh, but old things
meaning how we labored and strove to make a righteousness for ourselves.
how we circumcised ourselves and cut this out and cut that
out and tried to fix this and make that right. That's not our
hope. Our hope is Christ. It's Christ. Galatians 6, 15 through 16. For
in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision,
but a new creature. And as many as walk according
to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel
of God. That's our rule, Christ. The
law isn't the believer's rule of life, Christ is. And he's
revealed to us in the gospel. He's given us the gospel to make
known unto us what he has done for us. And he says right there,
mercy and peace on them. That's the Israel of God. Those
that believe the son. Those who are sons and daughters
of promise in Christ. Following on this very thought,
we look at the third thing in verse three, Colossians 3, 3.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. We died with Christ when he died,
in which the law, that law which was over us in Adam, it's now
silenced against us. It's been satisfied. The law
has nothing more to say to you. There's no more condemnation,
fiery barking at you from the law. It's satisfied. You're dead to it. It has no
more authority or power over you. The evil one saying, you messed
up there, didn't you? You didn't do that right, did
you? Well, now you're going to hell. That's what the devil says. That's how he uses that law against
you and terrifies you. But Christ is a soothing balm
to the fiery soul, to that fiery dread of the wrath of God, because
that law has nothing more to say to you. It's silenced against
the people of God. It cannot dictate what your eternal
inheritance shall be. Christ does. Our death to the
law has delivered us from the law's demands. We're not in Adam's
body anymore. You are made members of the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, I was a teenager when
President Ronald Reagan said to Gorbachev, the president of
Russia, he said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall. And that wall came down. Came
down, the people basically took it down. They hit it with sledgehammers
and took it down piece by piece. And then they were able, that
was in Berlin, in Germany. Berlin, because after World War
II, Russia got some of it, some of Germany, and the West got
some of Germany. And under communism, where that
wall was behind, those people had a very dark and miserable
life. And it was hard. And they were
under a hard rule by communism. When that wall came down and
they began to cross over to the west, they didn't hear from anybody
on that side, on the east side, saying, now remember. Remember
what we said. If you do anything, we're going
to get you. No, that law was silenced against
them. It had no more authority. They
were delivered out from underneath that rule of communism. Well,
the same thing with the law. We're not in the house of Moses. You're in Christ's house, the
Son's house. He builds the house. And we hear
him. We don't look back. Moses, can
you tell me how I'm supposed to live now? No, Christ has given
you his spirit. That's how we know how to live.
That's how we cry, Abba, Father, save me, Lord. Have mercy on
me. Keep me, Lord. Deliver me from
these sinful lusts. the flesh. Lord save me. God
has given us an understanding that Christ has put that away
from us. That he silenced the law against
us. That he's destroyed that body of sin. That law of sin
and death hath no more power over you. The second death hath
no more power over you. holding you, making you afraid
and fearful, it's put away. Put away. God's given us an understanding
of that. Knowing that Christ, being raised
from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over
him. And you that are members of his
body, death hath no more dominion over you. It's put away. It's put away. Fourth, he says
in verse four, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then
shall ye also appear with him in glory. In other words, Christ
shall return again. He will come again, and he will
raise up our bodies, and that's when they'll be redeemed. That's
when they'll be changed and transformed. But this is our great comfort
and joy, that these light afflictions, And that foregoing of momentary
sinful pleasures of this life is, these things have nothing
compared to what Christ gives his people in himself, our inheritance
in him. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which
I have committed unto him against that day. He's my righteousness
and he's my inheritance. I'm leaving it all with him.
I'm so persuaded, he says. So persuaded. And that's what
the Lord persuades us of. Christ really is all. He's everything
to the believer. Now, verse five and six. Mortify,
therefore, your members, which are upon the earth, fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness,
which is idolatry. For which things sake the wrath
of God cometh on the children of disobedience. In Christ Jesus,
we are not children of disobedience. That's who this wrath is coming
upon. But he's saying those practices
are what they practice. That's what they do. But if you
do, he's not saying that you're going to be destroyed with the
children of disobedience. He's saying you're dead to those
things. Look to Christ, cry out to him, seek him, because it's
only by grace that those things are put away. Nowhere does Paul
mention the law. He's declaring the sins, these
wicked things which are in our members by nature. We all were
children of disobedience at one time, but we've been saved from
that. We're out of that. We have no part in that. We're
in the body of Christ. Look to him for your dead and
your life, right? That therefore, mortified therefore
your members goes back to verse three. Ye are dead and your life
is hid with Christ in God. And so what he's saying is, we
are entirely dependent on the grace of God who saved us at
the first, and it's gonna be his grace and mercy that saves
us throughout all the way to the end. Keep turning to him,
keep looking to him. Don't be turned now to the flesh
and just sucking in the world and loving the world. That's
not what we've been saved to. We've been put to death to those
things. Our inheritance is the Lord Jesus
Christ, but it's through the grace of God that these lusts
and passions are subdued, not turning to the law, turning to
Christ, looking to him. It's by the grace of God that
we abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. It's
in love to Christ. It's in desire to serve Christ
and to serve our brethren, not be all wrapped up in guilt and
fear and terrors because we committed those things. Don't do those
things because it does war against the soul. It does trouble you.
It does make you feel like you're not alive, that Christ hasn't
saved you. You're just troubling yourself.
Return from those things. Trust Christ. Look to Him. Lean upon Him. He's our hope. He's our salvation. He's our
strength. He's our all. And walk by the
Spirit, by faith rather than the flesh. And what we see here,
this grace that we admit of, that we speak of and declare
in this is that it's all of grace that I am saved. It's all the
grace that turns me from the works of the flesh. and going
the way of the flesh. I need the grace of God to keep
my heart, to preserve me, to keep me ever looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ. We don't turn to the law to put
to death these lusts. We turn to Christ. And because
ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your
heart, crying, Abba, Father. When the lusts and passions rise
up in you, Abba, Father, save me, keep me, Lord. Keep me looking
to Christ. Preserve me. Help me, Lord. Save
me. That's the Spirit. That's what
the Spirit does. Testifies of Christ. And so,
through faith, we learn to pray and trust him to keep us, to
be our righteousness, to help us turn away from the works of
the flesh. And Lord, help me bear fruits
of righteousness in me by your spirit, lest I turn to the works
of the flesh to deal with this and fix this and do something
in my flesh. And so sixth, in the witch, verse
seven, in the which ye also walked some time when ye lived in them."
In other words, believers in whom Christ is all, we confess,
I'm a sinner saved by grace. It's not that I've fixed my life
and turned it all around and I've got it all straightened
out now and I'm a good little Pharisee. No, that's not it. It's I'm a sinner saved by grace. Sinner saved by grace, and that's
what the Lord does. And in addition to that, I don't
boast that the child of God in whom Christ is all, they're not
gonna boast of what they've done. I mean, you ask a lot of people
in the world, well, how do you know that you're saved? What
do they do? They start to tell you what they've
done. Well, I gave my heart to Jesus.
I walked the aisle. I confessed my sins, and I turned
things around. I stopped doing this, and I started
doing that. And that's all you hear is I,
I, I, I, I, I. That's all their hope. But the
child of God boasts of, well, the Lord. The Lord saved me. The Lord was merciful to me.
The Lord brought the gospel. The Lord opened my ear to hear
the gospel. The Lord showed me my sin. The Lord showed me His
sufficiency. Very different. One is I, and
the other is Him. What He's done. What He's done
for me. And so that's the boast of the
child of God. Listen to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1,
verse 30 and 31. But of Him, of God, the Father,
are ye in Christ Jesus, who has made unto us wisdom, righteousness
and sanctification and redemption that according as it's written
he that glorious let him glory in the Lord and so it's not that
I was baptized that I confessed Christ that I accepted him that
I let go and let God that's no it's not what I did it's what
Christ did what our father did for us in Christ That's the confession
of the child of God. Seventh, he says in verse eight
and nine, but now ye also put off all these, anger, wrath,
malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one
to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his
deeds. And what this list is picturing
is these are the works of the flesh, as Paul defined in Galatians
5, verses 19 through 21. He tells us these are the works
of the flesh. This is what the flesh turns
to to fix things, to show somebody something, to teach them a lesson,
to get back at them. They get angry. They turn to
wicked things, adultery. They turn to wrath, murder, hatred,
end beings. They turn to seditions. Well,
I'm not going to go there anymore. I'm not going to show myself
to them anymore. I'm not going to listen to them
anymore. We turn away from people in divisions, in strifes. That's
what seditions are. They're turning away from, they're
dividing from one another, as if that's going to fix it. Just
for some reason, you've been offended. Well, I have rights,
and I've been offended, so I'm not going to. fellowship with
them anymore. Well, that's just the work of
the flesh. Now, of course, they have justifications, right? And
they'll start throwing you under the bus and saying things about
you to justify themselves, but that's all it is, is works of
the flesh. It's not the fruit of the spirit.
And so we see that all the time, and Paul saw that in the Corinthian
churches, right? There was all kinds of divisions
and little factions and all these things, people dividing from
one another. And so we need the grace of God to bear fruit in
us lest we turn to the works of the flesh to fix it and to
make it right, because that's what the flesh does. It's so
natural to us, we don't even see it, and we're so good at
it. We need the grace of God to save us from that. And so
it's by His grace that shows us the way of the flesh is not
the way for us to go. Christ is the way. And we need
his grace, always, always need his grace. And that's what he
teaches us. James 1.20, I think, captures
that thought very well. For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God. And we do. We get angry. We get
offended. We have rights. And so we turn
to some work of the flesh to fix it. And it's just the works
of the flesh. It hasn't fixed anything. It
hasn't made anything right. And so what we're doing in Turning
to the Works of the Flesh, what are we doing? We're satisfying
the lust of the flesh. Oh, they got me. That burns me
up. And I'm going to show them. And
so that's just turning to the flesh. And that's what we do
by nature. But the bare fruits of the spirit,
it can only be by his grace. And that's the gift of Christ
to his people. He gives his spirit and he gives
us life and faith and hope and love in him. And we still see
the warring, we see the Philistines warring in the flesh, warring
in this land. the Hittites and the Jebusites
and the Amorites and the Amalekites, all manner of sin and darkness
and wickedness still runs through this flesh. And by the grace
of God, those things are put down, those rebellions are put
down and silenced against us. But it's by his grace. And we're
never going to get to a point where we don't need him anymore,
we don't need his gospel. We're always going to need his
mercy, his hand, his voice, His leading, His spirit, and He does
that. He does that, He blesses us.
That's why He's telling it to you right now this morning. He's
comforting you with the gospel, comforting you that salvation
is entirely in Christ. Don't look back to that husband
that's dead now, Moses. He's not your husband, Christ
is your husband, and He bears fruit in you. Fruits of righteousness
unto God, to the praise and glory of His name. He does it. Verse
10, and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge
after the image of him that created him. In other words, we are a
creature of his grace. This new man is not because of
something I did, it's because the spirit has taken the things
of Christ and showed them to me with effectual power unto
the saving of my soul. I live by the incorruptible seed
of Christ, that's the new man. We're born of the Spirit of God.
We call it regeneration, a new birth, a new birth. All things are dead. All things
have become new in Christ. And that's how we bear these
fruits of righteousness and turn away from the works of the flesh.
And when we see them, when we see the works, Lord, help me,
save me. Brother, I've offended you. And
we go to our brethren, and we want to reconcile and make that
right. And by the grace of God, they're ready to receive it,
too. And say, yeah, let's make it right. And by His grace, that's
how we live, as members of His body. Where there is neither
Greek nor Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian,
bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all. And so you look
at that, and those are various characteristics that men use
to what? To divide, to cut down, to put
down that group, to put away that and divide from them. That's
what we do. But that ceases. in Christ, by
His grace, that ceases in Christ. And what the Lord teaches us
is there's one Savior, and sinners need that one Savior. Don't look
on the outward to deny and put away others from you. The Lord
has His people in every kindred, tongue, people, and nation. He has it in all people. And
so what we have here Our verses, in these verses, is a confession
that in my flesh, my focus is on the wrong thing. That's how
we divide and make things easy for ourselves, is looking at
the flesh. And all of that is worthy of
death, what I am in myself. by my works, I'm worthy of eternal
death. But by the grace of God, he's
delivered me from that and given me a hope of salvation in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and given you, his people, a hope of salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he joins that hope with love
and faith by his spirit, testifying in you that Christ is all. And you need him, and I need
him always. And he's everything that God
has given to us, and he's sufficient. He's sufficient. So how do you
hear that? Is Christ all to you? Do you
believe that? By his grace, you do. And by his grace, you'll
continue to believe that. And by his grace, you'll continue
to believe it more and more and see it more and more how that
Christ Jesus really is all to the believer. Amen.