Alright, let's be turning to
Colossians chapter 1. Colossians 1 and we're going
to begin in verse 12 and read down to our text. Giving thanks unto the Father
which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light. who hath delivered us from the
power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear
Son." Now here's our text, verse 14, in whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Now the Apostle here
is glorying in Christ our Savior because it's in him that all
the spiritual blessings of our Father are given to us. We read there in verses 12 and
13 that the Father hath made us meet. The Father hath delivered
us. The Father hath translated us
into the kingdom of his dear Son. And all these blessings,
these spiritual blessings, are given to us being established
in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our covenant head. He's the one through whom our
Father has established His covenant of grace with us, all because
of the redemption by the blood of Christ. He's obtained this
for us. When Paul was writing to Timothy,
Paul speaks of the church's salvation as being brought to us in and
by Jesus Christ. Let's look at 2 Timothy 1, verses
9 and 10. This is 2 Timothy 1. He says that Christ hath saved
us and called us within holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace. which was
given us, where? In Christ Jesus before the world
began. It's established in the covenant
of grace in Christ, but is now made manifest by the appearing
of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. It's in this gospel that we understand
that the appearing of Jesus Christ was for the purpose of the redemption
of the people, to deliver us from our death, to deliver us
from the hands of justice that we were in because of our own
sin. Christ redeemed us from death. Christ paid that price that we
could not afford. We can't pay it. But Christ came
and paid the price necessary to deliver us from the condemnation
and the punishment of our sins. And the price that He paid was
His blood, His own life. Now, when we hear this, the natural
man says, well, that sounds right. I believe that. Everybody believes
that's what Christ came to do. But the question is, do we really
believe that, that Christ has satisfied holy justice perfectly? Do we really believe that? Does
the natural man believe that? The natural man does not believe
that at all. because this flesh cannot receive
the things of God. It's foolishness to this flesh. And what I mean is, and we see
this in our own hearts, in our own minds, our own natural, carnal,
fleshly minds. In this old man of flesh, we
keep laboring and trying to work to please God, to obtain a sense
of forgiveness and acceptance with God. That's what the flesh
does. The flesh is always worried and always striving to try and
do something to bring to God and say, Lord, now heal me. Lord, now forgive me. Lord, now
receive me. I'm trying, Lord. I'm doing my
best. I'm doing all the things that I can do. But the scriptures
teach us that our salvation is not in the things that we do.
It's not in what we bring to the Lord. It's not in our obedience
to the law. We should be obedient to God
in all things, but when we're obedient, we've only done that
which we are supposed to do. We haven't reduced the debt for
our sins and iniquities and trespasses against holy God. We've done
nothing to save and deliver ourselves or to remove that stain of sin. We need to be delivered, delivered
from the hands of justice, In fact, we can see what the natural
man does if you turn over to Matthew 7, and we're going to
pick up in verse 21. What this shows us is what we
are in the flesh and shows us our need of the deliverance of
Christ, not only to forgive us of our sins, but to deliver us
from trusting our works, to deliver us from darkness, to deliver
us from the enmity, which we are in this flesh against the
true and living God. Matthew 7, verse 21, he says,
not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father,
which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name have
cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works. These things have the appearance
These people who do these works have the appearance of being
believers, but where's their confidence? When they're speaking
to the Lord, what is their confidence? Look at what I've done for you,
Lord. I did all these things in your name. I did these things
for you, to please you, to satisfy your justice, to do my best in
the hopes that you would make up for the rest, that you would
just wink at those other things and let them go, because I really
am trying, Lord. I really am trying. And he says,
I don't know you. I don't know you who do these
works. Their confidence is in what they've
done, not in the redemption of Christ. Their hope isn't in the
promise of God and what he promises to do in saving his people by
grace. Their hope is in their works. Christ says in verse 23 then
I will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that
work iniquity now notice he's calling their good works iniquity
these are their religious works things they did in the name of
God and he says those are filthy rags that's what Isaiah called
our righteousnesses not our sins our righteousnesses he said these
are filthy rags. What I do, what you do in this
flesh to try and please God with our works to justify ourselves,
those are filthy rags. Believers do good works and we
should do good works. We are encouraged to do good
works. but not to justify ourselves, not to sanctify ourselves, but
out of a thankful heart, because God has saved us. He's done all,
everything necessary, he's done it, he's done it all. Therefore,
verse 24, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them,
I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon
a rock. That rock is Christ. He is the
foundation. He is the one upon whom we build. We come to God not in our own
works, not in our strength, not in our doing in good works, but
in Christ. In Christ, who purchased us with
His own blood. You know, prophesying and casting
out devils, Judas did all those things. Judas did those things. That doesn't save us. He was
sent out with the 70. He was sent out and and saw that
the devils were subject unto them, he was able to heal people.
And so the Lord's saying, it's not your doing that saves you,
it's my grace, it's my blood that was shed for you that saves
you. That's the comfort, that's the
hope. Because one day we feel great
in what we've done, and the next moment we feel horrible because
we see just how hypocritical and short and foolish we are,
how dark we are. We see how we come short. So
who is it that does the will of the Father, which is in heaven? The one who doeth the will of
the Father perfectly, without fail, is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we look to Him. That's
why we hope in Him. Because we see, I try, and I
come short of the glory of God constantly. Constantly. I'm guilty
of breaking all the law of God. but we come in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the one who doeth the will of the Father perfectly,
and he offered himself unto the Father. He is the sacrifice,
he is the altar upon whom the sacrifice is offered, and he
is the high priest who offers himself the sacrifice unto the
Father to make an atonement for the sins of the people, a covering,
to put away your sins by his own blood. This morning, we're
going to look at the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll see its meaning first,
and then we'll close with an illustration from the scriptures
that show us a good illustration of our redemption, what Christ
has done for you that believe and hope in him, who trust his
work, not your own work, but his work. So our text says, Colossians
114, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins. Now the word redemption means
to buy again. It means to buy again. And in
our English language, it carries the idea of paying the proper
price for something, to buy it with exactly the required price. Nothing less. Nothing less. It is the full price that was
necessary to buy again, to redeem it. Justly. Justly. Now, the words used in scripture,
we see it sometimes described as Christ's blood has bought
us unto God. The price is the blood of Christ. Paul said to the church at Corinth,
ye are bought with the price. You're bought with a price. A
price was paid for you who now believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
and hope in Him and have a good hope in Him and trust Him and
believe the promises of God made unto us who are sinners, undeserving
sinners, but the promises of God that are made unto us in
Christ. We believe God in Christ. We
trust Him. We believe His word of promise
to us. But someone purchased you. you
that believe. Someone paid a price for your
faith, for your very soul, to give you all things necessary
to deliver you from darkness and to bring you into light and
understanding that the saints of God have. To know these things. You were purchased It says that
the church of God, ye who are purchased are the church of God,
which he hath purchased with his own blood. You're bought
with a price, the price of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's why he's so precious to us, that know what we are, that
have heard the word of God and believe him this day. This word
can also be used to signify to buy again out of the hands of
someone who owned us, who possessed us, something that owned us,
that had control over us, such as the redeemed who are purchased
out of the hands of justice. We were in the hands of justice. We owe God a great debt of obedience,
of perfection, of spotless, sinless obedience. and we don't do it. We come short constantly. We, therefore, fell into the
hands of justice. It was our life that was supposed
to be given, our blood that was supposed to be shed, our condemnation
and punishment that we owed to the hands of justice. Listen
to these legal terms beginning in Galatians 3.13. It says, Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, out of the hands
of justice, of the curse of the law that we came under because
we cannot keep the law of God perfectly. How so? He was made
a curse for us. He died the death that you that
believe, He died your death. He took your place as a substitute. as the substitute of his people.
He died vicariously, meaning in the place of his people. He
paid their debt that we could not pay. Again, in Galatians
4-5, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sins. So the sinner, for their sins,
are going to be dealt with justly. It's going to be a just penalty
for their sin under the law and its curse. And so to be delivered
from that just punishment, we must be delivered from the law.
Someone must satisfy that payment. Someone must give their life.
And it must be someone who is sinless and spotless and holy
and able, a near kinsman redeemer, must come and pay the price to
deliver us from the hands of justice. He is that substitute. We also see its use for the deliverance
of a slave or a captive, one who, by reason of their being
taken captive, they now come under the rule of another ruler.
They come under the rule of another kingdom, as it were, and they're
delivered by someone paying a ransom price for them, to take them
out from under that kingdom, out from under the kingdom of
darkness. Now the typical ransom price in the world, in the scriptures
and anywhere, is with silver and gold, with money. You pay
money to deliver someone that you love and is precious to you. But in the case of the saints
of God, justice requires a price more precious than silver and
gold. It requires blood. It requires
blood. That's why Christ asked, what
is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose
his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange
for his soul? We have nothing to give. We don't
have the works that God requires. We don't have the righteousness
that Holy God requires. We don't have it to pay. We can't
whittle down that debt even one penny's worth. We can't do anything
to satisfy Holy God. Silver and gold isn't going to
deliver us. Our good works will not deliver us, even our baptism. the name of Jesus Christ or our
membership in a true gospel church, that doesn't deliver us. Only
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ delivers his people. You will
have to give your own life in an eternity in hell and it'll
never satisfy God's justice against you. It'll never satisfy what
the law rightly brings against us and charges us with. Not by
our words. We can't do it. The only satisfaction
for justice to release us, to let us go, is for us to have
the price of blood paid. The blood of another, the righteous
one, the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his life of ransom for many,
his people. Many, not all, but many. Many
to be testified in due time that these are the sons and daughters
of God. These are his people. Paul said
it this way in 1 Peter 1 verses 18-21. He said, Forasmuch as ye know
that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, even our
works are corruptible things, ye weren't redeemed with these
things, such as silver and gold, from your vain conversation,
received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious
blood of Christ, as of a lamb, without blemish and without spot,
who verily was foreordained for this very purpose before the
foundation of the world, but was manifest And these last times
for you. What precious words. You that
hear them. By faith believe in God that
Christ gave his blood for you. For you. What a comfort. What
a joy. What a precious sound to hear
that gospel word for you. who by him do believe in God
that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your
faith and hope might be in God." So, in summary, of these points,
of what redemption is, because of our sin, because of our fall
in Adam and the transgressions which we commit ourselves in
this flesh, because of our fall, because of our sin, we are taken
captive. We are in bondage. We are under
the course of this world. We do foolishly. sin continually against the true
and living God. And therefore, we've come into
the hands of justice. We've come into the hands of
justice. We cannot deliver ourselves. We need a Savior, because justice
requires full satisfaction be made unto it. The redemption
of Jesus Christ is, in short, the buying of his people out
of the hands of justice. That's what his redemption has
accomplished. The only satisfactory purchase
price that could do that was his own blood, which he shed
willingly for the sins of his people to obtain eternal forgiveness
for us with holy God. With holy God. Otherwise, we're
responsible for it. Never owing, never satisfying,
never paying it off. Yet because Christ's blood satisfies
justice for the deliverance of His people, we are called a redeemed
people, a redeemed people purchased with His own blood. We're thankful
for the blood of Christ. The soul that sinneth, it must
die. And Christ died the death of
His people to deliver them. Therefore we read of this song
which the saints sing in Revelation 5 9. His saints sung a new song
saying thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals
thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy
blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. Christ has done this for you
that believe. Now, let's look at an illustration
in the scriptures which speak of our redemption, which give
us a view. There's many different examples
in the scriptures of redemption, but the one that I think is precious
that I want to speak to you about this morning is when the Lord
redeemed his people Israel out of the bondage that they were
in in Egypt. Egypt being a picture of our
bondage in darkness, and our bondage in slavery, laboring,
working, being fearful and afraid because we were coming under
the judgment of God. And we knew it. We knew we could
not deliver ourselves. So turn over to Exodus, and just
hold your hand there in Exodus. Stay there in case you flip away
for some reason. But Exodus 1 is where we'll begin,
verse 13 and 14. were told there that in Exodus
1 13 that the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve
in their slavery to serve with rigor and they made their lives
bitter with hard bondage in mortar and in brick and in all manner
of service in the field all their service wherein they made them
serve was with rigor And that just doesn't mean it was fast-paced. It means it was severe. It was
cruel. It was oppressive, what they
were doing to them. It was oppressive. It was crushing. It has that sense of crushing
them. Low, crushing their spirit, crushing
them under the weight of their work. Turn over to Exodus 2,
verse 23 and 24. And it came to pass in process
of time that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel
sighed by reason of the bondage. And they cried, and their cry
came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their
groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with
Isaac, and with Jacob. God remembers his covenant of
grace for his people. They cannot deliver themselves
out of the hand of their oppressor. They can't deliver themselves
out from this slavery. But God is going to do it because
of grace, for grace sake, for Christ's sake. He's going to
be gracious to them. And so the Lord sends Moses to
them. He raises up Moses and Moses
comes and speaks to the people, telling them of the promise of
God, reminding them that God has appeared for them. He's heard
their cry and he is going to deliver them. He speaks in their
ears the promise, the promise of God to deliver them. And Pharaoh
hears of this and he responds to this word of promise that's
now coming to the ears of the people. I want you to notice
that Pharaoh here is a type of the law and this is what the
law says. You're speaking these promises
to the children of Israel. Ye make them rest from their
burdens. The grace of God is declared
to the people and it makes them rest. from their burdens, that
labor from which we could not. The word of grace says you're
free. You've been delivered from your
slavery. You've been taken captive by
Christ who has delivered you from the oppressive captor. You've
come under his yoke. You are free in the Lord Jesus
Christ, delivered from all your labors which you cannot do, delivered
from that debt which oppressed you and weighed you down and
terrified you. of that day of death when you
would stand before holy God. Christ's blood has delivered
his people from that oppression and the wrath of God. Pharaoh
said, you make them rest from their burdens. You see, the law
is not of grace. The law says, do this and live. You do these things perfectly
and you'll live. You'll have no problems. The
issue is we cannot keep the law perfectly. We are law breakers
by nature. We are enmity against God. When
the law comes, it revives that wrath and enmity in us. And we despise God. And we turn
from him and run to the woods and try and sew our own fig leaves
together to relieve and cool and soothe our own screaming,
burning hot conscience. and it doesn't work. It doesn't
save us. It doesn't give us everlasting
peace and forgiveness. There's no pardon for sin under
the law. There's only penalty. Once you
break it, the law says, that's sin, and here's the penalty for
it. That's sin, and here's the penalty
for it. Oh, you're not going to do the penalty? Well, here's
the penalty for that, because that's also sin. And it just starts
stacking up and building up. That debt just increases and
grows and grows. Pharaoh, therefore, the picture
of the law makes it more severe on the Israelites. And we know
that what Pharaoh did first was he said, I'm now, I was giving
you straw before to make your bricks, but you're going to have
to keep that same quota of bricks, but now you're responsible to
go out and gather straw for yourselves. So look at Exodus 5, 9. He tells his foreman, who are
over the Israelites, he says, let there more work be laid upon
the men that they may labor therein and let them not regard vain
words. Don't let them hear what Moses
is saying. Don't give them any hope under
this promise. You lay more things on them. And what we see there is that
When the people began to give ear to the promise that Moses
spoke of, which was given to them in the covenant of grace
made to Abraham, the taskmasters became more severe. They really
began to lay the load down on them, to weigh them down so that
they would not listen to that word of grace. They wouldn't
hear the promise. I'm familiar with that. When
I began to seek the Lord and to see His holiness, the law
came upon me and began to build up on me, and more and more I
began to see how weak, how insufficient I am to please God by my works
under the law. I thought I could do it. I thought
I was close at one time, and then it just came down more oppressive. and more severe on me and everything
fell apart. The wheels just busted off and
I was undone before very long when I began to seek the Lord
and think I was keeping the law and pleasing God by my works.
And I think you all know the same thing. You have the experience
of coming to God by your good works and thinking I'm so close,
so close to pleasing Him 100% and then you see, no, no, no. No, you're not even close. No,
you don't even know the sins in the heart, in the mind, in
the flesh, all the things that we do, things we understand and
don't understand. So they kept asking Pharaoh,
if you look back in Exodus 3.18, the word by Moses to Pharaoh
was, let us go, we beseech thee, three days journey into the wilderness
that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. And yet, while
under the rule of Pharaoh, they were not able to worship God
and serve Him in spirit and in truth unless they were completely
delivered. They had to be redeemed entirely
out from under the oppressive rule of Pharaoh in Egypt. So long as men try to worship
God under that bondage, under the yoke of the law, which even
the Israelites could not keep. Their fathers were not able to
do it. So long as we try to do that,
the more and more we'll find it's impossible to fulfill. The
more you understand what the law is saying, the more you hear
the law, you'll find, I can't do it. cannot do it. I remember working with a guy
one summer when I was a teenager and he began to read his Bible
and began in the beginning and started to try to follow the
law and I mean this guy was doing that he wouldn't spit because
they weren't supposed to waste any any liquids out of your body. He wore a long sleeve in the
summer, not because he was worried about skin cancer, but because
he thought he should just protect his body against sun, which isn't
a bad thing, but I mean he was doing it for reasons of the law,
to please God. And I don't know what happened
to him, but I am certain of this, he's either a Pharisee and convinced
that he's done it, or the Lord has been gracious to him and
broke him of it, or he just fell away. gave up, being tired of
trying to please God by the law. Paul tells us in Romans 7 verse
9 through 11, he said, I was alive without the law once, but
when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment
which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. And Pharaoh
was saying, you go, you make straw and bricks, and all will
be well with you. Just do what you're supposed
to do. That's what the law says. Just do it. And they're saying,
I can't do it. I don't have the time. I don't
have the strength. I don't even know where to look
for the straw. You were giving it to us. I don't
know where I'm going to find this. It says that they were
gathering together stubble. Stubble. And that's a great picture
of our works. Our best works are but stubble. And stubble is burned up in the
fiery wrath of God. It'll be burned up. It's not
gold and silver and precious stones. It's stubble. And so
they couldn't do it because sin, taking occasion by the commandment,
deceived me and slew me. And that's what we find. The
more we try to please God by the law, the more we'll be slain
by it and crushed under its weight. And so this enslavement of Israel
under Egypt, it's a picture of all natural men. It's a picture
of all the sons and daughters of Adam. And some try to do it. Some try to satisfy God by the
law, but they come under the curse and the condemnation of
the law. They fall into the hands of justice.
And if they continue, if God doesn't give them repentance,
they will die in their sins because they do not believe that Christ
is the very promise of God, that He's our salvation. That's what
God is telling us. He's our salvation. And so, let me just skip ahead
some. The officers said that same thing. They said, why haven't you given
us the bricks that you're supposed to give us? Because the law doesn't
make excuses. The law doesn't wink and say,
well, we'll let that slide because you did your best and God will
make up for the rest. No, he won't. It must be perfect. obedience. But God promises all
His people that He is their salvation. He will be gracious. To whom
He will be gracious, and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. You that hope in Him and believe
Him, that's the gracious work of God by His Spirit. Taking
you out of trusting dead things and repenting of those dead works
that cannot save and being turned to Christ and believing on Him. The Spirit works that in you.
The Spirit gives you life and hope and regenerates you from
that death. And so, we need our Lord to do
this for us. In fact, if you go over to Exodus
6, the Lord begins telling them in verse 6 that He's going to
do this gracious work for them, but let me bring you down to
verse 9. So, Exodus 6, 9. And Moses spake
so unto the children of Israel, but they hearkened not unto Moses
for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. The natural man
is unable to hear this word of grace until the Lord redeems
them. until the Lord brings them out
of that death and darkness by the blood of Christ, giving you
life and hope in Him. And then they'll hear. Then,
then we'll hear. Until then, we won't hear this
word at all. But our Lord does this because
He loves us in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why He gave us
to Christ, because He loved us and chose His people and committed
them to the care of His darling Son who is the faithful one,
the faithful and righteous servant of God. Now in closing, I'll
just say, if you remember that when Israel went out, it was
owing to the blood. It was the blood of the Passover
Lamb that led to their redemption out of Israel forevermore. Never to go into the bondage
of Israel again. And who is that Passover Lamb? But the Lord Jesus Christ. That
blood was shed for the Israelite to deliver them so that their
firstborn didn't die, they didn't die, their strength didn't die.
But Christ, He is the one whom the Father sent and He died as
the Passover Lamb for His people to deliver us from that death.
The Egyptians who had no blood, they died themselves. But those
Israelites who trusted the promise of God, who believed and trusted
the blood They were delivered. And you that trust and believe
the blood of Christ, who hear the promise of God and trust
Him, you are delivered, redeemed, purchased out of the hands of
justice. You will not die the second death. You will not have anything to
fear in the day of judgment because Christ stands for you. His blood
prevails for you. He has delivered you fully to
the satisfaction of holy God. Believe Him. Trust Him. I pray
the Lord bless that word to your hearts. Amen. Let's close in prayer and be
dismissed. Our gracious Lord, we thank you
for your grace. We thank you for the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for this redemption.
Lord, to many, to all in the flesh, the blood is distasteful. They don't like to speak of it.
They'd rather boast in what they have done. But Lord, we thank
you for breaking us, for opening our ear to hear the promise of
God made unto us in the Passover lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom we are delivered, by whom we are purchased with his
own precious blood. Lord, Teach us not to trust our
own works. Deliver us from confidence in
this flesh, and keep us ever looking to Christ, and resting
under His blood, resting under His peaceable, light yoke, which
is given to us in Him. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen.