Good morning, brethren. Let's
be turning to Colossians chapter 1. I want to begin a study in Colossians,
working our way through that now that we've finished Galatians. Now, the church at Colossae is
a church that was not founded by the preaching of the Apostle
Paul. It's a Gentile church, but it
didn't come as a result of his direct preaching to the brethren. However, it was founded in in
the truth in the word of truth it was founded upon the gospel
of the lord jesus christ being preached to them and that tells
us something that it's not the man it's not the man whom the
lord sends he's not the difference maker it's not you sheep that
the Lord gathers together. That's not the difference maker. It's the Lord. The Lord himself
makes the difference. Who maketh thee to differ? It's
the Lord. The Lord is the one who makes
us to differ. It's the Lord who chooses a people
and blesses a people and establishes a people in that word of truth. That precious word of truth. that no man believes, that no
man receives except God be gracious and merciful and compassionate
to him." And what we see here is that the Lord blesses the
preaching of the Gospel as it pleases Him, and what that means
is it results in fruit. It yields produce. It brings
forth a fruitful response to that blessed word being preached
to them. For example, our Lord tells us
that when His word goes forth, it goes forth in purpose. It goes forth to accomplish the
will of God. I'll quote from Isaiah 55 verses
10 and 11. For as the rain cometh down,
and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth
the earth, and maketh it bring forth in bud, that it may give
seed to the sower and bread to the eater. Most of us are familiar
with this. If you have any experience with
a garden or just looking outside, if you purposely plant something,
it responds very well to water. I notice that in my garden, especially
after a hot day, but when it rains and there's a good soaking
rain, meaning at least a half inch to especially an inch of
water comes down, I look outside the next day and my plants are
a good two inches taller usually. But the same is true with weeds
as well. The weeds respond to the water
as well. And so the purpose of God is
accomplished. Whether it's a saver of life
unto life or a saver of death unto death, the purpose of God
in preaching that word and declaring that word to the hearers is going
to yield that fruit which he purposes in his people. And that
should make us tremble and look to the Lord and bless the Lord
and thank the Lord for His grace to me, the sinner. Each one of
us acknowledging that it's not because of me, it's not because
of what I've done or some thing that I've said, but it's according
to the grace of God that I hear that word, that I believe on
the Son of God and look to Him for all my righteousness. It's
of the Lord. And so this gospel prosperity,
this fruit yielded as a result of the preaching of the gospel,
that is dripping in this epistle, especially in the opening remarks
of this letter by Paul written to these brethren whom he has
not yet met himself. but knows the power of God, rejoices
in the power of God to effectually work righteousness in the hearts
of his people, established in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, to begin, let me start with
Psalm 3, verse 8, that says, Salvation belongeth unto the
Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. It's His work. It's His doing. He's the one that brings it to
pass. Thy blessing is upon thy people. Those are the ones whom the Lord
effectually works the salvation in the hearts of His people. You that have no hope of righteousness
in yourselves, but hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom God has
sent to save His people from their sins, bless God, thank
God, because it's because of Him. It's because of His mercy
toward you that you hear and believe Him. And so this fruit
is saturating, it's filling to the full this letter, these opening
remarks by Paul. rejoicing what God has done for
them, and adopting them into the family of God, just like
Paul. Paul's no different, and he's a Jew, and these are Gentiles,
and yet all the children of God are adopted into the family of
God the same way, through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now he says in verse one, Colossians 1.1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus
Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus, or Timothy, our brother. Paul made it a point to declare
his authority as an apostle. He's writing this letter. He's
sending this letter to the church because he is an apostle of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And there were all these heresies,
all these false teachings that were coming into the churches
regularly. regularly. And I've said this
before to you, but I used to think, man, if I just lived back
then in the early century in the first church, how wonderful
it would be if you had a question, you could just go right up to
Paul and ask him to clarify something for you. But the reality is,
he was under constant attack. There were people who professed
to believe on Christ that didn't even know or believe that he
was an apostle, whether or not he had the authority to say the
things that he said. And so there were many that were
coming in with the appearance of being sheep, but were wolves
in sheep's clothing. And they were saying things that
were contrary to the word of truth. the mystery revealed in
the face of Jesus Christ. And they were turning people
back to the law of Moses and saying, well, yes, Jesus is the
Christ, but don't lose sight of the law given at Mount Sinai.
That's your righteousness. He just came to slap a coat of
paint on it, to freshen things up, to revitalize the law in
your hearts and to bring the Gentiles in back under the law.
And Paul was saying no. It's by grace. It's by grace
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's all the salvation of his
people. And so I'm thankful that there
were troubles back then because Paul spent a lot of time bringing
to bear all the truth of the scripture revealed in the scripture,
the mystery revealed in Christ. He spent a lot of time in these
letters declaring the truth so that we today are able to Bring
those same truths to bear under the same attacks that were going
on then. Look to the law. Trust yourselves. Follow your own heart. Do this,
do that. All these vain philosophies of
men and traditions of men declaring things that sound good to the
natural man, that sound rational and reasonable to a Greek, who
rejoiced in man's philosophy, but Paul showed, oh, these things
are vain. They're dead. They're dead things.
They're turning you away from Christ. Look to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so, because of this, we're
now blessed and enabled to earnestly contend for the faith which was
once delivered unto the saints. Once. declared in the face of
Christ. It's not improving, it's not
being refined, it's not growing into something else. Once declared
in Christ, and he is sufficient unto the end. And so Paul, when
he was, he's declaring that he's an apostle by the will of God.
He said it this way when he was writing to the Galatians. In
Galatians 1.1, he says, Paul an apostle not of men. neither by man but by Jesus Christ
and God the Father who raised Him from the dead." That's power. That's power. Not power of Paul. The power of God who raised a
man from the dead never to die again. Exactly as He said. Exactly as He declared it would
be, the Father raised the Son from the dead. who trusted the
Father, who redeemed his people, who faithfully accomplished our
salvation in him. And so Paul's declaring, this
is a thing of power. This is not of my power. It's
not of my will. It's not of what I want. It's
what God wants. It's what God wants. And it's
according to his will. And I'm an appointed man by the
will of God. And that tells us another thing
about the church, is we don't appoint ourselves to where we
want to be in the body. God appoints His people. God
gathers His people. God has raised you up and put
you here in this place and established His body here to the praise and
glory of His name as it sees fit to Him. So in spite of what
we think of ourselves, in spite of the failings that we see in
our own flesh and the troubles and the difficulties that we
have in our mind and in our hearts and physically and mentally and
spiritually, God has seen fit. to gather you together here in
this body, to bless you, to feed you, to nourish you with these
brethren, to knit your hearts together in love and in faith
to Him, hoping, having the same hope, that He's all my salvation. He's all my, He's everything
I need. And so, just as God saves us
at the first, so He works all things according to His will.
according to his mercy, according to his compassion, upon whom
he will have compassion and mercy. He'll be gracious to whom he
will be gracious. It's not of him that willeth,
Paul said. It's not your decision. It's not what you decide. It's
what God has purposed and decided for you, to bless you, to be
good to you and gracious to you and kind to you. and to reveal
His love in you, in Christ. And it's not of Him that runneth,
it's not by your striving, your works, what you do or don't do.
It all comes down to what God has worked in you for His grace
and purpose. And so, With this understanding,
we know who it is that formed this body. Just as God raised
up Paul according to his will and made him an apostle, so God
formed this church by that same word which delivers every one
of God's children, the gospel. the gospel. And so Paul gave
thanks to God. He said in verse three, we give
thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying
always for you. We thank God because it's God
who saves us from beginning to end. You know, I was thinking
about this this morning. If one of your dear loved ones
was in an accident, say a car accident or a boating accident,
and they were retrieved and brought out of that mangled vehicle or
delivered from that sinking under the waves of the ocean by the
Coast Guard or a fireman gets them out or a policeman, some
rescue worker gets them out and brings them to you and delivers
your loved one to your arms. Do you say to that loved one,
thank you for cooperating with that rescue worker? I'm so glad
you decided to let them save you. No, you thank the one who
delivered them into your arms. Thank you doctor for doing a
good job on my son. Thank you. Thank you, officer,
for risking your life and saving my loved one and bringing them
to me. So it is. Just like we don't thank the
one who was saved, we thank the one who saved them. So we thank
the Lord because our salvation is entirely of the Lord. We thank God for this grace and
mercy. Now back in verse 2 he says that
he's writing this to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ
which are at Colossae. Grace be unto you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, there are some
so-called churches that say that a saint is only for a few people
that believe. They have to do a miracle, a
recorded miracle to be a saint. Well, that's not what the scriptures
say. The scriptures teach that all who believe the Lord Jesus
Christ are saints. What a saint indicates, what
it means to us is that God has set them apart for his own use. God has purpose. God who loved
you and chose you and redeemed you has set you apart. That's right, you. You apart
for his own purpose. When a child of God looks at
themselves they see Who's sufficient for these things? I'm not fit
for this. I'm not able to do this. I'm
not worthy of this. Whatever it is that we're doing,
I have no business doing this. But the Lord has purposed according
to his own goodwill and pleasure to set you apart unto himself
to bless you, to teach you, to use you, to minister to another,
to minister that grace which he has ministered to your heart,
to show the same kindness and care and love for your brethren. in that same manner. And so a
saint is one set apart by God for his holy use. People don't make themselves
saints. Paul never said to these brethren, thank you for joining
up with us. Thanks for coming into the church
of Paul. Thanks for doing your part and signing up for this. No, we don't thank in that manner.
Brother Joe, when someone comes and buys your coffee, you thank
them for buying the coffee. But we don't thank people when
they come into the church and their hearts are knit here. We
thank God for that, because it's God. In the same way, if a parent
buys their child an iced coffee for some reason, you thank the
parent who gave you, who handed you the cash for that coffee,
because they allowed it, they permitted it to happen. And you
thank them for their business. there. Well, we thank God. It's
God. And so this is a sanctifying
work, a work of the Lord. Peter wrote it this way in 1
Peter 1, 2. He calls us elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father, according to his purpose, his love for
his people. through sanctification of the
Spirit, who are set apart and led unto the obedience of Christ,
led in faith to behold what God has done for us in Christ. As it says, unto obedience and
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, so that by the grace
of God we are blessed to behold what Christ has accomplished
for us, His obedience. his redemption, how that he by
himself laid down his life for my sins, to deliver me from the
wrath of God, and to give me life in and by Christ, and to
give me a hope in his inheritance, to believe the promise of God
that everything he promises his people in Christ, he works it
effectually in my heart. And so we thank Him for setting
us apart and revealing that blessed hope in us. And Peter also ends
saying, grace unto you and peace. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. And that's what Paul says there
in Colossians 1-2. Grace be unto you and peace. You know where grace is found.
Peace may also be found, and it will be found. You'll go through
difficulties and trials, but being settled in Christ, there
is peace. And without grace, there is no
peace. If there's a peace in your heart
that precedes grace and is apart from grace, that's no true and
lasting peace. That is a false hope. That is
a lie by which you deceive yourselves. But where grace is first established
in the heart, then the peace of God in Christ follows. And he settles us and causes
us to rest in his Sabbath rest for his people, where we cease
from all our labors, cease from our laboring, cease from our
working to work a righteousness for ourselves. We cease trying
to justify ourselves by what we do or don't do, or say or
don't say, and we rest in Christ. and we look to Him continuously,
believing in Him. So we give thanks to God for
what He has done for us. Now, I want you to see as we
go to verses 4 and 5, we see how that the Lord manifests His
power in His people. This is why Paul is so confident
to write unto this church as brethren. because he knows what
God does. He knows what the Lord himself
works effectually in the people. It's not the people's doing,
it's what God does and accomplishes in them according to his will
and purpose. So let's look at verses four
and five. He's saying, we thank God and we don't cease to give
thanks to God since we heard of your faith, verse four, in
Christ Jesus and of the love which he have to all the saints
for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof he
heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel. Paul had never met these brethren,
never spoke to them. I think it says in verse one
of chapter two, for I would that ye knew what great conflict I
have for you and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as
have not seen my face in the flesh. Paul never met these brethren,
and yet he knows exactly what the Spirit works in all his people. As the Spirit bears fruit, the
fruits of righteousness, born out of the power of Christ, born
out of Him, the vine to whom we as branches are connected
to, we bear that fruit of the Spirit. And he describes them
here as faith, love, and hope. Faith, love, and hope, essential
fruit which is wrought in the heart of every saint, of every
child of God set apart, Unto the grace of God to whom God
will be merciful and bless faith love and hope Paul said the same
words to the Corinthians 1st Corinthians 13 verse 13 at the
end of that chapter of love Paul said now abides faith hope and
charity or love Now these three abide, but the greatest of these
is charity is love. And that's simply because one
day our faith will be sight. One day we won't hope for our
inheritance, we'll have received it. We'll be living it fully,
enjoying it, rejoicing it. But love will never pass away.
We'll always have love for the brethren, always have love for
our Lord. So these three loves in particular
he highlights, and let's look at these three fruits quickly
here. So faith, faith is essential
because without faith there's no living union to Christ. There's no sight of Christ. There's
no hearing Christ speak. There's no believing that he
is the salvation of God and that he laid down his life for me. For me, I'm the sinner. I'm the
one who needs salvation. And he does that for every one
of his children. And he gives faith whereby we
see and believe the servant of God. We hear the word of God. We trust the promise of God.
We believe what he has said to us concerning Christ. And so
faith is essential. In John 3.18, he said it this
way, he that believeth on Christ is not condemned. A result of
our being chosen of God is that we're not condemned. And He reveals
faith in us because He loves us and chose us. He's not condemned,
but he that believeth not is condemned already. Why? Why doesn't
he believe? Why is it so apparent that he's
condemned already? Because he hath not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God. You see, a dead soul
has no need of Christ. One who is dead in trespasses
and sins cares not for the things of Christ. Doesn't matter to
him or her what's being said. He might be content and happy
to be religious and to play his religious part and to put on
his show, but if he's dead, he could care less what's being
said. He doesn't care if Christ is exalted. He doesn't care.
He just wants to hear something that tickles his ears, that makes
him feel good, that soothes his troubled conscience, if he has
one even at all. The one who's dead doesn't need
Christ. He's just happy with religion
for religion's sake. And so, the dead sinner doesn't
need Christ, but the one who's alive, it's like breathing in
air. We live upon Him. We feed upon
Him. We're nourished by Christ. We're
strengthened by Christ. We're kept by Christ. We are
comforted by Christ. We're warmed by Christ. We're
kept by the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's because we're living
by the grace of God. Not because of what we've done
or said, but because he's merciful to us. Next there is love. And here he describes it as love
for the brethren. Alright, since we heard your
faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which he have to all
the saints. So there's a love for the brethren. And that's because the Lord makes
us to know how precious few, how precious few love Christ
and look to him and believe the things which he has made known
unto us. How few believe that Christ is all their salvation.
How few trust that if he doesn't do it for us, it won't be done. It'll be done in falsehood. But
if he does the work, it's done in truth, according to the word
of truth. You know, many people will bond
over similarities, right? Whether they like the same things,
whether they grew up in the same way, same family life, or from
the same town, or they like the same sports team. A lot of people
bond over those things. You know, I know women don't
like it when they show up to a party and someone's wearing
the same thing as them, but men, if they show up in the same shirt,
they can become best friends for life. over something silly
like that because they I don't know it's just funny how that
works but the thing is is that we bond over Christ and we care
about the people of Christ. You know, it's like if you're
building something and you're swinging a hammer, even though
your purpose is to take that hammer and strike that nail perfectly,
truly, right on the head, to drive that nail right into the
wood, yet don't you, even though all your thought is on this,
don't you also think, but let me take care of my left hand.
Let me remember to be real careful and not to smash my thumb. We
take great care for the lesser thing. Even though we're thinking
this is the thing I need to drive that nail through, we take great
care for the left hand. And so it is with brethren. However
the Lord is using us, we care about our brethren. And we are
careful not to hurt them because if we hit them, If we don't take
care for them, the body, the whole body is going to hurt.
It's all going to smart and it's going to feel that pain and suffer
together. And so as a body, we as a body,
we we take care for one another. And our Lord says in John 13
35, by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if
ye have love one to another. And so many would seek, you know,
if you've been here long enough, if you've live long enough and
you've met enough brethren, you're going to meet people that are
not shy about their hatred for another brother in Christ. And
they'll speak evil of them. And they'll tell you, I'm not
loving them. I'm not being nice to them. And they seek to justify their
hatred, usually by saying, well, they're just not a brother. I
don't have to love them because they're not a brother. And then
it makes it easy for you. They feel justified in their
hatred of that person. But don't. Don't be like that. Don't hate any brother, anyone
who professes to believe on Christ. Don't hate them. Seek God to
be kind and gracious to them, to love them, to be merciful
to them. Because John tells us that he
that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. And John doesn't even confine
it to brethren. O man, no man anything except
to love them. Paul said. We ought to love,
not hate and not fertilize that hatred and foster that hatred
and feed that hatred, but flee from it and seek to love them
and to do what is good, as God is good to even his enemies.
Let us be good to others, and to do what is best for them,
and kind for them, and helpful to them, and needful for them.
Let us be good, even as God has been good to us, for Christ's
sake. And then there's hope. We've not received this inheritance,
but we hope for it. At one time, all our inheritance
was in Adam. And it was the things of the
flesh. How do I get rich? How do I add some stability to
my life? How can I be happy in life and
do things that make me happy? That was just Adam's inheritance.
Now we have an inheritance, a lasting inheritance, in Christ. in heaven,
to whom we have committed all these things, believing God,
trusting him, doing without things, many things, not everything.
The Lord blesses his people and gives them comfort, but we do
with some things because we know this isn't my inheritance. This
isn't all I'm living for. In fact, I'm not living for this
at all. I'm living for the Lord. Lord, help me to do only those
things I need to do that I might live for you all the more. And
so we have this hope. 1 John 3, verse 2 and 3. The apostle says, Beloved, now
are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall
be. But we know that when he shall
appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this
hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. So this is
the fruit which the Lord works in all his people. Faith, love,
and hope. Faith, love, and hope. That's
the fruit he brings according by the preacher of the gospel.
In fact, look at verse 6. We'll bring this to a close.
Look at verse 6. He says, Which is come unto you, as it is in
all the world, and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you,
since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in
truth. Brethren, this salvation is come
unto you. Your God has brought it unto
you. who's purposed and worked all
things to bring you under the sound of his gospel, under the
preaching of the gospel, to bless you in Christ. And he does this,
what he's done throughout the world, to gather his lost sheep
scattered in this country and that land and that district over
there or over here. He's blessed you in the way he's
blessed all his people throughout history through the preaching
of the gospel. He makes you to hear it, not
by the natural ear, but by the ear of faith. And He gives you
that faith to believe it. And He forms love in your heart
for Him and for your brethren. And He gives you that lasting
hope, that persevering hope to trust Him, to believe Him, and
to stay looking to your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray
He bless that word to your hearts. Amen. All right, let's close in prayer,
and then we'll be dismissed for 15 minutes. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you, Father, for your grace, and we thank you, Lord,
for your mercy, for your power, for the fruits that you bear
in each of your children, faith, love, and hope. Lord, Keep us
ever looking to Christ. Bless us with this fruit that
you work in all your people through the preaching of the gospel in
Christ. Lord, help us to be a faithful
body here, blessing your name, rejoicing in your salvation,
worshiping you in spirit and in truth, because, Lord, we have
nothing if we have not you. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen.