Colossians chapter 2. And the title of the message is The
Love and Blessings in Christ. Love and Blessings in Christ. The apostle here says, For I
would that you knew what great conflict I have for you and for
them at Laodicea And for as many as I've not seen my face in the
flesh. And this is his conflict. This
is his heart's desire. This is what he longs for. That
their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love. And unto all riches of the full
assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery
of God and of the Father and of Christ in whom are hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And the apostle in this chapter
desires that believers' hearts should be knit together. And that is my desire. My desire
is that you and I would have our hearts so bound together. And why is this important? Because
that we should be comforted. Comforted he said I desire my
heart's desires that you that your hearts might be comforted
being knit together Now most surely we know that this is a
commandment of our Lord and Savior He said before he went into heaven
to prepare a place for us. He told his disciples This is
my commandment that you love one another. This is my commandment,
the commandment of our Savior. You see, He first must have went
to the cross, suffered for our sins, was raised from the dead
for our justification, and entered into heaven as our forerunner. That is what He has done for
us. But before he left, he gave this
commandment to his disciples. And listen, this is a commandment
to us. Love one another. Love one another. And what bonds us together? In love for one another is this,
listen, our union with Christ. That's what bonds us together.
What is it about believers that causes us to love one another
so greatly? Why is it that you would love
another believer so much? You know, we had friends come
in from other places into this assembly, and immediately Immediately,
there's a bond there, a connection, even though you may not remember
their name, you may not know who they are, but you know that
they believe and rejoice in the same gospel you do. And then
we embrace them, we love them so much, and I've never even
hardly seen them before. What is that? There is a union
there. There is a bond there that is
because we are in union with Christ, we are in union together.
We're inseparable. You can't separate God's church.
It's one body. And we have one head, which is
Christ. And so, listen, this is my purpose this morning, is
that this message should encourage us to love. That the gospel of Jesus Christ
is what stirs us to love. You know what stirs men to separation
and schisms? Self-righteousness. Law. Now that separates men. That
doesn't bond us together. What bonds us together is the
gospel of Christ because we all have this same experience of
grace. We all were ruined. We all were
dead in sins, but God in mercy came to us and revealed this
gospel to us. We all have that in union. And
this is why, because the Father in love knit us together before
the world began. He knit us together in Christ. We were in union together in
Christ. For he says to all of his elect,
I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, Because I've
loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness
have I drawn thee." Have you been drawn to God through Christ? Have you been drawn to Christ
by faith? Well, that is an evidence of
the eternal love of God for you, is that He's drawn you. And His love for us is not because
of us. This binds us together, doesn't
it? Isn't this all our experience? Is that we're not loved of God
because of anything in us. We're loved of God by free grace. We were loved before the world
was, and so His love is based on not our merit, but rather
the merit of Jesus Christ. He bases His love on you, for
you, and me on the merit of Christ. Therefore, we are loved of God, but only by our eternal union
with Christ, who is the beloved of the Father. Believer, it is this love of
the Father that should stir our hearts to love. It is this eternal
love of the Father. Paul reminds us of this, that
all our spiritual blessings are given to us in Christ before
the world began. Look at your text. He says that
I should desire that your hearts should be comforted and knit
together in love unto all the riches of the full assurance
of understanding, to the acknowledgement, listen, of the mystery of God
and of the Father and of Christ, listen, in whom are hid all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge, wherein is all the blessings
that flow to us who believe. They were hid in Christ from
eternity. They were in Him. Ephesians 1
and verse 3 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings. And where are these spiritual
blessings? In Christ. in Christ, in Him, according
as He had chosen us, in Him, before the foundation of the
world. Now, in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom, knowledge.
In Him we were chosen to be holy. In Him we were chosen to be redeemed,
sanctified, and obtained righteousness, which is by His faith. Therefore John in his letter
in his letter he exclaims this behold Stop and listen Behold
what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us That we
should be called the sons of God That we should be called
the sons of God We who by nature were sons of Adam, ruined, depraved
sinners, and yet by grace we are the sons of God. You see
what we have in common? Do you see now why we love one
another so much and why we have this union together? Even because
God put us together. He made us together in Christ
and gave us all His blessings in Christ. And we by nature, though we were
sons of Adam, now we know we are sons of God. And John says,
It doth not yet appear what we shall be. Isn't that right? Go look in the mirror and see
if you can find what you shall be. No. What do you find when
you look in the mirror? You find a sinner. You find a
man unworthy. You find a man unrighteous. It
doth not yet appear what we shall be. Because we are still in this
body. We are still in this flesh. Why
am I encouraging you to love one another? Wouldn't that just
be natural for a child of God? That should be natural for a
child of God. Listen, it's not natural for
your flesh. It's natural for your flesh to
love the world, to love self. That's natural. What's supernatural
is that you would love me. What's supernatural is that you'd
love one another. This is the power of the grace
of God in us, is that we would love one another. It doth not yet appear what we
shall be. You remember, I thought of this illustration because
it's so fitting. Rebecca, when she was conceived,
those twins, in her womb, Isaac and Jacob and Esau. And you know what she said? She
said, why am I thus? There is a struggle. The children
are struggling within me. And she said, why am I thus?
And he said, behold, in thee are two nations. Is that not a beautiful picture
of what's going on with you? You have a struggle. You believer,
you have a struggle. Well, you know what? So do I.
We have two natures struggling within us. We have the old nature
that we were born with, and we have a new nature that is created
of God after righteousness and true holiness. And these two
are opposed to one another, constantly at warfare with one another.
Therefore, I must exhort you to love. I must encourage you
to love one another. And what binds us together is
this gospel. What encourages us to love is
not self-exaltation, but rather self-abasement and the exaltation
of Christ. And that causes us to love one
another. And so it doth not yet appear
what we shall be, but when we see Him, John says, We shall
be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And every one that hath this
hope in himself. Do you have this hope in yourself?
Do you have this confidence that you shall see Christ, that you
shall be as He is? This is what faith is. Faith
is, this is hope in Christ. You see, my only hope of purifying,
being pure before God is in Christ. And I know this about you, your
only hope of purification is to be in Christ. That's it. We
have that in common, don't we? We have that in union together,
is that all of our hope rests in Christ. And so then I should ask you, do you abide in Christ? Are you in Christ? Do you abide in Christ in whom
are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? Do you abide by faith in Him?
Then this faith, listen, is a result of that eternal love and election
of God. You see, believer, we were not
there when God purposed, were we? We weren't there. I didn't
see this. How do we know this? Because
we believe. Faith is the evidence of election. It's the evidence of it. It's
the result of it. It's the result of Christ's perfect
sacrifice. It is the result of the quickening
power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. And this new life, produces
all the faith, hope, and love, all the fruits of the Spirit.
Therefore, we who are begotten of God love Christ and love the
brethren. I cannot tell you how many people
I have seen in my lifetime who really profess to love Christ,
really profess to love Him. They profess to believe this
gospel, but yet they will not darken the door of the place
where God's saints meet. They seem to have no love or
affection for the saints. They have no love or affection
for this gospel that binds the saints together. And I tell you,
something's wrong with that kind of love. John said this, if you
don't love the brethren, you are a liar. You can say you love
Jesus all you want to. You don't love the brethren?
You can't love Christ. It's impossible, John said. And so therefore, all of these
fruits of the Spirit that we have faith, hope, and love, these
come from the Spirit of God. And we love one another because
the love of Christ dwells in us. John said that he's repeating
the commandment in verse John 3. He's repeating the commandment
that he heard that night before Jesus left. He said, this commandment
we received of him, that you should believe on his name, the
name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and love one another. Love one another. Herein then is the rule and law
of every believer. See, we're not antinomians. We're
not antinomians. We're not lawless men. We have
a law. It's just not the law of Moses.
Our law is faith and love. That's the law we live under.
Faith and love. Faith in Christ and love for
the brethren. This is the law of God. And both of these, fruits of
the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance. You see, all of these are fruits
of the Spirit. If you go out and plant an orange
tree, do you suppose that you would get apples? It's just not
natural. It's not going to happen. You
plant an orange tree, you're going to get oranges. And I tell
you this, when the Spirit of God plants that new nature in
us, this is the fruit it yields. It will yield this fruit. Some
60, some 30, some 100, but it will yield fruit. It will. And you remember those that it
doesn't yield fruit to are those who are planted among the thorny ground hearers. They're
the ones that the Word is choked, and they don't bear any fruit.
They have all the leaves, but no fruit. So the fruits of the Spirit are
these love. Love is the first one, isn't
it? There remaineth these three, faith, hope, and love. But the
greatest of these is what? Love. Why? Not because love is
greater than faith or hope, but that this one endures. That's why it's the greatest.
Because love will continue when faith and hope are done away
with. And so we have this command of
our Savior to love one another. And so how is this love instilled
and stirred? It is stirred by hearing the
gospel of Jesus Christ, by knowing our union with Christ. That's
the only way this love grows. Peter says, seeing that you have
purified your souls and obeying the truth through the Spirit
unto unfeigned love of the brethren. That word unfeigned means without
hypocrisy. Without hypocrisy. Sincere love. This is the work of grace. But
Peter doesn't stop there. He exhorts us. And he says, see
that you love one another with a pure heart. In other words,
you should check out your love for one another. That's what
we should do. Don't just say you love your brethren. James
says don't love in word or in tongue. but in deed and in truth. We surely need to be encouraged
to love one another because our flesh is prone to self-love. Isn't that true of you, believer?
It's true of me. It's true of that old man. He's
prone to love self and the world. He's prone to love the kin of
this world even above believers. Isn't that why the Lord said,
if any man hate not his father and mother and sister and brother
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. He was telling
us that this fruit of the spirit would cause us to love him and
serve him and love each other above this world. And that's
what we're encouraged to do. Surely, as we desire to love
Christ more, we should desire to love the brethren more. And so what promotes this? He
desires that they be comforted and knit together to the acknowledging
and understanding of the mystery of God. What promotes this love? It is the gospel of God's grace
called the mystery of God. That's what promotes this. How can two walk together, the
scripture says, except they be agreed? Now, why are you here
this morning? Why is your affection set on me or on these other brethren? Because we walk together. We hold up the same head. We
hold up the same Christ. We adore the same Lord and Savior. And therefore, we are able to
walk together and agree and fellowship together around this gospel. And this gospel is revealed to
us. Consider out of all the world,
God chose you. You would have never known this
gospel. You would have never loved Christ or believed on Christ
or loved the brethren had he not revealed himself to you. That's just the only way. And we know and agree this, of
this, Christ is all. That's what we agree on. We agree
that Christ is all our salvation. Our salvation rests only in Him
and salvation is by grace, not by works, not by will, not by
merit, but by Jesus Christ alone. This is what we, this is our
union, this is our fellowship. Therefore, we who are born again
of the Spirit of God know the eternal love of the Father and
are quickened from the dead to see the election of God by grace. And therefore, if we know this
gospel, we know this, that all the treasures, all the treasures
are found in one person, Jesus Christ. We know this. And believer, because we are
in Christ, we shall all together receive the full inheritance
of Christ. Now, I've got several things
here I want us to see about being in Christ. Where does all the love and faith
and joy and peace and spiritual blessings flow to us? In Christ. in Christ. Look at chapter 1
in your text, but go back to chapter 1 of Colossians. Look
at verse 19. For it pleased the Father that
in Him, in Christ, should all the fullness dwell. The fullness
of what? Salvation. The fullness of the
blessings that God has for us should dwell in Christ. If we are ever to grow in our
love for one another, it must come from our love for Christ
and our hope to be found in Him. And so then I'll ask you, are
you in Christ? Are you one with Christ? Because
if you're not in union with Christ, you surely cannot be in union
with the brethren. For Christ is the head and we
are the body, and so as the body and head are one, so is Christ
and His church. Look at chapter 2 and verse 19. He says, talking about false
religion, they don't hold this head, but we do. He said, not
holding the head, "...from which all the body, by joints and bands,
having nourishment, ministered, and knit together..." There's
that word again, knit. "...knit together, increaseth
with the increase of God." You see, we all hold the head, and
we are the body. We are one with Christ. See,
then, we who believe whose hearts are knit by faith and love, you
were, you're in Christ because you were put in Christ. You were put in Christ. First
Corinthians chapter one in verse 30 says, but of God are you in
Christ? But of God are you in Christ? Who God hath made him. to be wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. You were put in Christ by the
election of God, and therefore, all spiritual blessings are yours
in Christ. All of them. All spiritual blessings
are yours. Go to Ephesians 1 and read it.
Read it again. I just quoted it earlier, but
I want you to read it. This is yours. Believer, this
is mine. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath, that's past tense, hath
blessed us with what? All spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. And so what is the evidence that
all these blessings are yours? Faith. Faith is the evidence
of our union with Christ. And faith is a gift of God. It is a gift of God through which
we become experimentally in union with Him. Though we were put in Christ,
though we were made in union with Him and He was made all
of our salvation, though Christ obtained for us all these blessings
through His life, death, and resurrection, We could not lay any claim to
salvation except we had believed. Listen, you can't have any of
these blessings except you believe on the Son of God. There's just
no way. And there's no way you can be
a part of this church, the church of Christ, except you experimentally
be in union with Him. Do you believe on Christ alone?
If you do, then we are in union with Christ and we are sons of
God, heirs and joint heirs with Christ. And now we have all of
the blessings given to us. And I want to name some of these
blessings. I want us to see some of these blessings and may God
stir them in your heart to love one another. The first thing
I would have us know is that these blessings aren't physical.
These blessings aren't physical. There are different kinds of
blessings, aren't there? They're physical, but these blessings
that you and I have are spiritual. Now, physical blessings, they
deal with the body, the body, the outward. They're temporal. And they only
last as long as the body lasts. Isn't that right? I mean, when
a man's dead, what good is it all of his riches that he had?
What's good of all the pleasure he had in his life when he dies?
It's all gone! And I'll tell you, physical blessings
are not any indication as to the favor of God, are they? What
about Pharaoh? Did he not have a lot of physical
blessings? That man had the whole world at his disposal. He had
all the pleasures of Egypt, the treasures and riches of the world. And what did God say? I set you
up that I should kill you and send you to hell. That's what
I did. That's what God did. He said that's all your purpose. So was that a sign of God's favor
because he raised him up? No. Rich man and Lazarus. Look at
that. Now what would the world think?
Who's blessed? According to the world. The rich
man or Lazarus? The rich man had everything. Lazarus was sick. He had sores
all over his body, laid at the gate begging for food every day
of his life. And the dogs were his doctors.
They licked his wounds. So which one was favored of God?
Could you tell by the outward blessings? You can't tell. And so you and I shouldn't look
at outward blessings as any indication as to God's favor or displeasure. Therefore, we thank God for our
physical blessings, and we should. But His giving or taking of these
things is not any indication as to His love. If God takes our health, if God
takes our family, if God takes everything we have, that is not
an indication of his hatred or his love. If he gives us everything
else, his love does not increase or
decrease. Our hope, then, is in Christ,
in whom are all spiritual blessings. What are spiritual blessings?
Those are the ones that fade not away, that never go away. That's what Peter said. He said, you who have been chosen
of God, you who believe on Christ, he said, you have received an
incorruptible. You shall receive an incorruptible
crown. Your inheritance is undefiled. It doesn't fade away. And so what is these spiritual
blessings? Well, look at Ephesians, and
we'll see a couple of them. Look at this. You were chosen
before the foundation of the world that you should be holy. Here's a blessing. You're holy. You got it? You're holy. That is a spiritual blessing. It is a blessing decreed of God
and obtained by Jesus Christ and imparted by the Holy Spirit. So what do you have to do with
it? Why are you holy? Well, I'm holy because... What? Well, if you're holy because
of anything you've done, then you're not holy at all. But we've
received these blessings as a grace of God given to us, not based
on any merit or good in us, but rather we are holy because God
purposed it. Christ obtained it. The Holy
Spirit imparted it. And it's yours forever. Never
shall it be taken from you. You are holy in the eyes of God. For he has created in us that
new nature which is, Paul said in Ephesians 4, which is created
after God in true, what? Holiness. Holiness. And so then what could remove
or ruin this blessing? Nothing in time could do it because
it was decreed in eternity. Nothing of us can ruin it or
remove it because nothing was merited or earned by us but by Christ. So in order for
your holiness to be moved, Christ himself would have to be dethroned.
Do you see how sure this blessing is? It's sure. Second of all, we are sons of
God. Isn't that what He goes on to say? Having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. In love, He predestinated us
to be sons. And by grace, God purposed us
to be sons. Now, there's only one begotten
Son, but we are adopted sons. and He loves us without cause
in us, and Jesus came to pay the adoption price. Why is it
that you should be a son? Well, God said you should be
a son. Do I need any other greater purpose
or reason as to why I'm a son? God said I should be a son. And not only that, but there
was a price to be paid for us to be sons. The Son of God Himself
must have taken our sin and bear our sin away so that we should
be sons. He paid an adoption price. And now God has sent forth His
Spirit into our hearts, crying what? Abba, Daddy. Daddy? Isn't that a term of endearment? That's just something very, you
know, a lot of, in this culture, people could have called all
the older men fathers, but there was a special term for someone
who was a true son that only they could use. And this is what
we, Abba, Father. That's what the Spirit has come
in and given us this heart to cry out to God. And our sonship then entitles
us. You talk about entitlements.
We've got some entitlements. We've got some entitlements because
of our Savior, because He earned them for us. Now then, thirdly,
we have this. We are eternally accepted of
God. eternally accepted. He said,
having predestined us to be adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to himself,
according to the good pleasure of the will, to the praise of
the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved. Accepted of God. God says over in Isaiah 4 to
54, we've studied that this past couple of weeks, Isaiah 54, he
said, for a small moment I have forsaken thee. For a small moment,
there was a time when we were lost. There was a time when we
were without God and without Christ in our hearts. But it was always God's heart
to gather us with great mercy. He said, I have forsaken you
for a small moment, but with tender mercies have I gathered
thee. Is that not true of us? That's
what he's done for us. Now let me ask you this, do you
always feel accepted? We are at times we feel unaccepted,
we feel grieved and we weep over our sin and we cry, oh wretched
man, that I am. Not that I was. How many people
talk like that, says, well, I was this when I was, you know, before
I was saved. I was this. Now, you are that. Whatever you were, you are. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? And so we cry this, but take
courage, believer, confess thy sins, and He is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Even because we were and are and forever shall be accepted
of God, where? In Christ. I'm accepted of God
in Christ. In Christ alone I'm accepted.
I've always been accepted, I'm accepted now, and I shall be
accepted in glory. Therefore, we should have courage
that we should be accepted. Why? Because of the fourth blessing,
we've been redeemed. Redeemed. Here's a spiritual
blessing. Redeemed! How I love to proclaim
it. Redeemed by the blood of the
Lamb. redeemed through his infinite mercy his child and forever I
am because he redeemed us that's what he says in verse 7 of Ephesians
1 he said in whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness
of sins according to the riches of his grace we have redemption and therefore
we can be assured of heaven of heaven Because He has redeemed us, He
will embrace us. And we shall forever sing with
the saints in glory. Because we are redeemed, we are
surely accepted. And not anything, anything, anything
shall separate us from this. And fifthly, we have a new nature. This is a spiritual blessing.
A new nature. God purposed to save us, make
us his sons. He's accepted us and he's redeemed
us by Christ. And how do we have all the proof
of this? By the new nature. This is the covenant promise.
He said, I will put my spirit within you. I will make in you
a new spirit. This is a new creation in us
that God has blessed us with that's not common to men. This is what God does for His
people. He creates in us a new heart. He calls us from the heathen,
cleanses us, gives us a new spirit. We died in Adam spiritually. Isn't that right? What died? When Adam sinned, what died? His spirit. Man's a tripartite
being, body, soul, and spirit. What died? The spirit. What does
Christ make alive? The spirit. He gives us a new
spirit, a new heart, a new nature. And you know what? This is a
blessing. It cannot sin. This is something that must be
ascertained by faith. You're not going to be able to
see this any other way by faith. He gives us a new spirit within
us that cannot sin. The old man, all it can do is
sin, but the new man, he can't do anything but righteousness. And you know what? When we die,
that spirit will ascend to God who gave it. And lastly, we've been given
the blessing of eternal life. Go to John 10. I'll close with
this. John chapter 10. Jesus said in 25, he said, I
told you. He said, tell us if you're the
Christ. He said, I told you. But you believe not. Works I
do my father's name they bear witness of me, but you believe
not because you are not of my sheep As I said to you now, why
did they not believe? Because they were not of his
sheep They were not his they were not his elect He said my sheep hear my voice
and I know them and they follow me and listen I give unto them
eternal life and and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. I give them eternal life, they
shall never perish, and neither shall any man pluck them out
of my hand. Now is that not enough? Does that not declare to us eternal
security? You bet it does. This is a spiritual
blessing given to us in Christ before the world began. And what
do these spiritual blessings do? They cause us to dwell up
with pride. Any of these blessings that I've
mentioned to you, do they give you any sense of pride? Accomplishment. Do they give you any sense of
accomplishment? That you've done anything. No,
all of this is by free grace. All of this is in Christ. And if you are in Christ, God
puts you in Christ. If you believe on Christ, you
are in Christ because God gave you faith to believe on Christ.
And if you keep believing on Christ, it will be because God
keeps you believing in Christ. And what does this do? It humbles
us. And when I look over at you, I can't look down on you, can
I? I can look across to you because
we're on the same level, every one of us. I like this, the gospel
is the great leveler. It abases all men and exalts
Christ. And what are we all doing? We're
all on the ground looking to Christ. Hey, you looking to Christ? So am I. I love you. I love you,
you love him, so do I. And that instills love for one
another. It binds us together. And you know, because we can't
be separated from Christ, we will never be separated from
each other. You get that? How many have gone to be in glory?
Since I've been here eight years, how many have went to be home
with the Lord Jesus Christ? And yet I tell you, we shall
never be separated from them. That's what John says in the
end. He said, and I saw no more sea. You wonder why he said that?
He was on an island. What was all around him? Sea. What separated him from the church? His little children. What separates? C. And you know what he said?
There'll be no more C. No more separation. No more separation. Nothing's gonna separate us because
we are in union with Christ. And because we are in union with
Christ, we love Him and we love each other. And that's my heart's
desire for you, is that you love one another. May God even instill that in
us. I pray God bless this.