Colossians chapter 1. This morning we'll
be looking at verses 21, pretty much through the end of
the chapter, verse 29. We'll try to get there. The title of the message this
morning is, The Message, The Means, and the minister. The message, the means, and the
ministers, and those will be my three points this morning.
First of all, the message. The message that we have been
studying here in this book has been a blessing to me. Every
time that I read through this chapter now, I am given more,
more light into these things as we study them, as we go over
them, and as I've gone over them with you, they become more and
more branded on my heart. We have seen in last time we
met together on Wednesday, we have seen this, that the Lord
Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. He says that in verse
14, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness
of sins, who is the image of the invisible God. And we know
this, that all things were created by Him and for Him. Our Lord God made all things
well, all things good. And yet when Adam sinned, the
curse of God fell upon all creation. And He said, Cursed is the ground
for thy sake. And man was cursed by the judgment
of God, it says, for as by one man sin entered into the world,
and death by sin, so death passed upon all men. Why? For all have
sinned in Adam. But Christ, who made all things
by His grace, consider this, He did not destroy all things
after sin corrupted His creation. Sin corrupted His creation and
corrupted man that He had made, but yet He sustained all things. And by Him, Paul says in verse
17, all things consist, all things continue, all things are bound
together and established by this one man, Jesus Christ. And He did not destroy the creation,
nor did He destroy man like He did the angels. The angels were
kept in bondage. He had no hope when they sinned. But when man sinned, God said
there was hope. God said there was one to come.
And this is the reason why all things still consisted. Even
in verse 18, He says, for Christ is the head of the body, the
church. Here is the purpose of God's
long-suffering, even that Christ should be the head of the church,
that He should be the Savior of His people that He gave Him
in eternity. That Christ should be the representative
man of all of the elect of God. That He should come and die for
their sins and be raised again from the dead. Notice that He
was the head of the church who is the beginning. He is the beginning
of the church. He is our head. Do you know where
salvation begins? It begins in eternity and it
begins in Christ. It was always in Christ. God
purposed that all salvation should rest in this one person, even
His Son. Therefore, the purpose for all
creation is this, in verse 18, that he might have the what?
Preeminence. This is the purpose of God, that
Jesus Christ should be highly exalted above every creature. That Christ His Son should have
the preeminence in the church. And that in Him, verse 19, should
all the fullness dwell. Fullness of what? Salvation.
All salvation should dwell in Him. Therefore Christ came into
the world as a man to fulfill the law of God, and by His death
to offer an atonement for sin. That's what He came for. The
world was cursed, and man was at enmity against God, Yet this
one man by his one offering, listen, verse 18, verse 20, he
hath made peace through the blood of his cross. Made peace for
who? For his people, his elect people. those that God gave Him. Therefore
God hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name that is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, and every tongue should confess that He is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father. And listen what His blood did,
what His cross did. It says, "...by Him," verse 20,
"...to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things in earth
or things in heaven." You do not see that this creation is
corrupt. Can you not see that? You can see it by how your car
gets old, by how everything you purchase decays and becomes old. You see, this is a cause of sin
and curse in the world is that there is There was a storm that
blew through on the east coast. 26, I think, or 29 people died
as a result of that. Can you not see that this creation
is groaning? Because of the curse. It's always
changing. It's always moving. There's destruction here, famine
here. This is the cause of sin. And
yet, listen, the Lord who made this earth has reconciled it. He's brought it under His dominion
again. See, the earth was under the
dominion of Adam. And everything was well until
what? He sinned. And yet now there's a second
man, a second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has reconciled
what that man Adam destroyed. He is now brought under, everything
is brought under the dominion of this man, Jesus Christ. And he's reconciled it. And listen,
he'll restore it one day. But more important than this,
Paul says, and you, in verse 21, even you. He reconciled all
things in heaven and earth, but the most important thing to me
is he reconciled even me, even me. He reconciled his elect people,
his sheep. Behold, you who are a believer
in Jesus Christ, you have he reconciled, reconciled to God. And listen, what Paul says, even
you, and this is important. Even you that were sometimes
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
hath He reconciled you. What does Paul continually do
in his word? Does he not continually bring
us back to this truth again and again and again and again? He exposes our nature. If you follow the Apostle Paul,
it's kind of, he'll go up and he'll show you the glories of
God, and then he comes down again to remind you of your own wickedness,
of your own nature. And they do this again and again
for a very specific reason, to abase you. That's what it does. It abases me. It takes away all
my pride. It takes away all my glory and
puts me in the dust before God. That's what it does every time.
Go over to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 50, 51. Isaiah
chapter 51. I want you to look at this, because
this is necessary. This is the message that we preach.
This is the gospel message that we preach. The depravity of man. We preach this message constantly.
Even because the Scripture does. Now, go look at this. Hearken
unto me, you that follow after righteousness, you that seek
the Lord. Now, who is he talking to? Who
is the prophet speaking to? He is only speaking to the righteous. He is only speaking to those
who follow and seek the Lord. This is only directed to those
who are born again of the Spirit of God. How do I know that? Because none are righteous by
nature. No, not one. Listen, the Scripture
says, none seeketh after God. The only way a man is made righteous
is by the Holy Spirit creating in him a righteousness that he
himself did not merit. Even the righteousness of God
which is by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ unto all and
upon all them that believe. So who is he speaking to? He's
speaking to those who are saved, to believers in Jesus Christ.
And listen to what he says to us. We who are believers in Jesus
Christ, He gives us two things to look at. Two things. He says, look unto the rock whence
you are hewn, and secondly, to the hole of the pit whence you
were digged. First of all, look to the rock.
Who is this but the Lord Jesus Christ? He is the rock of ages
from which we were hewn or taken out of. You see, we were in Christ
from eternity, and yet we were saved by Him. He is our rock,
our foundation for our souls. Listen, most religious people,
when they start digging into their religion, they don't want
to dig too deep. They don't want to dig too deep.
Most religion is very superficial. Just floats on the top. It really
doesn't need to dig very far. They don't want to. They have
surface issues that they're dealing with. Health, wealth, prosperity,
suffering. They're just dealing with surface
things. They don't want to probe too
deep into the depths of a man's soul They don't see that the
issue is not outward things. The issue with man is sin. I believe we, at this time last
week, they had a community discussion on race. They got all together,
big group of people. They had black people and white
people and Hispanic people, and they just wanted to talk about
the issue of racism. You know what? I can sum up the
issue in one word. Sin. You want to know the root
cause of every issue man has? It is this. He is a sinner by
nature and by choice. There's the root issue. Now deal
with that. Don't deal with the surface issues
of how you treat this guy or how you treat this guy and how
you feel. No, no, you need to deal with
the issue. The issue is sin. The issue is your own heart. The issue is that you are corrupt
from the very core of your being. That's the issue. I heard a man
speak about man's need of a miracle. He was talking about one of the
miracles that the Lord Jesus Christ performed. And he said,
oh, look, this man had a need. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
and gave him a miracle. Do you need a miracle today?
Are you sick today? Are you doing this today? Are
you having problems today? See, he's only dealing with surface
issues. The Lord Jesus Christ healed
in order to show you a spiritual malady, a spiritual sickness
that is in your own very soul. It is sin. And the miracle that men need
is not superficial and can't be cured by religious or political
means. The only way this remedy is to
be cured is if the hand of Almighty God reach down into your soul
and give you life from the dead. That's the only remedy. There's
no remedy. There's no religious cure. You
can't come down here. You can't go over there. I don't
care if you come down to this isle and make 27 decisions for
Jesus and do all these good things that you're supposed to do. That
will not save you. Will not save you. The only hope
for you is to recognize your depravity and bend the knee seeking
mercy from Christ. This is the work of a sovereign
God, to give life to the dead sinner. And we who believe on
Christ, we look to this rock. You see, He's my rock. I know
my need, and I see Him as all my hope and salvation. I see
that He cannot be moved, that His salvation is forever secure. He hath made peace with God,
and now God says unto us who look to the rock, It is well
with you. It's well. Why? Because Christ
has redeemed me. He's paid my sin debt. That's
my hope for the cure of my soul. And second, Isaiah says, don't
not only look to the rock, but also look at this, the hole of
the pit from whence you were digged. What is this hole of
the pit? That is your own corrupt nature. You should look at it. That's why the apostle in our
text is reminding us that you were sometimes alienated. You
were enemies in your mind. You were by wicked works. You
were by nature evil. That's what he's pointing us
to. This pit. And we who have been born, we
were born dead in sins. Liars from the womb. Our hearts
are the fountainhead of all corruption. And we by nature are only evil
continually. Now let us probe the depths of
our depravity. Let us trace our origin. And we will find this hole to
be a bottomless pit. Looking unto the rock, we find
all our comfort and salvation. For as we gaze into the pit of
our nature, The more we look, the more we see that in my flesh
dwelleth no good thing. The more I look at me, the more
sin I see. By gazing into our own pit, and
I want you to do this, And the apostle and the prophet tell
us to do this, don't look at someone else's pit. You're not
to look at someone, look at your own pit from which you were dug.
Your own pit. Stare down into the abyss of
your own nature and see that you were alienated, enemies in
your mind by wicked works. And listen, if you've never been
alienated in enemies of God, then I tell you this, you've
never been reconciled. Who needs to be reconciled? Only
those who are alienated. Only those who are strangers.
Only those who are separated by their sin. Those are the only
ones that need to be reconciled. Isaiah said, Your iniquities
have separated you from your God. Do you know of your former
state of absolute depravity and hopelessness to reconcile yourself. Do you know this? Have you seen
the enmity in your own heart against God? I'll tell you this,
if you've never hated God, you never loved God. That's just so. If you've never
recognized your own hatred for God, you'll never love Him. But we who have believed on Jesus
Christ, we see this. I see this in myself. Even because
we see that Jesus Christ has endured the full measure of God's
wrath for us on the tree. Now, how vast is your pit? How deep is your depravity? Can you plumb the depths? Now then, as you look at that
pit, I want you now to gaze up at Jesus Christ and consider
this, that he not only took my pit
of sin, but all the sin of all his people. And God made him to be sin and
punished my sin in him. Now, how great is that sacrifice?
How great is the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ that He
bore all the sins of all His people and endured the justice
of God without mercy. Look in Isaiah 42. Isaiah 42
and verse 24. I want you to notice a transition
here. It says, Who gave Jacob for a spoil in Israel for the
robbers? Did not the Lord, He against whom we have sinned? Listen. For they would not walk
in His ways, neither were they obedient unto His law. Well,
who is that? Well, that's us. That's us. Therefore, He hath poured upon
them No, Him. Singular. They sinned. And yet God poured
on Him, singular, the Lord Jesus Christ, poured upon Him the fury of His
anger and the strength of battle. The Lord Jesus had trodden the
winepress of the wrath of God alone and in the body of His
flesh through death has reconciled even you who by nature were so
corrupt and vile. How? Through His death. Through His death He has reconciled
us. Go back to your text. And look
at that. You were sometimes alienated
enemies in your mind by wicked works, now hath He reconciled.
How? In the body of His flesh through
death. See, believer, that our sins
did not get us a free pass. Your sins were not taken and
swept under the rug of God's justice. No, they were punished. My sin was punished. This is
the glory of the message, that my sins have been punished. Our sins deserved hell, and that's
exactly what they got. Hell. Therefore, he through his
death, having forever purged our sins, forever removed them
from the books of God, blotting them out as a thick cloud with
his blood, he is able then, as the apostle said, to present
you, even you, holy, unblameable, and unreprovable
in his sight. Did you notice that it is in
whose side are you holy? In whose side are you unblameable
and unreprovable? In His side. Not in yours. In His side. Not in our side, for our sins
are ever before us. We are commanded to look at the
pit from which we are dug. So our sins are ever before us
as still we drag around this old rotten corpse of our nature
around our neck. We are dragged down constantly,
cast down and made low because of our sins. Believer, does the sight of your sin bring
you such doubts and fears as it does me? then let us look to Christ and
see by faith that He through His death has removed all of
our sins before the eyes of God. Consider that this was His purpose
from eternity. This was His will that you be
without sin. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Now, what should we do then in
this life? Let us consider, let us continue,
look at your verse 23 there. If you continue in the faith,
grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the
gospel, So what are we to do in spite of this flesh that constantly
weighs us down? What do you continue to do about
this? Look by faith to Jesus Christ. That's it. It's not complicated. He didn't give us a set of rituals
to follow. He didn't give us a set of things
and ordinances and laws that we should be saved by them. We should continually look to
Christ by faith. This is how we live. We live
by faith in Christ. Let us look by faith, for faith
in Christ is the only evidence of grace in the heart. I'll tell you, when a man is
saved, he's changed, isn't he? He's a totally different man.
We are changed men. We become new creatures. We are changed. Surely, we forsake
our sin and despise it and would love to live righteously. I would
love to live righteously. I would love to be righteous
as my Savior. I would. It is my heart's desire
to be righteous. Yet in all our desire of righteousness,
every believer knows that we surely fall so very short of
it. And as we gaze into the pit,
the old man of our nature, his grip seems to tighten around
our neck, and we begin to feel so bound by it. Therefore, do not lay any confidence
in the flesh. which we know is so mixed with
sin. But herein we know our acceptance
and reconciliation even this, if you continue by faith in this
gospel, rooted and grounded in this message. The message that
I've just preached to you of your absolute depravity and need
of Christ. Look to Christ and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth. And you that are saved, what
are you doing? Continue to look to Him by faith. If you continue, then you know
that you are reconciled if you continue by faith. Listen to
the Word of God. If a man has real faith, God-given
faith, we know this, it is a supernatural gift. I know this. My faith is a supernatural gift. Not anybody can do this. Matter
of fact, I couldn't do this until God gave it to me. I could not
believe. Try as you may. It'll never work,
except God give it to you. The Scripture said, For by grace
you are saved through faith. And that is not of yourself,
faith. It is a gift of God, not of works. You can't merit it, you can't
earn it, you can't work for it. Only God can give it. And when
God gives it, He never takes it away. It's always there. Jesus said, This is the work
of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent. He said, no
man can come unto me. No man can believe on me except
the Father which has sent me draw him. And everyone he draws, you know
what he's going to do? He's going to raise you up at
the last day. He will save you. Everyone he draws and everyone
he gives faith to, if you believe on Christ, you are just as sure
of heaven as if you are there. Matter of fact, you are there
in Christ. You are. And this faith... This faith will endure. Now,
false religious faith, they began to twist this text. And they
say, well, you know, you'll be saved if you continue by faith. In other words, they're trying
to make faith the cause of your salvation. Faith is not the cause
of your salvation. It's the result of your salvation. See, my salvation was done 2,000
years ago. And you know what? I just came
to understand it. I just came to know it. That's
what happens. That's what faith is. So they
twist faith and they make man's will the power by which they
believe. And I'll tell you, the wicked
faith of man may or may not endure. But seeing it is not of God,
it will have no value to their souls, even because their faith
is in another Christ and in another gospel, which is not another.
But a false gospel of freewill works religion, and their Christ,
whose blood did not actually redeem anyone or reconcile anyone
to God, therefore, it matters little if their faith holds out
or not. I've seen Arminians, and I've
seen false free will works, religion, faith. I've seen them hold on
to that to their death. And I've seen people just frivolously
walk through life without it. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't
value them. Why? It's not of God. If your faith is not of
God, it's not going to matter one bit. But we who have heard
the gospel of God's grace and believe on Jesus Christ, We know this, our faith is of
God. We were purposed of God, saved
of Jesus Christ, and called by the Holy Spirit. And we know that we have peace
with God because He had nailed our sins to the cross. And now, even now, we continue
in this faith firmly planted and rooted in this gospel and
we will not be moved from it. You can't get me to move from
this gospel. You can't. Well, how did this, they come
to believe this gospel? Now this is the means, look at
this in verse 23. If you continue by faith rooted
and grounded, not being moved away from the hope of the gospel
which you have heard, and which was preached into every creature
that is under heaven. How was this gospel then believed? What was the means of this? The
preaching. It's important for believers
to know the place of preaching the gospel. You should know what
place this holds in God's economy. It's important even because in
our day, it is very neglected and seen as a useless exercise
to those who profess to believe the gospel that we preach. We
who believe the gospel know the word of God and by our own experience
know this. The preaching of the gospel is
the power of God unto salvation. We know that. We know that. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. We know as believers the importance
of baptism, don't we? We know that that's the only
public confession. And yet Paul says this. He says,
I came not to baptize. Is baptism important? Yes. If
you believe you should be baptized because your Lord commanded,
but more important, oh wow, more important than that? Yes, I came
to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you know what he says? He
says to those that perish, this preaching is foolishness. I'm
going to ask you this very carefully. Now, you should be candid. What
do you think about preaching? What place does it hold in your life? I'll tell you, if it doesn't
hold the highest place, something's wrong. Because you believe something
to be more important than that. And yet you confess it is the
power of God. Now to those who perish, preaching
is foolish. Now is preaching foolish to you? Now the success of preaching
is not in the act of preaching nor the preparation of preaching
nor in the power of the hearer, but only in the cross that we
preach. It's only in Christ is there
any power at all in this message. If there's any power at all to
save you, it has to come from Him. It's not from me, and it's
not from you. Now, what does the world think
of preaching? It's foolishness, unnecessary,
and powerless. Consider this as their experience.
They sit, they listen, and they get nothing. They come, they
sit, they're bored, they get nothing. They come, they sit,
they don't get anything. You see, to them, it is foolish
because they have, there's no power in it for them. There's
no love for it. That's their experience. All you preachers do is talk
about sin. Man, I'm so tired of hearing
about sin. I just, man, you only talk about Christ and His blood
and His righteousness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I heard it. I heard it. I heard it. No, you
don't, you don't, you never heard it at all. If that's your attitude
towards it, you've never heard it. Never heard it. You see, what do we do this for?
We do this to abase man and exalt God. And that is the power of
God in this message. Are you abased? Is Christ exalted? And listen, I will never change
this message. Why would I? Because I know it's
the power of God. I know this is the power of God
unto salvation. If there's any hope for anyone
to come and sit under this ministry, it must be by this gospel that
I preach. The gospel of God's free grace.
I won't change it. I'm rooted in it. I'm grounded
in it. All my faith rests in it. My soul depends on it. Therefore, I preach it. And listen,
you hear of men, they talk of grace. If they don't preach it,
it's because they don't believe it. Whatever a man believes, that's
what he's going to preach. He can confess it all he wants
to in private, but if he doesn't preach it, he's not a preacher.
And listen, you show me a man that has no desire to hear the
gospel preached, and I'll show you a man who's lost. Now, he let that sink in. So, all your friends and family
that tell you they're saved and have no desire to hear this gospel
preached, you can pretty much bank down. They don't have any
interest in this gospel. They have no interest in Christ. Man says preaching is foolishness
and has set the things of this world above the worship of God,
then that man is lost. You put a believer in a place
where there is no preaching of the gospel, where he cannot be
fed, and I'll tell you, he will cry. Didn't that what Lot did when
he was in Sodom? Scripture says they vexed his
soul daily. If you're without the gospel,
I know this, it vexes your soul. It does every believer. Why?
Because we have to have it. I have to hear it again and again
and again. I have to hear it. A true believer
that is separated from the gospel and the saints will cry out in
vexation of spirit. He must have it. And then how
is this message sent? Only by God's preachers. Only
by men sent. The second Thessalonians says,
beloved, we are bound always to give thanks to God for you,
beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth, which you were called by our gospel. Through the preaching
of the gospel, it comes by men who are sent. Paul says, I am
made a minister. You see, preachers don't send
themselves. I did not come to Louisville, Kentucky by myself. I tell you the truth, I didn't
come necessarily because you called me, although both were
true. I came because God called me. God called me. And I tell you,
I have one thing to do. Preaching is not a multi-pronged
thing. I don't have many things to do.
I have one thing to do. Preach the Word. Preach the word
when men love it and when men hate it. Preach the word when
it's popular and when it's not. Preach the word in season and
out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with
all longsuffering. And by doing so, I feed your
souls with knowledge. That's what God said. I have
sent you pastors according to my own heart to feed you with
knowledge and understanding. See, I was made a minister. The seminary didn't make me one.
You didn't make me one. I didn't make me one. God made
me one. And that's true of every pastor.
And to encourage pastors, the Apostle Peter says this, feed
the flock of God. Paul said, I warn you, pastors,
that you should take heed to yourselves to feed the flock
of God which he purchased with his own blood. We are to feed the flock of God
so that you may grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
We feed you with the sincere milk of the word that you may
grow by. And in my laboring and striving,
this message is not obtained in any other way through prayer
and study. And therefore, I preach unto
you what God gives me for your benefit." For your benefit. And listen, you should forsake
everything and avail yourselves to it at all possibility. Why? It's for you. You not see
that, that I'm here for you, for your benefit? And this message
I preach, it is the message of God. It is the power of God. The means by which this message
is delivered is preaching. And who preaches it but those
that are sinned? And what do they do? They preach for your
benefit, for your growth. And Lord bless this to your hearts.