If you would open your Bibles
to the book of Colossians. Colossians chapter one. Colossians chapter one. This morning I have a message
that is good news. I have a message that will hopefully
be comforting. I have a message that if we understand
it, if the Lord blesses it to our hearts, it will be greatly
beneficial. But in order to get there, I'm
gonna spend some time talking about our evil thoughts, our
sinful deeds, and our lives on this earth that are oftentimes
consumed with negatives. The title of my message is Our
Misery is Necessary. Our Misery is Necessary. I use that word misery because
I want us to all look at the things I'm talking about from
our point of view. Whenever something happens to
you or to someone else, it's tough, it's not great, but if
it happens to me, it's miserable. That's the way we see things.
And hopefully after this message, I not only want us to see that
our misery in the flesh is not only necessary, I want us to
see that it is of the utmost importance and that inevitably
in the end, it's extremely beneficial. If we look at the first couple
verses of Colossians 1, it says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother, 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. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith
in Christ Jesus and the love which he have to all the saints.
I first must say that this message is to the saints. This message
is to the child of God. That's the person that everything
that happens to is for our benefit or his glory. And it's important
that we realize when we talk about our misery, I want us to
realize that that consumes us. And for an example of that, is
I'll give a quick little story of something that happened to
me not that long ago. On a wonderful Saturday morning,
that I didn't have to work, after a great night's sleep, I was
surprised to know that we were gonna go somewhere that I would
choose. The breakfast that was made was my favorite and it was
wonderful. And we got in the car and I started
driving to the place I wanted to go. The kids were acting well. Everybody was happy. It was 72
degrees, my perfect weather, clear skies, everything was perfect. As we almost got to where we
were going, the car in front of me all of a sudden slowed
down real quick, and I had to slam on the brakes and come to
a halt, and I said, why don't you just use a turn signal? It's
not that hard. Well, one of my children in the
back said they had their turn signal on, which was not the
right response to me in that moment. So I, trying to do it
in a nice way, said, you don't need to say that. You can't see
from back there what's going on. Let dad do the driving, or
something to that extent. Then at that moment, my wife
quietly leaned with her mouth down and said, I think they did
have their turn signal on. Which was also not the right
thing to say to me. So now I've made a mistake because
I wasn't paying attention, everything else was going perfect, and that
ruined the next few hours for me. It was my fault. My child
was not trying to correct me, they were just saying something.
And my wife was trying to help me not yell at my kid because
they were right. And so I sulk for the next few
hours and get frustrated and I'm short. One little thing goes
wrong and it just throws us all off. That's how we act. That's
how we go through this life. If I ask you what your opinion
of something is, more often than not, we come up with a negative
story. We go to somebody's house and eat food and they have six
different things to eat and three desserts to choose from. And
we get in the car and we leave and we say, well, the cake was
a little dry. That's just how we are with everything. In this
passage, it's a passage that has so many wonderful things,
so many amazing things that the Lord has done for us and the
child of God gets. And what I want to look at is
how all these negative things in our lives, how important they
are and necessary when it comes to understanding and seeing the
amazing work of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. So look
at verse five with me. It says, for the hope which is
laid up for you in heaven, where have ye heard before in the word
of the truth of the gospel? Has anyone in here Ever felt
discouraged? Have you ever felt hopeless?
Have you ever felt depressed? We've all gone through times
in our lives, sometimes they last for a few minutes, sometimes
they last for years, where we just get in a funk. We get depressed,
and that word has a connotation to it, but everybody gets down
over things. Everybody lets things bother
them. And it's so important that the Lord makes us feel those
things so that when we see and we hear things, such as in Lamentations
it says, the Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will
I hope in him. If we've never felt hopeless,
why in the world would we understand, or how in the world would we
understand the idea of hope? If we've never been discouraged,
if we've never been depressed, it's impossible to look somewhere
for hope, for things to get better. In 1 Peter 1.21, it says, 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? We
have to be brought so low that we have to see it ourselves and
understand that we must have someone else bring us up. We
have to have somewhere to look. Earthly speaking, these things
I'm talking about, being discouraged, being depressed, we relate them
to earthly things. But everything we're going to
talk about from here on, the main application is with our
salvation. Have you ever felt hopeless when
it comes to your sin? Have you ever been discouraged
when you're trying to behave well? I've come to a conclusion
after a message saying to myself, I'm gonna work, I'm gonna do
everything I can not to lie. I'm gonna do everything I can
not to whatever it is. And man, two minutes later, I find myself
doing something and I'm like so discouraged about it. If we
don't feel that discourage, we can't recognize that we're desperate
for someone else to do it for us, to someone else to help us.
So when we see that we're hopeless in salvation, that we can't save
ourselves, we can't stop sinning, we can't keep ourselves from
eternal damnation, it makes us to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to feel the negative
in order to see and appreciate the positive. Look at verse six
here. And this says, this hope which
has come unto you as it is in all the world and bringing forth
fruit as it doth also in you since the day you heard of it
and knew the grace of God in truth. Has anyone here ever felt
cut off, felt removed, felt separated? There are plenty of times I'm
sitting in a pew listening to someone preach the gospel and
I feel completely cut off. I feel like I can't stop thinking
about some silly thing that happened yesterday, or something that's
coming up, and I can't listen, no matter how hard I try. I feel
so removed from the Spirit of God at times, and I feel separated. And as a child of God, the feeling
of separation from the Lord is something we must feel in order
to appreciate being in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're given
these feelings in earthly situations so that we can actually understand
them. Because really, when we think about the idea of being
removed or cut off from the Lord, we use our earthly experiences
to relate that, if that makes sense. If we have a situation
where we're separated from someone we love, We have an idea of what
it's like to be away from them, the longing that we have to see
them soon, to be with them again. We use that feeling when we read
in the scripture about being separated from God. And when
the Lord Jesus Christ brings us close to him, we relate that
to that earthly experience. And if we never had the longing
or the separation from someone we loved, we wouldn't understand
what it's like to be separated from Christ. In Matthew 15, 13,
it says, every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted
shall be rooted up. In Colossians 2, it says, we're
rooted and built up in Him. The word in this verse I want
to look at is it says, bringeth forth fruit. Now, I sure don't
feel like I bring forth fruit, but we see so many scriptures
that say that the child of God bringeth forth fruit. Turn over
to John 15 with me. John 15. Look in verse 1 of John 15. I
am the true vine, and my father is the husband. Every branch
in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch
that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more
fruit. Now ye are cleaned through the
word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except
ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye
can do nothing. "'If a man abide not in me, "'he
is cast forth as a branch and is withered, "'and men gather
them and cast them into the fire, "'and they're burned. "'If ye
abide in me, and my words abide in you, "'ye shall ask what ye
will, and it shall be done unto you. "'Herein is my Father glorified
that ye bear much fruit, "'so shall ye be my disciples.'" It
is so important that we bear fruit. In this example, there are many
negatives that have to happen to a plant in order for it to
bear fruit. The Lord says we will bear fruit.
What has to happen? We must be purged. We must be
pruned. It says if we're not bearing
fruit, the branch will fall off. It says the roots will be dug
up if there's no fruit coming from it. Our life is full of
pruning and purging and falling off because of our sin and what
we do. And we must experience this in
order for us to make fruit, to have fruit come forth. And as
we read the scripture, we see that as a church we beareth fruit. And the most important thing
in this place is that the gospel's preached. That's what bears fruit. The Lord Jesus Christ does. The
moment a person actually thinks that they might be bearing fruit,
they are just about to be pruned. And I mean pruned right down
to the bare nubs. We must realize that it's the
Lord who bears fruit, but he will bear fruit in his people.
But these things, being cut off, being removed, being separated,
being pruned, all these things are necessary that we bear fruit
for the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse nine in Colossians
1. For this cause, we also, since
the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire
that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in
all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy of
the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and
increasing in the knowledge of God. Has anybody here ever felt
dumb or stupid when it comes to the gospel? Have you ever
felt like you're reading something and you're just, I don't have
a clue what that means. I don't understand it at all.
Have you ever listened to someone preach a wonderful message for
40 minutes on a verse of scripture and you walk out here thinking
to yourself, I don't know if I get it. I don't know if I understand. Look what, in verse 9, the knowledge
it says we need. It says, to desire that ye may
be filled with the knowledge of his will. We try so hard in
this world and in the flesh to gain knowledge. We try to understand
things. We try to learn things. If there
is one thing that we could learn, that we could know, that would
maybe make our life easiest it could possibly be, is that we
have the knowledge that everything is of the will of God. All the
things that happen to us would be infinitely easier if our simple
response to it was, well, I know that the Lord did that. Now,
I'm awful in the moment. Those words are not coming from
experience. Those are words coming from reading the gospel, because
I can't do it. But if the Lord will give us
that knowledge, that's wisdom. Wisdom is knowing that everything
that happens is for our good and His glory. Now, it may not
be the good we want. It may not be the good we see.
But one day, we're going to understand that all of it Every single thing
that happened was just perfect. It was so right, it was so perfect. The knowledge of His will is
everything we need to see. And look in verse 10, that ye
might walk worthy of the Lord under the pleasing, being fruitful
in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. The
two things this chapter says is we need to know that it's
His will, and we need to know of God. That's all we need. If we know who God is and we
know that everything's of His will, everything else is so much
easier. All the misery of life just fades
away. All right, look at verse 11. Strengthened with all might according
to His glorious power unto all patience and longsuffering and
joyfulness. Have you ever felt weak? Feeble,
or a word I like to use in this example, is inconsequential. Have you ever felt like you just
didn't matter? I feel like that all the time. There are moments, do we not
get so offended when people treat us as if we're normal? Sometimes
I get frustrated with something that happens and I think to myself,
well they did the exact same thing to everybody else, why
do I think they should do it better to me? I am very consequential. I think I am very important. I don't realize that I am so
weak. I'm so feeble and frail. That's
a good reason why our flesh that we live in is so weak, so that
we can understand how little we can actually do. Do you know
how hard it is for a person who's really strong to understand what
weakness is? The world's strongest man, we
have all these competitions to fill this, and they pick up 18
wheelers and pull them across and do all this crazy stuff.
That person doesn't really have an understanding of what weakness
is. But a person who can't lift the smallest thing, you know,
as we age and our bodies start to become frail and things happen
to us, we get a little better glimpse of those things. We're
foolish when we're young thinking we can accomplish anything and
do anything. But as we get older, our bodies start to show us that
I'm not really able to do anything. And that feebleness and that
frailness is so important because we need to see it in our sin
and who we are when it comes to being in front of our God.
I'm going to come to something in a minute, but I'll say this
now. Every person will stand before a holy God at some moment.
And are we gonna stand there in our flesh, in that weak, feeble,
just blind to who we are? Or are we gonna understand that
we need somebody else to stand there for us? We need someone
else to be our strength. This verse says, strengthened
with all might. It doesn't say you're strong.
It says you're strengthened with all might. There's nothing above
all might. Like, you can't say, I'm so strong
that I'm stronger than all might. Like, that's the infinity of
strength. And it says, it's according to His glorious power. That's
where strength comes from, from the Lord Jesus Christ. And it
teaches us patience and longsuffering would join us. When you understand
that you're weak, You've experienced weakness and being inconsequential
and unimportant. When you've experienced that,
what it gives you is patience. A person who can't do anything,
they become more patient because you can't do anything. If you've
ever been in a situation that you can't solve, like, what's
the reason in hurrying? You can't do anything about it.
It makes you patient. And then also, it says here,
it makes you long-suffering with joyfulness. Those two words don't
go together in any other situation other than when it comes being
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are long-suffering because
we know we're in Him, we're enduring through the flesh, and we do
it joyfully because of what He's done for us. When you realize
that you've got nothing and He's everything, you joy in that.
And it makes you go back to having a hope. You look to Him. It makes
you understand the knowledge you have of His will. That's
all that matters because that's all we can do. And let me tell
a story here that I want to transition to us understanding these miseries
give us perspective. Whenever we look at something,
the angle we see it is always so important. You can look at
something from one way and it's really big and you go to the
other side and it's really small. Perspective matters. As a child
and growing up, I have received a lot of gifts of money. You
have a birthday party and you're so excited you open a card and
there's money in it. And throughout life, you graduate
school, you get married, you have all these events that happen
and people give you money. They all give you presents. Some
of them are a lot of money. All of those gifts, I don't know
how many there are. Could be hundreds. There is only
one person that I ever recall giving me money and the specifics
of it. As a child, I used to get a card
every birthday from my great-grandmother, Maude. And at the time, when
I was little, I opened the card, saw it was from her, it had money
in it, and I moved on to the next one. I didn't pay much attention
to it. Over time, I started to appreciate
the card more. As I got older and I understood
the circumstances of that card, it meant more to me. I did not
know Great Grandma Maud. I don't actually remember meeting
her. I might have when I was a child, but I don't remember
meeting her. Yet, as I got older, that gift became more important
than the other gifts I got. I remember my sister and I looking
forward to the others card from Great Grandma Maud. Now, the
card didn't say anything special. I don't remember any of the words
that were in them, and I don't even know if they had words,
but they were always signed by a hand that you could tell had
to concentrate really, really hard in order to write her name. And I remember emotionally looking
back at it of opening that card and seeing two or three dollars
in it. It didn't mean anything to me
originally. I mean, I was gonna open one with 20 in a few seconds,
but as I gained perspective and I was told she didn't have anything,
I was told where she lived and how she lived and all those things,
and me not knowing her meant she really didn't know me either.
Yet every year, she sent me all she could. She gave me everything
she could part with in that moment for my birthday. And it's amazing
that the smallest gift I received on every birthday became the
most important because of the perspective I had on it. When
we understand who we are, and what we get from the Lord Jesus
Christ. When we understand what was given
up for our salvation, when we understand the price that had
to be paid, the sacrifice that had to be made by the one giving
us that gift, it changes the perspective of it. When I was
young, I didn't know what I was being given. I may not have even
remembered the first time when the gift started coming. Knowing her, she probably sent
it to me when I was one and I didn't realize I got it. But the gift
of salvation from the Lord Jesus Christ was someone giving everything
to those who were saved. The Lord Jesus Christ gave his
life for us to be saved. And we must see throughout this
and a few more points here that these things that happen to us
in this earth, these miseries, these trials we go through are
what makes us, what stokes our love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we don't have, think of a person who's spoiled. You think of someone
who grows up with just an immense amount of money, power, everything
they want throughout their life. They have no grasp They have
no grasp of even desire because they just get everything they
want. The perspective of someone who has nothing towards someone
who gives them everything. It's just, it's just everything
to them. It's the story we see about the widow's mites. They
didn't have anything, but gave all they had. That gives us a
perspective of understanding what great things the Lord has
done for us. Look at verse 12 here. giving
thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light. I think all of us at
some point in our life have been an outcast. We've been alone. I remember moments as a kid when
in middle school walking the long way to class because I really
hoped that I wouldn't run into this one kid who I was scared
was going to beat me up. I remember thinking that I just, I didn't
know what I was going to do. How do you get out of this moment?
We all must understand that we are outcasts. We're nothings. We're nobodies. In our flesh
and in Adam, we are dead in sin and we're alone. I mean, we're
alone. There are gonna be people in
judgment day that are gonna be content to go stand before God
alone, stand in all that they've done, all that they have, and
there will never be a more miserable place, more lonely place than
that moment. But it says here, it says, made
us meet to be partakers of the inheritance, to be a partaker,
to be one who is a part of. So we don't have to stand alone
before God. We stand in Christ. We're with
Him. We get to partake in everything
that He's done. Look over real quick at 1 Peter
4. In Hebrews it says, for we are
made partakers of Christ. We're with him, we're in him.
1 Peter 4, look at verse 12. Beloved, think it not strange
concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some
strange thing happen unto you. I love that. It says don't think
it strange that you have these fiery trials that try you. Don't
think it's odd that these things happen to you. Verse 13, But
rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that
when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding
joy. Don't worry about the things
that are happening in the flesh. Don't worry about these awful
things that happen to you in the world, because you are a
partaker of Christ's sufferings. What He did, His death, we get to partake in that. You
know what that means? That means that Him being punished
for our sins means that we don't have to be. It means He took
all the pain. He took all the suffering. All
this we feel right now, this thing I'm calling misery, it's
nothing compared to what we get in Christ. And because we felt
these sufferings, we get to feel the remedy of this. We get to
feel and think to ourselves, I don't have to go through that
for eternity. Instead, for just a short breath, we suffer. But
because of what Christ did, we get eternity with Him. We get
eternity with eternal life. It's so amazing. Look at our
text, verse 13. Who hath delivered us from the
power of darkness? Who, and hath translated us into
the kingdom of His dear Son? Have you ever been in a place
you wanted to disappear or be invisible? Think of that same
scenario I just gave a moment ago, and I said some people will
stand before God alone. Can you imagine that? Can you
imagine a moment that you'd want to be more invisible than that
moment? Translated here can have two
things. I looked in the concordance,
there are two things here that came across that are perfect for this. One
is exchange. We're translated. We've been
exchanged. Our places have been exchanged. Instead of standing before God
in our sin, the Lord Jesus Christ stands in our stead, covering
us up pure, holy, and perfect. We exchange places with him.
And the other is, carry away. It says, and we have been carried
away into the kingdom of his dear son. Our brother, a few
days ago, Claus there in Danville, has been carried away. He's been
taken. He's been taken to the most glorious
place. And thankfully, because of what
we just saw, we're a partaker in him, we get to be with him
in glory. Because of what Christ did, we
get to be carried away, carried to him. Just a couple more here. The very first phrase of verse
13 says, who hath delivered us? There are a couple negative words
that I had that I thought were delivered, but instead let me
just say this quick thing. All of us here recently with
Christmas, or at least most of us, had a package or had a gift
that was shipped to us. We saw something online and we
ordered it. And let me quickly explain how that works. We jump
online on a computer or phone, and we have billions of options,
and we select one thing. We make a choice. We look at
that particular thing, and we say, that's what I want. And
then we look at the price of it, and we make a decision. We
say, am I going to pay that price for that? And we make the decision.
We say, yes, I'll pay the price. Then we pay the price. We don't
have what we paid for, but we pay it anyway. And all that's
left is that package, that thing, is delivered to us. And we get
to choose how it's delivered. There's a lot of delivery options.
We get to pick how it's going to be delivered to us. But the
way that process works is in the end what ultimately happens,
no matter how you pick the delivery process, it ultimately comes
straight to your home. It comes to your front door and
that's what happens. This here says, who hath delivered us?
Our God, before time, chose us, chose a particular people, individuals
out of billions of options, chose a single individual person, I
choose you, I choose you, I choose you, looked at the price that
would have to be paid for that individual and said, I'm willing
to pay it. I will give my son, he will die
for that. He will die for them. And then
we go through this life. And at some point, whatever the
path may be, some of us will be delivered very quickly. Some
of us longer, it doesn't matter. The route we take, all those
things. Some of us will arrive a little more bumpy. Some of
us will have more bruises on us. Some of us will age, have
all these things. Our delivery method will be very
different. But no matter what, if the Lord Jesus Christ died
for you, you will inevitably end up in heaven. in His home,
in God, our Father's house. That's where we go. He delivers
us there. He's done all of it. He chose
us, He procured us, He died for us, He conquered over our sin,
paid the debt, rose on high, and He's sitting in glory, waiting
for the moment that we are delivered to Him. Is that not amazing? That's just unbelievable. And
for the last one, let's look at verse 14. in whom we have
redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Has anyone here ever felt like
a sinner? Can anybody understand those
comments in Genesis where it says, everyone, everybody, all
their thoughts were only evil continually? That's it. We don't
look at ourselves that way. I think I have evil thoughts,
but there's some good ones in there somewhere. Like the evil
just comes in every once in a while, but it's just all awful. It's
awful. And if you see yourself as a
sinner, you must, God has to make a man see that they're a
sinner. And it's crazy because once you
see that, that's the most outlandish thing ever to think that a person
can't see they're a sinner. I mean, it really is. It's crazy.
Yet because we are such sinners, we can't even see it on our own.
But once the Lord makes us to see that we're a sinner, and
not just a sinner, but a vile sinner, the worst of all sinners,
It gives us a perspective to see, boy, I need a savior. I need somebody. Somebody else
has to do this, because I sure can't do it. And when we see
that, we see here, look at Romans, well don't look there, but let
me read it. Romans 3.24 says, being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The
only place for redemption is in the Lord Jesus Christ, that's
it. There'll be a lot of methods
that'll be claimed, there's a lot of things in churches today that
you can figure out this way, that way, a combination of all
these things, a little part this, a little part that, you do this,
all this stuff. Salvation, redemption is 100% in the Lord Jesus Christ. It just is. That's it. We're
100% sin, which means we need 100% remedy. We need someone
to do everything, and Christ does it. And in that verse 14,
it says, in whom, in God, in Christ, we have redemption through
his blood. It's not just in Him, it's because
of what He did. It's His sacrifice. We have to
be covered. Our sins have to be atoned for,
and we're under the blood of Christ, the only one who could
ever do that. And then it finishes that verse,
even the forgiveness of sins. 1 Corinthians 1 says, but of
Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. All these things we go through,
all these troubles that we have, and most of them come out of
two ways. We see the things that happened
in Piteville with the mudslides and the flooding, and I can't
imagine what they're feeling. You know, again, we just want
to go to church this morning. That's all we want to worship,
but they can't. And then the other, which is
predominately what we have, is what we call ourselves. All these
things. But no matter where our sin comes
from, where our trials come from, where our misery exists, all
of it has to do with one thing. It all comes together and makes
us look to Christ. That's the only way the child
of God will ever do that. That's the only way anyone will
ever do that. But for His people, He does these things. He gives
us these hurdles, these barriers, these ceilings, all these things. And it's like, why are these
there? It's because it keeps bumping us and directing us in
the direction we must go. We must come to Him. We must
see Him. And the only way we do that is if He makes us. And
let me close with, I looked up, in the dictionary, redemption.
And it gave nine things. The first eight are listed, and
the ninth one says theology, meaning that this is what it
means in religion. It says, to deliver from sin
and its consequences by means of a sacrifice offered for the
sinner. It's a good definition. But listen
to the other nine definitions. of what redemption is. And these
things are all the things that we have in Christ. And we'll
close with this. The first is to clear someone by payment. The payment had to be made for
us. To buy back, to recover, to get, to get. What was theirs
to get? To exchange, to switch, to take one's place, to convert,
to fulfill a promise. to make up for, to obtain the
release from captivity, and finally, to pay a ransom. Our trials and tribulations,
our miseries, they're just necessary. The things that we have to go
through because God sent them to us so that we see him. And
when we look at it from the perspective of our trials and tribulations
make us appreciate what He's done, we should be thankful for
them. If we didn't have trials and
tribulations, and all of us have experienced times in our lives
where it feels like things are going pretty good, I tell you
what, the Lord just seems to disappear somewhere when that
happens. We, thankfully, are made to see the Lord Jesus Christ
in all our trials. And may the Lord bless us and
make us to see that He is all our wisdom, our knowledge, our
strength, our redemption, our love, everything is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. All right.