Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church,
located at 905 Yadkin Street in Kingsport, Tennessee, would
like to invite you to listen to a message of sovereign grace
by their pastor, Gabe Stoniker. And now, Pastor Gabe Stoniker. If you would like to follow along
with me in your Bible I will be bringing a message to you
today from Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2 and the
verses that we will be looking at for a text are verses 13 to
15. So let's read those verses Colossians
2 verse 13. It says and you being dead in
your sins. and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you
all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances
that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out
of the way, nailing it to his cross. And having spoiled principalities
and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in it." I'd like to open this message by giving a few
facts about the gospel, a few facts concerning the gospel. Number one, the gospel is a declaration. This is very important for us
to know. The gospel is a declaration. It is a notification. That's what the gospel is. It
is a notification. It is not an offer. That's what many people believe
that it is. That's what many preachers stand
in pulpits and tell people it is. They say this is an offer.
But that's not what the gospel is. It's not an offer. The gospel
is not a solicitation. And again, that's what many people
believe it to be. If you'll go into a business,
if you go into town and walk through the front door of a business,
a lot of times you'll see a little sign there. It says no soliciting.
And what that means is don't come in here and try to sell
me something. And whenever the declaration
of the gospel goes out, a lot of people see it to be a solicitation.
That's not what it is at all. Not at all. It's not something
offered for sale. Something for us to buy. Not
at all. The gospel is not a call to action. It's not a call to
arms. It's not a motivating speech
to get people to get up and do something. That's not what the
gospel is at all. The gospel is not a proposal
of cooperation. Well, now if you'll do this,
God will do that. That's not the gospel at all.
The gospel is not a blueprint. It's not a plan. It is not a
how-to. If you follow this, you can be
saved. That's not the gospel at all. The gospel is a declaration. The gospel is an announcement. That's what we just read. We
read an announcement. That's the first fact concerning
the gospel. It's a declaration. It's a notification. It's an announcement. All right,
here's the second fact. The gospel is good news. That's what the gospel is, good
news. There is a lot of bad news in the truth. There's a lot of
bad news. When we see the truth, of our
condition before God, our natural condition. And when we see the
truth of what God's law has to say to us about our condition,
when we see the truth of his judgment on sinners just like
us, well, that's terrible news. When we see that, we realize
that's horrible news. There's a lot of bad news in
the truth. But there is no bad news in the
gospel. None. None. The gospel is nothing
but good news. So it's a declaration of good
news. Here's the third fact. The gospel
is all about Christ. All of it. is all about Christ. It is all about who He is, what
He did, and why He did it. It is that declaration. It is
that notification. If we are going to be talking
about the gospel, then we have to be talking about Christ. If
we're not declaring the good news of Christ, then we're not
declaring the gospel. Plain and simple. Men stand up
and they give all these motivational speeches and they talk about
our morality and they this and they that. None of that is the
gospel. If we are not declaring the good
news of Jesus Christ, we're not declaring the gospel. Now, let's
read these verses that we just read again with all of that in
mind. Verse 13, it says, and you being dead in your sins and
the uncircumcision of your flesh. That's the truth. That's that
cold, hard truth. That's the bad news truth dead
in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh. That means you
are not God's people. not naturally before him. That's
the terrible news. It goes on to say, hath he quickened
together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses? blotting out the handwriting
of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us,
and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross. And having spoiled
principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing
over them in it." That's the gospel. That is the gospel. That declaration is the gospel. Now, I'd like to just break that
down. These three verses we just read. Let's break this down and declare
it in a way that we can really understand it. And then we'll
be done. All right. Verse 13, it says,
and you being dead. And you being dead. What does
he mean by that? Well, He's not talking about
being dead physically. He's not talking about being
dead mentally. He's not talking about being
dead emotionally. He's talking about being dead
spiritually. That's what He's talking about,
being dead spiritually. If you turn back just a few pages
to Ephesians chapter 2, it says in Ephesians 2 verse 1, And you
hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein
in time past you walked according to the course of this world."
He said, you were dead in trespasses and sins, but he said, you walked
according to the course of this world. You lived in the world. You were physically alive in
the world, but spiritually speaking, that's what he's talking about.
Spiritually speaking, he went on to say, you walked according
to the prince of the power of the air. And we know who that
is. The spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. That's the condition that every
man and woman is in, in the flesh. That's the spiritual condition
that every man and woman is in, in the flesh. Verse three, it
says, Among whom also we all had our conversation in times
past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath,
even as others. That was all of us. Even us. Even me. Even you. Verse four says, But God, you
see, He was talking about us. He was giving the bad news of
the truth, talking about us, talking about us. Now He's going
to talk about Him. Now He's going to change things
and He's going to talk about Him. He's going to talk about
the gospel, the good news of the gospel. Verse 4 says, But
God, who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved
us. That's who He is. Verse 5, He said, Even when we
were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with him, by grace
you are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ." That's what he did.
He told who he was, He told what he did, now he's going to tell
us why he did it. Verse 7, that in the ages to
come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. That's the declaration of the
gospel. That's the notification of the
gospel. And in chapter 1 verse 3, that's what he meant when
he said, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. He said the gospel is all about
Christ. The blessings of the gospel is
all about Christ. So here's the truth about every
man and woman on this earth. In our flesh, we're dead. Spiritually dead. In our natural
condition, that's what it means to say the flesh, our natural
condition before God. In our flesh, all we can do is
dead things. Because that's what we are. Dead. That's all that we can do. There
are a few dead things that men and women can do. We hear men
stand in pulpits and talk about what are you going to do for
God? Well, here's the only thing that a dead man can do. A dead
man can rot. Think about this. If we're dead,
if the scripture is true, and this is what it's saying about
us in our natural condition, then here are some of the things
we can do. We can rot. We can stink. We can be vile. We can corrupt. We can become diseased. We can produce no good work before
God, do nothing good before Him. We can do all those things. But
that's all we can do if we're dead. If the scripture is true,
if it's declaring that cold hard truth to us, then that's all
we can do. If according to the word of God,
we are being dead in our sins and the uncircumcision of our
flesh, then that's all we can do. Now, here's the bad news
of the truth. That's who we are. We, in our
natural state, will hear that and say, that doesn't describe
me. That's not me. God's word says it is. And here's the truth. Here's the cold hard truth to
every man and woman on this earth. That's who we are and that's
all we can do. That is all that we can do. Now,
who is Christ? All right, we were talking about
us right there. Let's turn it. That was a truth. Now let's preach
the gospel. Who is Christ and what can he
do? Well, the question really is
what has he already done? That's the notification, who
he is and what he has done. If you look with me back at Colossians
chapter two, it says in verse 13, and you being dead in your
sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened
together with him. Quickened means made alive. It means to reanimate. It means to regenerate. He's talking about spiritually. Spiritually. Christ is life. He doesn't just have life. He
is life. Christ is all life. When the Lord Jesus Christ created
Adam from the dust of the ground, he made him to be a living soul. That's what he made Adam to be,
a living soul. What that means is Adam was made
to be something that was perfectly spiritually united to Christ. That's what it means. He was
alive. Christ is life. And if Adam was alive, he was
united to Christ. He was alive only because of
his union with Christ. But when Adam sinned, he was
cast out. He was cast out of his union
with Christ. Cast out of the garden, yes,
he was. But more importantly, more devastatingly,
he was cast out of his union with Christ. And the moment he
lost his union with Christ, he died spiritually. Spiritually. He spiritually died.
To be joined together with Christ is life. And to be separated
from union with Christ is death. That's what spiritual death is.
That's what it is. Physical death is the soul's
separation from the body. That's what physical death is.
Spiritual death is the soul's separation from God. That's spiritual
death. In order for life to come back
to God's people, in order for them to be quickened again, All
of God's people had to be brought back into a vital union with
the Lord Jesus Christ, that's what had to happen. Just like
a severed branch from a tree, if a branch gets severed from
a tree the only hope it's going to have of life is to be grafted
back into the tree. That's the only hope, it has
to be joined and united again with the tree. Now, what did
it take for God's people who were dead in their sins to be
joined back together with Christ? What did that take? What did
he have to do to accomplish that union again? Verse 13, right
here in Colossians 2, it says, And you being dead in your sins
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together
with him, having forgiven you all trespasses." Death cannot
be joined to life. We know that. We know that. Death cannot be joined to life. It's one or the other. Nobody
has ever been half dead and half alive. Either they are dead or
they are alive. It's one or the other. Darkness
cannot be joined to light. They cannot. It's one or the
other. And sin cannot be joined to sinlessness. It's one or the
other. The only hope that man has is
for all of his sin which separated him from God. All of his sin
needs to be gone. It needs to be removed, put away. So that's what Christ did. Verse
14 says, He blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us, our record of all the sin we'd committed. He blotted out
the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was
contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His
cross. Our union with Him was lost because
of our sin against His commandments. That's the reason. Sin against
His handwriting of ordinances to us. And this is what the ordinance
has to say to us because of it. You're found lacking. I'm sure
you've probably heard of that story of a king named Belshazzar. He saw a finger writing on the
wall and once it was interpreted to him, this is what it said,
you are weighed in the balances and you've come up short. You're
found lacking. You've come up short. You've
sinned against God and the wages of that sin is death. Now that's
the truth. That's the truth. But here's
the gospel. There is one thing that can redeem
you. One thing. There is one thing
that can bring remission from your sin. A person gets some
kind of disease in his body and he goes to a doctor and he receives
treatment for that disease and the disease is removed, it's
taken away. And when that happens, they say
that the person is in remission. The disease has been taken away.
The disease has been removed from the person in remission.
Well, God said there is one thing that can bring remission from
your sin. There is one thing that can remove
it and set a sinner free from it. And here it is. This is the
one thing. Sinless blood. Sinless blood. It has to be sinless
blood. Spotless blood. He said in Exodus
12, without spot, without blemish. Perfect. Perfect blood. There's only one place that we
can find that. There's only one place to find
sinless blood. It is in Emmanuel's veins. The veins of the Lord Jesus Christ. over in 1 John chapter 1. It says in 1 John 1 verse 7,
But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth
us from all sin. What cleanses us? Our decisions
and our turning over a new leaf and our finally starting to obey
the commandments and all these things, absolutely not one thing. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the only thing. Revelation
1 verse 5 says, Unto him that loved us and washed us from our
sins in his own blood. Every offense that the law had
against us, Every time the law said it's going to take blood
to pay for that, blood is the only thing that can bring remission
to sins. It's going to take spotless blood.
Every time the law said that, Christ said, here it is. On behalf
of His people, every soul His Father gave to Him, He said,
here it is. He blotted out. That means He covered with blood.
They used to take hyssop, it was a bush, they'd take hyssop
and dip it in the blood, sprinkle it on the mercy seat and that's
what he did to our record of sins. He blotted out every single
ordinance that was on record against his people, covered all
of them in blood. All of them now have a clean
slate. That's what it means. A brand
new record. He took that old record of every
soul the father gave to him and he nailed that old record to
his cross. He laid that old record on himself
and then he nailed himself to his cross. I love the song that
says, my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin,
not in part, Some people believe Christ came to put away part
of their sins. Not in part, but the whole is
nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord,
O my soul. Those soldiers did not nail our
Lord to the cross. He nailed himself to the cross. They were just the pawns that
carried out his command. And if you look back in Colossians
2, I love this word right here. I'll never forget the first time
I saw this word right here. Verse 13, it says, You being
dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened
together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was
contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to, here's
the word, His cross. His cross. His cross. He took my sins and my sorrow. He made them His very own. He bore the burden to Calvary
and suffered and died alone. He made all of it His own. Even
the cross, that was His own. He borrowed the bed to lay His
head, one man wrote. He borrowed the bread when the
crowd He fed. He borrowed a room on the way
to the tomb. He borrowed a cave for him a
grave. But the crown that he wore and the cross that he bore,
those were his own. He made them to be his own. And
in that moment, verse 15 says, having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in it. And those last two words translate,
they mean, in himself. in Himself. In His sacrifice
on the cross, the moment He blotted out every ordinance against His
people, He overthrew every principality and power that His people were
held captive to. He led captivity captive. He freed His people. That's what
it means. He won the victory. And if we want to see that victory,
And if we want to be reminded of the fact that we have been
set free from the captivity of Satan and sin and self and all
those things, all we have to do is look to Christ, the Christ
of the cross. If we want to be assured of the
fact that the battle's over, and the victory is won and our
freedom is secured, all we have to do is look to the cross of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God for He
alone is able to save you. Look to the Lamb of God. He brought
that battle into Himself and He won the victory in Himself. That is the glorious declaration. of the wonderful news of who
Christ is, what he did, and why he did it. He did it to set his
people free. He did it to redeem them back
to life. He did it to bring remission
to them of all of their sin. And I pray God might reveal that
declaration to both of us right now. I pray the Lord might truly
convince us to look to Christ and rest in everything he's done. Until next week, may the Lord
bless his word to our hearts. You have been listening to a
message by Gabe Stoniker, pastor of Kingsport Sovereign Grace
Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. If you would like a copy of this
message or to hear other messages of Sovereign Grace, log on to
our website at ksgctn.org. If you would like to come and
worship with us, our service times are Sunday morning Bible
study at 10 o'clock a.m., worship at 1045 a.m., and 6 o'clock p.m.,
Wednesday evening at 730 p.m. Please tune in next week for
another message of God's free and sovereign grace.