Colossians chapter three. All
right, let's seek the Lord's blessing. Our God, we are unworthy
of any goodness from you, but we have been given all things
good in Christ Jesus. And so we pray, we ask again
today that you would bless us, that you would give us the truth
as it is in Christ Jesus. And it's in that name we pray,
amen. Alright, now last week we looked
at the first 11 verses of Colossians chapter 3, and that portion ended
with Christ is all and in all. And that is one of the foundational
truths of the gospel of Christ. In the gospel of Christ, nothing
but Christ matters. And it's not our righteousness
and morality, it's not our religiosity, and in truth it's not even our
faith. Now we know that without faith it's impossible to please
God, but faith has no merit in it. It is not our natural faith
that made this distinction between us and those who are eternally
lost. Because natural faith is not
the kind of faith that lays hold of Christ. The faith by which
we lay hold of Christ is a supernatural thing. It's something that God
works in us and that's why when we preach the gospel, we don't
try to manipulate people's emotions as though by doing so we could
get them to somehow or another exercise faith whether or not
they wanted to, or that there's something in them to which we
can appeal that would make them believe God in a saving way. The fact is we preach the gospel
because God wonderfully and mysteriously uses the preaching of the gospel
to impart spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead. And
once they have this spiritual life, the immediate expression
of that life is faith. It's like breath, you know. You can say, well, does breath
cause life or life cause breath? Well, if you don't have life,
you won't breathe. But the moment you have life,
you breathe. And so that's how faith is. And
so faith is not that which makes the distinction. Faith reveals
the distinction that God has made. Therefore, once again,
Christ is all. And then when you think about
faith as the scriptures speak of it, how does faith see Christ? As everything. Faith is not that
which sees, okay, I need Christ, but I also need these other things.
Or I need Christ, but that can be improved upon by adding these
other things. The believing heart is completely
occupied with Jesus Christ. God-given faith looks to Christ
and to no one and nothing else. So even in faith, Christ is all. And he adds this point, is in
all. And what does that, why did he
put that in there? What he means is that Christ
is in every one of his people. And remember that this was being
written in response to the Gnostic heresy that was coming into the
church. And this Gnostic heresy, they did what a lot of religions
do. They talk about, you know, nominal Christians, better Christians,
really good Christians, you know. They had levels of how Christian
you were. And there were some I guess they
suppose, well, these people are saved in the sense that they
won't go to hell, but there's a special class in whom Christ
himself dwells. Well, the fact is, if Christ
is all, then there is no distinctions among, there is no natural distinctions
among his people. Christ is in every one of them. So there we have, shall we say,
the foundation of the gospel, Christ is all, and then what
necessarily results from that foundational truth, Christ is
in all. And he is in the newest babe
in Christ, he's in him every bit as much as he is the oldest,
most experienced saint. So now Paul says in verse 12,
therefore, therefore, because Christ is all, therefore. I like that about Paul. I guess,
you know, Paul was sent to us Gentiles because he thinks like
Gentiles do, more than Jews. He was raised in a Gentile city. and the idea of logical progression
in laying out an argument. So that's why you see Paul often
saying, therefore, because he's just established something. He's
set forth a principle. Now, based on that principle,
there are things to do or things to think or attitudes to have. So he goes, therefore. Now, his exhortation is there in the
middle of the verse. Therefore, clothe yourselves
with compassion, kindness, so forth. Verse 13, bear with each
other and forgive. And then in verse 14, love. Verse 15, let the peace of Christ
rule in you. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly. And in whatever you do, do it
in the name of the Lord, giving thanks to the Father. These are
the various exhortations he gives. Because Christ is all, he's all
that matters, and because of even the things he has said before,
that we've been raised with Christ and all this. Because of that,
do these things. But notice again, between the
word therefore and the beginning of his several exhortations,
He once again reminds us of who we are. Now, it's, you know, when we go out
into the world, we conduct ourselves, and I mean
even in natural things, according to who we are. I remember at one time telling
one of my children, remember whose son you are. Because, and
this is one of the difficulties of being the child of a pastor,
the conduct of a child reflects, that is the conduct of a pastor's
child out in the world reflects on the pastor and on the church
that he pastors and on the message that they preach. Now, I tried
not to put my children under a real serious burden. I didn't
want them to feel as though people were looking down or looking
at them all the time. But nonetheless, it was important
that they remember who they are. How much more than you and us?
Whose children are we? We go out in the world and we
say God is our father. And therefore, we should do what
we can to protect the family name, right? To hold the family
of God in good reputation before the
world. But here, he's speaking of who
we are in terms of God's blessings toward us. And notice this, therefore,
as God's chosen people. Now when you begin to talk about
election, that is that God chose whom he would save, generally
speaking, that is if, you know, unless you're in a group like
us where virtually everyone already believes that, somebody's gonna
raise their eyebrows, somebody might even get their hackles
up. Where I come from, it doesn't matter if the word election is
in the Bible. I don't believe in election.
Well, it's right here. I don't believe in predestination.
Well, it's right here. And what they then have to do
is change the meaning of it. Because to the natural mind,
free will is absolutely essential and must be maintained at all
cost. They believe that they have within
themselves the power to agree or disagree with God, to receive
or reject Christ. They think that that power is
in their hands. It's not. Also, men are so obsessed
with their own importance, they believe that God owes the opportunity
of salvation to them. Well, everybody's got a chance.
We had a chance in the Garden of Eden. And that's the last
time man ever had a chance. We don't have a chance. Salvation's
not by chance. Salvation is by the sovereign
grace of God. People, when they hear about
election, they'll say, well, that's not fair. And you know
what? They're right. It's not fair. Because fairness says you treat
everyone the same. But while election is not fair,
it's perfectly just. You say, why? Well, it's just
in this. And by just, I mean according
to the rules of justice. Election does not look at us
as those who are capable of doing anything good. It looks at us
as those who are dead in trespasses and sins, who are by nature incapable
of anything good, who in practice have never done anything good. We are criminals, traitors, rebels
against the kingdom of God. And we stand before the judge.
Now that's how election views everyone in the world. Now if
the judge has before him, a group of people, all of them guilty
of a capital offense, and every one of them is under a sentence
of death. Let's say there's 10 of them. And he says, you are
all sentenced to die. And then he says, but you, you,
and you are going to be set free. Now, is that fair? No. But it's just, why? Because it's
the judge that did it. You see, mercy, giving mercy
is under no obligation. Once obligation is involved,
it's no longer mercy. And so if people are rightly
condemned, and we all are, isn't that true? Condemnation passed
on all men, death passed on all men. because of Adam's sin. We're
all condemned. Consequently, God can choose
to be good to no one, everyone, or any portion of humanity he
chooses. He is utterly free to do with
us whatever he wants to do. He has no obligation to anybody.
Now, the Bible never, understanding that, the Bible never speaks
of election as a negative thing. It's always expressed in terms
of thanksgiving and praise. Praise be to the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in the heavenly places according as he has chosen us
in him. Do you see Paul saying, well,
we better settle this election issue. I know it sounds kind
of mean on God's part that he didn't give everybody a chance.
No. Paul stood amazed that God chose anybody. We should never
be surprised that God passes over some or passes them by or
whatever word you want to use. In other words, he does nothing
for them. He owes them nothing. He owes us nothing. The wonderful
thing is that there is a group of people, of worthless, guilty,
condemned sinners, and he chose each one of them to be his. And so he says, as God's chosen
people. As I was studying for that, I
tried to get my mind wrapped around this concept and appreciate how powerful a
statement of what a glorious blessing it is to be among the
elect. And I guess we're not going to
be able to really know just how wonderful a blessing this is
until we are face to face with him and also until we see with
our own eyes what is the end of the ungodly. Then we will
realize how blessed we are to be among
the elect of God. We didn't choose him, he chose
us. We didn't do anything to attract
his eye. He didn't say, well, everybody's
sinners, but that fellow there, he's not as bad as the others,
or he's doing the best he can. No, he saw every one of us as
equally guilty in Adam, equally worthy of everlasting condemnation. And he said, I condemn the whole
world. But now you, you, you, you, you,
a multitude no man can number, says the scriptures. He chose
them, chose them in Christ. Bless them with all the blessings
of which Christ is worthy. And so here you and I sit on
a Sunday morning a small group. There are seven
billion people in this world. Only two billion of them even
claim to be Christian, and that includes every version of Christianity
there is out there. And we know, and we're not saying
this judgmentally as though we think we're better, we just know
by comparing with the scriptures Virtually all of them, or very
nearly all of those denominations and groups that claim to be Christian
aren't. And even among those who actually
hold to the same doctrines that you and I hold to, even among
them, there is simply a remnant according to the election of
grace. And that's us. Us who have believed. We're not chosen because we believe,
we believe because we were chosen. But isn't that amazing to think
that out of all the billions in the world right now, much
less the billions that came before us, here we are and a few here
and a few there. Some we know, some we don't.
But God chose us. And when we think of where we
would be and what we would be if he hadn't chosen us, where
would we be today? We might very well be in church. If you hadn't chosen us, we might
be in church. We might be in a high church
with all their formality. We might be in a hoopty-doo church,
you know, the holy roller type church. We might be in one of
those that puts on the big stage productions that everybody likes.
We might be in one of those churches that they're constantly telling
you that God wants you to be healthy and wealthy and happy
and all that. Or we might be in total ungodliness. Who knows? But we know one thing.
We know where our destiny would be. And we would live our lives probably
thinking that everything's gonna work out okay, and end up with
a real big surprise when we draw our last breath. But God, in
infinite mercy, chose a people. And he says, holy. Now, when
he describes holy here, he's not talking about some virtue
of ours. Sometimes holiness could be considered
some characteristic of a person, but that's not what he's talking
here. The word means set apart, and he's not talking about what
we saw recently in the book of 1 Peter, where Peter exhorts
us, be holy in all you do. Now, that's talking about conduct
and character and this thing. This is a different holiness.
This is God setting us apart. Now, in as much as we have been
set apart from the world, what does that first tell us? That
we were by nature and practice one with the world. No better,
no wiser, no more inclined to believe God. We didn't set ourselves
apart, God did. Death passed upon all men and
then God drew a line of blood and separated us from those who
will perish. Holy, now look at this next one,
dearly loved. Now we spoke on this last Sunday.
where the Lord Jesus Christ says, the Father himself loves you. But Paul takes it sort of a step
further. Dearly, dearly loved. It surprises me that God won't
send me to hell. It's more surprising yet that
he would have any love for me whatsoever. But to read here
that a man like me is dearly loved by God, that
I am precious to him. I don't know about you, I can't
really get my head wrapped around that. I'll take it as a given,
because the scriptures say it, But I don't feel it very often,
because it just seems so far out there. David, in speaking
of God's blessedness toward him, he says, such things are too
wonderful for me. They are high. I cannot attain
to them. I can't get my mind wrapped around
this. That's why John Newton wrote Amazing Grace.
It's amazing. beyond our ability to grasp. The religions of men always fall
short, no matter what they promise, they fall short of the glories
of the blessedness of being among the people of God, to have been
chosen by Him, set apart by Him, and dearly loved by Him with
an everlasting love that never changes. Oh, we're so changeable,
aren't we? We can, at one moment, feel as
though we're inflamed with love for God and for our Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and we love the Holy Spirit. You know, it's
particular when we meet like this, we hear the Word preached,
and the Spirit of God is pleased to apply it to us in some measure,
and we're excited about it, and we go away from here thinking,
boy, I'm never going to sin again. You know, I'm so full of what's
wonderful here. I have no use for the world.
And before the afternoon is over, We have forgotten the wonderfulness of what God has given us in Christ
and what he has made us to be, who he has made us to be. We
are his chosen, his set apart ones, his dearly loved ones. Now having told us that that
is who we are, and boy, you know, he has set us up, and I don't
mean by that in a bad way. It's a good way to be set up
like this. He has filled us with these descriptions of who believers
are. He has set us up, filled us up
with a sense of glory, not glory in ourselves, but glory in Him,
a sense of the glorious or the glory of the privileges given
to us and all this. And we're filled with this sense
of wonderfulness. And then he says, so clothe yourselves
with compassion. And brethren, if what he said
there is true of us, how can we be anything other than compassionate
towards our fellow human beings, and in particular, our fellow
brothers and sisters? If God showed such compassion
to us, how, and hasn't he? I mean, he sees people in their
sin, and most of them, when he sees them, his wrath is stirred
up against us. He looks at us in our sin, and
instead of being filled with wrath towards us, he's filled
with compassion. Such as if you saw someone who
even by their own foolishness and poor judgment had gotten
themselves mangled up. Somebody gets themselves drunk,
they get in their car and drive, and they have an accident and
hit a bridge abutment. The car is crunched up like so
much scrap metal, and there they lay bleeding, barely alive. When we go by, I certainly hope
nobody would do that and go by and say, well, he's drinking,
serves him right. That'd be a horrible way to think.
Look, even though they brought it on themselves, We say, oh,
that's just awful. That's awful. I feel so bad for
him. Do you realize that's what God
did with us? He saw us mashed up by our own rebellion, wickedness,
foolishness. And instead of that rebellion
and wickedness stirring up his anger, it stirred up his compassion. Therefore, we are to be compassionate. kindness, just being nice. I hope that I'm not just becoming
an old fogey. I probably am, but I'm going
to hold out the hope that that's not what I'm doing. But I look
at the way things are going right now, the public discourse, You know,
I spend time on social media and then reading news articles
and opinion columns, and they've always got the comments. And really, no, don't go look
at the comments. I tell you, it'll make it so
you don't have any hope for humanity. People are so mean. But not only
that, look at what the leaders of our country, how they talk
about each other. Not only the lies they tell, they're just
plain malicious. And this goes on on both sides. I'm not talking
Republican or Democrat here. That's just the way it is. They
are downright mean to one another. And it's damaging. It's damaging
to just public attitude and public conduct. It brings us all down.
Kindness. I did read one time This was
back during, I believe, the 1984 presidential campaign. And there
was debates going on between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. And Walter Mondale, in talking
about how the debates went, he said, oh, he did the awfulest
thing to me. So I said, what? He said, he
was nice to me. Walter Mondale was in there ready
to mix it up. And Reagan came off. Again, I'm
not trying to make a political point, that's just a good illustration.
And in his kindness, he disarmed his opponent. Oh, don't you like
it when someone is kind? Who even if you treat them brusquely
or harshly, they don't respond the same way. Humility. I think it was Mark Twain that
said, mankind is the only animal that can blush, and the only
animal that has a reason to. And we've got much to be ashamed
of. How can we ever be proud? And everything we have that might
be called good was given to us by grace. Brother Dave Edmondson
wrote a song, and I don't know many of the words. I just know
the hook. The only thing good in me is
Him. And that's true. Humility. Henry used to say, I understand
pride of face. I understand pride of place. And while I don't agree with
it, I do understand pride of race. But pride of grace makes
absolutely no sense at all. Oh, I get so fired up sometimes
when I read what religious rebels write, atheists, and those that
would pervert the gospel of Christ, and I can get all riled up, and
I'm ready to, you know, and I think, humility. Remember, as the old
saying goes, it's absolutely true, there but for the grace
of God go I. Why am I not an atheist? The
grace of God. Why am I not a false religionist? The grace of God.
It's the only reason. Humility. Gentleness. I used
to think, and this was early on, you know, in my 20s, but
I thought being forceful, you know, and yelling, maybe even,
you know, pounding the pulpit once in a while, that's how you
got the message through. Gentleness. And patience. Patience. I remember one picture cartoon
I saw one time when I was a little kid, comic, you know, and somebody
was kneeling by their bed, you know, obviously saying their
nighttime prayers. And the Lord said, Oh, give me patience right
now. Patience. Oh, how patient we
should be with each other. Do you realize how patient God
is with us? We look at ourselves and we look
at how many years we've believed and we think, oh man, I haven't
made much progress here at all. I'm still doing so many of the
same things that I used to do and still so much flesh in me. Do you realize God's putting
up with all of that? God's patient. And so we're patient with one
another. Well, he oughtn't act that way. Well, you're right.
He oughtn't act that way. She oughtn't act that way. And
you oughtn't act that way. But we do. So how do we handle
that? Patience. Well, we're going to
have to wrap it up there. There's more to say. And we'll
get to it next week. But take a read over this and
see how reasonable These exhortations are based upon how blessed we've
been. How can we be any other way other
than this way when you consider what glorious blessings have
been given to us? Okay, we'll pick up there next
week.