1, Colossians chapter 1. We'll begin reading at verse
21. Let's just go ahead and read this morning's passage. It goes
all the way to the end of the chapter, and then we'll go back
and highlight a few points. once you were alienated from
God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you
by Christ's physical body through death to present you wholly in
his sight without blemish and free from accusation. If you
continue in your faith established and firm not moved from the hope
held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard
and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven
and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Now, I rejoice in
what was suffered for you. And I fill up in my flesh what
is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the
sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant
by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of
God in its fullness. The mystery that has been kept
hidden for ages and generations. but is now disclosed to the saints. To them, God has chosen to make
known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery,
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing
and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present
everyone perfect in Christ. To this end, I labor, struggling
with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me." God,
our Father, bless us as we look at this passage of scripture.
And it is obviously full of Christ. May we not miss the least bit
of what is told to us concerning your son. It's in his name we
pray, amen. Now I wanted us to read the whole
text to begin with, because I want to notice the difference between
how it begins and how it ends. That is our condition. It starts
out, says, once you were alienated from God and were enemies in
your minds because of your evil behavior. And then you come over
to here in verse 28, The last part, so that we may
present everyone perfect in Christ. Now this business of salvation
is no small matter. It takes us all the way from
alienated from God, enemies in our minds, evil behavior, to
perfect, complete, flawless, lacking nothing in Christ. Now, I know that we might point
out, you know, any particular part of the work of salvation,
which God does for us and in us, and talk about that being
salvation. For instance, our election. In
a sense, we were saved before the world began. Or Christ's
sacrifice. He saved us. Then we talk about
being saved when the Holy Spirit comes and reveals Christ to us. And there shall be a time when
we are in the presence of God and we will say, I am now saved.
Now, why can this be? Why can a part be taken for the
whole? Well, simply this, because it
is the work of God and not the work of man. If any part of it
is done, you can be assured all of it will be done. God does
nothing by halves. God does no partial works. So we can say at any point, in
any of the works of God in salvation, we can say we were saved, or
we are saved, or are being saved, shall be saved. But all of these
things together make up the entire work of our salvation and it
is all the works of God for us and works of God in us to take
us from being alienated, enemies, and evil to being perfect in
Christ. Now, nothing less than that is
salvation. That's why when we read that
our Lord was to be named Jesus, for he shall save his people
from their sins, we realize that the title Savior doesn't belong
to anybody except the one who actually takes people from being
alienated enemies and evil to being perfect in Christ. So we
don't present the Lord Jesus Christ as a possible savior. There's no such thing. He is
an actual savior because he does this very thing. So now he says, once you are
alienated from God and enemies in your minds because of your
evil behavior. Now Paul is speaking to both
Jews and Gentiles here. The town of Colossae was a Gentile
city, but doubtless there were Jews there because Jews got scattered
everywhere. And quite often it was Jews to
whom the gospel was first preached in any town. But Paul is not
making any distinction between Jew and Gentile here because
there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile in Christ, is
there? There is. Outside of Christ, that is, there
is a distinction between Jew and Gentile in the law, but there
is no such distinction in the gospel. That's why Paul, he makes that
point in Romans 3, and he says, there is no difference for all
have sinned. And by all, he's not so much
there saying that everybody in the world has sinned, that's
true. But the all he's speaking of there is all, both Jew and
Gentile. All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God and are justified freely through the redemption
that is in Christ. And so he's saying that Jew and
Gentile are alike in nature, in conduct, in condition before
God naturally, and they are also exactly alike when it comes to
their condition before God under grace. There's simply no difference. There's not a gospel for Jews
and then a gospel for Gentiles. There's one gospel good enough
for both Jew and Gentile. And despite the Jews having been
born into a privileged situation, I don't even want to call it
a blessed situation because I don't consider a thing a blessing unless
it has eternally good consequences. But there are privileges that
were given to them. They had the prophets, they had the scriptures,
they had the worship of the temple, and all these things which taught
them the truth concerning Christ. Yes, it was shadowy, it was in
type and picture, but it was there. They had more given to
them than the other nations had. But now, that didn't necessarily
mean that they were saved by it. There were many who read
the scriptures, that is, many Jews who read the scriptures,
believed that they were true, studied them diligently, but
really did not believe what they said, really didn't even understand
what they said. And the proof that they did not
understand is that when Jesus Christ came, they didn't accept
him. They did not receive him. They
didn't even recognize him. Because they read the scriptures
and thought that only, or that they were about rules and it
was about the Jews and about their privileged status and how
God was going to exalt them. And even the disciples were confused
on this. After the resurrection, he says,
now are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And you
know, you can imagine if any of us had been the Lord, we'd
have said, you all just don't, you don't understand anything, do
you? Why do you still think this is about Israel? The Jews were
as alienated from God, as much enemies in their minds and evil
by their behavior as any Gentile was. They just had a veneer of
outward religion to go over it. There was a remnant according
to the election of grace who truly believed, but for the most
part, the Jews were like everybody else, unbelievers. And this is
how you and I were until the Holy Spirit came and changed
things. He says you are alienated from
God. Now that's an amazing thing to
think of. That's a frightening thing to think of, alienated
from God. Now it does not mean that, you know, we are in a place
where God isn't. It means that you're not connected
to him in a personal way. We're strangers. We were strangers from God. We
were enemies in our minds. Even though God had loved us
eternally and chosen us in Christ, even though Christ had died in
our place, yet we were, until we were regenerated, we were
alienated, estranged from God, and we were enemies of God, no
matter how religious we were. no matter how much theological
understanding of the gospel we might have had, we were enemies
of God. And then, we were those guilty
of evil behavior. Now, I remember many years ago,
one of the pastors in this town made a remark about how, by way
of the churches and the Christian schools and all that, they were
able to keep the devil out of town. And I mean, that just baffled
me that anybody would say such a thing. I don't think we can
keep the devil out of anywhere. The Lord can. We can't. But the idea that somehow or
another the people of Rock Valley are better than the people of
Sioux Falls Or, you know, God forbid, some
even less Dutch town. It's just not true. We are made
of the same stuff, born into this world in the same condition,
and nothing that anyone does to us, or nothing that we do,
is gonna change that. And until a person is brought
to Christ, everything they do is evil. Absolutely everything,
because everything is an act of rebellion against God. Even
in their religion. Even in their confessing the
doctrines. All of this evil behavior. You say, well what's evil about
telling the truth? Well, when we do it, apart from
believing it, it's an evil heart of unbelief, isn't it? And here's
another thing that's evil about it. Men will learn the truth
They will confess the truth, maybe even preach the truth in
pride, thinking that it is their knowledge and faith in the truth
that has saved them. In other words, that God took
note of their faith. God took note of their understanding
and had a better attitude towards them because of their knowledge
and faith. They boast in their faith. We
often speak of legalism, and normally when we think of legalism,
we're thinking of the law and rules of conduct. But there's
a such thing as theological legalism, too. We believe the right things,
so God is pleased with us. Pardon me, that's not how it
goes, because God In grace is pleased with us. He teaches us
the right things. But there are some other people
who do learn the right things, but God never was pleased with
them. He's still not pleased with them and he never will be.
Why? Because his grace comes from him. It's not drawn from
him. We're going to see more of this. in the regular message, but grace
is not something that we draw out. It's something that comes
to us like water out of a hose. It's under pressure. It comes
with the power of God. Now verse 22, he says, now he
has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to
present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from
accusation. Now, Since we are alienated from God
and enemies, what we need is to be reconciled to God. Now, in reality, God never had
to be reconciled to his people. I know that in a legal sense,
we think of him being reconciled by the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that's true, but it's not as though God ever had
ill intent toward any of his people. How do we know that? He said, I've loved you with
an everlasting love. Therefore, have I drawn you with
cords of loving kindness. So his love, his affection, his
gracious purposes towards us are eternal. And God is not gracious
to us. Because Jesus Christ died, Jesus
Christ died because God is gracious towards us. You see that distinction? God sent his son to die for his
people. It says in Isaiah, for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. Jesus Christ died for God's chosen. Why? Because God loved them and
that was the means by which he was able to restore them. to fellowship with him. That's how he reconciles us to
him. We were the enemies, not God.
We looked at God and thought he was an enemy, but he's never
been our enemy. He is an enemy to some, most,
but he's not an enemy to his chosen and never has been. Everything
God has done has been for the salvation and for the good of
his people. So he reconciled us by Christ's
physical body through death. That is, and remember how I've
mentioned that Paul was speaking here to the Gnostics, many of
whom believed that Christ really didn't have a physical body.
So Paul was already bringing this into, shall we call it,
the real here and now world. Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
the Word of God made flesh. He was real. He's as much a human
being as you and I are. And through the things that were
done in His body, in His real presence here in this world,
that's how we have been reconciled to God. Now Paul implies this
back here in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. He says, and he's speaking about the ministry
in general here, the ministry of preaching the gospel. And
he says in verse 20, we are therefore Christ's ambassadors. as though
God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's
behalf, be reconciled to God. Now, when we go out and preach
the gospel, there's various words we might use as we exhort people,
you know, to believe, to come to Christ, all these kinds of
things, but they're all summed up in this, be reconciled to
God. Be of the same mind as God. Lay
down your weapons of warfare. Loosen your, you know, unclench
your fists. Quit being angry at God. And he says, so here's our general
exhortation to people as we go out and preach the God of Scriptures,
be reconciled to God. What would move us to do that? What would move us to quit being
angry for our hearts to be broken and soften towards him? God made
him who had, this is the next verse, God made him who had no
sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God. How can you be mad at someone
who did that? God does not reconcile us to
him with punishment. He does not reconcile us to him
with threats of hell. He reconciles us to himself by
the display of Jesus Christ suffering in our behalf in order that we
might become the righteousness of God in him. He reconciles
us by goodness. Now, there is a condition put
on this. It says, if you continue in your
faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held
out in the gospel, this is the gospel that you heard And that
has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and of
which I, Paul, have become a servant. Now, here is a condition that
is not a cause. I was thinking about this last
night, actually, as I was trying to write that Bulletin article
on if you confess with your mouth Jesus to be Lord and believe
in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be
saved. Now, I've heard Sovereign Grace preachers, they'll say,
you know, salvation is not conditioned on anything the believer does.
And I say, well, right there it says if. And that's a conditional
phrase. If you confess. And here it says,
if you continue in your faith. But there's a difference between
a condition and a cause. The cause of our salvation, the
ultimate cause, is the will of God. The judicial cause is the
sacrifice of Christ. The, we might call it experiential
cause, or the powerful cause is the call of the spirit. Our faith doesn't cause our salvation,
but we shall not be saved without it. And if we believe, we shall
be saved. Not because we believe, but nonetheless
it shall be true. Everyone who believes shall be
saved. And Paul says here that we are reconciled to God and
we'll be presented holy in his sight without blemish and free
from accusation if you continue in your faith. Now we know why
people continue in their faith. They continue for the same reason
they started. If they had real faith, where'd
it come from? God gave it to them. God worked
in them to will and do of his good pleasure. Why do they keep
doing it? Because God keeps working. So we rejoice in that. Nonetheless,
the truth remains, so far as our experience in this world,
our reality is concerned, there's an if here. Do you continue in
the faith? The person who does not continue
in the faith Well, he never really had faith. He had a kind of faith,
a fleshly faith, but he didn't have that faith that is the gift
of God. But Paul is simply exhorting
them and saying, you cannot make this one-time confession of Christ
and then go on about your business and act as if you don't know
anything about God or care about God or the things of God. and
go out and live your life for the world and all that, and expect
that in the end, everything's okay between you and God. You
cannot say, well, I prayed the sinner's prayer way back yonder
when I was such and such years old. Or you cannot say, And this
was probably more the issue in Paul. I preached a gospel to
you, there's some people coming in preaching a different gospel.
If you go off for that one, you're as lost as if you had never aligned
yourself with the true gospel. That's his point. It's the gospel
that you heard. It's a gospel that's being proclaimed
everywhere to all kinds of people. Now I rejoice, verse 24, in what
was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still
lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his
body, which is the church. Not as though Christ's afflictions
lacked anything in terms of justifying us. That's not what Paul's saying.
So far as removing all the legal obstacles between us and God,
nothing is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. All he's saying is,
in order for God's elect to be saved, the gospel must get to
them, and that involves suffering. And Jesus Christ went back to
glory and left the job of preaching to the men he had chosen and
whom he gifted to do that work. And they suffered for doing it.
And all those who would live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer
some tribulation. And he said, I've become its
servant, verse 25, by the commission God gave me to present to you
the word of God and its fullness. Now what's that say? That means
that once the apostles were done speaking, there wasn't anything
more to say. These people say, well, I got a message from God
and here it is. And it's something other than what's found in scriptures.
They didn't get it from God. Everything about the gospel is
right here in the Bible. Everything that God has to say
to men until he returns has already been said and recorded in the
scriptures. All we're doing is opening this
book, trying to learn it better and better. And it's the mystery that's been
kept hidden for ages and generations, all through the old covenant
times, well, all the way from Adam and Eve up until the coming
of Christ. It has been mostly a mystery.
What was known was in type and in picture, and it had never
been revealed plainly, but it's now been disclosed. The word
means manifest, clearly made known. to the saints. Now, some people say, well, you
don't become a saint until you've heard it. How come it's then
being made known to the saints? We were saints long before we
even knew the word existed. Saint comes from the same word
as holy, sanctified. It's all from the same Greek
word. And it says that God has made Christ to be our sanctification. And therefore, the mystery was
made known to us. To them, God has chosen to make
known. Notice this, even this, that
the revelation of the gospel is an act predicated on the will
of God. Paul didn't just someday say,
you know, I think I'm gonna, people need to hear this. I'm
gonna go out and tell them. No, God chose to make his truth
known to his people, and therefore he sent men like Paul to make
it known. He's chosen to make it known
among the Gentiles. Now this was a surprise to the
Jews. They always thought that they
were the only group that would really ever be the object of
God's favor. No, God has made his truth known
among Gentiles and it's this the glorious riches of this mystery. I love how Paul never speaks
of the gospel in terms of smallness That's why I don't like that
phrase limited atonement, you know, the Bible never speaks
of redemption atonement and any of that in terms of its limitations. It speaks of it in terms of its
greatness and its power and its effect. And it talks about glorious
riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, which is the
hope of glory. Christ did not just come into
the world. Christ is in every believer. He is the one working in them
to will and do of his good pleasure by his spirit. Christ is in us. The Lord said
to his disciples, I in you and you in me. And this is our hope of glory.
This is what gives us a hope of being made glorious like the
Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ is the one to whom
we look as the hope for glory. So we proclaim him, says the
apostle. I like that. He didn't say, so
we proclaim these things. He says, we proclaim him. We're
telling people about him. The gospel is not the declaration
of an offer, is not the declaration of a possibility. Preaching the
gospel is not a sales pitch to unwilling people. The preaching
of the gospel is a declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
who he is, what he did, where he is now, and what that means
to people like you and me. We declare him. On the day of Pentecost, Peter
did not set out a plan of salvation. Peter said, this same Jesus,
whom you crucify, God has made to be Lord in Christ. He set
forth Christ. And that broke them, many of them. Satan is very subtle. He even
trips us up. He'll get us to allow the world
to describe the parameters of the debate. We try to tell them
something of Christ and they begin introducing questions and
we start answering them. The world doesn't know the right
questions, let alone the right answers. By the grace of God,
we've been given both. And we need to learn to ignore
their useless questions and simply to tell them of Christ. And we do this with all wisdom
so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. We do it to
those who are not yet believers and we continue to preach the
same thing to believers. Why? He that began a good work
in you will perfect it till the day of Christ. And that good
work that God does in people is generally by the instrumentality
of men preaching Christ. That's how he gets it done, so
that's what we keep doing. It says, so to this end I labor,
struggling with all his energy. I like that, struggling with
God's energy. Whatever we're doing here, we're
not wrestling against flesh and blood, so the struggle is not
in flesh and blood, it's a spiritual struggle, must be done with the
energy and power of God, and it does work powerfully in those
he has called, those he has sent to preach, and those he has sent
to listen. All right, you are dismissed.