That's a compliment from Craig. He said, you don't want to be
introduced, do you? No. A man paid my father a high
compliment. People knew him pretty well. And our song leader, an old truck
driver, just a country boy, he stood up and said, he don't need
no introduction. Come on, preach for us. Dad said,
that's a high compliment. And John didn't even put my name
in the bulletin. I'm thankful. Real thankful. I'm serious. I'm serious. It's a high honor. Good to see
you again. Just glad to be here, me and
you and I both. We're so thankful for this church,
every one of you. We go way back. We have many
fond memories over the years, and we're still together. What
a blessing. And your pastor, I think you
know how we feel about him, how I feel. We, John and I, as 20-something-year-old
young men, we spent a lot of time together and real close. Our wives and our family about
the same age. So thankful for John. Honored,
privileged that he would ask me to come here. He is one of
my absolute favorite preachers, that's for sure. And whenever
I ask him to come preach for us, I feel so relieved. I feel
so comfortable. I don't worry about a thing when
John's in the pulpit. What a good pastor you've got,
like before. Turn with me to Colossians chapter
1. Colossians chapter 1. preached recently from Ephesians
1, didn't it? Well, Colossians 1 and Ephesians
1 sound real similar, don't they? That's because they are. Same
gospel, same word, and they sound just so, so similar. And some of our favorite passages
of scripture, I know. We're not going to go through
the whole chapter but we'll go verse by verse through some of
these verses. But I just looked at and jotted
down some words that are found here in the first dozen or so
verses. Words like grace, peace, faith,
hope, truth, wisdom, understanding. power, long-suffering, joyfulness,
thanks, inheritance, redemption, words like that. These are gospel
words, and that's the title of this message, and that's the
subject. Blessed gospel words that we're going to look at.
John, be pleased that I'm not going to say anything new this
morning, not one thing new that you haven't heard. This is the
gospel. It begins, Paul, an apostle of
Jesus Christ. Now, apostle means messenger. If God calls a man to preach,
Christ is his message. Apostle means messenger. When
Christ ascended on high, Ephesians 4 says he gave gifts to men.
He gave some prophets, some apostles, some evangelists, pastors and
teachers. That's your pastor and teacher. And he calls them to preach Christ. Christ. That's their message.
That's how you know them. That's who your pastor preaches,
doesn't it? I know he does. I listen to him. Paul, an apostle,
a messenger of Jesus Christ by the will of God. By the will
of God. Everything is by the will of
God. Ephesians 1 says he worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will, doesn't it? Everything is by the will of
God, the purpose of God. Aren't you glad? The world doesn't,
the world, unbelieving world doesn't, they like their own
free will, don't they? Supposed free will. They like
that. They want their will. They want
their choice. I don't. Do you, Johnny? Aren't
you glad that God is having his will? Aren't you glad that his
will reigns and rules in everything? Woe is unto us if it doesn't. Everything's by the will of God.
And he says, Paul and Timothy, like Brother John and I are just
so close together. What I'm telling you this morning,
your pastor tells you Sunday after Sunday after Wednesday,
or Thursday after Wednesday, Thursday y'all meet on Thursday.
Same thing, Paul and Timothy were preachers of the gospel.
And Isaiah 52 says they see eye to eye because they've been taught
by the same person. led by the same Holy Spirit to
take the things of Jesus Christ and preach them." Paul and Timothy.
To the saints. To the saints. I'm looking at
a bunch of saints in here this morning. A bunch of saints. I
don't see any halos, but I do see saints. What does a saint
mean? It means one who's set apart. Sanctified. Set apart from the world. God's people are His elect, they're
chosen by Him. And they're set apart by the
Spirit of God through the preaching of the gospel. That's what sets
apart God's people from the world. There's nothing they do, or are,
that is, but what God has done for them in Christ. Sanctified
and put in Christ to save them. Saint. You know, God's people
are called saints more than anything else. More than anything else. Saints. to the saints and faithful
brethren in Christ." That's you. You say, I don't feel too faithful.
Well, faithful, that means full of faith. What is faith? If I was to ask any of you in
here, any of you believers, who do you believe? What do you believe? State your faith. Give me a statement
of faith in one word. Just one word. What would you
say? Christ. That means you're full of faith. He's the object of our faith.
Faithful. Faithful. It means true also.
True. True to his honor. True to his
glory. God's people really are true to his honor and glory.
Preachers and hearers alike, what we want to do is honor the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. That's why we're here
this morning, isn't it? It really is. The faithful brethren. Brethren
in Christ. I don't call everybody my brother,
but I love calling you my brother and my sister. It's a blessed
term in family in Christ. I have an earthly brother and
I had two or three of us boys and a girl. I was the youngest.
And it's a wonderful thing to have siblings. It really is a
blessing to have siblings. We had a good life growing up
together. And I was talking to Peggy about
my older brother. He was my hero. I wanted to be
just like him. Well, Christ is our elder brother.
And we're his people, his brethren in Christ. And like Joseph was
not ashamed to call his, I'm sorry, sons of Jacob. He wasn't
ashamed to call them brethren. They treated him wrong, but he
was true to them. That's Christ. But what a blessed
thing it is to have brothers and sisters in Christ, isn't
it? It's a blessing. You two brothers are so close
in your family relation, but you're even closer than that.
You're brothers in Christ. What a blessing. I don't have
that with my second brother. He doesn't love this gospel.
I pray, hope and pray that someday he will. And boy, then will we
have a relationship. but I'm closer to you now than
I am to you. There are no relationships in
glory except those that are in Christ. You know that? There
are no husbands, no wives, no fathers and mothers. They're
all in Christ as family. Christ is our father, our mother,
our brother, our husband, and we're all his bride, his children. What a blessing. Brethren. Brethren
in Christ. You ever heard that before? That's
everywhere in Ephesians 1, Colossians 1. What does it mean to be saved?
It means to be found in Christ. In Christ. And one story will
suffice to tell us what salvation is. It's to be found in Christ.
The Lord told Noah thousands of years ago. He told Noah, I
want to destroy this world. The whole world is corrupted
my way. full of violence, and he repents
me that I've made this world, I'm gonna destroy it. God didn't
love the whole world then, and he doesn't love it now. He's
gonna destroy it. Christ said that, as in the days
of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. But Noah,
but Noah, Ephesians 2.4, but God is rich in mercy, great love,
wherewith he loved his chosen people. Noah found grace in the
eyes of the Lord. What does that mean? It means
God was gracious to Noah. It means God chose Noah. It means
God revealed himself to Noah. It means God revealed his sin,
Noah's sin to him, his need of a refuge, his need of being saved.
The world doesn't think they need saving. In the days of Noah,
you know that everyone said in the days of Noah, Noah, God's
not going to destroy this world. He loves all of us. Noah said
that's not right. God is angry with the wicked
every day. And God loves those, if you're in this ark, when that
time comes, when that overflowing scourge of God's wrath comes
now, if you're in this ark, that means God loves you. And Noah and his family were
found in that ark, weren't they? God said, it says, God was in
that ark, and God was in Christ reconciling us to himself. And
God was in that ark, Christ was in an ark, and said, come, Noah,
Thee have I seen righteous in this generation. And you know
what that means. It means Christ is made unto
us. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, all these things.
Christ is the ark. Christ is Noah. And one day through
the gospel, God said to you through the preaching of the gospel,
come Craig, come. You're righteous. Come to Christ. And you came to Christ by His
sovereign power and grace, and you've been found in Him, and
when that day comes, you're going to be in Christ covered, under
the blood. Everybody outside of that ark
was hated by God and destroyed by God. Right? Only those in
that ark. That's what it means to be in
Christ. Oh, to the brethren in Christ, which are at Colossae,
which are at Spring Lake, you put Spring Lake, Rocky Mount,
Fairmont, grace be unto you. What kind of grace? Oh, my sovereign electing, keeping,
saving, restraining, constraining, redeeming, forgiving grace, Ephesians
1, inheriting grace, keeping grace, sealing grace, shutting
up grace. It was shut up, wasn't it? The
Lord shut that door. He couldn't get out if he wanted
to. He wanted. That's the grace of God. Grace
is not an offer by God. Grace is an act of God. Grace
is not an offer of God. Grace is the power of God. Grace
is not something God offers us and we do something with it.
It's something God does for us through Jesus Christ. Grace. Grace. Saving grace. By grace
are you saved. Everything's by grace, faith,
repentance. Verse two, and peace. Peace,
oh my, peace. You know there's no peace to
the wicked. There's no peace, no rest for the wicked, God said,
twice in Isaiah. No peace, no rest, why? Because
men and women are in trouble with God. And this whole world,
you know, is full of turmoil, unrest, and trouble, Wars and
rumors of wars and people fighting one another, full of violence,
like the Lord said, that God's people have peace. Christ said,
peace I leave with you. Peace with God. Peace by the
blood of His cross. Peace with God. God's not angry
with His people. He said, peace with them. Why?
Because of what Christ did. He said, in my peace I give you.
Peace by believing. Peace by trusting Christ. Peace. And peace of heart, peace of
mind, and peace among each other. Peace with each other. My, my. You know, God's people, we don't
fuss and fight. We have peace. A bunch of sinners
saved by grace. Peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. is the father of his people.
He told his disciples, after this manner of prayer, our father,
which art in heaven. What a blessed thing to have
a loving father, a real father. You men had a good father. You
were so blessed to have a father. I had a good father. He loved
me. He cared for me. He provided for me. I felt safe. He was there for me. What a blessing. You have a good father. Oh, but
if God is our father, if God is our father, you have nothing
to worry about, you know? Nothing to worry about. God is
our father. I remember my dad, we'd go, we'd
drive on vacation, the four of us in a sedan, and long before
they had vans, you know, where you could just sprawl out out
there. You know how it was. And we'd all pack into that Buick. We always had Buicks. We'd all
pack in. And since I'm the youngest, I'm
stuck with the hump on the floor. If I want to lay down, I lay
on a hump. Or back in that back glass, that little slot, I could
fit back there. I'd lay there. But I remember
distinctly, and we'd go to Florida, Pensacola, Florida. We'd rent
a little concrete block house. And all six of us would stay
in that little cramped house. Best time of our lives. And,
but we traveled, it seemed to me, you know, when I was six,
seven years old, it seemed like it took 12 days to get there. Long time, you know. We never
stopped. That's what husbands do, you
know, they never stop. But anyway, we never stopped. And finally
I remember, you know, I'd be in the back seat and wonder,
where are we going to get there? Where are we going to get there? And
I'd look and I'd see the back of my dad's head. That's all
I saw for 12, 14 hours, the back of his head. And it never changed. It never dropped. It never changed. It was right there, right there.
I'm sleeping, I'm waking, I'm sleeping, I'm waking. He's right
there. He didn't change. And year after year, we got it.
We made it. We made it there, right there.
That was my security. My dad doesn't change. He can do anything. We're going
to get there. Is that a good illustration?
Our Father doesn't change. Whatever He says, whatever He
promises, whatever He did for us in Christ is not going to
change. That's our security, He said.
He doesn't change. Everything around us changes.
We change, so on and so forth. But God doesn't change. And all
His promises are in Christ. And He promised, You come to
Christ. Christ said, He that believeth on Me, all that the
Father giveth Me shall come to Me. And this is the will of the
Father that everyone that seeth the Son and believeth on him
should be saved. And I'll raise him up at the
last day. Gonna be with me in glory someday. That's his promise. And he doesn't change. Are you
gonna make it to glory, brother? Are you? Why? Because your Father
doesn't change. Because the truth doesn't change.
Because the blood's before the Lord. Don't you love these words? Now our father, we got a good
father, don't we? Read on. Our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus Christ is our Lord. He's our savior, Jesus. He's
our Christ. He's our mediator. He's our intercessor. He's our covenant head. He's
our everything. Now Paul prays for them. He said, I pray always for you.
Always. It's love to pray for someone.
I remember my dad, years ago, encouraging everyone, exhorting
one another, pray for one another, like scriptures does. Pray for
one another. Pray for me. Pray for John. I
know you do. What a blessing by the devil. You know, first
thing you did was pray for your pastor. Why? You love him. It's obvious you love him. You
love the gospel, he preaches. And you need to be blessed by
that gospel. And that's how God blesses you.
It's through the preaching of the gospel. And he's given you
a good preacher of that gospel. And you prayed for him. And God
honors that. And God will answer that prayer
every time. Every time. And Paul prayed for
these people. I pray for you. You pray for
your pastor. And he says in verse 4, since
we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you
have to all the saints, he said we give thanks for your faith. for your love, verse 5, for your
hope that you have in Christ. Faith, hope, and love. You heard
that before. That's our salvation. Salvation
is by grace. Grace, by faith, and that's not
of yourself. That's grace. Faith in Christ. Faith in God. You believe God,
you believe Christ. Faith, hope. What's your hope? Again, if I asked you your hope
of heaven, your hope of glory, what would it be? One word. Give
me one word. What's your hope of heaven? Christ, you know how
few people would say that? You know how few people in the
world would say that? And I ask people that all the time. What's
your hope of eternal life? And it usually always begins
with I. I, God's Savior. I, you know, accepted you. Salvation doesn't start with
I. You. Starts with Him, doesn't it?
And ends with Him. And everything in between. It's
all about Him. It's our hope and love. You love
the truth. You love what you're hearing
right now. I know you do. You love your pastor. You love what
he preaches. You love who he preaches. That's
of the Lord. That's of the Lord. Look with
me, 2 Thessalonians. Go over there with me. And Paul
gave thanks Every time, in every epistle, 1 Thessalonians 1, 2,
we give thanks to God always for you all. 1 Thessalonians
2, we thank God without ceasing. You heard the word as it is in
truth, the word of God. 2 Thessalonians 1, look at verse
3. 2 Thessalonians 1, 3, we're bound
to thank God always for you brethren, because your faith groweth to
charity of all of you one toward another. These false preachers
thank people for coming to church. No, stand up. We thank y'all
so much for coming. I bet you've never heard your
pastor say that one time. Thank you for coming. Thank sinners
for coming to worship God. We thank God for calling us to
come worship Him. We thank God that we're here.
We need to thank God that we thank God. Romans 1 says people
are not thankful, unthankful. 2 Timothy 3, the last day, unthankful. Don't give God a thought. Only
use his name to curse with. But God made you thankful, made
you realize that everything you are and have and know is by the
grace of God and you thank him. Thankful. Look at 2 Thessalonians
2.13. And Paul says this over and over, we're bound to give
thanks. This is a chief reason for our thanks to God. Bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved, foreloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation through sanctification. It may be the same. Through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth. what you're hearing this morning,
what you hear every Sunday and Thursday. Verse 14, where unto
he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory, to
see the glory, to be with him in glory, the glory of our Lord
Jesus Christ. That's our greatest reason to
thank you. Isn't it? Now go back. I'm going to close
here. Colossians chapter 1. I knew
this would happen. But anyway, he says, we give thanks when
we heard of your faith, hope, and love. When you heard before,
verse five, the word of the truth of the gospel. How blessed you
are that the word of truth, the gospel, came to this place. It
hadn't always been here, has it? Has it, Carl? You know the story of my father.
He was a freewill Arminian Southern Baptist preacher. And I use that
term very lightly. He wasn't a preacher. He really
wasn't a pastor until the Lord revealed the truth to him. Understand
that? He was a false preacher until
God sent a true preacher, Ralph Barnard, with the truth, the
true gospel, and opened that young man's blind eyes and deaf
ears to hear the truth. You remember the story. Purpose.
Romans 8, 28, all thank God does everything on purpose. According
to his will. He's electing purpose. He's choosing
purpose. He's redeeming purpose. He has
an elect. He has a people he chose. He
gave them to Christ. Christ came down here to save
them on purpose. And he did it. And he went back
to glory and sat down at the right hand of the majesty on
high. And he sends the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the
gospel, through men that he has called, not false preachers,
true preachers, through men he has called, and they preach this
one gospel, and the Holy Spirit rounds up all of God's elect,
and they hear it, and they believe. Everyone else, same thing. You
mean all of God's people believe the same thing? Yes, exact same
thing. One Lord, one faith, One hope
of your calling, one father of you all and you all. That's right
in it. Same thing. We heard you believe
the word of the truth of the gospel. What is the truth? If
I asked you in one word, what is the truth? We got a one word
religion though. Jesus. Simple. Ask any question,
we'll give you one answer. Christ. What's the way to God? Christ. What's the truth? Christ. It's a person, not a God. Life. What's eternal life? Christ.
What's the Bible all about? Christ. What about creation?
Christ. Eternity. What's that going to
be all about? Christ. Christ is all. Christ is all. Like one old fellow said, all
means all, and that's all all means. Christ is all. He's telling you,
is that all? That's all. That's all I got to say. Oh,
how blessed we are. How blessed we are. OK. The Lord bless His Word.