Colossians chapter 1. This is just a great, great book,
isn't it, Colossians? Just wonderful. Read with me
verses 21 through 23. Colossians 1, 21 through 23.
And you that were sometime or one time alienating enemies in
your mind by wicked works, Yet now hath he reconciled in the
body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in his sight, if ye continue in the faith,
grounded and settled, be not moved away from the hope of the
gospel which you have heard and which was preached to every creature
which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, and made a minister,
and me too, this Paul, a minister of the gospel. If you continue,
he said, if you continue. I know we've already looked at
this, but we need, you read with me Hebrews, how many times, if,
if, if, and it just keeps telling us, if, if you continue, if you
hold fast, if you hold fast. We look Sunday that if we hold
fast, we'll know it's because he holds up. Nevertheless, it
says, if you continue, this is an exhortation, it's a warning
not to be moved away from the hope of the gospel because there
is no hope anywhere else. So this is a warning to us and
it's an exhortation to hold fast, lay hold of this hope which is
a person and don't let go. for anything or anyone. Don't do it. And Hebrews, when's
the last time you've read Hebrews? If you read any of it, just start
in chapter 11 and read that hall of faith. Every one of them lived
in this world amidst trials and troubles and tribulations and
great fears and all of that. And every one of them died from
something. Some of them died violent deaths. But it says, now here's where,
this is what matters. They died in the faith. I want to die in the faith. Don't you? It's not how you start. It's how you die. If you die
in the faith, that means you live by faith. It means Christ
is in you. And we're not saved by our faith.
Christ saved us, right? Faith just believes that, believes
Him. We're not saved by remaining
faithful. That's not what saves us. We're
saved by His faithfulness. If we remain faithful, it's because
He faithfully kept us. But if we truly believe, if we
trust Him, we know Him and trust Him, That means you're known
of Him and you will abide in Him. At one time, there were
many disciples that walked no more with Christ. You remember
that? John chapter 6. Many turned around and left the
Son of God. And He turned to His disciples
and He said, will you also go up? And Simon Peter said, on
behalf of all of us, can you say this from the heart? To whom?
Who? Who would we leave you for? What would we leave you for? Huh? Simon Peter said, thou hast
the words of life. This is life. You're our life.
Christ was their life. If you have this life, you can't
leave. Really, if Christ is our life,
and what that means is what we're doing right now. We're worshiping
Christ. We're where He said to be. Aren't
we? We're two or three together.
If Christ is our life, the hearing of His word, He said, my sheep
hear my voice. So I come here, I want to hear
his voice, don't you? And tell me, is it not so that
you hear his voice more with the fold, with the flock, in
the fold, than you do at home alone? It's a fact. I do. We hear His voice. We're His
sheep. If the worship of our Lord, if you have a need to meet
with Him, to call upon Him, to sing to Him and of Him, you have
life. I'm going to save Christ in you,
the hope of glory, for Sunday. We're going to look... I'm already
telling you what it means. I'm already telling you. But
this is your hope of glory. This means you're going to glory.
That means you've already been. Glory in you. Christ is in you. If He's your life, the worship
of Christ is your life. We read Psalm 63, Sunday. Remember
that? Wasn't that a good psalm? David
said, Thy lovingkindness is better than life. That's what he said. Better than life. He said, I
found your word and I found it sweeter than honey. Sweeter than
a honeycomb. He said, there's nothing I'd
rather eat than your word. He said, your word to me was
like fine gold, better than gold and silver. David said in another place,
I rejoice more in him more than they rejoice in the time when
their corn and their wine is increased, when their barns are
full of stuff. He said, my heart gets full.
That's life. You have life. You have Christ
in you. But that's Sunday's message. Now, I'm not making it to Sunday,
but... So, the fact is, if we have faith, we have life, we have Christ,
we have a union. This is a union. A union, like
a husband and a wife, like a father and his child. What is the faith? It says here in verse 23, if
you continue in the faith. What is the faith? We have three
things, basically. And these three are what? Three
things. Faith is belief. Faith is trust
in God. Hebrews 11 verse 6 says, He that
cometh to God must believe that he is. And God's a rewarder of
them that diligently seek him. God said, seek my faith. David
said, I'll seek your faith. Did he find it? He sure did. Faith is to believe in God, to
believe he is God. Now, buddy, this will ground
you and settle you. This will ground you and settle
you. If you don't believe God is sovereign, if you don't believe
God is God, you'll be unsettled, upset. Everything you hear and
see is going to upset you. God is God. Over what? Everything. Settle down. Just settle down. Be still. How many times do you have to
say that? Be still and know that I am God. I do all these things. All these things. And for His
people, all things work together for good. That's our God. Settle down. Don't go anywhere. Don't need
to go anywhere. Got it all right here. God's
God. If you really believe, if you
really trust that God is God, you will be grounded and settled.
Those three Hebrews, Hanani, Mashiach, and Azariah, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, they threatened them. They were unmoved. phased by a government mandate. They were unphased by threat,
by fear of death. They were unphased. And their
answer was, our God is God. If we go in that fire, he's the
one that's going to put us there. If we go in that fire and die,
it's over. All our troubles are over. Either way, He's going to deliver
us. Because God is God. And they
just settled. Go ahead. Do what you will. Because God is God. Our right
faith is to believe God. Not just be as God, but to believe
what He says. It's to believe God, His Word,
His truth. We looked Sunday, I believe it
was, He can't lie. Why not believe somebody that
cannot lie? David said, here's what David
said, I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right. And I hate every false way. I
hate everything, I don't believe anything is contrary to thy precepts. Paul said that. He said, let
God be true and every man a liar. David said the same thing. I
said in my haste that all men are liars. He looked around and
he had a hard time finding somebody that wasn't lying for their own
evil purposes. He said, I said it in my haste
because Nathan wasn't a liar. You could go and hear Nathan
preach. He wasn't a liar. And others. Jonathan. Peter said,
here's what Peter said when they threatened him to quit preaching. He said, whether it be right,
whether it be right in the sight of God, because God is listening
and watching, whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken
unto you rather than God, more than unto God, you judge. You judge, you be the judge."
He said, but we cannot help but speak the things we've seen and
heard. We can't help but do what we know. Believe Him and do what
He said. Can't help it. We've heard Him, we've heard
His voice, we've seen His power, we've seen His great mercy and
His grace. So faith is to believe in God, that He is God. It's
to believe God, believe what He says. Believe what He said. And thirdly, to believe on the
Son, the Son of God. He that believeth on the Son
hath life. Believe on the Son, not just
in Him, but on Him. Cast all your soul, your sins,
everything on the head of the sacrifice. Believe on the Son
of God. Trust Him. You know, the stain
of death is sin. Part of the reason of everybody's
fear of death is because they've got this nagging conscience due
to sin. That's right. And even us as
believers, we think, my sin, surely he's not going to let
me in heaven when it's over because I'm such a sinner. Believe on
the Son of God. Believe on Christ. That's what
he came for. He gave a dying word of promise
to a useless, worthless, no good thief and murderer. The worst
scum of the earth. He said, today you're going to
be with me in paradise. What did that man do? Nothing. Believed. You're with me. You're coming in, King. Believe. Trust him. So look at our text, it says,
be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. Now this means,
number one, literally it means don't move where no gospel is. Do not remove yourself from the
hearing or preaching of the gospel. You take away your own hope. There is no hope. except in this
gospel. There's no hope in the world.
There's no hope for this world. There's no hope for this world. And I say to our young people,
and I'm not trying to scare them or anything, but it's so. This is why knowing Christ is life. If you know Him, it
doesn't matter what happens. in this world. It's all going
to be good. But there is no hope for this
world. Our Lord is going to destroy this world. There's only hope
in God. There's a verse that says, He that blesseth himself
in the earth, blesseth himself in the God of truth. You want
to be blessed? Job lost everything in this earth. Everyone on this earth, didn't
he? But he was a blessed man. Why?
He didn't lose his hope. He didn't lose his salvation.
He didn't lose his trust in God. There's only hope in God. There's
only hope in Christ, in the gospel. What is the hope of the gospel?
Look at Titus. One verse will suffice. Titus
chapter 1. Go over there. Titus. A little
book of Titus. Right after 2 Timothy, Titus
chapter 1. This one verse will suffice, but we'll look at several.
Titus chapter 1, look at this, this is wonderful. The hope of
the gospel, the good news that gives hope, is this. Look at
chapter 1, verse 1. Paul, a servant of God, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and
acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness, that is,
it's going to make us like Christ, in hope of eternal life, which
God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began, but hath
in due time manifested his word through preaching, which is committed
unto me. Preaching, preaching. It sounds
just like Colossians does. It sounds just like Ephesians.
Because it is. He always preaches and writes
the same thing. But this hope is of eternal life. See that? Life. Eternal life
with God. Not just going to heaven. Everybody
wants to go to heaven. Somebody said, who was it? Kelly
or something. Said, everybody wants to go to
heaven but nobody wants to die. Meaning? They want to stay here
in their little carnal utopia and have fun, all they enjoy. But, and then if they have to
die, they want to go to heaven, they don't want to go to hell.
But that's not what, that's not eternal life. It's not wanting
to go to a pie in the sky and sweep by and meet mama in a little
cabin in glory. It's to be with God. To be with
Christ. He is our life. eternal life
with him, like a marriage. When you marry someone, it's
supposed to be for life. The more you love them, you don't
want to leave them. You can be married 72 years and
not ready to lose them. Don't want to leave them. Right?
Well, that's Christ and his bride. And he said, I'll never leave
you. And one of these days, you'll never have to leave me. How's
that sound? Well, if you love Christ, it's
wonderful. He is our life. It's not a place. Heaven's a person. It's eternal
life. Eternal life with Christ, with
each other. You love each other now? We're
going to love perfectly then. None of us will be strange. None of us will be strange. Like
John. No, we'll all be the same. Exactly
the same. No sinful characteristics. We'll all be just like Jesus
Christ. No anger, no wrath, no jealousy,
no envy, no self-pity. We'll be with each other. If
you enjoy being with God's people, oh my, it's an eternity. Do you
enjoy doing this? We enjoy singing these, there's
so much, the flesh, the flesh interferes, doesn't it? And the
fowl of the air, you know, come and steal it away and the thorns
choke it out and all that. So there's not going to be any
of that sometime. And we're going to be able, we're going to be able to sing
at the top of our lungs in perfect key. Look at Titus chapter 3. Here's
eternal life, verse 4. Oh my, don't you love this? After
the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we've done, but according
to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration, the
renewing of the Holy Ghost which He shed on us abundantly through
Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace,
justified from all things, that we should be made heirs according
to the hope of eternal life. The hope of eternal life. Look
at, go with me to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. As I said,
there's no hope in this world. But why is that? Why is there
no hope in this world? Because it's dying. That's why. It's a sinking ship. It's a sinking
ship. The old saying is, don't polish
brass on a sinking ship. The story of the Titanic, you
know, it's interesting that there are two great ships that everybody
knows about, the Ark of Noah and the Titanic. Well, they said of the Titanic,
it cannot sink. And I'm sure they said of the
Ark of Noah, it cannot float. On the Titanic, there was a who's
who in the world. The rich, the famous, I think
the architect of that ship was on there. I don't think the owner
was, he didn't quite have that much faith in it. But anyway,
they were who's who. And you know, when they told
those passengers, high and mighty and all that, they were sitting
around their tables eating their caviar and champagne and all
that. They told them that this ship is going down. They didn't
believe it. The story has it that this band
kept playing and they kept eating and drinking and carrying on
like it wasn't going down. The ship was going down. And everybody that stayed in
that ship perished. Now, this other ship, the Ark, everybody that stayed in that
ship Which ship are you in? This world
is like the Titanic. It's going down. The Lord told
us. He keeps telling us it's going down. It's perishing. It's
perishing. All these things shall be dissolved.
Jump ship. Get out. No hope in this world because
it's dying. There's no hope in religion. No hope in religion. Why? They speak of the world.
They speak things of the world. The church is talking about another
world. There's no hope in the law. There's no hope in the law. It's all against us. So many
religions that would have you hope in keeping the law. That's
a false hope. No hope in the law. No hope in
dead works. A lot of people take hope in
what they're doing, you know, for the Lord. That's hopeless.
There's no hope for a bright future in this world. And you
look to this world, like Isaiah 8 says, there's darkness and
dimness and anguish of spirit. But now, let me talk some about
a good hope. There's a bright future. A bright
and glorious day that shineth. Hope of eternal life and joy
unspeakable, full of glory. Romans 8, I told you to turn
there, didn't I? Look at Romans 8, verse 18. He
said, I reckon the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory. The glory. The glory. We're going to look at that.
Glorious hope. The glory which shall be revealed
in us. Oh, the earnest expectation of
the creature. Creation waits for the manifestation
of the sons of God. What a day that'll be, won't
it? Look down at verse 22. We know
the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until
now. Not only the creation, but ourselves
also. We are born again of the fruit
of the Spirit. We groan within ourselves waiting
for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our body. Paul
said, Romans 7, 24, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from this body, the body of this death? So he says in verse
24, we're saved by hope. See, hope of eternal life, hope
of a sinless body. Hope, the hope that's seen is
not hope. What a man seeth, he doesn't
have to hope for. But, verse 25, we hope for that
we see not and we with patience wait for. Not it. That's in italics. Him. Him. The Spirit helps our infirmities. Look at 2 Corinthians 4. Go over there. 2 Corinthians
4. Look at this hope. Saved by this hope of eternal
life. Hope in Christ. And we wait on
Him. 2 Corinthians 4. You see, the
gospel, the light of the knowledge of God, that's the gospel. Verse
6, in a person and work of Christ, has shined in our hearts. It's
a glorious hope. We have a treasure, verse 7,
an earthen vessel. Verse 8, now we're troubled.
We're troubled on every side, but we're not in distress. No. We're perplexed. We don't have... Full understanding of why this,
why that, but we're not in despair. We're grounded in sin. We're
persecuted, but we're not forsaken. Cast down. We get cast down,
don't we? David, I love Psalm 42, don't
you? Oh, he said, why art thou cast
down, O my soul? Hope in God. And he admitted
to God. He said, Lord, I am cast down.
He said, I'll hope in Him, God. In verse 10 he says, we're always
bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus crucified
with him. That the life also of Christ
might be made manifest in our body. Verse 16, go down there. For which cause we faint not.
Not going to quit. Our outward man is perishing.
But the inward man is renewed day by day. Our light affliction is but for a moment. It works
for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory. Why, we look,
as long as we look not at the things which are seen, but the
things that are not seen, for the things that are seen are
temporal. Things that are not seen are eternal. Keep reading.
We know if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved,
we have a building of God made, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heaven. And this is what we groan for,
earnestly desiring to be clothed with our house, which is from
heaven. And down in verse 7, he says,
we walk by faith, you see, not by sight. We're confident, I
say willing rather to be absent from the body and present with
the Lord. Can you believe that? It's hope. Hope, you see. It's our hope. A couple of ladies have a very
good name. Hope. And you have an even better
hope in Christ. A better name is the daughter
of Abraham. Child of God. So, go back to
Colossians. Colossians chapter 1. He says
in verse... So we have this hope of the gospel,
which you heard. You wouldn't have heard it, you
wouldn't have it, if it wasn't preached to you. So we have this
blessed hope. Where have I, Paul, made a minister?
In verse 24, look at this. And I now rejoice in my sufferings
for you. Did you read that? Have you read
what Paul suffered? When's the last time he read
what he went through? Whipped five times, 49 stripes. Most people didn't live through
one whipping. He was whipped five times. Beaten
with rods, stoned, shipwrecked, on and on, peril, peril, peril.
He said, I rejoice. I rejoiced in my suffering."
Now he's in prison. It wasn't a halfway house that
served, you know, fine food and TVs and prison. He's about to get his head cut
off. He says it's a light affliction. You just read that, didn't you?
He said, I rejoiced. Now I think there's a couple
of reasons. I know there's a couple of reasons. He said, I rejoiced
in my suffering. It's a light affliction. He was
in prison. You know, Paul said, this is
a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. He said,
I was injurious, I persecuted the church. Paul was in prison
and he never lost sight of the fact that he put people in prison.
for believing the gospel. He went and got women and men
and children and put them in prison for believing the gospel.
Kelly, he never got over that. He said, I deserve to be in prison.
And he was thankful. Well, God put me where I belong. But I'm not getting what I deserve.
He hasn't dealt with me according to my sins. But, now I know what
it's like to be in prison. Now I know, now I can enter into
the fellowship and sufferings of my brethren whom I put in
prison." He was persecuted because he persecuted. He was injured
because he was injurious, right? And Paul knew this, he knew that
all that happened that while he did deserve it, it was a lot
less than he did deserve. When he said our light afflictions,
that means they're light compared to what we deserve from God.
Why should a living man complain for the punishment of his sin?
God has not punished us, really punished us for our sin. He punished
Christ. Keep that in mind and you'll go through anything and
not complain about it. It's the only thing that'll keep
us from complaining, realizing that Jesus Christ took our weapon. So Paul was in prison. He thought,
whip me. They whipped my Lord. Whip me!
I deserve it. He didn't deserve it. He knew it was less than he deserved.
He knew it was for his good, his humility. He was up on a
high horse. He used to think he was somebody. Oh, the Lord brought him down
off that high horse and humbled him greatly. And he was thankful. for a broken and a contrite heart.
He was thankful. And for God's glory. He knew
this was going to be for God's glory. He said, I dishonored
God. I blasphemed God. Now I've got
an opportunity to glorify God. I'm going to do it with every
word I write. With everything I do, I rejoice
in my suffering. And he said, it's for you. He
said, I know this is for the furtherance of the gospel. I
know I'm in prison for the furtherance of the gospel. The good of others. Look at verse 24. I rejoice in
my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the
afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is
the church. What he's saying, and let me
read this to you. What he's saying is that now
I know how to comfort those who need comfort. Like he said, I
put people in prison, now I'm in prison. Now I know what it's
like to be in prison. And to suffer for the truth's
sake and all who believe will. And he said this, the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of
all comfort, he comforts me and all my tribulations that I might
be able to comfort them which are in any trouble. He didn't
used to have any trouble in religion. He didn't have any trouble in
the world. He was thankful God took him out of there and put
him in trouble. He was thankful for trouble,
knowing, like Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians, to you that are in trouble, this
is for you that are in trouble, rest with us. God's people have
trouble in this world. The world doesn't have trouble
with the world. God's people do. Why? They're not of the world. Christ came in the world. The
world was made by Him and knew Him not. And the world wanted
Him out. And so it is with God's people.
So you're going to have trouble in the world. Paul was thankful
for trouble. If you don't have any trouble
with this world, you're in trouble. So he said, the sufferings of
Christ abound in us, so are our consolations. He said, if we
be afflicted, I'm reading 2 Corinthians 1. If we be afflicted, it's for
your consolation and your salvation. It's effectual and enduring of
the same suffering which we also suffer. We be comforted, we comfort
you. Our hope of you is steadfast,
knowing your partaker of the suffering and our partaker of
the suffering. You understand? Let me try to
illustrate this in closing. See, we're saved by Christ's
suffering for us. We're not saved by suffering
for Him. No. We're saved by Christ's suffering
for us. But we're saved by seeing His suffering for us, which makes
us, breaks us, makes us humble, makes us grateful, thankful,
trusting. And we're also comforted and
encouraged and made stronger by seeing the sufferings of our
brethren for the cause of Christ. That's 3 Hebrews 11, the whole
chapters about the sufferings of God's people, what all they
went through, not accepting deliverance. Stones, sawn asunder, thrown
into the lions and fire and all that, but they would not accept
deliverance. Don't you love the story of the three Hebrews? Don't
you love that? You want to hear it again? I just told it. I'll
tell it to you again. Why do you love that? Because
it encourages you. And all of God's people go through
some kind of fiery trial, don't they? All of them. All through the fire and all
through the blood. But we're encouraged when we see our brethren
go through it and they say, it's okay. I've watched several believers
die. I've heard their dying testimony. And it encourages me, it removes
the fear of death from me. We see our brethren suffer and
endure and keep coming, abide faithful, we're made stronger. I've told you about my sister
dying of cancer. She was in every service until
she was bed fat, until she couldn't get out of bed. And she said,
life's not worth living if you can't worship. Go worship the
Lord. That's what David said, it's
better than life. My old dad, I'm thankful we never
put handicap access in while he was here. You know why? Because he would have crawled
up those steps to get in that pew if he had to. Was that not
a blessing to you? He got to the point where he
couldn't put one foot in front of the other. But Stephen, he
got up and stepped in. I guarantee you he knew how many
steps there were, because it was a burden. But he said, I
have to. I have to. He preached the gospel
for all those years, and then he sat and heard the gospel for
ten years and wouldn't miss it for nothing, for nobody. We'd
go over there and he'd be waiting on the porch. It'd be 20 degrees
in January. He'd be sitting on the porch
with his Bible, with his little sweater on. Where have you been? What kept you? Waiting on us. Waiting to come worship. Why? Because Christ is his knife. And I witnessed faith like that
and I said, I want to die like that. You know, the Henry Swords,
right in that pew, all those years ago, right there, he sat
right there, right there, right there, until the Lord took him. Right there sits another one.
Right there sits another one. Your dad was right there until
the Lord put him down, didn't he? Until he couldn't get up
again. That strengthens me. Let me die like that. Right? So Paul said, I rejoice in my
sufferings, they're for you. He went through anything and
everything, the worst. You see? God's grace is sufficient. See? I'm ready to die, ready
to depart. Are you, Paul? Yeah. I have good hope, you see, in a
person. Ah, in everything give thanks.
In everything. This is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you. And those of you who hope in
Christ, if you have hope in Christ, oh, you've got a good hope, a
hope of eternal life, glorious hope. Hmm. Oh, it's just, and
that's all I can say about that. Stand with me. Hmm. Our Lord, thank you, thank you,
thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your blessed word,
blessed hope, the blood of our Lord, the gospel of our salvation. Thank you, Lord, for the hope
of eternal life. Oh, come quickly, Lord Jesus. But until you do, save, save,
Lord. Save us, save our children, save
others. We want them to be in the ark
with us. We want them to be in Christ,
be found in Him until that day. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
You're dismissed.