Colossians chapter 1. Wednesday
we studied and worshipped, I believe, our Lord for reconciling us,
God's people. Reconciling us, meaning atoned,
covered, restore. Reconcile means to make
compatible, make agreeable, bring together. And verse 21 in Colossians 1
is where we left off. It says, and you. Yes, you. Me? Yeah, you. That were sometime
alienated. Enemies in your mind by wicked
works. Enemies in your mind, your thoughts,
wicked works, your deeds, yet now hath he reconciled. Does that sound familiar? Go
to Ephesians 2. Sounds just like it, doesn't
it? Paul wrote both letters around the same time. He was in prison
when he wrote Ephesians and Colossians. He said, "...and you that were
alienated from the enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet
now hath he reconciled." Ephesians 2 begins this way, "...and you
hath he quickened." That is, made alive by the life-giving Word. You
were dead and trespassed in sin. Wherein, these things, sin, you
walked, time passed, according to the course of this world.
You're in the world and you're of the world. According to the
prince of the power of the air who held you captive, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also
we all had our conversation. All my friends and my fellow,
my companions were people in the world. Had our conversation,
our life, our thoughts, our affection, in times past, in the lust of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, thinking only of
the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath,
even as others, that is, alienated and enemies. Romans 8 verse 7
says, The carnal mind is enmity with God. God's not the enemy
of man, but man is the enemy of God. When man fell in the garden,
he became God's enemy, didn't he? Satan was God's enemy, wasn't
he? And he seduced the man, the woman,
and then they became God's enemy. God's not the enemy. And we're by nature, it says
alienated enemies in our mind by wicked works, and you were
by nature children of wrath. Self-pride, these things, there's
no reason for pride. That's against God, isn't it?
Pride is against God. Unthankful. Unholy. Without natural
affection. That's man by nature. That was
me. That was you. But God. That's verse 4. Ephesians 2.
But God. Who is rich in mercy. For His
great love wherewith He loved us. There's nothing lovable.
Nothing there to love. Even when we were dead in sin.
Romans 5 said, God commended his love toward us, his people,
and why we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. When Christ
was hanging on that cross, the first words were, Father, forgive
them. Who? Those people out there that said,
kill him. That's who he was praying for. That's me. You know, to ignore
God, to ignore Christ, to live in this world without any care
for God, any thoughts of God, not thankful, not caring if Christ
came or lived or died or whatever, that was me. That was you. That's
the same thing as killing. To ignore somebody is to say,
I don't care if you live or die. Right? That was me. But yeah. See, the gospel is two words,
but God. Salvation is two words, but God,
or in Christ. Here's sin and you. Here's salvation,
but God. That's my favorite verse. And
you, but God. Look at verse 6 of Ephesians
2. I know this is not our text, but yes it is. They're all the
same. Verse 5, He went dead in sin. He quickened us, made us alive
with Christ. See, He did it by Christ dying. We live because Christ died.
By grace, you say. It's a gift. It's not a right. It's a gift. He's raised us up
together from the dead, made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. There was a time when this was
the last place I wanted to come and sit. I was made to sit here
as a child, like your children are. And then I alienated myself,
alienated, estranged myself. I grew up, you know, one of the
people, but I didn't want that. I became a stranger. Okay? Enemy in my mind. I've told you
my story. I've told all my old friends
that when I was young, when you're 18 or 19, you know everything.
And I did. I knew everything. And I told
all my friends I can disprove everything my dad's preached
all these years. It's just old foolishness. I'm ashamed of that. I'm so ashamed
of that. The Lord began to deal with me. I went and hunted up
all my old friends to tell them I was wrong. Disregard what I
said. I was a fool. A couple of them died a violent
death. My old friends. Most of them
did, as a matter of fact. Had you. Look out. Who made me to differ? Now there's nowhere I'd rather
be. This is my house. This is my home. You're my people.
These are the most comfortable seats on planet Earth. A heavenly place. Heavenly. I'd rather be here than anywhere
on Earth. This song we're going to sing
I love thy kingdom, Lord, the house of thine abode, the church
that my blessed Redeemer saved with his own precious blood.
I love thy kingdom, Lord, her walls before thee stand. Walls,
dear as the apple of thy eye engraved on thy hand. I love
thy kingdom, Lord. Beyond my highest joys, I prize
her heavenly ways. Her sweet communion, solemn vows,
her hymns of love and praise. Oh, I love that kingdom. I love that church. I love that
people. I love what we're doing. A lady
just told us from another congregation, she said, I'd rather die of the
coronavirus than not be able to come and worship. Amen. That's
right. And you. But God. Christ did die for us to have
this right, this will, this want to, this desire to worship. Christ
did die to secure that, to put that in us. Dare I not come worship
Him. He's going to show us, verse
7 in Ephesians 2, that in ages to come, He's going to show the
exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus. Aliens and enemies. Enemies. Made friendly. Made reconciled. Verse 10, we're His workmanship,
you see. Verse 11, remember, you, time
passes. Verse 12, without Christ, without
hope, without God in the world, aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise, no hope,
without God in the world, but now. Don't you love the buts
in Scripture? Soon, I think soon I'm going to preach a message
on the buts of Scripture. But God, but now. You who are far off are made
nigh. How? One way. The blood of Christ. He's our peace. He made both
one peace. God and us. Jew and Gentile. Broken down this partition between
us. This alienation. Verse 15. Abolished in the flesh the enmity. The law of commandments. And
the ordinances. Nailed them to his cross. Made
in himself too one new man. Making peace. Verse 16. Reconciled
us to God in one body by the cross. How did he do this? Preaching, preaching the gospel.
Verse 17, preach peace to you who are far off and to them that
are nigh, Jew and Gentile. And now we're both, verse 19,
now you're not strangers, not an alien anymore, you're not
a foreigner, you're a fellow citizen, you're family. Can't
imagine not being with my family. That's what Christ said, who
is my mother, who is my mother, this is my mother, my family.
What's alien? An alien, go back to Colossians
1 now, an alien is someone that's not natural born. We're not born
in the kingdom of God. We're not natural born citizens
of the kingdom of God, born again. An alien has no rights, right? The Bill of Rights talks about
our inalienable rights, which they want to take away from us.
But the fact of the matter is, Man has no rights. He relinquished
those in the gardening, and we do by our own wicked mind and
work, okay? Aliens. You're looking at an
illegal alien. That's me. Illegal. Not under
the law. Carnal man is not subject to
the law of God. Neither indeed can they. That's
what Romans 8 said. That was me. Hang on. I will
not have this man right over me. An alien. Stranger. But God. You know, God receives all illegal
aliens that want into his kingdom. What should we do with the illegal
aliens in our country? All self-righteous people say,
kick them out. That's how this country got started. I say, all these people that
think they have all these rights, kick them out and allow everybody
in that's willing to work at base wages and just loves the
privilege of being here. That's a sinner. I don't belong
here. Would you allow me a bit? Yes,
you're the kind. that I came for, Christ said.
Illegal aliens. Enemies. He did it, verse 22,
by the body of His flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in His sight. Presented to God. Turn to Hosea with me. Hosea.
When was the last time you read the book of Hosea? Well, stop
everything you're doing, turn off the news, and start reading
Hosea. I'm telling you, if you know the Lord, if this is your
story, Gomer, you'll rejoice. Hosea is a story of the Lord
telling Hosea to go marry a woman of whoredom, children of whoredom.
according to the love of God for His people. This is what
Christ did for His people. He said, go, Mary, verse 2 of
chapter 1, go take a wife of whoredom, the children of whoredom.
That's all of God's people. They sold themselves, their bodies,
their minds, everything to sin for pleasure. That's God's chosen
people. I can't preach for that. But
God. But Christ came. Like Hosea came down here to
marry a forlorn woman who didn't ask for it. And she wasn't beautiful
to look at. She had sold herself. When Hosea came, she was sold
to sin. Like a used up woman. And God says, here's what I'm
going to do, I'm going to make you, I'm going to present you
as a chaste virgin. Holy, unblamable, unapprovable
in God's hand. How can he undo everything? Blood. One way. One way. And he told old Hosea,
chapter 2, he told her to buy her, win her. Here's how he's
going to win her over, chapter 2, verse 6. Behold, I'll hedge
up thy way with thorns. I'll make a wall that won't find
your paths. Verse 7, she'll follow after
her lovers, but she won't find them. She'll seek them and not
find them. Then shall she say, I'll go return
to my first husband, better with me then than now. She didn't
know I was the one that was protecting her all that time. I was the
one that was giving her. I was the one that was feeding
her. The Lord says, I clothed you. He didn't know me. She didn't know. He said, verse
9, I'll return. I'll take away my corn, my wine
that I gave her. I'll take away, recover my wool,
my flax that covered her nakedness. I'll discover, verse 10, her
lewdness. I'm going to uncover her. I'm
going to make her naked. I'm going to make her feel naked
and cold and helpless and hopeless and sinful and vile. And down
in verse 14, then I will allure her. I'll bring her into the
wilderness. I'll make her to feel like she's
in a wilderness in this world that was once her home. And I'm
going to make her feel alienated. And I'm going to speak comfortably
to her. mercy and love to make us uncomfortable. It's God's great mercy and grace
to convict, to make us feel ashamed, to feel naked. Then and then
only will He comfort us. And look at verse 23. He says,
I'll sow her unto me in the earth. I will have mercy upon her. I
will not obtain mercy. I'll say to them, not my people,
You're my people. Not me. Yes, you. One more, okay? One more. In case you don't read
it soon. Chapter 3, verse 2. So I bought her to me for 15
pieces of silver, an omer of barley, a half omer of barley.
What's barley? Well, it's poor man's bread.
Where did Boaz find Ruth? In his barley field. And that's when he came to Ruth
and said, you're mine. Her hap was to light on the field,
the barley field that belonged to Boaz. And he came right. In verse 3,
he said unto her, thou shalt abide for me many days. Thou
shalt not play the harlot. Thou shalt not be for another
man. So will I also be for thee. You're mine. You're mine. Oh, and then I was going to have
you read in Revelation 14, it says, who are these people? Revelation
14, John said, who are these people? He said, I heard a number
which no man can number, singing at the top of their lungs, shouting
unto Him, unto Him, unto Him. And I said, who are these people?
And the angel said, these are chaste virgins. These are the
Lord's virgins. Who? Mary Magdalene? Yeah. Gomer? Yeah. Thief on the cross? Yeah. Old sinner? Yeah. Oh, this is a work that only
God can do, isn't it? Make the guilty innocent. Make
the ugly beautiful. Make a harlot into a virgin. Pure and holy. Unblameable. Unreprovable. in God's sights. When Hosea married Gomer and
brought her to himself like Christ did to his people, then he paraded
her down the street and dared anybody to say anything. Satan's the accuser of the brethren,
isn't he? Look, he's a sinner. No, he's
not. He's mine. He's holy. Don't you dare say
anything about it. This is my bride. Colossians 1, look at verse 23,
Colossians 1. If, if you continue in the faith,
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope,
there's only one, of the gospel, which you've heard, which was
preached to every creature under heaven, wherever I, Paul, have
made a minister, and me too, I'm a minister. If, now this
will seem contradictory to those who don't know, my wife's grandmother,
the Lord saved her when she was around 70 years old. And when
she first came to hear my dad preach, my pastor preach the
gospel, she'd sit there and she was a first Christian church
lady, you know, prim and proper. She'd never sinned in her life.
prim and proper, and she came here, and she was nothing but
critical of everything. She said, he contradicts himself.
He just contradicts himself. Well, it wasn't long. Bless God. But God showed her, you're the
confused one. Confusion of faces, as Daniel
said, unto us belong confusion of faces. We're the ones that's
contradiction. And she finally realized, he's
telling the truth. I just didn't know the truth. Not a contradiction
at all, is it? Here it is. This will seem like
a contradiction if you don't know. See, we're reconciled, we're
redeemed, we're saved if you continue in the faith. If you remain faithful, if you
hold fast, if you overcome the world and not overcome by the
world, you've been redeemed. You've been saved. If you don't
leave the Lord, if you don't forsake the living God, if you
don't leave the gospel and leave the church, that means you're
saved. All right, here's the fact of
the matter, all right? If you hold fast, it's because
He's holding you. So just the fact of the matter,
if you continue, you belong to it. If you keep coming, it's
because the Lord has kept you coming, keeps calling you, right? If you believe, if you keep believing,
it's because he's keeping you by the power of God, which is
the gospel. It's not a contradiction at all.
You say, I don't understand. Then you don't have an understanding,
do you? Here it is. Here's the fact of
the matter. If I believe, He gave me that faith. If I don't,
it's because I rejected it. If I do anything bad, it's me. It's my fault. If I do anything
good, it's God that worketh in me, both the will and do good
of His good plan. I understand that. If I keep
on, that means I'm kept. If I love Him, it's because He
first loved me. And He must still love me. If
I ever fall out of love with the gospel, God never loved me.
And it's for sure I never loved Him. Right? It's not His fault. It's mine. Everything wrong,
I did it. You have any problem understanding
that? If I'm saved, God's going to get all the glory. Is that
a contradiction? It's just a fact. If I leave,
it's my fault. If I don't stay under the sound
of the gospel, it's because I love other things and other people. But if the love of God is shed
abroad in my heart, I'm not going to leave. If I leave, it's because I want
to leave. If I stay, Because He wouldn't
let me leave. Is that a contradiction? No,
it's glory. It's glory. It's His glory. Notice
verse 23, it says, Be not moved away from the hope, the hope
of the gospel. There is no hope anywhere in
anyone or anything but in what you're carrying right now. This
world is hopeless. Have you ever seen so much hopelessness
in your life? I haven't. Oh, the church has
been through so much worse than this now. Time has passed. Thousands
of years of real trouble. Read Hebrews 11. When was the
last time you read Hebrews 11? What all our brothers and sisters
went through. Wouldn't accept deliverance. Don't be moved away from the
hope of the gospel. There is no hope anywhere else. Grounded. That means settled. Here I stand. The wind of the
world and religion, is the word. Like the telling and hearing
of some new thing. Every wind of doctrine, every
rumor. You know the Lord destroyed a king and a kingdom through
a rumor? Seneca, read it for yourself. Isaiah 37. Through a rumor. God
sent a rumor. And look that word up and start
reading about what all God says about sinning. Rumors. What's
a rumor? Who's they? What's God say? You listen to
the Lord, you'll be grounded. You're not going to move. Settled. Heart's fixed. Settled. Got to have the gospel. It's
my hope. And the gospel is our hope. There's no hope without
it. The gospel is our food. We'll starve and die without
it. We're dead without it. We don't need it. We don't have
hunger. The gospel is our life. Not a part of it. Christ is not
a part of our life. He is our life. The gospel is
our love. We don't love Him if we can do
without it. By the gospel, I mean Christ. I mean all that He is,
all that He's done. He said, where two or three are
gathered, that's where I'll be, and I'll speak to you. I'll speak
peace, and I'll speak joy, and I'll speak comfort. I'll ground
you and settle you, and you'll not be moved. You have hope in
a hopeless world. You have peace. Not the world
give. They can't give any. I give it, and no man can take
it away, He said. That's with gospel. Same old,
same old. Isn't it wonderful? God never
changes. Truth never changes. The truth never changes. Solid
rock. Fixed. Grounds and settles. A man so easily swayed and moved,
but if you're standing on Christ's rock, nothing, no one, nothing
anyone says, nothing that happened, no one can do, can unsettle you. If you're standing on the rock. The gospel has been preached,
verse 23, this is, he said, to every creature under heaven. And Romans 10 says that same
thing. Paul said, have they not all
heard, yea, verily, the sound has gone throughout the earth.
All men and women are accountable and responsible. They've all
heard. The gospel has been preached in this town for 40 some years
on the radio, everywhere. It's gone everywhere. All have
heard. Well, what's the problem? Rejected
it. And as we said on the radio this
morning, what's the problem? It's not a problem, this is the
fact. Salvation is of the Lord. And
we have ears, but we don't hear. Well, the real hearing ear and
the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both. And why are you
hearing it now? Why are you here? Why are you
here? Why do you hear? Why do you see? Why do you hunger and thirst?
He's given you life. He chose you. This town, everybody
hates election. God's people love it. They know if He hadn't chosen
me, I would not be here right now today. I would not have been
here. You know what? I've remained a rebel and a hater
of the truth about God. You see? So Paul said, that's
my ministry. Paul said, that's my ministry.
You want to preach that again? Next week, yes. I'm going to
preach to the Ephesians, I'm going to preach to the Colossians,
I'm going to preach to the Galatians, to the Corinthians. Wow, that's
the ministry, the ministry of reconciliation. Who? Christ. You heard David Edmondson say
that one of his members, somebody asked him what his preacher preached
on. That's rare, somebody asks that. What's your preacher preach? He said the same message he preached
last week. And they said, the same message? He said, yeah.
He said he preaches the exact same message every Sunday. The
same? Yes, Jesus Christ, the same. Yesterday, today, and forever. And those that love him, those
that know him, those that need him, he's their hope. They got
to hear him. Just keep telling me. Keep telling
me this news, this good news, this truth that doesn't change,
because it settles me. And that settles that. Okay.