after three again this evening. I've decided I have some more
things that I want to bring before you on the subject Christ is
all. And so, I just didn't get in
everything I wanted to get in this past Lord's Day. And so
I want to try to finish giving to you my few thoughts on this
most wonderful of subjects, of Christ being all. As the message goes on, I'll
be reading more verses, but for now, I just want to read to you
verse 11, and then we'll have prayer. Reading from the book
of Colossians, chapter 3. Speaking of those who are created
in Christ Jesus, that there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision
nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, but Christ
is all and in all. Let's bow and ask our gracious
God to be with us again this evening. Our Father, we consider it a
great honor to be able to speak to you through our mediator,
to address you as our Father in this covenant relationship,
that we have with you through our Lord Jesus. Indeed, it is
a family relationship. Lord, you have adopted us into
your family and we are the children of God. What a marvelous thing
that those who are by nature worms of the dust, are lifted
up and we have the privilege of saying we are the children
of the Lord through the grace of God, through your predestination
of our adoption into your family, and indeed through the work,
the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you, Father, for establishing
this work so many years ago and for continuing to lead us in
the way of righteousness, in the way of grace, in the way
of Christ and him crucified. Lord, we ask that you would enable
us to continue to be faithful to the message of grace, to the
message of salvation is of God. And Lord, help us always to seek
the honor and the glory, the majesty of our great and glorious
Savior. We ask, Father, that you would
forgive us of our sins. Oh, how far, far short we fall
of the glory of God. Indeed, we miss the mark of perfection. And Lord, we look forward to
that day when there shall be no more sin in us. that day when
we leave this world and we enter into the everlasting bliss of
the presence of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Until then, we ask
you to keep us safe, keep us ever looking unto Jesus, the
author and the finisher of our faith. Lord, the work that you have
begun in us, we're so thankful that you have given us your word
that you will finish that work to the day of Jesus Christ. Bless
these dear saints of God who are gathered this evening. Lord,
we all come seeking to worship asking for the presence of the
Spirit of grace, and desiring, once again, to
commune with our Savior, to have our minds and our hearts focused
upon Him. Surely, Lord, there is no greater
nor more wonderful thing in this world than to just look to and rejoice
in and bask in the redeeming grace of that one who is our
savior, that one who lived and died for us, in whose robe of
righteousness we're covered, that one who ever lives to make
intercession for us. Oh, how we do seek to honor Him
this evening and we seek to honor Him, oh Lord, in our daily lives. May He always be our example. May we seek to conduct ourselves
in this world in a manner that says that we've been with Jesus. Lord, may the As the years go
by, may the things of this world grow dim to us. And may the luster
of the brightness of the glory of Christ Jesus become brighter
and brighter to us. Bless our families, those who
know not the Savior. Lord, I pray that you will bring
them by your effectual arm of grace to Christ, the only Savior
of sinners. Bless the sick, those of our
congregation who are under trial. Lord, we know that all of these
things come from the hand of our all-wise God. I pray that
You will give us grace to always rest in You, to rest in Your
understanding of the things that we need. And may we look each
day to the Lord and believe You and rest in Your promises. Those promises like You'll never
leave us nor forsake us. those promises like where two
or three gather together in the name of Christ, you'll be in
the midst. And so believing your word and
looking to you only. Father, we go forward in this
service. We ask you to take the words
that we speak and magnify your dear son. In his name, we ask
these things. Amen. All right, we come this
evening once again to consider our subject, Christ is all. And
as you well know, we spent two services this last Lord's Day
dealing with this wonderful subject. These three words, this is what
Christianity is all about. It's not about being a Baptist. It's not about any particular
denomination. It's about us coming to a God-given
understanding that the Lord Jesus is indeed our all. He's everything
we need. He's everyone we need. Like Fanny
Crosby wrote, take the world, but give me Jesus. We've got
to have the Savior. And what we ask for is that God
would enable us to rest in Him as that one who is our all in
all. And I ask you, I asked you this
past Lord's Day morning, and I ask you again, is He your all? To many people, He's nothing.
Can you imagine that? The Lord Jesus, the Christ of
God, the one who's set forth in the Old Testament. Can you
imagine that there are people in this world to whom Christ
Jesus is nothing at all? And yet, that's the way it used
to be with us. He was nothing to us. Not really. Not really. Oh, we may have observed
Christmas and Easter and kind of given him a token thought
every once in a while, but really, he wasn't on our minds. He wasn't in our hearts. He wasn't
made real to us. We didn't know him. Yes, he knew
us because he's known us forever, but we didn't know him, and as
far as we were concerned, he was really nothing to us. There
are people to whom he's a little something, but not much. They give him a token of their
time, and a token of their thoughts, and a token of their attention,
but that's it. But there are some people, by
the grace of God, by the enablement of the Holy Spirit, who have
heard the sound of the gospel of redeeming grace, who have
been brought by the Spirit of God to rest in, to trust their
very soul to Christ Jesus, and they have, in their innermost
being, fallen in love with the Savior. And He is their all. And I trust and I do believe,
I'm speaking to people here in this congregation and people
who are watching tonight by way of the internet, that to you,
Christ is your all. He's all of your hope. He's all
of your confidence. He's all of your love. He's won
your heart. And He must do that. He's got
to win our hearts. Because our hearts are far from
Him. Our hearts are set on earthly
things. Not on heavenly things. In fact,
the apostle begins this very chapter, Colossians chapter 3,
advising us, admonishing us, that if you be risen with Christ,
if you're raised with Him, then seek those things which are above. Where is above? That's where
Christ sits on the right hand of God. Seek Him and seek all
the things that honor Him and please Him. May He be our all. May we honor Him. If you would
honor God, you must honor the Lord Jesus. Isn't that what the
Savior said in John chapter 5? No man honors God except as they
honor his Son. And those who would deny his
identity as the God-man, as that one who's equal with God, who
made himself of no reputation, who came into this world, and
he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, those who
deny that he is God manifest in the flesh, they don't honor
him. We've got to honor Him in His
person, in His deity. To honor Him is to worship Him. God commands us to do that. This
one who is God and who is the Son of Man. This is the one who
pleads God. The father said, this is my beloved
son in whom I'm well pleased. Not a Jesus who tries to do something
but fails, but this one who is always successful. He's the one
who pleased God. He's your righteousness. We just
read and then we join in singing of that song out of the black
folder. Who of God has made into us wisdom? He's our wisdom. We said that
this past Lord's Day, Proverbs chapter 8. He's wisdom. To know Him is to be wise. Oh God, make us wise unto salvation. He's made of God to be wisdom
and righteousness. He is our righteousness. Ours
is all filthy rags. He's our righteousness. Wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification. What is sanctification? That's
holiness. Holiness. That's our standing
before God. And we're never more holy now
in Christ than we'll ever, we will never be any more holier,
I should say. We're holy in Him because He
is our holiness. What does God demand of you?
Be ye holy, for I am holy. Well, how can I have a holiness
that is acceptable with God? Christ is my holiness. And He's my redemption. He saves
redemption to the end because yet these bodies have still got
to be redeemed. Redeemed from the grave. Redeemed
from death. The bodies have got to be. He's
our whole. Christ is all to his people. The scripture says, even here
in Colossians chapter two, we are complete in him. Look back over at the second
chapter. He tells us, watch these two
things he says in verses nine and 10. I'll just give you these. For in him, in Christ, dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. The Father doesn't have
a body, the Spirit doesn't have a body, except the body of the
Lord Jesus. For in Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, so that there's the Father, there's the
Son, there's the Holy Spirit. And then he says in verse number
10, and you are complete in Him. which is the head of all principality
and power. You're complete. You lack nothing
in Christ Jesus. Everything God demands of you,
think of the demands of a holy God, if you can. And our knowledge
is so limited on this, but everything God Almighty demands of you,
Christ Jesus, is that for you. Isn't that wonderful? That's
wonderful. We lack nothing in Him. This
means that He fully satisfies the soul. And we're fully provided
with all we need. Well, you need lots of things
in this world, but He's the provision for all the physical things you
need. He's the provision for all the
spiritual things that you need. He's the provision for all the
eternal things that you need, because Christ is all. He's all. Now, let me go a little
bit further tonight and say this, and I'll give you four things
very briefly. First of all, Christ is all in
the scriptures. He is all in the scriptures.
Go back to Luke chapter 24. Luke chapter 24. After our Lord's
resurrection, He appeared to two of His disciples on the road
to Emmaus, and you're all quite familiar with that story as it
is laid out for us here by Luke in the 24th chapter. Our Savior revealed to them that
He was indeed raised from the dead. His resurrection attested
to the fact that he had put away all the iniquities of his people.
He had satisfied everything God demanded for the salvation of
his children, and our Lord Jesus made an end of all of our sins,
for he was justified, 1 Timothy chapter 3 tells us, by the Spirit. He brought in for us everlasting
righteousness. And the evidence that He had
done all of these things, it was that He was raised from the
dead. And so He does indeed appear
to these disciples. And He has to reveal Himself
to them. And I don't want to get too caught
up in this story, but I want to get down to where He speaks
to them These two men who were so, they were worried, they are
still confused. We thought that this was the
one who would deliver Israel. And of course, they're still
thinking of an earthly kingdom. And he says to them, permit me
now to drop down. Let's go to chapter 24, verse
25. Then he said unto them, O fools, Now, he doesn't mean that they're
wicked. They're not ignorant in their
wickedness and in their ungodliness. They know who he is. They believed
him. But there's still much doubt
within them. So he says to them, oh fools. And I think we're this way too. In fact, I know we are. Slow
of heart to believe. Isn't that us who are slow of
heart to believe? We ought to believe. We ought
to embrace the Word of God. This is the Word of our God.
This is the Word of our Father. The Word of Him who cannot lie.
But we're so slow to believe. And so we pray as did that man
who said, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. But he says, oh, fools and slob
hearts to believe all that the prophets have spoken. And he
summarizes everything all the prophets had to say. And he says
this, Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and then
to enter into His glory? How would you? How would you? From Genesis to Malachi, how
would you summarize all of the Old Testament Scriptures? And
our Lord Jesus does it. He who is the very wisdom of
God, He sums it all up this way, and He says, Christ had to suffer
all of these things and then enter into His glory. And let
me tell you something, that's what all of the Old Testament
is about. Our Lord has infinite wisdom
and knowledge, and He compresses all 39 books of the Old Testament,
and he squeezes them down to get to the real root of it, to
get to the very foundation of all of the Old Testament Scriptures.
If you ask the average person, what is the Old Testament about?
They'll say it's about creation and it's about Israel. It's about
Israel. Well, wait! Our Savior said it's
all about His suffering and then entering into His glory. Therefore,
there was a creation. Therefore, there were all the
Old Testament sacrifices. All of which announced that He
was coming into this world. And so then verse 27, he begins
to break open the Old Testament Scriptures. And won't it be wonderful? As I read this today, I sit there
and Ron, I was thinking about this. Won't it be wonderful when
we get to heaven's glory and he further breaks open the Old
Testament Scriptures to us and expounds to us What do you think
the very theme of heaven is going to be? When our Lord Jesus teaches
us, and I know we'll be perfect, we'll be without any sin, and
we'll have complete attention and all of this, but
that doesn't mean we're going to know everything there is to
know. He's going to teach us. and He's
gonna take us to the Old Testament Scriptures, and I was thinking
today, probably to very obscure passages of Scripture, that most
likely during this lifetime, we could make heads and their
tails of where is the Gospel here, and He's going to break
it open for us, and it's going to be to us like a wonderful,
fragrant, alabaster box of perfume, and we'll say, yes, Lord. I see
you there now. I couldn't see that before. I
didn't see that before, but now I see you. He just breaks open
for them all of the Old Testament, everything beginning at Moses
and the prophets. He unfolds for them His sufferings
and His glory. in all the Scriptures, the things
concerning himself. It would be a wonderful thing
if our loved ones would be brought by the Holy Spirit to see all
of the Old Testament Scriptures are about him, as well as all
of the New Testament Scriptures. And you see, these other subjects
that are introduced to us in the Old Testament, they are introduced
only as they relate to God's purpose of redemption, the redemption
of His people through the Lord Jesus. Otherwise, they just aren't
mentioned. You say, why is it that the Lord
skipped over so many people and so many generations in the Old
Testament? Well, because he only put in
there those things and those people and those events that
are pertinent to the subject at hand, the sufferings and the
glories of Christ Jesus. That's why he put them in there.
And so when we go to a portion of Scripture, if we're not enabled
to see the sufferings and the glories of Christ Jesus, then
we must beseech our God, Lord, open my eyes and let me see what's
really here because I know. I know what this is about because
the Savior said so. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things? and to enter into his glory. And so he breaks open the scriptures
to them. Later, when he acts as though he's going to
leave, they beg him to stay. And he continued to teach them. He ate with them. And look at
verse 31, and their eyes were opened. What you mean? These eyes? No, not these eyes. But the eyes of the mind. The
eyes of the understanding. The eyes of the soul. And they
knew Him. Oh, if He would open up Himself
to us and open up our eyes and open up our heart, then we'll
know Him. It isn't about you opening up
to Him. It isn't about you opening up
your heart to Him. It's about Him opening up your
heart. And as He opens up your heart,
He floods you with the knowledge of His sufferings, and that includes
His death, and His glory, which includes His resurrection and
His exaltation and His enthronement. when these two disciples go and
meet with the 11 apostles, and they begin to share with them
how that they had seen the risen Savior, and they're so excited,
and they're just bubbling over with joy, and we can quite well
imagine how they must have felt. As they were speaking, the Lord
Jesus, He just walked through a wall, passed right through
a wall, and came to them. And while they were terrified, he said, why are you troubled?
Why are you affrighted? And he showed him his hands and
his feet. He said, a spirit doesn't have
flesh and bones as you see me have. And he showed them. He
said, see, it's me. It's me. In verse 41, while they yet believed
not for joy and wondered, He said unto them, Have ye any meat? And they gave him a piece of
broiled fish and a honeycomb. He took it. He ate right before
them. He's in His glorified body. And he said unto them, now look
at verse 44. He said unto them, these are the words which I spake
unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be
fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and in the
prophets and in the Psalms concerning me. And then opened he their
understanding. He's already opened the understanding
of these other two, and now here's eleven more, and He opens their
understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. And he said unto them, thus it
is written, and thus it behoove Christ to suffer and to rise
from the dead the third day. That's the same thing he said
to the other two, because what he's saying is, I had to suffer,
and as a result of my sufferings, as a result of my death, I've
been glorified, raised, and I'll be glorified. I tell you, Christ, He's all
in the Scriptures. He's all in the Scriptures. When Abel offered a better sacrifice
than Cain, his sacrifice pointed to Christ. When Enoch walked with God, who
do you think he walked with? you walk with the Son of God.
Most likely, I would say, in pre-incarnate form. Because remember
the rule, God's not gonna speak to nor be spoken to by any son
or daughter of Adam apart from a mediator. Enoch walked with
God. He walked with the Son of God.
And he was not, for God took him, And Enoch was the one who
preached about the wickedness before the Lord sent the flood. He even said, and this is recorded
in the book of Jude, behold, he said, the Lord cometh with
10,000 of his saints to execute judgment upon all. It was Christ
to whom Abraham looked. He rejoiced to see my day. That's
what the Savior said concerning Abraham. And he was glad. It was Christ to whom Abraham
was pointing and speaking of when he told Isaac, God will
provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. It was Christ of whom Jacob spoke
when he lay dying and he was addressing his sons. He marked
out that tribe through whom Christ would come, the tribe of Judah.
And he said, the lawgiver shall not depart from Judah, nor the
lawgiver from between his feet. The scepter shall not depart
from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh
come. And unto him shall the gathering
of the people be. Christ, who was the substance
of all the law that God gave. He gave to Israel by way of Moses. The morning sacrifices, the evening
sacrifices, the continual shedding of blood. You think of this,
in the camp of Israel, there was always the smell of burnt
flesh. Always. And blood was always
being offered, every morning, every evening. Blood. The carcass of an animal being
burned. And all of those lambs that died
every morning and every evening, for years and years and years,
they all pointed to Christ Jesus. And besides that, the Passover
lambs? How many Passover lambs you reckon
died at Jewish Passovers through the years? You reckon anybody
could ever count all them lambs that died? All those male sheep without
spot, without blemish or any such thing? Thousands and thousands and thousands
of them died, rivers of blood flowed, and they were all announcing
this, there's somebody who's coming. And we can't satisfy
the justice of God, but we announce to you there is one who will
come, and he's gonna do the job. He will suffer, and then he'll
be exalted. But it was Christ who was the
substance of all the law that God gave to Israel. No wonder the Apostle Paul said,
wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ Jesus. Because look at the laws of the
Lord. Offer this lamb every morning.
It's bringing you to Christ. Kill that lamb in the evening.
It's bringing you to Christ. You feel guilt in your heart
since you offered to God a sin offering or a trespass offering. That sin offering, that trespass
offering that you bring to the door of the tabernacle and a
priest kills your sacrifice and offers it for you. That sacrifice
says, one is coming someday who will satisfy God completely. This animal sacrifice won't do
it. That's reading. You'll have to
bring another tomorrow. And they all were sacrificed.
Oh, the law was driving people to Christ. Man, you know, I just go on and
on. It was the Lord Jesus to whom
God directed the attention of Israel by the the daily miracles
that He performed for the people, the pillar of fire by night,
the pillar of cloud by day, the manna from heaven, the water
from the rock, and the Apostle Paul says that rock was Christ
Jesus. Go back to Noah's ark, the brazen
serpent, The tabernacle, every piece of
furniture in the tabernacle, the tabernacle itself, and every
single thing that was used in the making of the tabernacle.
It all pointed to either the person of Christ or something
that he would accomplish by his work. I'll tell you, in the Old
Testament, Christ is all, and that's what all of the Old Testament
is about. The sufferings and the glory
of Christ. I'll tell you something else,
secondly. The Lord Jesus is our salvation. And even before I get to that,
I don't want to leave out the New Testament. I could take for
granted that you know the message of the New Testament, but let
me just say this. In the Gospels, we see our Lord
Jesus living, working, healing, teaching, preaching, dying, raised
again in the Gospels. And in the book of Acts, we see
Him preached as the resurrected Savior. His resurrection announcing
He's victorious! He's the triumphant Savior! And
all of those men through the book of Acts, their message was
the victorious Savior. The one who suffered has been
exalted. And then from Romans to the end
is all about He's gone back to glory, He's interceding for us,
He's ruling all things for us, He is governing everything in
order to bring to pass God's redemptive purpose. And the book
of Revelation says He's coming again. Christ in all the Scriptures.
Then secondly, Christ is all in our salvation. And I don't
want you to misunderstand me. Certainly the Father chose the
people and the salvation and the Spirit of God. He's the one
who quickens us. He regenerates us. We know that. But it is the purpose of God to glorify the God-man. He has a most unique position
within the Godhead. For He is said to be the Savior,
the Redeemer. It's His blood. It's His righteousness. It's His life. It's His death. It's this One who is the God
over all and yet, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Therefore the apostle says, and
Joe read to us a little earlier, but of him, of God, are you in
Christ Jesus? Who put you in Christ Jesus?
Well, I just jumped in myself, no. God put you in Christ Jesus
and he did that before the foundation of the world. And then I'll tell you this thirdly,
quickly. Christ is all with respect to
the benefits that we receive from God. All the benefits that we receive
from God. Christ is all. Were we chosen
unto salvation? Sure. In Christ, right? In Christ, we were chosen unto
salvation. Well, what about divine? Providence. Well, do we receive benefits
from God by divine providence? Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, in Colossians 117 it
says, by him all things consist. He holds all things together.
Our Lord Jesus is directing everything to the end that God has ordained. He's the one that makes sure
that all things work together for good. For you. For you who believe God. For
you who are called according to His purpose. It's Christ Jesus
who does that. He's the one who governs all
things. And He's all in redemption. He's the only Redeemer. He's
the one who's the surety of the better covenant. whose blood
sealed the covenant? There is no other Savior but
Christ our Lord. He's the one who paid the price
of redemption. He's the one who released us
from our indebtedness to God. He's the one who washed us in
His blood. He's the one who robes us in
the garments of salvation. He's the one who makes us immaculate
before God. You can't do that. He's the one
who presents you to the Father, and one day he'll present you
to the Father in person, and he'll do it with joy, with joy. He's all in our conversion. When is it that a poor soul will
come home to God? When Christ the Lord brings him
home. Because he's the shepherd who goes out and seeks the sheep. He lifts us up, he finds us,
he puts us on his shoulders and he takes us all the way home. He's all to us in salvation and
He's all to us in all the benefits that God gives to us. And then
I'll tell you this, He'll be all in heaven's glory too. He's
the joy of heaven. The praise of Christ, that will
be our everlasting song. What are we going to sing about
in heaven? What are we going to sing about in heaven? Well,
it would be more accurate to say, who are we going to sing
about in heaven, right? We're going to sing about Him.
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. And the service of our Lord Jesus,
that will be our eternal occupation. We'll serve Him night and day
in His temple, without distraction, without weariness, without sin,
without end. will serve Him. And you know
what the everlasting enjoyment of heaven will be? The very presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That will be our everlasting
happiness. Man, everybody in heaven is happy.
You know why they're happy? Because they're with Christ.
And that's what Paul said, for me to live is Christ, to die
is gain. That's what he said, to die is
gain. To be absent from this body is
to be present with Him. And John writes that we'll someday
see Him face to face. I tell you, this will be the
very glory of heaven to see our Lord Jesus. Yes, Christ is all. Christ is
all in the purpose and the work of God. He's all in God's salvation. He's all in this book that we
love so dearly. He's all in heaven's everlasting
glory. He's all to be preached. He's
all to be preached. Do you reckon we could preach
Christ too much? Surely even for every preacher
of the gospel, that which we weep over and mourn about is
that we have not preached Him as wholeheartedly as we ought
to. That which bothers me, plagues
my soul, and my wife will attest to this. I go home after the
services and I beat myself up over the fact I have not exalted
Christ Jesus enough. You never can. I'm always thinking
I should have said this or I should have said that about the Savior. I'm not satisfied with myself
just like you're not satisfied with yourself. But I surely am
satisfied with Him. I'm satisfied with Christ Jesus. He's all to be preached for the
salvation of sinners. He's all to be preached for the
edification of the children of God. He's all to be preached,
Christ is all. For growth and grace, Christ
is all. For motivation to live right,
oh God help us to live right. To walk right, to talk right,
to conduct ourselves right. Well, what's going to bring us
to do all of this for Christ? To see that He's all. Let's live
our lives Christ is all. That's the way to live. He's all to be known. He's all
to be trusted. He's all to be loved. He's all
to be followed. My sheep hear my voice and I
know them. And what do them sheep do? They
follow him. He's all to be followed. He's all in our music. Boy, I'm
thankful for our song director, our musicians who present special
music to us. And they know, just like I know,
in the music, Christ is all. Christ is all. I was telling
the men back in the study, I preached some work several years ago,
everybody who did anything got a round of applause. Even standing ovations. That's
not why y'all sing. That's not why you play the instruments.
That's not why you lead the singing. That's not why I stand up here
and preach. We're not boasting in the flesh. We got one in whom
we boast, and our boast is Christ is all. And He's all we stand
for in this church. Christ is all. He's our subject. He's not the main theme. He is
the theme. He's not the heart of the story. He is the story. Christ is all. That's what Paul said. And he's
in all his people. That's astounding. Well, let's
get those black folders, if you need them.