Sovereign Grace Chapel, located
at 135 Annabel Lane in Beaver, West Virginia, invites you to
listen to a gospel message concerning Jesus Christ our Lord. You'd like to follow along I'm
going to be in the book of Colossians The epistle of Paul the Apostle
to the Colossians chapter 1 And I want to begin reading in verse
3 Read the verse 10 Verse 3 we
give thanks to God for and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
praying always for you. Since we heard of your faith
in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints. For the hope which is laid up
for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of truth
of the gospel. which is come unto you, as it
is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also
in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of
God in truth. As ye also learned of Epaphras,
our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister
of Christ. who also declared unto us your
love in the spirit. For this cause we also, since
the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire
that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in
all wisdom and spiritual understanding. That ye might walk worthy of
the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work,
and increasing in the knowledge of God. I'm gonna stop right
there. I'm gonna read you a statement
from Thomas Fuller. I don't know a lot about Thomas
Fuller, I didn't check into it, but I like this. Zeal without knowledge is fire
without light. I like that. I'm very, very much
afraid that's true. Paul said it, they have a zeal,
but not according to knowledge. And that's somewhat what we're
surrounded by today. My title today is called The
Knowledge of Believers. Knowledge of Believers. And before
I get started, I'm gonna give you my conclusion. The conclusion
is this. Believers are given knowledge
by God. That's the conclusion. Then we'll
work toward it as I go here. Now I do know, there is scripture,
that knowledge puffeth up. That's not what Paul's writing
about here. You understand? Even religious knowledge can
puff up. Even true doctrine. can puff up, knowledge of it.
But this is not true of the knowledge given by our Lord Jesus Christ. Given to every believer by the
Holy Spirit. And in here, in these first 10
verses, Paul wrote to the Colossians telling us three specific things
which we, Believers, well, in verse two, to the saints and
faithful brethren in Christ. We, and I include ourselves in
that, we know three specific things in these verses, he tells
us. Now, Paul is not writing, and I wanna
just say this very clearly, he's not writing as a superficial
knowledge. is not writing the way children
learn the multiplication table. If they still do that, I don't
know. It used to be a big thing. I
went to college before I ever got a calculator. You want to
know why? Because they weren't invented
before then. And man, if you got a programmable
calculator, which came out and you could slightly afford in
my second or third year of college, you had it made. Now kids go
to school today with computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones. Anyway, that's not the knowledge
Paul's talking about as such as in memorizing facts. The Greek
word Paul uses here denotes, and this is what, It means being
fully acquainted with it. It means discernment and understanding. That's the kind of knowledge
Paul's writing about here. We have been given true knowledge
by the Holy Spirit and through his word, through the word of
God. Now, the first one is in Colossians
one and verse six. where it says, which is coming
to you as into all the world and bringeth forth fruit as it
doth also in you since the day ye heard of it. And, what? Knew the grace of God in truth. In truth, oh my. Well, this is
the first thing I gotta tell you. We're gonna get real deep
here, okay? The grace of God is true. The grace of God is true. And
that's what Paul is writing of here, the grace of God. Because I'm gonna tell you something,
God's grace, the grace of God is different than religious grace. You understand, religious grace
and what is preached around, all around us and all across
America and most of the world is this. Religious grace is this. You do something, God'll do something. That's not grace. That's not
grace. You understand? The grace of
God is he's gonna do something when you want him to do the exact
opposite. When you want him to leave you
alone, he won't. Not if you're one of his and
not if it's your time. You understand? There are times
when God was dealing with me when I was evidently regenerated
but not completely converted and didn't know what was going
on, that I wished God would leave me alone. And yet he showed me
another verse of scripture. And when I got to John six, I
about pitched a fit. I did. I didn't get it. No man
can come unto me except it be given unto him of my father.
Now wait a minute, see I believe Jesus knew who was going to be
saved. I believe that. I didn't think
God dictated who would be saved, that it was his choice and not
my choice. And so I asked somebody about
it. And you know what they told me? They told me a very good
thing. What does it say? What does the
book actually say? And I said, well, it says this,
and that must be what it means. And they were right. And I thought
to myself, seriously, I mean, I had, you know, you have discussions
in your head, which some of them you don't say out loud, which
is a good thing. But I had this discussion within
myself thinking, well, that's what Christ said. And he's God. And I'm not. So I guess it's
right. Seriously, I mean, I was a very,
very young believer. Well, you saw me that young. I was actually younger than that
when this happened. By a year or two, 22 years old.
43 years ago, almost. Time flies when you don't pay
attention. But I remember reading that, and I looked, and I thought,
okay, God said it, doesn't matter whether I know anything about
it, it's gotta be right. And it was, and it is, because
I read on. I was at John chapter six, verse
44. No man can come unto me, except
the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him
up at the last day. That's John 644. And I finally
came to this thing, well, okay. I don't quite get it, but I believe
it, because Christ said it. Okay? Then I get to John 665. And he said, therefore said I
unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given
unto him of my father. And from that time, actually
it says from that. Time is interpolated there. From
that statement, I'm gonna tell you this right now, from what
Christ said, many of his disciples went back and walked no more
with him. And I said, because I was close to rejecting
what he had said before. And then Jesus said unto the
12, look at his disciple, will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter
answered him and said, Lord, I love this part, to whom shall
we go? There is nowhere else to go. And you will realize that as a believer. I'm going to tell you something.
That's grace, that's grace. Thou art that Christ, the son
of the living God. To whom shall we go? Thou hast
the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that
thou art that Christ, the son of the living God. And I looked
at that and I read that and I said, me too, Peter. That's exactly
my reaction to John 6, what, 44, was their reaction to John
6, 65. Christ said it, it's right, whether
I get it or not. But he said it twice. Well, you
don't have to hit me with a hammer, thankfully, this time, maybe
later, but understand, That's the grace of God. That's the
grace of God. I'm gonna read you just a verse,
a song. This is by Joseph Kent. And I
heard Henry quote this on the way up here and I found it. It's
in Gadsby's Hymns, number 407. But anyhow, Charles Spurgeon
said, Some of the people in his church didn't like this one verse
in this song. I won't read it to you, because
it's good. And that's why they didn't like it. Here's pardonful
for sin that's past. It matters not how black they're
cast. Now, everybody loves that part. But here's the rest of it. Oh
my soul with wonder view for sins to come Here's pardon to
And I give you chill bumps Because that is grace and if you got
a problem with that verse of that song go look at Romans and
See where David wrote? Paul quoted that David wrote,
blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Folks, that's future. And it's
just as future now as it was then. Oh, I like that, I do. Oh my soul, with wonder view,
for sins to come, there's pardon too. That's the grace of God. that believers know. We have
a knowledge of his grace. Oh, you understand, that's a
far cry from you take the first step and God will meet you there. Oh, no, no. You believe and God
will give you eternal life. Listen, folks, well, Carol Poole
said it last week here. A dead person can't take a step
and a dead person can't believe. The natural man knoweth not the
things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, for
they are spiritually discerned. Life comes before faith. It always has, and it always
will. Dead men cannot come, and here's
the other thing, dead men will not come. The natural man cannot
understand the things of the Spirit of God, and I'm gonna
tell you something, the grace of God is a spiritual thing. It's a spiritual thing. Stephen
preached just before they stoned him. Just before they stoned
him. Stephen preached that those uncircumcised
in heart and ears, those who have uncircumcised heart and
ears, who's the natural man, natural as he is born, unregenerate,
what? Do always resist the Holy Ghost. Now, I gotta tell you a funny
story. Well, it's not all that funny,
but it is to me. There are people who will take that scripture
and say that, oh, you see, men can resist the Holy Ghost. God
won't force you to be saved. God won't force you. Jesus Christ
never forced anybody to do anything except for some very profane
people to get out of his father's temple. He never took a court
of whips. and beat anybody into the temple,
but he did remove some people from the temple. But here's the
thing, he can make you willing to come to him. You'll be willing
when you come. Oh, if you can come, you will.
And if you will come, it means you can. Oh, I like that. God's grace always, and this
is the thing, God's grace gives us the opposite of what we deserve. It's not just God giving us what
we don't deserve, he gives us the exact opposite. We deserve
eternal death, and he gives eternal life. Oh, I like that. And he gives that eternal life,
what? To as many as the father gave
to him. Oh, we deserve hell. And he gathers
us to himself. He's gonna bring all his people
together in one. And there's gonna be, make no
mistake about it, there's gonna be one flock and one shepherd. And if he's the good shepherd,
we're the flock. And there's only one. Oh, I like
that. He's promised us an inheritance
in the heavens, undefiled, that fadeth not away. Christ promised us, and I believe
Gentiles in particular, when he said, many are gonna come
from the east and come from the west and sit down, sit down with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Folks,
of ourselves, we got no business being there. But oh, he makes
us meet. He makes us meet. He fits us
to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom
of heaven. By his grace, by his grace. 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 6 says
this, for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Oh, I like that. Believers have a knowledge of
his grace, of his grace. Believers know they haven't earned
anything from God except the wages of sin and Believers know
they don't deserve his mercy and grace and Believers have
been given a knowledge of the grace of God by Jesus Christ Secondly in verse 9 For this cause we also, since
the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire
that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will, of
his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. That's the kind
of knowledge he's talking about. Oh, I like that. Believers have a knowledge of
the will of God. Hey, this book's full of it.
I'm gonna tell you something. Everything that happened in this
book is from the will of God. Everything that's happening now
comes from the will of God because the will of God is of supreme
importance. All of his sovereign power directs
and is directed by his will. And his will, I like this part,
directs his grace and mercy. The will of God directs it. God
told Moses, I will be gracious. To whom? I will be gracious. And that's as simple as that
and as profound as that. It's as complex as that. Oh,
I like that. Then he said this, I will show
mercy. To whom? I will show mercy. The will of God is supreme in
grace and in mercy, and believers know this. Christ himself told
us the Father's will. It's in John 6, 39. And, this is Christ speaking,
and this is the Father's will. You wanna know what the Father's
will is. You wanna know what the will of God is. Christ told
us himself, and it's recorded in the scriptures. This is the
Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath
given me, I should lose nothing, nothing, but should raise it
up again at the last day. Excuse me. This is the Father's
will. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. I will show mercy to whom I'll
show mercy. And those that the Father gave
to Christ are gonna be Christ. Actually, they are Christ. And
they always shall be Christ. Oh, we can lose our minds. We
can rebel. We can fight, we can fuss, we
can cuss. But you understand, the Lord
knoweth them that are his. He's not gonna lose a one. Not
one person. That's the Father's will. Christ
will raise us up at the last day. I will show mercy to whom
I will show mercy. Christ will be gracious to all
that the Father gave to him. by the will of the Father, according
to the will of God, and we are saved by his grace, according
to the will of God. Oh, you understand? You know,
if God be for you, who can be against you? Well, God is for
us. That's what this says. The will
of God is for us. God's will is for his people. It don't matter who's against
you. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Because I'm
going to tell you something, nobody's getting in God's way.
Or they may think they're going to show somebody something. They're
going to try and kill you. And in killing you, they think
they're doing God a favor. They're wrong. If it's one of
God's sheep. Oh, God is for us and God's will
is for us. Jesus Christ himself was delivered
at the hands of wicked men, crucified and slain according to the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. And that was for us. That was the will of God. The determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God. They did it, and they did it
by wicked hands. They did it by wicked hands.
Oh, they meant it for evil. God meant it for good. And they
didn't change the incident one way or another. That was gonna
happen according to his determinate counsel and foreknowledge. God's
will is for us. That's what it means, according
to the will of the Father. because Jesus was the perfect
sacrifice for the sin and the sins of his people, the perfect
substitute. He took our place according to
the will of the Father. It's also according to the scriptures. Read Isaiah 53 if you got any
questions. Oh my. He was the perfect sacrifice
according to the perfect, holy, righteous will of God. And now, according to his will,
we give thanks and praise to God. 1 Thessalonians 5 and 18
says this. In everything, give thanks. Why? For this is the will of
God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Concerning me. Give thanks for the will of God.
Oh my. And here's the thing. The will
of God is good. You know? We don't always see it as good.
We don't always know it as good. But it's good. It's good. The natural man can't see it. The unbeliever won't have it. They'll deny it. They'll fight
against it. They'll rebel. But believers
love the will of God. Oh my. Because all of his promises
in Christ are yea, And amen. The will of God is good. And
God's will has purposed the salvation of his people. And he made that salvation not
possible, not available, he made it sure. It's in his son. And his son's not gonna fail.
All that the Father gave to him, they're gonna come to him. And
him that cometh to him, I'll in no wise cast out. I will never
leave thee, I will never forsake thee. The foundation of God, I said
earlier, that foundation stands sure. The Lord knoweth them that
are his. Do you understand? The foundation
ain't got nothing to do with us.