So if you would, let's be turning
to Colossians 1, and let's talk about that just God and a Savior,
because that's the only message that we need to hear. Colossians 1. I'm gonna read a few verses here. All right, Colossians chapter
1, starting in verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother, to the saints and
faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colossae, grace be unto
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We
give thanks to God 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 you have to all the saints. For the hope
which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the
word of the truth of the gospel, which is coming to you as it
is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit, as it does 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, strengthened with all
might according to his glorious power, unto all patience and
longsuffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father
which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear
Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins. So we start off this book to
the Colossians and Paul begins with talking about the will of
God. I'm not going into that as much
today because I've done that the last few weeks. But it all
has to do with the will of God and not man's will. But I just
want to go down through what we've just read and point out
some of the highlights, if you will. There is a certain order
of these things, and we are also told some whys and becauses of
these things. We read, as I've already mentioned,
about the will of God. Next, we see what the cause is
to every believer that these things would be true of them.
There's always a cause to everything, and that cause is always God. But this cause is the grace and
peace, and God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we see what this
grace and peace from God results in. Here is the effect, if you
will, of God's grace and peace towards these brethren. Faith
in Christ Jesus and love to all saints. Then we have the hope
of the gospel. We learn of that hope we have
when that gospel comes to us in power and much assurance and
of the Holy Ghost. This gospel comes to believers
and it produces fruit, the fruit of believing. We heard last week
from Walter how that we get that from God, the hope from the gospel,
and that is because he causes us to believe the gospel. Something scripture tells us
we must do or we will die in our sins. We hear in this passage
that other believers will talk about what they see others do,
and that is believing. They see others believing this
gospel, and they will report it to others because they love
them. We read of God filling us with knowledge, and because
of that, because God causes this to be, him working in us to will
and to do of his good pleasure, we will be fruitful to every
good work. Then we see there is something
we do because God does all this for us and to us. We give thanks
to him. Then we have the why this is.
Him translating us into the kingdom of his dear son, and him, that
is Jesus Christ, who redeemed us from the curse of the law
being made a curse for us, which the result of that is forgiveness
of sins. So I have the following points,
and I'm not gonna read them all through, I just went through
them. But I have nine points. I won't keep you long this morning.
it will be less than two hours. No, some of these are short,
but first we have the will of God. Just to reiterate the gist of
what I've been saying the past few weeks, our will has nothing
to do with it. If we have our way and what our
will is by nature, that will will take us far from God. But
if he wills to do something, it will be done. And it will
be because of his grace and peace which he gives us. So next, grace
and peace from God. Grace, that is favor from God,
unearned by us and undeserved by us. But nevertheless, Joe,
he has shed his grace on us. God has favored some, not because
of anything they have done good or evil. For the children having
not been born, neither having done any good or evil, it was
said unto her that the elder shall serve the younger. Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated. So this grace was given to us
because God wanted to do it. He willed to do it. What comes
by this grace being shown to us? Peace. When God lets us know
what he has done, it will bring peace to our soul that we can
then do as what Walter says before, that he always says, you can
relax, rest. But there's another specific
cause that's spoken of here, and I want to spend a little
more time on this one. With this grace and peace given
from God, what comes along with that? It's faith in Christ and love
to all the saints. So next, faith in Christ and
love to all the saints. First of all, why does it say
faith in Christ, as opposed to say faith on Christ? Because
the faith we are talking about is a faith which comes from Christ
himself. That faith which he had to carry
out the will of the father in saving a people for his name
that Joe just talked about. Not only that, but scripture
is clear that it is only in Christ we are to be found. You will
not be found outside of Christ, because outside of Christ you
are on your own. But it's not just a faith that
is apart from us in any way. I mean, we are actually given
this faith from Christ. We are given this faith as a
gift of grace. This faith is a faith in Christ
as to who he is and what he has done. We are by this God-given
faith enabled then to see who Jesus Christ is and who is he. He is God Himself. But we are
also enabled to see what He has done, which we have a point for
that later, so I'm gonna leave that. But this faith enables
us to see that He has redeemed us. Without seeing that, we will
have no hope. And without the will of God to
show us mercy and grace and peace, we will not have any faith. But
what comes along with this faith? Love to all the saints. It's easy to say that word love,
but a whole different thing to actually do it. What do we read
in 1 John 3.18? My little children, let us not
love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. But this says that Paul and those
with him heard that these Colossians have faith in Christ and have
love to all saints. We see throughout the New Testament
where we are told to have faith in Christ and love the brethren.
You read that in several different places. It always says that. There's only one way we do this.
Through his gospel. Indeed and in truth. We do those
things which show we love God's people and we do this in truth,
not lies. That is the truth of the gospel.
Now please understand me. It is God that is the doer of
anything we do. And I think we all understand
that here. Christ says, without me ye can do nothing. But Jesus Christ does enable
us and we will see that in a little bit. But the gospel is what brings
the people of God together. Without the gospel, all we have
is a social event. For this, turn with me to what
I call a sister passage to this 1st Colossians, but turn with
me to 1st John chapter four, 1st John chapter four. I want to read 7 through 14. 1 John chapter 4, verse 7. Beloved, let us love
one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loveth is born
of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not
God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son
into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love,
not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved
us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God
at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth
in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we
dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and do testify
that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. If we love one another, it is
a manifestation that we are born of God. That's what we read just
there. But just as everything we do
toward God and toward all his saints, there is a cause to this. And it is not just something
we drum up ourselves. The cause is what he sent Jesus
Christ to do. And in Christ so doing, in him
shedding his grace and peace on us, we then also are enabled
to love the brethren. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us. And He showed this to us by sending
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That is the cause
and the why that we should have loved all the saints. But verse
14 of 1 John 4 tells us how this is manifested. This is how you
love indeed in truth. And it says in verse 14, and
we have seen and do testify that the father sent the son to be
the savior of the world. We tell others what Christ has
done for us. We will love to be around others
who want to tell of what he has done for them. And we will also
want to testify of what he has done for us. This is not hard
to understand. but it's impossible to do without
God, without Jesus Christ. As it says here, none of us has
seen God. If we love one another, it is
because God dwells in us, and because of him, his love is perfected
in us. So that brings me to the next
point, the hope of the gospel. Verse 5 of Colossians 1 says,
for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, where have
ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel? What
is the hope of the gospel? And there can be many things
said here, but here it is in short. Here's the hope of the
gospel, that we will be with Jesus Christ forever. This can only be done if we have
been given everlasting life in Christ. The hope is that we can
ultimately love one another because we are all the body of Christ.
He is our head. The hope of the gospel is that
I can believe his gospel by his power and might. The hope is
I will be able to worship God as he ought to be worshiped.
The hope is to see that one day it being consummated, my marriage
to another. I see ever before me the law
of God, which condemns me as guilty before God. But the gospel
sets forth to me that one which came, which is the righteousness
of God without the law that could redeem me from its curse. And
that curse being do this and live. It is a curse because I
cannot do it. But he did. But he went far beyond
that. He kept the law, but how could
he not keep it? He is God the Son. But what else
did he do that went far beyond that? He actually paid the debt
of Sinai. You see, it's not that I might
break God's law or that I hope not to break God's law. It is
that I have already broken God's law and I am guilty before him. He went far beyond keeping the
law. He died in my stead to redeem
me from its curse. Folks, I can love some folks
whom Jesus Christ has done that for. because he's done the same
thing for me. I have to continually cry out
to him, God calls me to love all the saints. Give me or send
me your gospel to remind me of what you have done. Him doing
this by grace and peace causes what? Fruit of the gospel. So the fruit of the gospel. God
does not give us life so that then we can begin to see, have,
or believe our truth. You will hear some today speak
of their truth. They will say, that's my truth.
But what we get from the gospel is God's truth. There is only
one. We cannot be ecumenical about
God's truth. His truth is who He is and what
He has done, and He's very specific about it. Anything else is man-centered
and is not truth at all. It is blasphemy against God to
speak anything else. He sends us His gospel, and by
that God-given faith, we begin to believe God. That is the fruit
of the gospel. Again, if we don't believe the
record God gave of His Son, we will die in our sins. So you
can either have your truth or be given His truth. You can pick
which one you want, I'll say it that way. Because I know this,
if you pick His gospel, it is Him that has worked that in you,
both to will and to do of His good pleasure. He will send you
His gospel and you will believe Him. All we can say is, Lord,
I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. Take
me away from myself. I don't want my way because I
know that way leads to destruction. Teach me your way. Isn't that what we're told about
these Colossians in verse 9? It says, 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. It has nothing to do with what
we want, but all to do with what God wants. It starts and it ends
with His will. He calls his people's will to
be that toward what God wills, and they want to drop it like
a hot potato, that is their will. Then we begin to do what is,
what as a, what do we then begin to do as our way of life? In
love, talking about the brethren who believe. First of all, we
read where these saints were talked about, but it's not a
talking about in gossip. It is declaring what God has
done for someone, even if those that are being talked about have
faults and failures. Colossians 1.4, since we heard
of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which he had to
all the saints. It is a joy to hear of others
speaking about what the Lord has done for them. Speaking of
how they want to help others who have had this same thing
done for them. We also read in verses 7 through 10 of Colossians,
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, and
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. Loving the brethren is also praying
for the brethren. Because we know that without
Him, we can do nothing. Because as Paul says here, that
without Him, we can do nothing. That's what he's saying. So next,
God working in us all these things. Verse 11. strengthened with all might,
according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering
with joyfulness. Just reading that, you can see
to love someone, you're gonna have to be long-suffering and
have joyfulness and patience. How do we have any might to do
anything toward God or to His people? It is all and only by
His glorious power. He strengthens us with His might.
He may not always strengthen us how we think He should strengthen
us. It says in Scripture, when I
am weak, then He is strong. He will cause us to suffer persecution,
tribulation, which will force us to look to Him for all our
strength to do these things. What does this then lead us to
do? Giving thanks to God. I will
have to admit to you, I do not give God enough thanks for what
he has done for me. But all things come from God,
even our tribulations. We are to be thankful, not necessarily
thankful that our house burnt down, but maybe. Walter, I remember
a time where a tree fell on your house and everything, and we
kind of talked of it as a blessing in disguise, and it was. We are
thankful that He causes us to see Him through these things,
even in our corrections. We might not first see these
things, but we will see that when we are corrected, it is
because He loves us. Otherwise, He would not correct
us. We see so many others in this
world who He is not correcting. Things seem to be smooth sailing
for them all the time. even though we can see the hatred
toward God coming from their actions and their words. They are not loving in deed and
in truth. They are just saying words with
nothing to back them up. But we are thankful to God that
He continually causes us to look to Him. We are thankful for what
He has done to us, but not apart from what He has done for us. We are thankful to Him for translating
us into the kingdom of His dear Son, and that because of what
Christ has done. So next, Him translating us because
of what Christ did. So as we see again, this is something
that God does. And I'm trying to stress that
this morning, that it's God that does all this. We are not meat
in and of ourselves, but we have been made meat, it says right
here. That is, God has qualified us
to be partakers of the inheritance. This making us meat has something
it accomplishes. It delivers us from the power
of darkness, which we would not be delivered from in and of ourselves. But it says he has translated
us into the kingdom of his dear son. He's moved us from one place
to another. We are born forth into his kingdom
by his gospel. We are conceived by God and brought
forth by God into his kingdom and by his gospel. But it all
hinges on what Jesus Christ did on that tree. It is in him, Jesus
Christ the Lord, that we are to see any redemption. What is
the conclusion to all this? Give thanks unto God for all
He has done and all He does. God the Father sent the Son and
in sending Jesus Christ, He made peace for His people. And that
is a peace to God. Jesus Christ made it so that
God is at peace with us. Because of that, he then in time
comes to us, translating us into his kingdom and thereby giving
us peace with God. We see God is at peace with us
and then we lay down our arms against God and take sides with
God against ourselves. We should have nothing but thanks
to God. For had he not did any of this,
had he not just not just done just one of these things that
he said is needed, we could have not done it ourselves. None of
this is about us. Faith in Christ, love to the
brethren is not about us. It's all about him who has done
all things and they have been done for him. But because it
was his will to love a people, we have a good hope. This is
the conclusion by Paul of this matter. Let's read verses 15
through 22, and you'll see this of Colossians 1. 15 through 22. And having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them openly. I'm in the wrong
chapter, ain't I? Yes, I am. Chapter 1, verse 15
is where I want to be. Who is the image of the invisible
God? Just as Joe was saying earlier,
God has always been, Jesus Christ has always been there. That's
how we see God is in the face of Jesus Christ. Who is the image
of the invisible God? The firstborn of every creature.
For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, All things were created by Him
and for Him. And He is before all things,
and by Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things He might have the preeminence. For it pleased
the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. And having
made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile
all things unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime
alienated and 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. seeing that it is all about Jesus
Christ and what he has done. Why would we not love the brethren
in deed and in truth? Jesus Christ has made this story
our story. It says he has made us meet to
be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. We who
were enemies and alienated in our minds by wicked works. What
does that mean? We were delivered from the power
of darkness, the darkness of our mind. He delivered us from
that. He qualified us by His death
on that tree. Now we can be partakers of that
light in Jesus Christ because He has translated us, that is,
He has transferred us into His kingdom by His glorious gospel.
Let us tell one another the story of what Christ has done for us
and for our brethren. May he give that to us to believe. Amen. Dear old God, apply these
words to our hearts, dear Lord. Only you can do it, dear Lord.
Teach us of you, keep our minds set on, fixed on you, dear Lord.
All these things we ask in your name. Amen.