text as we walk through it. And on midweek, one of the things
that I do is to illustrate what I call the reading of. And like
the reading of Revelation, you know, we read through and we
talk, we read through and we talk, read through. The reading
of Romans and then soon we're going to start the reading of
Galatians. And the purpose behind that is because it is the way
the Bible was intended to be sort of received. It's the way
the Bible is intended to sort of be understood, and most importantly,
it's the way the Bible is intended to be taught. When it comes to
diving a little deeper, it's still biblical because not only
are we approaching like the Gospel of John in a slower pace, but
we're dealing with those things in relation to their context. We're talking like the Holy Spirit,
like we've been in the last few weeks. We've dealt with some
of the things concerning the Holy Spirit. And this Sunday, we'll
continue for the next few weeks to look at some of the work of
God, the Holy Spirit, and His person. Yet we could take chapter
17, I mean 16, and just read it. And we would also be wise
to do that. That's why I illustrate the importance
and emphasize the importance of reading the Bible so that
when you come in here and we gather together that what you've
read is reinforced by what is exposited and what is taught. I received a question a couple
of weeks ago on Theology on Call, and the question was related
to how are we supposed to teach our children scripture? Are there
resources, children's Bibles, children's stories, children's
books, etc.? And I answered it pretty candidly,
no. Don't use children's books. Now,
it's okay to have children's books and children's Bibles,
but those, just like preaching, ought to reinforce the reading.
The preaching is like the children's Bible. It comes in and gives
further explanation, it gives illustration, it gives application
that you may not or may think about, but more importantly,
holistically, how we would understand and apply that as a family, as
a spiritual family. The power of the Word of God
is important. And not only is it important,
it's impossible to get the promises of God outside the power of the
Word of God. So I answer that question that
way. What you need to do is read the Bible to your children. Read
the Bible to your children. Even if it's in the King James.
It doesn't matter. Read it. Because the Lord will
do His work. He will do His work. And, of
course, you don't know who's listening to the answers. I mean,
of course, the person who asked the question, I think he lives
up in Kentucky, and, of course, he was excited about it and he
had peace of mind, okay, I'm just going to do what Tippins
has said to do, whatever. Well, out of the blue, this other
guy has messaged me today and said over the last few months
he's just continued to be encouraged to read the Bible himself because
of how I emphasize it each week during the teaching. He also
remembered that question, so he put it to the test. And out
of the blue, all of a sudden, he sees his children interacting
around Scripture. And all of a sudden, they're
asking questions, and they're young, little kids. And they're remembering
things, and they're emphasizing what they're learning in Scripture,
and it just started to come. Organically, the Word of God
came alive to them. And that is my story, that is
my testimony. As a child, I always read the
Scripture. the King James Scripture. And I remember the Scripture
and I remember the stories. And when you see it and the Word
of God is taught to you and read to you, you begin to see, especially
when you get into the narrative of the Gospels, you begin to
see just how Gospel-centric the Old Testament was. and how it
always pointed to the Savior and always pointed to the Messiah,
that even in Joseph's day, Joseph's life was about a life of rejection
by his own people, that he might be the Savior of his people in
the time of famine. Is that not the picture of Christ?
The story of Moses is that Moses would escape death and be raised
by his own mother as a wet nurse as a royal son to come back later
and free God's people out of the bondage of slavery and death.
Is that not a picture of Christ? Jonah, who won the toss, who
won the coin toss against his own will to go and preach salvation
to the people of Nineveh, who were horrific people and he wanted
to see God judge them. And so he ran from God and God
swallowed him up and spit him out on the shores of Nineveh.
And he went and he preached repentance and salvation and judgment to
the people of Nineveh. And then what happened is, is
that he sat up and set up shop over the hill to watch Brimstone
fly down onto Nineveh. But God restored Nineveh and
granted them salvation. And it made him mad. And then
he cursed God, sort of. And he was bitter. And that's
the end of the story. And then God provides for him in his bitterness
and then God takes away that provision. And that's the end
of Jonah. That's also a picture of Christ. Christ came to His
own people and His own people bitterly hated Him. His own people
who thought they had it, bitterly hated Him. But the sign of Jonah
is the one of being in the belly for three days, just like Jesus
was in the belly of the earth for three days. That's the sign
of Jonah, that's what the apostles teach, the sign of Jonah. And
all the way through, we could look and see and peel through
the pages of scripture and understand and comprehend the gospel narrative,
what we would call the meta-narrative, that the whole of scripture has
one story and it is the kingdom of God who's come as Jesus Christ
to save his people sovereignly from their sins through his work
of atonement. That's why I want you all to
read the Bible, not just what we're going through on Sunday,
not just what we're reading on Wednesday night, but then also
as I've requested the church to be in the letter to the Colossians. Let's go there. Colossians chapter
one. I think I left off in there around
verse 15, didn't I? Okay. Let's read together 15
through 23 and then we'll talk about it. He, Christ, is the
image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For
by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities,
all things were created through him and for him. And he is before
all things. And in him, all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be
preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of
God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself
all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by
the blood of His cross. and you who were once alienated
and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled
in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you set apart
and blameless and above reproach before him. If indeed you continue
in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of
the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation
under heaven and of which I, Paul, became a minister." Now
let me pray. We thank you Lord for the gospel
of grace that is free and sovereign. We thank you Lord for your word
that is most effectual in our hearts and our minds that you
have given us the privilege of repentance that we see and believe
in Jesus Christ and that we are born of you by your mercy and
that we are born of you for the sake of your glory and that we
are born of you because of your love for us. And I pray that
as we just walk through this text, that it would be exciting
and fulfilling and precious to us in Jesus name. Amen. Verse 16, he, Jesus, the son,
as we see in verse 13, 14, his beloved son in whom we have redemption,
the forgiveness of sins. So we saw the thanksgiving and
the exaltation of Paul, we saw the intimacy of the church, we
saw other people who were helping him, and we saw him give God
praise for the gospel that came to them as they have been qualified
by God to share in the inheritance of the saints who have been transferred
from darkness to the kingdom of light. And now Paul takes
just a moment to illustrate much like he did in Hebrews chapter
one, what we would call high Christology. The word high means
that it's of great presence, that it's very, very on the top. It's, it's, it's just esteemed
in a great way. Christology is the study of Christ
or the teaching of Christ. So this high doctrine of Christ
where Paul establishes who he is one more time and why he is
exalted above all things. How many times did you hear in
my voice, all things, all things, all things, all things. So God
by nature in his being is unseen. Right? He's unseen. Jesus is
seen. Why? Because Jesus has a body.
Jesus took on flesh. Jesus, what? Was glorified and
raised from the dead. Has a body. He has a presence. He has something to gaze upon.
1 John 1, that which was from the beginning, that which we
have seen and heard and touched concerning the eternal life that
has manifest to us now, we proclaim to you. We can touch the face
of God. Imagine when I began John's gospel,
I always equate the relationship that Jesus had in the flesh with
the apostle John as something to be extremely beheld in a way
of mystery. And not just that it was not
In John's voice, it was not put out like, look at me, I was Jesus
most beloved. He even did not sign his own
gospel because of that, because people knew where he was in the
relationship with Jesus. But John was the only apostle
at the cross. And I always narrate this in
this way, what it must have been like for John and the other apostles,
of course, to see God, to touch God, to hear God, and then John
to see God die, to see the blood of God coming down the cross. What it must have been like to
see the body of God, the son taken down and put into a tomb
and the intimacy of seeing and beholding the creator of heaven
and earth in a tomb to pay for the sins of his people. That's
an insane idea, isn't it? It's stupid. It's really just
stupid. For the intellectuals of the
world, they think that we're off our rocker. For the religious and
the self-righteous of our world, they think we make too much to
do of the righteousness imputed to us from Christ. But Paul is
the reason we make much to do. Paul says that Jesus is the image
of the invisible God. John says the same thing. He
says that we have seen the fullness of everything that God has to
be seen. We see everything that God ever
has ever been, and we see it fully. That's what it means to
see the glory of God. Jesus is the image of the invisible
God. But the second thing here in this list, the sequence that
Paul does, he says he's the firstborn of all creation. Now, if we're
not careful, how do these two go together? How do these two
go together? I'll tell you where the cults
do it. The cults ignore the whole of Colossians. They ignore the
first part of this. He is the image of the invisible
God. They ignore the very idea that Jesus Christ is begotten
of the father. They ignore. They ignore. The fact that he
said that God, the father of our Lord Jesus, is who is praised
for their life. And they think the firstborn
of all creation, that means of everything created, he was first.
That's what they say. Now, if Jesus is a being of creation,
then Jesus is not a savior of his people. Because there is
nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing righteous and worthy
of a created being sacrificing himself for a sinful being. And
if Jesus is the image of God, and Jesus is not God, then God
is not God. So what does that mean there?
What is firstborn? Is this a definition or is this
a story of how Jesus came to be? What is firstborn? Say it. The inheritor. Right. He is the one who inherits all
that the Father gives Him. So what is happening here is
this firstborn is not a sequence of ontology of how he came to
be or his being. Firstborn has everything to do
with who he is. He is the one to whom all creation
bows. He is the top of all things. He is the greatest of all things. So he is the preeminent one. That's what firstborn means.
He's preeminent. Now, we know that because we
can understand this language, but Paul was kind enough to say
it, to say it right there in that text. For by him all things
were created. Well, let me ask you a question. If he's the firstborn of all
creation, and by the firstborn of all creation, all creation
was created, then by logical inference, no, by logical definition,
Jesus created Himself. Well, Jesus did create a body
for Himself in the womb of Mary, but Jesus existed. For Jesus
to even create Himself means He must have existed beforehand.
You see, all things. He is the creator of all things.
Who created all things? God. Jesus is God. And sometimes people would argue
in their earthly logic, well, He didn't create everything.
He created most everything. Well, then Paul explains that's
not true either. He created all things in heaven,
all things in earth, all things you can see, all things you cannot
see, all the stations of men, all the boundaries of the cosmos. That's what it means. Dominions,
all the rulers, all the authorities. And he says it again, all things
were created through him. All things were created for him. And he is before all things. Now this right here in chapter
chapter one, verse 17, this sentence, and he is before all things. is an establishment of His eternal
existence. Because time is a thing. And
before time, the only thing that existed was the eternal. God is the only one who is always
and has been. Jesus is God. He is before all
things. In Him, then, all things hold
together. So what else does that mean?
I mean, as God, he orchestrates the world, the universe, the
cosmos, all things. So now we have this picture of
Jesus as this divine creator who is God, who is also the one
who came and saved his people, who died for them, who took on
a meat suit and became subject to the law to die as a sinner,
but was not a sinner. All this glorious stuff. This
is where Paul starts out with this incredible, climactic, amazing,
cosmic, he is the visible image of the invisible God, God, God,
you know. And he's above and before all
things, and all things are created, and so on and so forth. And we're
just sort of left with our mouth agape, and we're in awe, we're
like, wow, look at Jesus! And then he brings it down, doesn't
he? He brings, he's not bringing
God's glory down, but he's bringing the tone down. He's saying, okay,
you see this vast array of sovereignty and power and all of the stuff
that is happening here within the cosmos is Christ's. If it's
for Him and through Him and by Him, as Paul would say to the
Hebrews, all things exist and He holds them all up. They stay
in existence because of Him. And then he moves from that magnificent,
macrocosmic, glorious, huge, ineffable, amazing, majestic
picture to the little old church. And I find that amazing. Because
he's the other way around, right? He's this and that. Oh, the God
of everything. Now, Paul says he's the God of everything and
he holds it all together. And he's the head of the body,
the church. Because that is the heartbeat of Paul for the people
of Christ. He is writing to the beloved
of God, to the saints, to the faithful brothers in Christ at
Colossae. So now he is the head of the
body, which is his gathered ones. That's what the word Ecclesia
should say, not church. We know that that's a misapplication
of the term, but it's the word we use. But church is not a place
to go and something to do when you get there. Church are the
people who gather and they function together in intimacy as God has
called us to when we gather. When we leave, the church is
no longer here. And so he puts that and he sandwiches
it in there. In between that and this, he
is the beginning. What does that mean? He is the
beginning. In the beginning was the word
and the word was God and the word was with God. He was God
in the beginning. He is the beginning. He is God. He is the preeminent one. He
is the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be
preeminent. So now all of a sudden we have this picture of here's
this God, Jesus, who is God. And now He is the head of all
things. And the church, the little old
church, these people in the world who are His, who He has transferred
into His kingdom of light. He's the beginning. He's the
beginning of what? He's the beginning of all things.
But He's also the beginning of the church. And He's the beginning
of the raising from the dead. He's the beginning The preeminent
one who shows us what he came to do and how he established
his people in his death and the promise of eternal life is secure.
He vindicated his righteousness by raising himself from the dead
and promises us the same so that he is the first of many brothers
to have the promise. And then Paul explains it a little
bit more as to why this is so glorious. For in him. All the fullness of God was pleased
to dwell. So if we still are confused that
Jesus is God, there's the punch line. There's the belly kick. There's the mattress flying out
of the back of the truck. It's going to hit the car behind
it with a massive force. Yeah, for those rednecks who
have never done that, tie that thing down. The fullness of God was pleased
to dwell. Jesus is God. The fullness of God bodily in
and on the earth, reconciling His people to Himself. and through Him to reconcile
to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making
peace by the blood of His cross." Now I want you to think about
that for a second. If we say, all things, all things, all things,
and we see reconcile to Himself all things, it's easy to make
a leap and say, oh wait a minute, now Jesus is going to reconcile
all things? What's that mean? He's going to save the plants? He's
going to save the trees? Yes. He's going to save the cosmos? Absolutely.
He's going to reconcile them all together? What about the
kings and the dominions and the authorities? Yes, they're all His. They all
fall into that place. And so, everybody's saved? No, it's not talking about redemption
there. It's talking about reconciliation. Redemption is the positive side
of reconciliation. Reprobation is the negative side
of reconciliation. So if I want to reconcile something,
if I've killed someone and the law reconciles my actions, they
put me in prison. If I've got a bank statement,
I write a whole bunch of checks and never balance it. When I
reconcile that, I'll see that I'm in the red. And then the
warrant. Mr. Tiffins, you've got a lot
of bad checks. You've got to take a vacation now. I mean, you're going to
jail. So, reconciliation, yes, includes
redemption. But Jesus, as God, reconciles
all things to Himself. In other words, they're put in
their place according to His rule. He is the King of all kings. He's the Lord of all lords. He's
the God of all gods. He is the first and the last,
the beginning and the end. He owns it all and He will reconcile
all things to Himself. Jesus says the same thing in
John chapter 5. that all who are in the grave
will hear the voice of the Son of Man and they will be raised
unto life, some of them unto everlasting judgment and others
to eternal life. But here is this extremely beautiful
moniker, motif of this glorious God. who reconciles all things
to himself, whether on earth or in heaven, which is inclusive
of making peace by the blood of His cross. Now, let's talk
about that from both perspectives of saving His people and condemning
the reprobate. The reprobate are condemned already
because they do not believe in the peace of His blood. That's
what Jesus says in John 3. For God loved the world in this
way, that he gave his only Son, the only one that he had, that
whoever is the believing, the believing ones, let's just don't
even use whoever, the Bible should say, those who are believing,
the believing ones have eternal life and will not perish. But
those who are not the believing ones are condemned already because
they are not the believing ones in the Son of God. So he says. So Jesus makes peace and reprobation. Jesus makes peace with his elect,
those he loves by the blood of his cross. And now he goes back
to his audience. See, here's this audience. Here's
what has happened to them. Here is who Christ is, who did
it to them and for them. And now we're back to you and
you and you. Who once were alienated, what
is alienated? You're in this large pool of
people and everybody just sort of moves away from you. Maybe
you smell bad. Maybe your breath stinks. Maybe
you got a monkey on your head that's pooping. I don't know.
Maybe the kids aren't listening and we're going to alienate them
from one another. Look at there. Alienation, you're
separated. You're alone. You're separate. You're divided. You're torn away.
But not only were you once alienated, he says, you were alienated from
Christ, but he grabbed you and he snatches you out and he puts
you where he is and he's preeminent and nothing he does will ever
be shaken. He'll shake it, you can't shake
it, but he's not going to cast you away. And you were not only
alienated, you were hostile in mind. You were hostile. You hated the cross. You hated
his sovereignty in your salvation. You love the idea. Oh, religion,
religious people of color. I'll say you love the idea that
you could do some things in your life that would appease the gods. Oh, you Baptist. Oh, you Methodist. Oh, you Presbyterians. You love
the fact that you walk in a manner worthy of the righteousness that
you so think is yours. You were hostile in mind to the
grace of God. Oh, you atheist. Oh, you pagans. You hated the
grace of God. If God had come along and made
an offer for you to climb and you to get to the apex of that
and the pinnacle of your own journey to salvation. Whoa, what
a boast you would have, but you'd give God praise, but still you
would feel very prideful. But you were hostile in mind
and the deeds you were doing are evil. You were an adulterer, you were
a murderer, you were a liar, you were a thief, you were disobedient
to your parents. You were self-righteous, you
were religious, you followed the scripts of prayers, you hated
your neighbor, you gossiped about them. You offered prayers, you
taught the word for personal gain, you loved self-glory and
the list goes on and on. Evil deeds, worthless deeds,
dead works, whether they be sinister or saintly. He has now reconciled you. See
verse 21. And you who were once alienated
and hostile to mine doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled
you. How? In His body of flesh by
His death. So here's this preeminent God
come down in the body of flesh. And His body of flesh bore the
stripes for our salvation. Why did he do it? Not a part
of verse 22. In order to present you. Holy. Present you holy. Present you
set apart. Present you. Okay. We have this Bible. This Bible
is sanctified. This Bible is holy. This is the
Bible that I teach from. Why? Because the Bible that I
teach from doesn't last long if it's not set apart. The Bible
that I teach from is a little bit higher quality than other
Bibles so that it'll last a little bit longer. The Bible that I
teach from has the largest print of all the Bibles I own so that
I can see it when I walk up here. The Bible that I preach from
doesn't have a whole lot of notes in it or anything. I don't write
him. I'll do anything with it because I don't want to change
the outcome of the word of God by my own study. I want to see
the word of God unfold as it comes. So this Bible is set apart
just for teaching, not for study, not for illustrations, not for
Greek. There's no Greek. There's nothing
written in this book. It is sanctified and holy for teaching. We are
set apart in Christ. So when we stand before the Lord,
the scripture says there, in order He died in His flesh and
reconciled you in His flesh by His blood on the cross so that
He could present you set apart from what? From all those who
will be judged. So to be holy means that you
have been found in Christ and Christ has plucked you out of
the masses of reprobates and put you over here in a safe space. You're holy. You're not like
the rest of the world. Surely we act like them. Surely we've
been there. Surely we have come to a place where some people
might not be able to tell the difference, but in the end, the
difference is that we've been moved. Christ purchased us and
in doing so, he put us over here. We will not face condemnation. We will not face judgment. We
are set apart. And because of that, we are blameless.
We are guiltless. expiation, that our guilt has
been washed away. No longer is James the sinner
before God, but he's a child washed clean by the blood of
Christ. And you too. You too, you as well. And then
we're above reproach before him. We're above reproach, in other
words, nobody can accuse us of being sinners. Nobody can accuse
us of not being set apart. Nobody can accuse us of being
blamed for something. We cannot, just because we are
blameless and we are set apart, now we're above reproach. Whoever
accuses us is a liar, for Christ has died in our stay, you see.
We're alive. and holy and perfect and righteous
because Christ bought us in Christ. Perfection and righteousness
has been credited to us. We are complete in him. We are sanctified forever in
him. And we will not grow in that
righteousness. We will only grow in the knowledge
of his grace to secure it. And that is the condition that
Paul gives. If indeed. You continue in the faith. I
love and hate when unconverted people teach this to their church
and say, see there, you're doing evil deeds. If you've got problems in your
life, you ain't living for Jesus, you're not coming to Sunday school,
you ain't walking in the faith. Is that really walking in the
faith? Walking in the faith is to believe everything you've
just heard is yours. Walking in the faith is to know
without a shadow of a doubt that everything that you just heard
is for your account and you are alive because of it. Walking
in the faith is to know God as your redeemer and the son whom
he has sent. And it's not just my take on
this text. It's funny. You don't have to be a theologian
to just keep reading. If you continue in the faith,
stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the good news
that you just heard. That's what Paul says. Not shifting from the gospel
that you heard. Not shifting from the hope. That's faith.
Hope in what you hear Christ has done for you. And this which you have heard
has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven. And to which odd
Paul became a minister. This is the legacy of Paul. This is what he lived for. This
is what God had called him to. He had it made in a false, dead
work religion called Judaism. And in the name of honoring God,
he put Christians to death. And Jesus himself met Paul on
the road to Damascus and gave him eyes to see and blinded him
physically. And Paul saw the hope of the
good news of Jesus Christ. And then Paul preached the good
news of Jesus Christ. And God, the Spirit, made alive
His people for whom it applied when they heard it. By the blood
of the cross, Christ made peace for His people and only for His
people. And so when we think of this
gospel, When we think of what Paul is saying here, it is completely
different. It is completely different in
so many areas of our community, of our history as a country,
across the nations of this world, because they want to ignore the
very aspect of what Christ accomplished. You notice that all those are
finished and guaranteed works. That's why I have hope in it.
And the condition is that we stay in the hope of the gospel.
Not that we stay and be in the parameters. That's for us as
a family to deal with when we shaken out of line. That's for
the believers, for the saints to help one another who are spiritual,
as we see over in some of other John, John's other John's writings,
not John, but John did like this. That's how we help one another
in the sense for our joy and our intimacy and our witness
and our testimony, the glory of God in the name of Christ
and all those things. And Paul had a constant theme
in his life because he preached this truth and because he stood
firm on the free and sovereign grace of God as the good news
of Christ, the good news of God. Before service, we were talking
about Galatians chapter 5 where Paul makes the assertion, if
I were preaching circumcision, would I still be persecuted? You wouldn't be persecuted if
you preached circumcision. Circumcision as a sign of the
covenant God made with Abraham, who is Jesus, the Savior. But we had an interesting
conversation. I want to share it because it's
very relative to this. Shifting from the gospel that you heard,
from the hope that is found in Jesus, is exactly what the American
gospel has done. They have moved away from the
proclamation, the proclamation and all creation of the finished
work of Jesus to the acting of conditions like circumcision. Sometimes as an assurance, as
a reassurance, well, I've done this just in case, but if you
have a just in case you're not believing in the finished work
of Jesus. What are the circumcisions of our culture? Sinner's prayer is the circumcision
of our culture. Those who do that, trust that
and go there are cut off from Christ. Asking Jesus into your heart.
Whatever that means. Is circumcision. It is shifting
from the hope of the gospel that you heard. accepting Christ as
your Lord and Savior. Circumcision, which is adding
to the gospel, which is shifting from the gospel that you had
heard. The only thing that Paul did with the gospel was to proclaim
it over and over and over again to his demise. If we were preaching
conditions and preaching the addendums of our culture, we
would not be persecuted because we would be preaching the same
false gospel as the rest of most of evangelicalism. And that's
the context of the latter part of chapter one. Let's read it. Now I rejoice in my sufferings
for your sake. And in my flesh, I am filling
up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his
body. That is the church of which I
became a minister, according to the stewardship from God that
was given to me for you in order to make the word of God fully
known the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now
revealed to the saints. To them, God chose to make known
how great among the Gentiles are the riches of his glory,
of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim. warning everyone
and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone
mature in Christ for this. I toil, struggling with all his
energy that he powerfully works within me. I think about that
for a second. Paul is saying, I'm proclaiming
this gospel and it's costing me my freedom. It's costing me
my health. It's costing me my life. It's
costing me my family. It's costing me my money. It's
costing me my prestige and my honor. My own people have disowned
me and I will not stop because I share in the afflictions of
Jesus. And you can't see Jesus hanging
on the cross right now. He's ascended. He is glorified.
He is resurrected. He sits at the right hand of
majesty as God. So when I suffer for this message. What you can't see Jesus doing
right now, you can see me doing for the sake of Christ for you.
Rejoice. Rejoice. Because in the fullness
of all things, he holds all things together, he is preeminent. He is the head of the body, His
church, of which I became a minister according to His purposes, so
that I would make this true God's Word known to you, that you may
be mature. That's it. One day we'll have an opportunity
to go through the rest of that. Friends, it really reads that way, doesn't
it? I mean, have I really sermonized this? No, I just sort of read
it and just emphasized it. You can emphasize the scripture.
You don't have to exposit it and dig. You don't have to study
it. I studied for this. I've just been reading it every day
for the last few months. It's just there. It's just there. It's ready to
come out. It's like that recipe that really worked and you cook
it over and over and over again and it just really works and
it tastes nice and you want to serve it to other people. Here
you go! I'm serving it to you. Eat it, eat it, eat it. And when
you're full, eat some more. It's the only time gluttony is
permitted. It's when it's the Word of God. Eat it. And it is for my joy. And it
is for your joy. And it is for our peace that
Christ has given us through God, our Father. Let's pray. Lord, there's not much to say.
But wow, your word, your truth, your spirit, teaching us and
guiding us in all things. Father, I thank you that even
when we read quickly through these things, there are so many
things, Father, as you know, Lord, there's so many things
that I in my mind would love to just delve into theologically,
but you've purposed this short. expression of this text tonight,
much like it was probably taught in the first century, just reading
and then dealing with it together and talking about it together.
May we put this as a priority in our lives so that while all
of us, Lord, are not preachers, we are all called to be proclaimers.
We can proclaim that which we study and see. We can proclaim
that which you helped made known to us the mystery that was hidden
for ages. As we read your word, we see
it and we can into each other's lives, breathe the truth of Christ
through the scriptures. And by God, the spirit father,
we shall all be in unity. And we thank you for this glorious
reality that we are the body of your son. who is our head,
who is preeminent above all things as our God. In his name we pray,
amen.