Let's take our Bibles now and
turn to Colossians chapter 1. There are two things that Paul
tells us in this first chapter of Colossians that mark the elect
of God. First of all, there's a work
of God done for Him in Christ Jesus. A wonderful, marvelous,
perfect work. And then the second thing is
the work of God done in him. He tells us in the beginning
of this chapter that God the Father hath made us meet or given
us the ability to be partakers of this inheritance of the saints
in life. And the work of Christ for us
is the work of redemption. It's the work of righteousness
and reconciliation. His work is the work of a substitute
and a righteous representative. And the work of God in us is
the work of regeneration and of faith and repentance and of
love. So that the hope of the believer
is Christ Himself, Christ for Him from all eternity, Christ
for Him And Christ in you, he said, the hope of glory. Christ
himself is the gospel, and he is the hope of all those called
of God. That's what Paul is establishing
here in this first chapter. Christ is our hope. He is the
only hope. He is the hope set apart by God
the Father before the world began. And in him, that hope was manifested
in his person and work as a man. And as our representative, he
is the first begotten, he said, from the dead. He is the first
of mankind, being our representative and federal head, to rise up
from judgment. When sin entered the world, death
followed on its heels. Death and judgment and condemnation. He tells us that in Romans chapter
5. And no man, no son of Adam, of
his own accord, could crawl up out of that corruption, could
satisfy God's judgment, could do any of those things to reconcile
himself to God. Not of himself. But there was
one who was the first begotten from the dead, and that's Christ.
And so He'd become our hope. And He's the firstborn of every
creature, being not only the creator, but the reason for their
existence. And as the head of the church,
he is the beginning. He's the beginning. That's what
a sinner, when a sinner is convinced of sin, that's what he's looking
for. The beginning. Where is the beginning? Where
is my hope? I see now what I am. I see now what mankind is. I
see now the judgment of God on men, but where is the beginning?
The beginning is in Christ. Without Him, there'd be no church.
He's the head of the church. He is the beginning. And without
Him, there'd be no church, no salvation, no resurrection, and
no hope of glory. The Christian hope is not that
he can of himself work or will himself out of his sin and death
into a state of favor and blessing with God, but rather he's saved
through the redemption that's in Christ alone, being justified
freely by His grace. His election was an election
of grace. All things rising up from the
grace of God. And by Him, by His grace, reconciled
in the person and work of Christ, He is able to present us. And
if you'll look back there, just a few verses from our text that
I mentioned, He says, who were sometime alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in
the body of His flesh to present you holy and unblameable and
unreprovable in God's sight. And this is what faith perceives
in the gospel. It sees that. It understands
that. It understands who He is and
what He did. It understands the majesty of
it. It perceives the glory of it.
It perceives that it's effectual. And it lays hold of it and it
rests in it. That's what faith sees. Faith's
not making a decision to accept something or reject something.
Faith sees and understands. And that's why I say these people
who are out here and they're talking about all this Things,
giving you things to do and places to go and aisles to walk and
all that kind of... They don't understand these things,
but faith does. True faith perceives these things.
Maybe not as good as some preachers who have been studying them for
30 years, but he perceives it, he understands it from the very
beginning. And then that perception and
that understanding grows. He grows in grace and knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what it rests in,
rejoices in, hungers for. And all these blessings promised
in Christ, accomplished in Christ, and brought to light in those
enabled of God to receive them, they make up the believer's hope.
And that hope is justified as the work of God done in them.
Verse 23, here's how it's justified, if you continue in the faith,
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel, which you have heard, which was preached to
every creature which is under heaven, were of eye of Paul,
and made a minister." Believers are called believers because
they believe. Does that make sense? Believers are called believers
because they believe. And that man, that woman, that
boy or girl who truly believes keeps on believing. Because to
believe requires life. Life from the dead. It requires
a new creation within to believe. Natural man can't believe. He
can't believe. It's given unto you. on the behalf
of Christ, not only to believe on Him. That's given to you also. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. It's the free gift of God. And
where it's not given, there is no faith. And where there is
no faith, they don't continue. Does that make sense? We're believers. Believers believe, and they keep
on believing. They keep on believing. Life
from the dead begins with faith. It lives by faith. The just should
live by faith. That's how He lives. And these
all died in faith. And you can go on and on in the
Scriptures. We're His house. He's the Son
over His own house whose house are we if we continue in the
rejoicing and the hope of the Gospel. Lay hold of that and
hold it firm unto the end. Why do they continue? Why does
the believer continue in these things? Why does he so often
talk about the believer continuing in these things? Well, first
of all, because they find in him a full sufficiency. Where
else are you going to find pardon? You're going to find it in Christ. Where else are you going to find
sanctification? In your works? In your will?
No, you're going to find it in him. I'll tell you what you're
going to find in you, disappointment. That's what you're going to find.
Emptiness. That's what you're going to find. Failure. Failure. Throw your hands up. Give up.
But you can't find that in him. You look to him, you find sufficiency
in all things. Sufficiency. Everything that
you need and lack is in him. And you find it. You find sanctification
in him and all of these things. Listen to this, Paul said in
Philippians chapter 4 and verse 19, he said, but my God shall
supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ
Jesus. All your needs, every need, whatever
it is. In Christ we find wisdom. That's
why we continue in this hope, because in Him we find wisdom.
We think we know something, and then we grow a little bit in
grace, and all of a sudden, we see things that we didn't know.
And on and on it goes. It's so deep, you can't fathom
the depth of it, how far it goes, nor the height of it, nor the
width of it. And then John said this. We're
talking about Christ our wisdom. He said, and we know that the
Son of God hath come and given us an understanding that we might
know Him that's true. We come to know the true and
living God through Christ. He's our wisdom. In Christ we
find peace. There's no peace in the world.
There's no peace in the world. I don't care in what sense you
want to have it. There's no peace in this world.
Controversy, division, argument, wars, and rumors of war. There's
no peace in this world. Christ is our peace. He said,
being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ. And in Christ, we have a full
and complete righteousness. I tell you this, without faith,
that faith that lays hold of that righteousness of God, that
righteousness that's imputed to us by faith. Without faith,
it's impossible to please God. It's not hard. It's impossible. And in Christ, I have sanctification,
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. And in Christ, I have inspiration, encouragement. And I find example
in Him for all things. And this call to faith is evidenced
by continuing in the faith, and also by growth in grace. Listen to this. Not only does
He say, if you continue, but He said, grounded and settled. True faith grows. It's alive. It's alive. It's not an isolated
act. It's a living principle of the
heart. And this new creation grows. And it settled and grounded. And as they grow, they begin
to see Him as all in all. They become grounded and settled. And believers are not blown about
by every wind of doctrine. One fellow gave an illustration. One of the old writers, I think
it was Spurgeon if I'm not mistaken, but one of them gave this. He
was illustrating true faith and false faith. And he said false
faith is like a feather. The wind blows and that feather
is scooped up from the ground and it rises up. When the wind
quits blowing, it falls back down to the ground. And when
the wind blows north, the feather goes north. When the wind blows
south, the feather goes south. When the wind blows east, the
feather goes east. Then when the wind quits, it
falls back to the ground. But he said true faith It's living. It's alive. It's a new man. It's
a new creation. And he said it's like the eagle.
And he said the eagle can fly when the wind blows. It can fly
with the wind. It can fly against the wind.
It can fly when there ain't no wind. Because it's alive. That's true faith. But false
faith is blown about by every wind of doctrine. It's got no
power. It's got no object. It's got
no end. It's got no life of God in it.
It can't fly. It just floats. It just floats
about wherever the wind blows. That's the faith of God's elect,
those who truly believe, are first given faith through a new
birth. And they continue in the faith,
and they're grounded and settled. And this hope, this faith, is
something they acquired through the preaching of the gospel.
Paul tells us here, this gospel is the means that God has ordained
to save chosen sinners. Listen to this over in James
chapter 1, of His own will, talking about God's will, the unchangeable
God, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of
His own will begat He us with the word of truth. And then in
1 Corinthians 1 verse 21, after that, in the wisdom of God, the
world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God through the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. And then Peter said,
this incorruptible word by which you are born of God is the same
word which by the gospel is preached unto you. This hope, Paul tells
us in our text, is the hope of the gospel which you have heard."
Isn't that what he says there in that text? If you continue
in this hope, grounded and settled, be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel which you have heard and which was preached
to every creature, every creature under heaven. And while this
is foolishness to the natural man, he's not going to receive
the things of the Spirit of God. You're not going to shut him
up to this book. You're not going to do it. He'll run off to his
experience. Well, I don't know anything about
that, but I'll tell you what I do know. I know what I feel.
No, you don't. No, you don't. I know what I
experienced. I know that. Do you? Paul thought he did it one time.
And so did everybody who'd been deceived and whom God called
out a false religion. They all thought they knew something,
but they didn't. And they come to know that. The hope Paul tells us about
in our text is the hope of the gospel, which you have heard. And it's foolishness to the natural
man, and it's a stumbling stone to deceive religionists. But
it's the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. And
it's the wisdom of God. The Gospel. That's the wisdom
of God. And the reason men are lax in
their attendance, and I'm going to say myself included, everybody,
this is just the reason for it. The reason we're lax in our attendance
and lax in giving and lax in inviting folks to hear is because
we're lax in our understanding of the necessity to hear the
Gospel. To hear. We sat down at the table
over there at Thanksgiving, and Kathy fixed an awful meal. She
fixed this big old turkey and dressing and hot rolls and you
name it. It was on the table. And we sat
down and ate and ate and ate till we couldn't eat any more.
And then she said, now, y'all keep room for my chocolate cake.
And I'm telling you, I watched her fix that cake. one of these
yellow cakes, real moist with chocolate icing, homemade icing
on it. But I couldn't eat a piece of
cake. I mean, I did eat a few bites, but I just could not get
that cake down. You know, he says in the Scriptures,
he said, the full soul loatheth even the honeycomb. Because it's
full. Can't eat no more. And those
who are filled with deceit and filled with tradition and filled
with all, we're filled up to our eyeballs with religion and
we hear the gospel and we don't want it. We don't want it. We
just don't want it because we're full. But the hungry soul, every
bitter thing is sweet to him. Now after a while when all that
turkey went away, I went after the cake because I was hungry
then. All you have to have for the
gospel is an appetite. Appetite. But he first has to
take that appetite for religion away. He's got to take that fullness
away. And when myself or one of these
other pastors step into the pulpit and begin to preach, we're setting
before you that which God has given to us to feed your soul.
We're setting a table before you. And the hungry souls gather
to eat it. I'll tell you this, when you
work hard all day, nobody has to come and get you by the hand
and lead you to the table. You're waiting. You're listening.
You might miss everything else she said, but when she says,
come and eat, you hear that. You get to that table because
you're hungry. You're hungry. Now watch this. Verse 24. Now Paul said, you
heard this. That's how you got this hope. You heard it. And it was preached
not just to you, but it was preached to every creature under heaven.
And he said, whereof I am made a minister, verse 24, who now
rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is
behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's
sake, which is the church. No sooner had Paul made mention
of his office as a minister, and I'm going to keep reminding
you of this, he's in prison when he's writing this letter. And
that ain't like it is today. He was down in an old, cold dungeon. And no sooner does he make mention
of his office as a minister than he's reminded of the sufferings
involved in it. It's not in a negative way. You
go back and read everywhere where Paul talks about his sufferings,
and he never talks about them in a negative way. He always
looks at them in a positive way. Paul saw his sufferings in the
light of their conversion, and he rejoiced in it. And he saw
his sufferings in the light of the glory of Christ and the furtherance
of the gospel, and he rejoiced in them. He said, I rejoice,
now listen to this, in my sufferings for you. For you. And he's not complaining here,
he's rejoicing. And he rejoiced knowing that
his sufferings were not dishonoring to Christ, first of all. He makes
mention of that at the outset of this chapter. He's not down
there for stealing something, or for killing somebody, or for
starting a riot. He's down there for the gospel
sake. He's down there because he preached
the gospel to men who despised him. And he was in prison for
preaching the gospel. And then secondly, he rejoiced
in his sufferings knowing that they were sin of God. Turn with
me to 1 Peter 1. What are these sufferings all
about that he's talking about? Well, these sufferings are the
fire through which true faith is tested. It's the fire. You take a bunch of gold, it
has to pass through the fire and burn away all the dross,
all the nonsense. It has to be melted away, and
then you've got pure gold. That's what's left, pure gold.
In I Peter 1.5, the apostles said, We're kept by the power
of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last
time, verse 6, wherein ye greatly rejoice, Though now for a season,
if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations,
that, or in order that, the trial of your faith being much more
precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire,
might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing
of Jesus Christ." This faith is going to be tested. This is
God's work in you, and He's going to prove it. He is going to prove
it. And if it is your work in you,
He is going to prove that too. He is going to prove that too.
Because He is going to put it through the fire. He is going
to put it through the fire. And He is going to justify His
faith in every man where He gives it. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians
and he told them that he knew their election of God because
they become followers of Him and the Lord having received
the Word in much affliction. yet with joy and of the Holy
Ghost. And then I believe Paul rejoiced
in his sufferings because he saw them as a blessed privilege
given to him by the Lord. In Philippians 1.29 he said,
for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to
believe on him but also to suffer for his sake. It's given to you
as a privilege. It's as high a privilege as faith.
to suffer for His name. And then lastly, Paul rejoiced
in his suffering, seeing them in the light of the full restitution
of all things. Over in Romans 8, verse 16, the
Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the
children of God. And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God adjoined heirs with
Christ. If so be that we suffer with
Him, that we may be glorified together. Now listen to what
he says. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be
revealed in you. It's not worthy to be compared.
And so he rejoiced in these things in the light of the full restitution
and that glorious end of all things. These things, how can
you compare that to that? You see what he said? There was
no man who suffered like Paul. He was beaten in prison, left
for dead, night and day at sea. He said, the Holy Ghost witnesses
this in me everywhere I go. Bonds and afflictions everywhere
I go. Beat him up, stoned him. I don't know what all they did
to him. You know what he called these things in the light of
that fool restitution of all things? He called them light
of affliction. Light afflictions. Isn't that
what he said? Sure it is. Light afflictions. Now watch this. Colossians 1.24,
"...who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which
is behind of the affliction of Christ in my flesh for his body's
sake, which is the church." Now listen to him. There is nothing
behind or left behind as to the sufficiency and efficacy of the
atoning sufferings and death of Christ. There is nothing left
behind concerning those things, and that is not what Paul is
saying. He is not saying here that his sufferings are being
used to make the work of Christ complete. That is not what he
is talking about here. But that there are still sufferings
involved in the reconciliation or calling out of God's elect.
There's still sufferings to be suffered. That's what he's talking
about. And to preach the gospel requires
sacrifice and suffering. You're going to suffer if you
preach this gospel. You're going to suffer if you say, I believe
this gospel and take a stand in it. You're going to suffer.
You're going to suffer persecution from your friends, from your
co-workers, from your boss, Your family, go on and on and on,
and especially from all the religious organizations around you, you're
going to suffer persecution. The enemy of God is not going
to give up his captives willingly. We're not going to march into
his camp unchallenged and without resistance. It's not going to
happen. And all those deceived by him will inflict pain and
suffering upon anyone whom they think is going to attempt to
take away one of their loved ones. They're going to inflict
pain on you any way they can. If it's lawful, they take you
out and stone you the same way they did back in Paul's day. But it ain't lawful today. And then notice this, and I'll
quit. These afflictions are called afflictions of Christ. And they're
called afflictions of Christ because Christ and His people
are one. You remember in the Bible when
our Lord, back in one of our studies in Matthew, I pointed
it out to you that our Lord said of these little ones, He said,
it'd be better for you if a millstone was tied about your neck and
cast into the sea than you to harm one of these little ones.
And then He told His own disciples, He said, as oft as you just a
drink of water, under one of these little ones. As oft as
you do it, He said, you do it under Me. Under Me. And the very
reverse of that is true when you despise and persecute and
cause one to suffer. The very opposite is true. You've
done it under Him. And so He calls these sufferings
that we suffer, His sufferings. His sufferings. You can't take
up for yourself against the world, but He can. He can. In one place, He said, Your prayers
for them is heaping hot coals on their heads.