Turn with me back now to Colossians
chapter 3. Paul tells us in Colossians chapter
3 verse 1, to seek those things which are above where Christ
sitteth at the right hand of God. What are those things? Divine approval. Think about
that. Divine approval. God accepted
us in the beloved. He showed us that acceptance
by raising him up and sitting him at his own right hand. We're
seated, Ephesians chapter 2 tells us, with Christ in the heavenlies. Oh, he said, seek those things
which are above. Divine approval, divine affection. Divine blessings, eternal life. Accomplished redemption sits
at the right hand of God. Redemption is not a thing, it's
a person. Our Redeemer is a person. He
accomplished our redemption and sits at the right hand of God. And the rule of Christ, isn't
that what we seek, His rule? I don't want a rule. I don't
want a rule. I've already seen what my rule was and seen who
ruled over me. I don't want that again. I want
His rule. Seek those things, Paul said.
If you're risen with Him, then seek those things which are above. Set your affections, verse 2,
on things above, not on things of the earth. Everything up there
is eternal, lasting, and good. Everything down here is temporary,
fleeting, and wicked. If any man loved this world,
the love of the Father is not in him. Not in him. Seek those
things which are above. Everything up there. Everything
down here is temporary, fleeting, and wicked. And everything up
there is glorious. It's glorious. I've not heard
one thing from the Word of God out of Heaven that has not been
glorious. Everything is glorious. I hear
things here and they cheer me for a minute. I hear things there
and they cheer me day after day after day. These things are glorious. Everything down here is corrupt
and rotting. Verse 3, we are to seek these
things for we are dead. in our life. This life we profess,
this life that God's purpose to give us, this life, our life,
is hid with Christ in God. This life. I can't find this
life anywhere except up there. That's where I see it. I see
it in Him. I see it secure. I see what it
is. I see it manifested. I see it
exhibited and example in Christ. And I see it secure and God's
raising Him up and sitting Him at His own right hand. I see
that life secure. Seek those things up there because
that's what constitutes your life. That's where your life
is, not here. We're dead. And when Christ who
is our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him
in glory." Everything that constitutes the hope of a believer resides
in heaven. You can't find it here. You're
constantly looking for it here. It's not here. It's there. It's
there. It resides in heaven because
everything that constitutes a believer has been put in Christ and charged
to his care. I was talking to a fellow one
time about this thing of salvation in Christ, and the fellow just
stopped me. You know how they do sometimes.
He said, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait
a minute. He said, you mean you don't think
a believer can lose his salvation? I said, it never was given to
him to keep. He can't lose what he don't have.
Kenny, it was given to Christ. We were chosen in Christ, put
in Christ, determined to be blessed with all spiritual blessings
in Christ. That's who was given to keep
it, and he keeps it. The question is, am I in Christ? That's the question. Who in heaven, earth, or hell
can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus
the Lord? Huh? John 6, verse 37, he said,
all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. John 10, verse 28,
and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of My hand. My Father which gave them Me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
My Father's hand. I and My Father are one." Does
that sound like something you can lose? You can't lose it because
He didn't give it to you to keep. He gave it to Christ to keep.
Knowing then the truth concerning ourselves and this world, we
ought to mortify, Paul said, the deeds of this flesh. If you
understand that everything down here is death, that your death,
everything you think is death, everything you desire is death,
if you know that, then mortify the deeds of the flesh. Just mortify. Do not pursue that
which you know is condemned of God and headed for destruction. And then he tells us something
here that religious folks just go wild over and don't have a
clue what it means. He said, put off the old man. Boy, I'd like to and you. Put
off the old man and put on the new. I'm interested in that. Put off the old man and put on
the new And he said, because Christ is all. Christ is all. Now let me give you three or
four things this morning concerning this thing of Christ being all
and in all. First of all, man's condition
calls for a new man, a new creation. It demands it. Demands it. There's nothing in a natural
man to build on, appeal to, or use to save his soul. There's
nothing there. There's just nothing there. My
boss, he was getting into this thing of developing property,
and he bought this 300-acre farm not too far outside of Lexington,
and this was his first development. Man, he had visions of grandeur.
And there was an old farmhouse up front, and it had just a gorgeous
setting. It had all these big pine trees
and things, just stately looking cedars out in the front yard
and all of this stuff. It was a beautiful setting, but
the house was shot. And he came to me, I was his
builder, and he came to me and he said, what can we do with
this house? And I said, if you've got a dozer here, shove it down. Well, we ain't shoving it down.
He said, we're going to fix it. I said, there's nothing here
to fix. It shot. It shot. It shot. Now, and I tell you this, man's
totally depraved. It calls for a new, it doesn't
call for a remodeling job, it calls, shut it down and start,
it calls for a new man. There's just nothing there to
work with. Nothing there to work with. I love to garden. I'm not
very good at it, but I love it. I love fresh corn. I wait for
that first year. I've been out there every day
watching my corn. And I'm waiting for it. I mean,
I feel through the shucks. If I could feel a kernel of corn,
I'm going to pick it. I don't care what color the fuzz
is. If it's got a kernel in there,
I just starve to death for fresh corn. Love it. And green beans,
and squash, and tomatoes. Don't you wait all winter, you
that like them, for a fresh tomato right off the, not one of these
hothouse things that's been gashed and turned red, but a fresh tomato
that you can bite into and the juice will run down your chin.
I love to garden. And I remember years ago, we
planted a garden, Kathy and I did. It was our first garden. And
we didn't know the first thing about it. And we went over and
we bought some tomato plants, and I put one out there. And
it just laid there. And I'd go out every day and
look at it, and it hadn't grown a half inch. It didn't move.
It just laid there. And it looked sick. And so I
watered it. And that didn't do any good.
And I fertilized it, and that didn't do any good. And I sprayed
it, and that didn't do any good. And so I dug around. I thought,
well, maybe it's too wet. And I kind of dug around it a
little bit, and that didn't do any good. I mulched it. I did everything you could do
to that tomato. Pinched off the little things.
It just laid there. And finally, it just turned kind
of yellow and white and withered up and died. And my dad, who
had been gardening for about 50 years at that time, said,
son, the plant diseased when you bought it, and it was doomed
from the start. Doomed from the start. Oh, that's
man's condition. He's doomed from the start. Cursed. He's already dead. He's not drowning. You hear preachers talking about,
you're out there drowning. He ain't drowning. He's dead.
He's not swimming. He's not thinking. He's not reasoning. He's dead. He's dead. That's man's condition. He's
doomed from the start. And before man is born of God
and created anew, he's not affected by anything. He's not affected. The glories of heaven are not
sufficient to move him to praise. He doesn't care what it is. He doesn't praise God. I mean, I sit there and I look
at this garden this year, and I watch this stuff coming. I've
never had a garden this good since I've been growing gardens.
It just came up. We had the perfect sprinkle.
The glories of heaven won't be not sufficient to move him to
praise, and all the riches of this world is not sufficient
to make him grateful. He's not grateful. I had a fellow,
he was buying property. He lived next to us, and I worked
for him on occasion. I said, what do you want with
all this land? And he said, well, I'm not greedy. He said, I just want the land
next to mine. That pretty much takes in the
whole world, don't it? The land next to yours. He's like a withered vine that
receives no benefits from the sun or the rain. All of the gracious
provisions of God touch not his heart, for his soul. What's needed
is a new vine. A new vine. Not a new remedy. It's the man himself that's cursed. I somehow preach on these things
to men and they don't hear me. And they say, well, you're saying
that he needs a change in doctrine. Well, he needs that, but that's
not his problem. It's not going to do him any
good. You can give them a new doctrine, they won't do them
big good. Not a big good. It's man himself that's cursed. He's the problem. Man himself
that's ruined. These are the words of God. He
said, I look down to see if there's any good, and the good man, the
good man is perished from the earth. He's not here anymore.
He disappeared in Adam. The good man's perished from
the earth. He no longer exists. Destruction and misery are now
in his ways. There's no fear of God before
his eyes. What ought to cause him to tremble
and fall on his face before God just rolls off him like water
off a duck's back? He's not frightened. He's not
frightened. It's not reformation that's needed,
but regeneration. Our Lord said, except you be
born of water and of the Spirit, you cannot enter into the Kingdom
of God. It takes a new birth. It demands
it. A new man. A new man. And that's what salvation is.
It's a new man. And that new man is Christ. It's
Christ. That old man died in Adam. As
in Adam, all die. That's all there is in Adam.
You are dead. That's what Paul said to him
here in Colossians. If you be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above because you're dead. You're dead. By one man, sin entered into
the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned. God set a perfect man in the
garden and gave him everything a man's heart could desire. Everything. No weeds. Nothing. Just pure
fruit. You thought that fruit they carried
out of Canaan was something on a pole. I can't even imagine
what grew in the garden of God. Gave Him authority over all the
works of His hands. Gave Him wisdom. Gave Him only
one commandment to keep, and that to remind Him who was God
and for His own good. And yet He shook His fist in
the face of God, rebelled against His authority and love and wisdom
and goodness. And he fell out of favor with
God. And there's no need to play out the scene again, is there? There's no need to play it out
again. If man at his best state could not save himself, a perfect
man in a perfect environment, what's a sinner going to do?
In an imperfect environment, with nothing here but the influence
of evil, what's he going to do? There's no need to play it out
again and again. Only sinners sin. I had a lady
just about lost her breath out in California when I said that.
Only sinners sin. Just let that settle in. Christ
was a righteous man in whom was no sin, and none could be found. They tried to make Him sin. They
tried to trick Him into sin. Satan came to find something.
Something in him, but he found nothing in him because there
was none in him. He was the sinless man. He was
the righteous one. He, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And all the rest are liars and
all the rest are sinners. Where's the proof of that, preacher?
Where's the proof of man's inherent sin? Where's the evidence of
his courage? How can I prove to you that you're
a sinner before God? All have sinned. And only sinners
sin. If I wasn't a sinner, Glenn, I wouldn't
sin. Would I? Only sinners sin. It's our daily
continuation of sin. If you say you have no sin, you
make God a liar. The Lord told the rich young
ruler, He came to him and he said, good master. And he said,
just stop right there. Why callest thou me good? There's
none good but God. None good but God. None righteous,
he said, no, not one. Man, he said, at his best state
is altogether vanity. Only sinners sin. You can't reason
with them because they will not receive the things of the Spirit
of God. You can't teach a sinner because
there's none that understand it. You can't reform him because
the carnal mind is enmity against God. It's not subject to the
law of God, neither indeed can it be. And you cannot convince
him of anything because he thinks he already knows the way because
there's a way that seemeth right unto a man. He already knows
the way. Don't tell me. But I have to
tell you. So great is the ruin of man that
perfect light came into this world and lived before him, spoke
to him, was tried before him, and confirmed by undeniable miracles
of God. And men loved darkness rather
than light. So depraved is man that if another
come in his own name with no evidence and no proof and no
confirmation of God, him you will follow." Ain't that what
the Word said? They'll follow the blind man
into the ditch and the false prophet into hell. Thirty-eight
books in the Old Testament, all talking about the coming of the
Christ, all describing His glorious person and work, His language
and His very words that He'd cry out. All of the types and
figures and allegories and forms and illustrations and examples.
All of the prophecies and preaching. Only a blind man could miss Him. Only a depraved man would reject
Him. Only a dead man would see Him
and go unaffected. I tell you this, salvation demands
a new man. A new man. That's what's needed. Here's
the second thing. The Gospel declares that new
man. That's what's preached in the
Gospel. That's the good news. Here's the new man. The first
man and the second man. The first Adam, the second Adam.
In Adam all die. In Christ all are made alive.
Here's the new man. The new man's in Christ. One
who predates the first Adam. He's before all things. He's
the firstborn of every creature. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. You know, words
are just vehicles to communicate one thought, our thoughts, to
another. His name is the Word. In Him, all communication of
God is in Christ. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He's the Word. He which God has from all eternity
decreed to make His glory known. I love to read Hawker because he emphasizes this so
often, that the great and triune God has vested all revelation
as far as revelation can be known by men. in the God-man mediator
Christ Jesus the Lord. He's purposed it, put it in Him,
pleased to do it. It pleased the Father that in
Him should all fullness dwell. And it's the Lord Jesus Christ,
the eternal Word, that gives purpose and reason to every created
thing. Everything in creation will one
day be seen to glorify His great name. Listen to this. This is the psalmist. This is
somebody who knew the Lord. He said, praise ye the Lord.
Praise Him in His sanctuary. Praise Him in the firmament of
His power. Praise Him for His mighty acts.
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Let everything that
hath breath praise the Lord. Creation being made subject to
vanity by reason of him who has subjected it in hope, it now
groans and travails waiting as we do in patient expectation
to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God. He's preeminent in all the old
creation and he's preeminent in the new. That's what He was
showing us in the old creation, His preeminence. And He shows
it to us in the new. Christ is all. All right, here's
the third thing. How on earth do you put on the
new man? How do you put off the old man
and put on the new? I'm interested in that, ain't
you? How in the world do we put on
the new man? What does that mean? What does
that mean? It means to see this new man
with eyes of faith. That's to put him on. To put
him on. To see him with eyes of faith.
We put him on as our righteousness. That's all the righteousness
I have. All the righteousness I have. I'm ashamed of the righteousness
you see with your eyes. let alone what you don't see.
Christ is my righteousness. He's my righteousness. I put
Him on by faith, that righteousness. Righteousness is that which causes
the shame. It covers the shame of our nakedness. Righteousness. Apart from the
righteousness of Christ, God sees what even the conscience
has not discovered. God sees it all. There's no creature,
He said, that's not manifest in His sight. All things are
naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. I dare say if an invitation was
given this morning for somebody to come up here and take all
their clothes off and stand here naked as the day they were born,
I don't think anybody would take me up on it. Do you? That's how we appeared before
God, apart from that righteousness. David danced out in front of
that ark when it came into town and he had nothing on but an
evening. And Saul's daughter, the high muckety muck, looked
down at him in her pride and religious self-righteousness
and looked down and said, look at him, dancing out there naked
before these young women. And he come in and she lit into
him and started telling him that. He said, woman, he said, I'll
be more vile than this. He danced naked before that ark
because that ark was his covering. That's what he was showing in
his dance. Oh, he was celebrating the righteousness of God on him.
He said, you think this is something you haven't seen nothing yet.
I'll be more yet vile than that. to put on Christ is to put Him
on as my sin-bearer and my substitute. Believers do not see in His death
the possibility of atonement. They see their sins truly and
justly put away. They are gone. They are gone. And the Scripture is very clear
on this point. By His own blood He entered in
once into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for
us. Once, he said, in the end of
the world has he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. He says this, Christ also has
suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring
us to God, being put to death in the flesh and quickened by
the Spirit. He came, as it was testified
of him in the volume of God's word, to do the will of God concerning
the just recompense of our sins, and to satisfy God's justice,
to complete and fulfill all righteousness, and to bear our sin and guilt
before God. And in the doing and dying, Scott
used to say, of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're sanctified through
the offering of that body once for all. It's gone. It's gone. And by that one offering, we're
perfected forever. All for whom He lived and died
stand before God in such a glorious perfection that the Scripture
says they are unreprovable. I can generally find something
in me to reprove, can't you? Unreprovable. And it goes on
and says more than that. In the presence of His glory. Unreprovable. God Himself can't
find anything in him. If He could, He wouldn't be there. Having accomplished our redemption,
He sits at the right hand of God with the full right and good
pleasure of the Father to give us gifts and graces that are
sufficient to reconcile us to God. The Holy Spirit of God,
the rule of providence, the church secured in this world, Oh, how
Satan would love for the church to disappear. But it's the pillar
and ground of truth, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. The preaching of the gospel is
not going to go away. Faith and repentance, all of
these things, the gifts of God. And there's such a sufficiency
in the name of our God. that transcends all circumstance,
all enemies, all obstacles, all ignorance, all darkness, and
all principality and power. He just keeps using that phrase,
principality and power. You run into it over and over
in the epistles. Nowhere is that name revealed
as it is in Christ. This is the stone which was and
is, said it not, of the builders, but God made it the head of the
corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. Religion would
pawn off more living to be the glory of God, wouldn't it? That's
what they do. Religion would have the church
to be the savior. Religion would rest its destiny
on the will of man and its salvation on his works. Religion would
glory in their decisions and commitments. But the reality
of it is, Paul said, Christ is all. And don't seek these things. You seek those things up there.
You see where he's going with this? Christ is all. The more
you see him as all, the more this old man you put off. The
more faith sees of him, the more it lays aside the flesh. Mortify,
he said, therefore the deeds of the body. He's talking about
all of these things that we practice daily in our minds and thoughts
and hearts. Lay those things aside and pass
in your mind up here. Devote your time to those things.
Devote your thought to those things. Devote your heart to
those things, not these things. The reality of it is, is Christ
is all. I'm naked and he's my covering.
I'm guilty, but he's my justification. I'm lost, but he's the way. I'm
sick, but he's the great position. I'm a sinner, but he came to
save sinners. I'm weak, but he's omnipotent. I'm ignorant, he's all wise. I'm nothing, he's everything.
I'm of low birth. But He raised me up and made
me sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's as high
as you can get. I'm crucified, but He was made
a curse for us. I'm cursed. I'm poor, but He's
rich. He's rich. by the hand of God produces a
new man within. Everything concerning this life
of faith is Christ. Paul said, for me to live is
Christ. It's Christ. That's what it is.
In fact, a one-word definition of Christian living, Christ. The gospel brings all men alike
under one head. There were and are distinctions
in the world. There was a great contrast, I
suppose, between the Jew and the Greek. They boast in race
and boast in place. They created between the two
a natural contempt, just like religion does today with the
world. On the one hand, natural men, they gloried in people like
Alexander and Socrates, but they were reminded constantly of the
Jews about David and Solomon. There was contempt from both
sides, back and forth. A man so contrary that he is
willing to divide over anything. There was high and low with no
in-between. But the Gospel brings all men
to the same level, sinners saved by grace. That's it. What have you gotten
that you haven't received? And if you received it, why do
you glory like you didn't? All on one level. A believer
is a person who has nothing that did not come from God. All that we once called life
is swallowed up in Christ. That's what Paul is saying here.
Christ is all and in all. Like all the creeks and the streams
that flow into the great rivers of the world, so all our humanity,
all this old man is swallowed up in Christ. Swallowed up in
Him. The great God of glory has predestinated
us to be conformed to the image of His Son, and therefore we're
His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. What
is walking in good works? It's walking with the mind of
Christ. That's what it is. Walking with
the mind of Christ. You can't have the mind of Christ
and not seek to be honest. You can't do it. You can't walk
with the mind of Christ and not love one another. You can't walk
with the mind of Christ and not be merciful to one another. You
can't do it. John tells us that over and over. You hate your brother, how dwelleth
the love of God in you? It can't be. It can't be. If we walk in that mind of Christ,
that's our sanctification. Because God hath made him to
be unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Walking in the mind of Christ.