While you're turning to Colossians
chapter 1, let me give you a little background information concerning
this book. I will give you the title of
my message when I get done with the message. We don't really know who originally
came to Colossae and preached the gospel to them. We're not
told in the scriptures. Luke tells us that He and Paul
preached the gospel throughout all the region of Phrygia, that
is, of Asia Minor. And of course, that would include
Colossae, so it's possible that Paul preached the gospel there
as well. But really, that's not terribly important. The fact
is someone came and brought them the gospel, and God established
a gospel church in that place. And there was a pastor in the
congregation by the name of Epaphras. He's called in Philippians Epaphroditus,
the same man. He may have, in fact, been pastor
of a couple of congregations. He may have even been pastor
of several in that area, we're not told. But this man, Epaphras,
came to Paul some 30 years or so after the Lord Jesus died
at Calvary. Some years after Paul and Luke
had gone through Phrygia preaching the gospel, and where they had
gone and preached, sowing the seed of the gospel, Satan came
behind. He sent his messengers, sowing
the tares of freewill works religion, and they threatened at least
in Epaphras's mind, seemed to threaten the well-being of the
congregation. Some apparently had been led
astray by these folks. Some had been turned aside from
the gospel. And so Epaphras came to visit
Paul at Rome. And while he was there, he reported
to Paul with gladness the faith and faithfulness, the love, the
joy, the hope, the steadfastness of these men and women who believed
God at Colossae. And he told him also of the dangers
they faced from these heretics. And Paul sent him back to the
church and sent him back with this letter. He was inspired
to write. It was written about the same
time he wrote the epistles to Ephesians and Philippians. Now
here are the things Paul has to deal with. He's urging these
believers to be steadfast in the faith, in the face of Judaizers. These were Jewish converts to,
let's use it in the broadest sense possible, Christianity. That is, they professed to be
followers of Christ, but they still held on to the law of Moses. They professed to be followers
of Christ, but they still held on to their old religion and
their old religious ways. And they crept among the believers
and said to them, now, yes, we are saved by God's grace in Christ. But really, Paul has gone too
far. There is a place for your works
in the whole scheme of things. And your salvation does, after
all, in measure depend upon your works and your obedience to the
law. And so they sought to mingle
Christ with Moses, grace with works, law with mercy. And those
men are addressed and dealt with in this book and dealt with very,
very distinctly and clearly, particularly in chapter 2. Paul
deals with another group in the second chapter. There were those
who came who were apparently Gentiles, who also professed
faith in Christ, but they brought with them their religious superstitions. And they mixed man's vain philosophy
with God's revelation. Teaching for doctrine, the commandments,
superstitions, traditions, and reasonings of men added to the
Scripture. And by adding to the revelation
of God, By supplementing the revelation of God, they made
the word of God of none effect. And Paul urges these believers
not to allow these men to subvert their souls. There were others
who came teaching the veneration, that's a pretty word for idolatry,
the veneration of the worship of angels and of saints who have
gone before, teaching them that mortification for sin It's not
really an inward thing, but rather it is constantly beating yourself.
Constantly torturing your flesh. Because sin, after all, is out
here. It's outside us. So the thing
for us to do is touch not, taste not, handle not. And then there
were those who came with the Gnostic heresy of the day. Smart
men. Smart men. We revere knowledge. Knowledge. And they revered knowledge
so much that their brilliance became their idol. They taught
that men arrive at salvation by what they learn, by their
knowledge. They taught that men arrive at
Christ by their knowledge of things, religious and spiritual,
yes, but by their knowledge of things. Whereas the Word of God
teaches that we arrive at the knowledge of God. by Christ. Now these all were righteous
teachers. That is, they were teachers of
righteousness. Not the righteousness of God,
but the righteousness that man somehow has something to do with. And so Paul took down his pen,
being inspired by God the Holy Spirit, and wrote this epistle
to confirm God's elect in the gospel. to confirm in their minds
the gospel that their pastor Epaphras had so faithfully preached
to them, to warn them of the heresies that constantly abound
on every side, and to urge them to continue in the faith, grounded
and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. Now let's look at these verses
together. May God the Holy Spirit be our teacher. May he teach
us. in our heart, as Rex said just
a little bit ago in his prayer, the things he revealed. Now,
like most of Paul's epistles, this letter opens with a very
gracious, encouraging word of salutation. Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Now, notice how Paul speaks
of himself. He was the imminent apostle. There's no question about that.
He wrote the great majority of the New Testament. He was the
apostle to the Gentiles. But he refers to himself not
as Paul, the apostle. When John the Baptist came, he
said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Because in
John's day, when he first began preaching, he was the only voice
there was. But Paul was one voice among
many, and he acknowledges that and looked upon himself in exactly
that way. He says, Paul, an apostle, a
messenger of Jesus Christ. Now, in the early days of the
church, this apostolic office was an office established by
our Lord so that the gospel of his grace might be given to us
in written form just as we have it. There were men who were apostles. There were 12 of them. One of
them was a man who was reprobate, Judas Iscariot. Paul was the
apostle chosen by God to replace Judas. He was the 12th apostle,
the one born out of season, as it were, born out of due time.
These apostles had these characteristics. Every apostle was a man personally
chosen by Christ. He was a man who had seen the
Lord Jesus in his flesh. He was a man distinctly taught
the gospel by God himself, taught by Christ himself, as Paul declares
he was when he was caught up in the Spirit. These apostles
were men also who were given infallible knowledge of the gospel
in inspiration. Now understand what I mean by
that. I do not mean to suggest they were infallible. They were
not. Paul had to withstand Peter. He withstood him to the face
because Peter was errant. Paul himself made some judgments
that he later regretted. The book of Acts is very clear
concerning that. But they were, as they wrote the scriptures,
infallibly inspired by God the Holy Spirit. to be the infallible
messengers of Christ to his church, of Christ to his people. So that
God the Holy Spirit moved these men to write those things which
the Lord Jesus had taught and thereby explained them to us,
confirming to us the word of his grace. And these men were
known by signs and wonders, miracles, gifts they had by which they
performed miracles, spoke in tongues, laid on hands, healed
the sick, raised the dead. All these things were done by
men. Now, today, we have men who claim to be apostles. They
are everyone liars. Now, I chose my word deliberately
and purposefully. They are everyone liars. We have men who claim to speak
in tongues. They are everyone liars. They are deceivers and they are
themselves deceived. There is no such thing as an
apostle in this day. In fact, if you read 2 Thessalonians
2 carefully, you'll recognize that as it was in the days of
our Lord, those men who came with signs and wonders, doing
miracles, by these things they were confirmed as the messengers
of Christ. In this last day, those who come
pretending to do signs and wonders, performing miracles, pretending
to be apostles, pretending to have special revelation from
God, they've confirmed themselves by that which they profess, to
be ministers of Antichrist and messengers of Antichrist, false
prophets and not the teachers of God's truth. Now these apostles,
all these things were done by the will of God. Now look at
the next line. And Timothy, our brother. But Timothy was an apostle. No, but he was the brother. He
was a brother. Why does Paul include him in
this salutation? Because he was a fellow laborer.
Because he was a worker together with him in the gospel. You see,
in the kingdom of God, there's no such thing as big me and little
you. In the kingdom of God, There's
no such thing as important I and unimportant you, not in the kingdom
of God. God's servants are not rivals,
but rather they are brethren, laborers together in the gospel,
so that they are laboring where God puts them, with the gifts
God has given them for the cause of God himself, and they labor
together. And it doesn't really matter
who waters, Who plows? Who plants? We all recognize
that the work is God's work, and we're just instruments in
His hands. That's the attitude we ought to have, and that's
the attitude that God's servants indeed do have. We recognize
that we are God's servants, laborers together in His cause. All right,
read on. To the saints and faithful brethren
in Christ. Now, how could Paul possibly
know this? He says in chapter 2, verse 1, many of these folks,
I've never seen your face. You've never seen my face. Well,
how could he know that they are saints? How could he know that
they are faithful? How could he know that they are
brethren? How could he know that they are in Christ? Epaphras
came and reported to him their faith in Christ, their love for
Christ and one another, their hope in the gospel. And when
Epaphras reported to Paul of their professed faith and that
which he observed concerning the outworkings of their faith,
Paul, on the basis of their profession, said, I know some things about
you. You're saints. You see, all God's people, believing
sinners, are saints. They are sanctified. Sanctified. sanctified by God the Father
in election, sanctified by God the Son in redemption, and sanctified
by God the Holy Spirit in regeneration. They are all faithful. Well, he's a faithful Christian.
They ain't any other kind. They're just not. Believers are
faithful men and women. What does that mean? That means
you can depend on them. That's a good word for faithful.
It's hard for me to say what I admire most about the character
of our God. Perhaps I shouldn't even use
that kind of language. But there's nothing I admire
more about his character, Lindsay, than his faithfulness. You can
depend on him. I just called that man's name.
Folks ask me about Lindsay, I refer to him all the time, faithful
Lindsay, loyal Lindsay, you can count on him, you can count on
him. Oh, God's people are faithful people, faithful. I don't just
mean they're regular, I mean they're faithful. They are believers
and because they are believers, because they live by faith, they
are faithful to God. Faithful in their lives. Faithful
in worship. Faithful in the service of Christ.
Faithful to one another. Faithful wherever they are. They're
faithful. And they're brethren. They're brethren. They're all
one. One father. One spirit. One family. One elder brother. All of them. And that which makes
them to be saints. That which makes them to be brethren.
That which makes them to be faithful. Here's the key. They're in Christ. They're in Christ. All in Christ. Now look what it says. Grace
be unto you and peace. First grace, then peace. If you get peace before you get
grace, you'll never get grace. First grace, then peace. Grace is what saves us. Peace
is what makes us know we're saved. Grace is the root of every blessing. Peace is the flower that makes
life sweet and fragrant. Grace and peace. Grace be unto
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Can't
get it anywhere else. If you ever get grace, God will
have to give it to you. If you ever get peace, really
get peace, God alone can give it to you. I often have people
to call me or write to me, come by and visit with me. If I'm
staying somewhere, they find out I'm there, they'll pull me
aside. Brother Don, I don't have any
assurance. Can you help me? No, I can't. I can't. I wouldn't if I could. No, sir. No, sir. Ralph Barnard
used to say the only man who'll give a lost man assurance, try
to convince him he's saved, is another lost man. And I'm pretty
well convinced that's so. I can't give you assurance. I
wouldn't give you assurance. God alone can give you grace
and peace. God alone gives it to you through
Jesus Christ by looking to Christ, believing on Christ. Now look
at verse 3. 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 you heard before in the word of the truth of the
gospel. We give thanks to God because
grace and peace is God's gift. We give thanks to God because
that grace, that faith, that hope, that love you have, those
are God's works. Now we commend them in you. That's
good. I commend you who believe. I
commend you who show faith and faithfulness and love and hope.
I commend those things in you, but I don't praise you for them
or thank you for them. I give praise to God for them,
thank God for them. You're faithful because God made
you faithful. You have faith because God gave you faith. You
love one another because God causes you to love one another.
And yet we commend those things in one another. Paul does here.
Faith is that gift of grace that unites us to Christ and gives
us peace with God. Love is that gift of grace that
unites us to one another and gives us peace. Did you hear
me? Faith unites us to Christ, that
gives us peace with God. Love unites our hearts to one
another, causes us to live in peace with each other. Hope unites
our hearts to eternity and causes us to live in peace in the prospect
of it. All right, look at verse 5 again.
Where have you heard before in the word of the truth of the
gospel which is come unto you, as it is in all the world, and
bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day you
heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth." Now this is what Paul is telling
us here, and it is written throughout the epistles. We do not know
the grace of God in truth. if it does not bring forth fruit
in us. Where the Spirit of God is, there
is the fruit of the Spirit, not the produce, the fruit. Where
the grace of God is, there is the fruit of grace. Now, we may
know the doctrine in our heads, but we don't know it in truth. We don't really know it at all
if it doesn't affect our lives, bringing forth faith, hope, and
love. Those three things are always
united. Where there is faith, there is
love. Where there is faith and love, there is hope. Faith worketh
by love. Those things are always together. Faith lifts us above the world. Love preserves us from selfishness. Hope keeps us in the midst of
our trials. Now watch this, verses 7 and
8. Here the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to commend to this church
their beloved pastor. And by commending him to them,
he encouraged them to highly esteem him and hear him. Look
at verse 7. As you also learned of Epaphras. Now listen to what this... Let
me speak as Paul would never speak of himself. Listen to how
this great man, Paul, the apostle, this great, influential, useful
man, this brilliant man, this gifted man, speaks of Epaphras. His name is mentioned, I think,
four times in the book. If Paul hadn't mentioned him,
nobody would know he was around. Nobody would even know his name,
this insignificant fellow. This fellow, as far as we know,
who never wrote anything. This fellow, as far as we know,
who never was known greatly among believers. Insignificant fellow. Pastored a little church that
was just a few years after this, not more than five or six years
after this, was destroyed in an earthquake. The whole city
was destroyed. But here Paul speaks of Apophis and says, now
listen to me. The things I've just been telling
you. by divine inspiration are the very things your pastor has
been teaching you. The very things your pastor has
been teaching you. And I go places to preach the
gospel. I go and try to help pastors in churches. Particularly,
I try to give a good bit of time to smaller, fairly new, struggling
groups because I want to confirm their pastor's hands in the work
of the gospel. When I read these two verses,
I thought, what a delightful thing. You see, in these days,
it's sad. But most people seem to think
godliness has something to do with picking holes in somebody
else's armor, with exposing their thoughts, pointing out their
weaknesses, showing their failures. Whereas the apostle Paul gives
us a better example. He says, as you also learned
of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, our beloved fellow servant,
Epaphras is just as much God's servant as me, Paul. But Paul,
you're fixing to be put to death because of your faith. I'm God's
servant, Epaphras is too, our dear fellow servant, who is for
you a faithful minister. I have to acknowledge in my pride
as a young man, I once aspired to greatness. God forgive me. I'll tell you
what I aspire to. God make me faithful to you,
to this congregation. A faithful servant. A man who
faithfully serves your souls. Did I say Epaphras was a nobody?
He's somebody. A faithful minister. For you. A faithful minister. Faithful minister of Christ.
He serves you by serving Christ. He serves you by teaching you
what I've been telling you. He serves your souls by pointing
you to Christ, who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit. Now, this is what Paul commends
Epaphras for. He says, He's my fellow servant. Secondly, he
says he's the faithful minister of Christ. And thirdly, he says
your pastor loves you. Your pastor loves you. Paul had
a papyrus come visit him, and this faithful man spoke well
of the people whom he served. If a preacher wants to get a
sharp, biting public rebuke from your pastor, all he has to do
is start to speak ill of the folks he's supposed to be serving. And I will give him a sharp,
biting rebuke. Epaphras came to Paul and said,
let me tell you about God's people down at Colossae. You never met
them. Let me tell you about them. They're faithful. Oh, they love
each other. They love Christ. They love the
gospel. They believe God. They exemplify
it in their lives. They live in hope of eternity.
And Paul speaks to these folks about their pastor, Epaphras,
And he didn't have anything but something good to say. Nothing
but something good. Well, I want to be honest with
people. I call a spade a spade. Well,
when you're talking about your own spade, that's all right.
But when you're talking about mine, call it a flower. Call it a Cadillac. Call it anything but a spade.
What do you mean, Pastor? I mean love covers faults. And love lifts up virtue. I mean,
love speaks well of its object, speaks well of it. There is not
a living human being, you've never heard me speak evil of
that woman, or a dead one either. How come? Well, she's perfect. As far as you know, she is. Indeed. How come? I love her. I love her. The little specks that have appeared
from time to time, well, they're insignificant. I'll tell you
what else. They're not a human being alive
or dead. Who ever heard her speak ill
of me? And she's seen some pretty good hoes. How come? Because she loves me. That's
how believers live together. You remember Ham came and uncovered
Noah's nakedness. His believing brothers came and
covered their father's nakedness. All right, now look at verses
9 through 14, and I've got to hurry. I promise I won't spend
as much time on the rest of it, but don't need to. Here, the
apostle declares, the Lord our God, by his almighty effectual
operation of grace, has made every one of us You and me, every one of us,
if we're believers, if we're saints, faithful, brethren in
Christ, he has made every one of us fit for heaven. Not he's making us fit. Not he's
going to make us fit. He has made us fit for glory. Now, lest you think I'm overstating
what's given in the passage, look at verse 12. Giving thanks
unto the Father, which hath made us meet, fit, equal, worthy to
be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. For this call, Paul says in verse
9, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray
for you, and desire that you might be filled with the knowledge
of His will, with all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
Paul said, when I heard about you, I've been praying for you,
giving thanks to God for you. And this is my prayer, I want
you to be filled with the knowledge of God's will. His eternal will
of purpose. His immutable will of redemption.
His providential will recognizing that His hand rules everything. His revealed will in this book. I want you to be filled with
the knowledge of His will. Now listen, with wisdom. Wisdom only God can give, the
wisdom of faith. Oh, he is wise who believes God. Christ is made of God and to
us, wisdom. And he who is made of God and
to us, wisdom, makes us wise. We're no longer men and women
who live as fools, but as wise, filled with understanding. Not
just understanding facts, but spiritual understanding. Understanding
in our hearts. Oh God, fill me not with knowledge,
but with wisdom. Not with facts, but with understanding. Not in my head, but in my very
soul. Make me to overflow with the
knowledge of your will, with wisdom, and with understanding. Read on. You may walk worthy of the Lord
to all pleasing. Now this is talking about your
conduct in the church, at home, on the streets, on the job. Walk
worthy of the Lord. What does that mean? God has
made us worthy of Himself. That's altogether the work of
His grace. Now God give you wisdom. and knowledge, understanding,
spiritual wisdom, spiritual knowledge, spiritual understanding in your
heart so that you take care that you walk like a man who has been
made fit for heaven. Walk before men and women as
one who is an heir of heaven. Not that you show your religion,
oh no, my soul, a thousand times no, no, no, no, but rather that
you walk as a believer, being aware Now your example speaks
volumes to everybody who knows you. Celeste is sitting there with
those children, young men, young women. Nothing, nothing you and
David ever say or teach those five kids is as important as
what they see in you. Nothing. Nothing. In speech,
in temperament, in faithfulness, in conduct. I fear multitudes,
multitudes by their speech talk about leading people to Christ
while they take them by the hand and lead them to hell by example. God keep me from such. being fruitful in every good
work, increasing in the knowledge of God. You can't be fruitful
without the knowledge of God. And you can't increase in the
knowledge of God without being fruitful. You see, those who
know Him, who grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ, also grow in this thing of fruitfulness. Because we are
his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, and being
created for that purpose, God sees to it as done. He causes
us to bear fruit. We are trees of his planting,
bearing fruit in our season, strengthened with all might,
according to his glorious power, and all patience, with long-suffering
and joyfulness. Notice how many times he uses
that little word, all? Let's see here, verses 9, 10,
and 11, he says, all wisdom and spiritual understanding, all
pleasing, all patience, long-suffering, joyfulness. What's he saying? This is what he's saying, Bob
Potts. The grace of God. consumes a man's all. That's what it says. The grace of God takes possession
of you all. The grace of God holds us all. The grace of God in conversion,
in regeneration, in faith, takes the whole man and puts him in
the kingdom of God. The whole man. I wish I could expound this twelfth
verse like it ought to be expounded. Giving thanks unto the Father,
which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in life. What makes us worthy to possess
heaven's glory? Christ does. He's made of God
unto me, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. That is to say, the Lord Jesus
stood before God in wisdom as my representative in covenant
mercy. And the Lord Jesus came here
and revealed God in me, revealing to me wisdom, making me to know
wisdom. And the Lord Jesus has established
and brought in everlasting righteousness for me by his obedience unto
death as my substitute. And the Lord Jesus has given
me his perfect holiness and my Savior. And the Lord Jesus will
deliver me by the power of his grace from every evil consequence
of sin and resurrection glory. Well, how on earth has the Lord
made us meet for this inheritance? Look at verse 13. Who hath delivered
us from the power of darkness? I groped about in darkness like
a blind man all the days of my life until God commanded the
light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Christ to
shine in my heart. And when He did that, He translated
me out of this realm and world and dominion that possessed me
in iron chains of darkness and put me in a kingdom of light,
the kingdom of His dear Son. Look at it. translated us into
the kingdom of his dear son. That is, he's moved us from this
realm of death into this glorious realm of light and life in whom
we have redemption through his blood. What's that mean? Even
the forgiveness of sins. There's not a clearer, more emphatic
statement concerning particular effectual redemption in all the
Bible than right there in verse 14. What is redemption? It's forgiveness. You can't separate
the two. Anybody who has been redeemed
by Christ has the forgiveness of sin by Christ. Having just barely mentioned
these things, having just barely mentioned this redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins, this being translated from
the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and the
kingdom of God's Son, Paul takes off on a tangent. I mean, he
takes off on a tangent. If you read this chapter like
it ought to be read, you'll read it observing the grammatical
structure of the chapter. It's not accidental. Paul seems
to have begun writing like a man whose hand and pen were on fire,
and he just couldn't state things quickly enough. He seems to just,
one thing after another comes to him and writes it down. He
says, I want you to know this, this, this, this. Hear me now.
Hear me quick. I've got to get it said. And he goes off on a
tangent. He was inspired by the Holy Spirit to extol and magnify
and honor and praise the Lord Jesus. as our all-glorious Savior
and Lord. Now, I couldn't expound the depths
of these verses if I had the mind of Solomon, the tongue of
an angel, and the time of eternity. The ocean is just too deep for
me. So let me just play like the
child I am and splash around in the water a little bit, just
three or four more minutes, and see if you don't profit by it.
Who is this one who redeemed us? He's the image of the invisible
God. Rex Bartley, he's a God we see. That's what he is. He's God Almighty. He's the image of God because
he is God. He's the image of God, the exactness
of God. But more than that, he is that
one in whom God is revealed and known, by whom God comes to men
and men come to God. He's exactly what God is, for
in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He's the
firstborn of every creature. Now, this is what that means. He's the beginning of the creation
of God. What you read back in the office
a little bit ago about that. He's the one who made everything. Well, how do you know that's
what that means? Because the next verse says so.
Look at verse 16. For by Him were all things created. Well, what does that include?
Everything in heaven, in earth, visible and invisible, stuff
you see and stuff you don't. Whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, big stuff and little stuff, mighty
stuff and weak stuff, all things were created, look at this now,
by Him and for Him. He's the creator of everything.
And everything was created for Him. For Him. And He's before
all things. You mean He's eternal? That's what
He says. And by him all things consist. Folks talk about the
laws of nature, and I guess that's all right. How else are we going
to talk about it? But you know what would happen to this universe?
Have you ever stopped to think about it? And I'm not a physicist
or a chemist or a scientist, but I've got enough knowledge
about things to understand that if you just pull just a little
something, It's just a little something out of order in this
whole thing called our solar system. In this whole thing called
our universe. In this whole thing called our
galaxy. Just the whole thing collapsed. What holds it all together? He
makes all things consist. He causes the sun to rise every
morning, set down every evening. He causes the seasons to come
and go. He sends the sunshine and the
rain. They don't just happen by laws of nature. They happen
because He who holds everything together has ordained that they
happen. And the whirlwind runs in its
course by Him upholding it and spinning it where He will. And
He's the head of the church. Verse 18. He's the head of the
body, the church, who's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. He's the first one to rise from
death to eternal life. He raised others from death,
but they died again. He's the first one to rise from
death to eternal life, that in all things he might have the
preeminence. For it pleased the Father that
in him should all fullness dwell. All the fullness of eternity,
all the fullness of the Godhead, all the fullness of grace, all
the fullness of truth, all the fullness of salvation dwell. Let's see here. Not quite full,
but that's pretty full. Let me take a little sip. Ain't full anymore. Ain't full
anymore. Some of it's gone. You have all his fullness. You're complete in him. Is that
what the book says? But he's just as full as it was before
you ever came along. His fullness is an undiminishable
fullness. His fullness is forever. He has
such infinite fullness of grace that He gives all grace to all
His people for all eternity. And He's still got just as much
as He had before He ever made anything. All fullness dwells
in him. Read on now. and having made
peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all
things to himself. By him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven, by the blood of his cross,
he has reconciled God's elect to himself, putting away our
sins, and before he gets done, he's going to see to it that
everything that has been, is, or shall hereafter be, shall
at last be brought to bow before him. and be reconciled to His
praise and His glory for whom they were made. Verse 21, And
you who were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath He reconciled. He reconciled us to God at Calvary,
but we lived all our days as God-haters and God-killers until
He came and reconciled us by the revelation of Himself in
the body of His flesh through death to this end to present
you holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in His sight. Now look at verse
23. Here's a conditional aspect of
grace if you continue in the faith. But it's not conditional
at all. Because if you're His, if you're
in the faith, You're going to continue in it. You're not going
to be moved away from the hope of the gospel because he said
you'll never perish. That's an unconditional promise. Who now rejoice in my suffering
for you to fill up that which is behind of the afflictions
of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake. And that doesn't
mean there's something that I do to make up for Christ, what Christ
was deficient with. His sufferings have no deficiency,
nothing behind. But by Biestas, there's much
for us to endure and to suffer and do for the saving of his
body, the church, which he redeemed to Calvary. Whereof I made a
minister. What a privilege. I'll quit.