I am preaching to you on the
preeminence and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. The text from
which I take this subject is Colossians chapter 1 and verse
18. And He, that is, not just God
the Father, but He, God the triune God, revealed in Jesus Christ our
Lord is the head, the head of the body, the Church, who is
the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things
he, this incarnate God, might have the preeminence. It is the
purpose of the triune God. I stated this repeatedly and
I will state it several times more before I'm done, I'm certain.
It is the purpose of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
that our Lord Jesus Christ have the preeminence in all things. God has given the God-man our
covenant surety. our substitute, our mediator,
that one who is our Savior. God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
has given to the God-man, our Savior, preeminence in the purpose
of God. in the creation of God, in the
providence of God, and in the word of God. And as in those
things, so too the Lord Jesus Christ has been given preeminence
in the whole affair of our salvation. We're told in John chapter 1,
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth. And of his fullness have we all
received grace, grace, grace, grace for grace, grace right
on top of grace. In verse 19 of this first chapter
of Colossians, we read, for it pleased the Father. And again,
I call your attention to the fact those two words are in italics.
It pleased God. It pleased God that in him should
all fullness dwell. All the fullness of the Godhead
is in Christ. In him resides permanently all
that God is. Now that's a huge statement.
I haven't begun to expound it. In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead in a body. The incomprehensible God, God
who is spirit, in all the fullness of his being, resides in the
body of that man who came here through the virgin's womb, lived
in our womb instead, died at Calvary, and now is seated yonder
on the throne of God. In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. Not only so, but he who is God
incarnate is also the fullness of God's salvation. In fact,
he is God's salvation. You remember when Joseph and
Mary brought the Lord Jesus when he was eight days old to the
temple to be circumcised, there was an old man in there, just
and devout, one who had waited for the consolation of Israel,
Simeon by name, and he took up that babe in his arms. And he
said, Lord, now let your servant depart in peace. My eyes have
seen your salvation. Jesus Christ is God's salvation. Salvation is more than an experience. Salvation is more than a doctrine.
Salvation is more than a creed. Salvation is a person. To have
life is to have Christ. To have salvation is to have
Christ. To be saved is to possess Christ. To be without Christ
is to have nothing. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
1. 1 Corinthians 1, very familiar passage of scripture to you.
Verse 30. Here we see just how fully all
the fullness of God's salvation is in Christ. But of Him, of
Him, those words are needful. Of Him, this whole thing God's
doing. Are you in Christ? That's what
it is to be saved. That's what it is to have eternal
life. It's to be in Christ. Of him are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us. The only way he will ever be
made to you, these things, is if God makes them such to you. The only way he will ever be
made of God unto you, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption, is if God Almighty reveals him in your soul, reveals
him in your heart, and makes him to you wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. That according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Now there are three
things obvious in these two verses of scripture. They're very obvious,
I'll give them to you very simply, very plainly, and then I'll look
at a few things with regard to this matter of Christ having
preeminence in salvation. Number one, salvation is God's
work. It is God's work. If you and
I are in Christ, we are in Him by the work and operation of
God Almighty, in Him by an election union because the Father put
us in Him, in Him by a life union because we now have life from
Him, we have been born of God, in Him by a faith union because
we now lay hold of him and draw life from him, but that faith
is the gift of God as well as the life and the grace that put
us in him from everlasting in election. Salvation then is God's
work in its totality. Secondly, the whole of God's
salvation is in Christ and by Christ. Nowhere else. Nowhere else. He is made of God
unto every believer wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. Outside him, apart from him,
and in any way putting anything with him nullifies this. But
he is made of God unto us wisdom. Now that means many things, but
essentially it means this. In Christ, God makes himself
known to us. We've seen the glory of God in
the face of Christ. He is the wisdom of God. He spoke
in wisdom for us as wisdom in Proverbs chapter 8 where he was
set up from eternity as our covenant surety. He guides us by his spirit
in wisdom, but he is the wisdom of God unto us. He's given us
the spirit of wisdom, but he is wisdom so that we look in
his face and find out who God is. We look in his face and find
out the character of the triune God. We look in his face and
see the glory of God in the forgiveness of sin, in the accomplishment
of redemption. He is made of God and to us,
righteousness. Righteousness. Now, sometimes
the Bible, like we do, uses the term righteousness in a relative
sense. And we sometimes speak of righteous
things and righteous deeds and righteous men. Sometimes we speak
of the word holy in a relative sense. But strictly speaking,
there is no such thing as a relative righteousness or a relative holiness. Either there is perfect righteousness
or no righteousness. Either there is perfect holiness
or no holiness. The Lord Jesus Christ is made
of God unto us righteousness. I deliberately, purposefully,
constantly, God help me to do it perseveringly, deny all personal
righteousness before God Almighty. I've never had a righteous thought. Not one. I've never had a righteous
emotion. Not one. Not before God. I might impress you pretty good,
but not God. Not God. My only righteousness
is Him whose name is Jehovah Zedkinya, the Lord my righteousness. He's made of God and to me righteousness. Oh, I thank God for that. And
He is made of God and to us sanctification. Sanctification. It is Christ
alone who separates us from man. It is Christ alone who distinguishes
us from other men. It is Christ alone who causes
us to differ from others before God. Who makes you to differ
from another? What do you have that you've
not received? Now if you've received it, why do you glory as if you
had not received it? And he is made of God unto us.
Redemption. Redemption. Deliverance. Jesus Christ delivers us from
sin. He has delivered us, He is delivering
us, and He shall deliver us. He is made of God unto us redemption. Alright, these two things. Salvation
is God's work. Number two, it's all in Christ.
Number three, the whole of God's salvation The reason why he does
things this way is that we might glory in Christ alone. You see, if our knowledge of
God, our righteousness before God, our sanctification in the
sight of God, or our redemption as the sons of God were in any
measure, to any degree, or at any point determined by us or
dependent upon us, then we would have reason to glory in ourselves.
Does that make sense? That makes sense to folks who
don't even know God. If salvation, somewhere, it doesn't
matter where, if salvation somewhere depends on you. If God is waiting
for you to do something, it matters not how much or how little. If
God is waiting for you to contribute something, it matters not how
much or how little. If something must have the final
touches added by you, then you have reason to glory before God. If the difference between you
and men who are in hell is something you do, then God ought to pat
you on the back. If the reason why you seek his
glory is because of your will, then God ought to clap hands
for you and bow before you. If the reason why you endeavor
to promote his cause is because of something you do, then God
ought to bow and scrape before you. Oh, no wonder that's the
way churches preach them all the time. No wonder that's the reason churches
and men, preachers, grovel before men and cause men to feel good
about themselves as if they somehow done God a little service and
honored God by their puny, puny, insignificant, nothing works. God is debtor to no man. Salvation, you see, is God's
work. And if you get it, you'll glory
in Him. You won't brag about what you
did or want to do. You won't stand around and sing about how
much you love Him. You'll sing about how much He loves you. You won't stand and talk about
your works. You'll talk about His works. You won't have your
heart stirred to joy and gladness before His throne as you talk
about what you do for Him, but as you talk about what He's done
for you. all the difference in the world. Salvation is God's
work in its entirety. It is in Christ in its entirety. And it gives glory to God alone
in its entirety. Now let me remind you one more
time. We must never When we think about God's salvation, we must
never limit our thoughts to our experiences. Don't ever think
about salvation as just think about your experience of grace.
Don't ever do that. That's not right. People, you
know, they talk about, well, I went down to the church house
and I got saved, or I got saved. I accepted the Lord. No, you
didn't. No, you didn't. That's right,
you just didn't. God's people don't talk like
that. You won't find that in the Bible. It's not found anywhere
in this book. I got saved. God saved me. There's a huge difference. He
found me. That's all the difference in
the world. And this thing of salvation and my experiencing
Him finding me, Him seeking me out, Him calling me by His grace,
is just my experience of it. But salvation includes everything
that's involved. Now listen to me. Everything
that's involved. and bringing vile, hell-bent,
hell-deserving sinners from the depths of degradation and sin
and bondage and corruption and hell into heaven's everlasting
glory. Everything. Everything. Goes
all the way back from before the time when God made the world. and reaches all the way past
the end of time when God shall make all things new. Salvation
includes the whole thing and it's all God's doing. Now let
me give it to you in ten words. I'll give you a sermon in ten
words and I won't be long giving them to you, but I want you to
see this. Number one, the first word is election. I'll just ask
you to turn to one scripture with each of these. Turn to 2
Thessalonians chapter 2. Election. Oh, what a grand, grand,
grand gospel term. Election. We were chosen in Christ
unto salvation. Now, sometimes folks fuss and argue
and fight about election. Really, election is not important.
That's not important. Christ is. And if you got Christ,
you got election. And if you deny election, you
deny Christ. The election isolated from Christ
is insignificant. Election in Christ is vital.
Look at what the Apostle tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2. We are
bound to give thanks always to God for you. Brethren, beloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you.
2 Thessalonians 2 verse 13, look at verse 14. He's chosen you
to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the
truth. Now this is God's election. Before the world was, He chose
us to be saved. He chose to save us by the regenerating
grace and power of His Spirit separating us from other men.
And He chose to save us by the hearing of the gospel, by the
belief of the truth. God has ordained the end and
the means in His electing love. Now look at this next line. Whereunto
He called you by our gospel to the obtaining What a fantastic
word. To the obtaining of the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's called us to the obtaining
of the glory of Christ. Now if you've got a problem with
that, you've got a problem. He's called us. From everlasting,
He's called us. From everlasting, He's separated
us. From everlasting, He's chosen us to the obtaining of the glory
of Christ. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places. according as He hath chosen us
in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him, that we should obtain the
glory of Christ. Our Lord said to His disciples,
you've not chosen Me. You wouldn't. You didn't. You
couldn't. But I've chosen you. And you
know not what I'm going to say with that. But I had my choice. Not one of the disciples. No,
no, no. And I'm going to tell you something now. His disciples
still don't get upset with it. God's people rejoice in electing
love. They rejoice in it. Second word. Turn to Romans chapter 8. Predestination. Boy, that's deep. No, it's not deep. That's not
deep. Boy, you getting in deep water
now? No, this is not even a wading
pool. This is easy. Anybody here ever
made any plans? You folks are making plans, aren't
you? Planning to get married April 28th, I hear. Making plans. Well, boy, that's terrible. That's
just horrible. How dare you make plans? How dare you arrange your schedule
and arrange other things by your intentions? How dare you do that? Well, Preacher, have you lost
your mind? No, but this religious world has. God Almighty made
plans before the world was for everything. And I'll tell you
the difference between His plans and yours. He's God. That's the
difference. I make plans and it doesn't take
much to throw them aside. You make plans and it doesn't
take much to turn us aside. God makes plans, it's done. He
said, I declared the end from the beginning and then I started
doing it. I told you before the world was
what I would do. I've written the book of my decrees
and now I'm doing it. What's going on? I'm fulfilling
my plans. That's predestination. Romans
chapter 8 verse 28, for we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are thee called,
not to everybody, to those who love God. Who's that? Those who
are thee called. Well, how do they work together
for good? According to his That's predestination. Well,
what's his purpose? For whom he did foreknow, whom
he did love from everlasting, and foreordain, he also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be
the firstborn, that Christ might have preeminence, that he might
be the firstborn among many brethren. Alright, here's the third word.
Redemption. We have redemption through His
blood. Oh, redemption. What a glorious
term. Turn to Ephesians 1. Verse 6. In love the Lord God predestinated
us, and here He tells us what He predestinated us to. to the
praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted
into beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood. Well, let's see if we can discover
what that means. Now, if you will get your concordance
and go study the Greek language. I've learned the Greek now and
I can tell you what the word means. This is the detail, it
has these nuances. It means redemption. It means
redemption. The forgiveness of sin. That's
what it means. Lindsay was teaching us this
morning about particular redemption. Well, obviously, either it's
particular redemption, or it's no redemption, or it's redemption
for everybody. One of those three. But whatever
it is, it's the forgiveness of sins. If Christ died for you,
if redemption's yours, you have forgiveness. And if you don't
have forgiveness, you weren't redeemed. Is that difficult? No. You see, man's problem. The problem with your brother,
your mother, your sister, your husband, your wife, your son,
your daughter. Your problem with folks who despise the doctrines
of grace is not that they despise the doctrines of grace. No, that's
not the problem. They just hate God. That's the
problem. It doesn't matter how religious
they are, they just hate God. They don't know Him. You see,
believers are men and women who have redemption. And they rejoice
in it. Deliverance by a ransom price
and by power exerted. That's what redemption is. You
buy a slave out of the slave market and you go down and take
possession of it. That's a good picture of redemption.
We were slaves and the Lord Jesus came to the slave market and
paid the price for us and took possession of us and gave us
liberty. That's redemption. You go to
the pawn shop and you retrieve what was lost. You do it by paying
a price, by picking it up and carrying it out. That's redemption.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came here and he restored
that which he took not away. He retrieved that which was lost
by the first Adam. And he brought us into the glorious
liberty of the sons of God forgiven. That's redemption. Redemption.
Alright, here's the fourth word. Justification. Turn to Romans
3. Justification. What does that
mean? I can't think of a better way
to illustrate it. It means right at law. Now some of you folks
are old enough to remember when we used to do things with stencils
and mimeograph machines, and you'd get things that were all
jagged at the end here. Years ago, Shelby used to type
the bulletin, and then she'd type it again, and she'd count
out the spaces, draw a line, and type it a third time, and
hope she didn't make any mistakes, and have to type it a fourth
or fifth time. And she'd space out the distances between the
characters so that every sentence came out even at the end, so
that this side right here is exactly the same as this side
right here. They call it justifying the right-hand
marching. Now, listen to me. This is what
God Almighty in his son Jesus Christ has done for Bill Raleigh
and Don Fortner, if we're his. He has made us exactly equal to himself in righteousness and in holiness. He has made us exactly equal
to the demands of His holy law. Justified. Who is He that condemns? It's Christ. Who's the one in
charge of God's elect? It's God that's justified. Look
in Romans 3.23. All of us have sinned to come
short of the glory of God. We missed the mark. We have never
come close to keeping His law. being justified freely, freely,
without a cause, by His grace, but justified on the grounds
of justice satisfied. Justified by His grace through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth
in Scripture, in His decrees, in His Word, in the Gospel, to
be a propitiation through faith in His blood. To declare His
righteousness. To declare God's righteousness. That's what the gospel is all
about. It's the declaration of God's righteousness. His righteousness
for what? For the remission of sins. The
remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God.
To declare, I say at this time, His righteousness. That God might
be just. and the justifier of him that
believeth in Jesus. God through the sacrifice of
his darling son has satisfied his own justice. Fulfilled his
own righteousness. Honored his own law and magnified
it. And now has fully punished the
sins of his people in a substitute. So that in perfect consistency
with his law and his justice, he declares, we're free. Justified. And then forgiveness. Forgiveness. we looked at Ephesians 1.7, let
me show you a parallel passage in Colossians 1. Redemption, justification, and
forgiveness go hand in hand. Wherever you find one, you find
the other. Wherever one's missing, the other's missing. It is impossible
to have one without the other two. Redemption, justification,
and forgiveness. In Colossians 1, verse 14, the
Holy Spirit says in Christ, we have redemption through his blood,
even the forgiveness of sins. He later tells us in the book
of 1 John, listen to it. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, cleanseth us from all sin. It has a perpetual cleansing
power. He purged away our sins back
yonder when he died for us at Calvary. He expunged our sins
from the record books of heaven. And He continually cleanses our
sins day by day as we go before God and acknowledge the corruption
of our hearts. He cleanses our sins, purges
our consciences continually if we confess our sin. If we confess
our sin. You who are yet without Christ,
that's your problem. That's it. I don't have any question
about that. That's the problem. You won't confess your sin. You
won't do it. You won't do it. The last thing
on this earth a man will do is confess his sin. Now, he'll talk
about his acts. Yeah, boy, I did some bad things. Boy, when I was a boy, I was
around her. Ah, she was a hellcat when she was growing up. She's
better now. He'll talk about what they've done. But what you've
done ain't the problem. That's right. What you've done
is not the problem. God is what you are. Will you listen to me? This is
what you are seeing. Now you just take it just as
low and as vile. and as black and as hellish as
you can take it. Rex Bartley, that's what you
are and that's what your pastor is. Sin. How dare you talk to me like
that? I dare talk to you like that because I'm concerned about
your soul. Sin. Sin. Man, if we confess our sin, quit trying to hide from God,
it ain't going to work. Don't do it. Just throw open
the doors of this dark, corrupt dungeon called your heart and
confess your sin. God be merciful to me, the sinner. I ain't never seen anything out
there Let me speak honestly. I have
never seen anything out there like what I see in here. Never. Never. If we confess our sin,
look at it. He is faithful and just. And on the grounds of justice
satisfied, the faithful God forgives our sins. All of them. Sixth
word is regeneration. Turn to John chapter 3. Regeneration is the new birth.
It's having Christ formed in you by the irresistible power
and grace of His Spirit. The Lord Jesus is giving an interview
to this proud, self-righteous, arrogant, egotistical, academic,
religious leader, this Pharisee, this theologian, this fellow
he was president of the most popular seminary, Nicodemus. He said, now, good master, we
know. Wrong way to start off if you want instruction. We know. And our Lord said, let's start
where you need to start. You don't know anything. Our
Lord said, you can't possibly know anything. Jesus answered
and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, verse 3, Except
a man be born again, he can't see the kingdom of God. Don't ever, don't ever do a rebel. The disservice of giving him
the honor of making him think he knows something about God.
Don't ever do it. Don't argue religion with your
co-workers at the office. Just tell them the truth and
forget it. Don't argue religion with your family. Just tell them
the truth and forget it. Don't argue the things of God
with men. When you do, you raise them to
a level they don't rightfully possess. You make them to dare
presume they really do know God when you know they don't. Until
he's born again, you can't see it. And that's probably the best
way to put it. You go visit your mom and dad, kids come home and
you talk to them and you say, well, I just can't see that.
Well, I don't expect you to unless God gives you life. Except the
man be born again, he can't see the Kingdom of God. He has no
knowledge. And Nicodemus, being the smart
aleck he was, when you're caught, when you're trapped, and you
can't answer, One sure way to get out of it is to try to ridicule
Pope Fraud. And this is what he does, Nicodemus.
Now this is a grown man. This fellow, he didn't escape
from an asylum. This is a grown man, smart as
a whip. He knew Greek, Latin, Hebrew,
Aramaic, and everything else. He was smart as a whip. He says, how can a man be born when he's
old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and
be born? Now that's brilliant, isn't it?
No, he'd just be a smart aleck. And the Lord Jesus answered him
according to his folly. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
except a man be born of water into the Spirit, unless he is
born naturally and born spiritually, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God. Verse 6, that which is born of
flesh is flesh, it ain't never going to change. That which is
born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
ye must be born again. Our Lord didn't say, now let
me take you down the Romans road and tell you how to be born again.
He didn't say, now listen to me and I'll give you six steps
to being born again. He didn't say, now I've got a
good book, it's called How to be Born Again. That's idiocy. No. You must be born again. And I'm telling you, you must
be born again. Unless God Almighty reaches down
from His lofty throne by the omnipotent arm of his sovereign
grace and invades your heart and gives you life, you're going
to hell. You must be born again. It doesn't matter what catechism
you learned growing up. It doesn't matter how strict
you were raised. It doesn't matter how godly your mama and daddy
were. You must be born again. What is that? It's Christ in
you. Christ in you. That's what the
new birth is, Rod. Christ, the son of God, takes
up residence in your heart on the throne. Christ in you, the
hope of glory. A little old boy asked me, Daddy,
one time, he said, Daddy, how big's Jesus? And he said, son,
I don't know. I reckon about my size. Why do you ask? The little boy
looked at him kind of puzzled. He said, well, if he were in
me, wouldn't he stick out? And the father said, I expect
he would. And if he's in you, he'll stick
out. And if he's in me, he'll stick out. He'll stick out. Believers are men and women who've
been made partakers of his nature. Boy, that's the case. I don't
know many believers. That's the case. That's the case. Seventh word
is sanctification. Christ is our sanctification. Hebrews chapter 10. Now the word sanctify or sanctification
has various extended meanings, but the essential meaning of
the word, the essential meaning of the word is to set apart.
That's just basically what it means, to set apart. To set apart
for holy purposes, yes. To set apart for God, yes. To
set apart to make holy, yes. But essentially, the word means
to set apart. Here in Hebrews chapter 10, verse
10. By the obedience of Christ, fulfilling the will of God, we're
told by the witch will, we are sanctified. Not we are sanctifying
ourselves. If you sanctify yourself, in
the sense that you make yourself more holy and more acceptable
to God by something you do, then you're your own Savior, and the
Son of God will pat you on the back for letting you contribute
to His work. By the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ one time. Verse
14, for by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are
sanctified. Jude verse 1 tells us that we
were set apart in Christ in divine election as the objects of God's
grace. He called us out. I was thinking this morning that
our daughter You get to be 50, you do a lot of thinking about
things past, don't you? I was thinking about her. I've heard fellows say, our son-in-law,
I heard him say this. He said, my dad told me, he was
right. He said, son, I've given you
one thing. I've given you a good name, and
what you do with it is up to you. And I thought, oh, how I wish
I could have said that to my daughter. But as far back in my family
history as I know anything at all about, there wasn't a fort
in her life who had a good name. Not one. But God called me out. of that corrupt house and said, He's mine. For the world was. We were set apart by the blood
of Christ from the rest of mankind in redemption. He bought us. Like Hosea went down to that
auction and bought Gomer, he bought us. And we were set apart,
oh, set apart by His Spirit in sovereign regeneration when He
called us to life and faith in Him. The Lord Jesus came to where
we were, and He called. And when He called, we believed. Eighth word is preservation. Preservation. Look at John chapter
10. Paul wrote to the Philippians
and he said, I'm confident of this. He which hath begun a good
work in you will perform it until he gets done. He will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ. How can you be sure of that?
Because our Savior said in John 10.27, My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life and they shall never perish. You folks don't believe once
saved always saved do you? Why sure I do if God doesn't
save him. It just depends on who does the saving now if it's
up to you. No I wouldn't believe in once
saved second saved. Not if it's up to you. But salvation
is God's work. You surely don't think God failed
at something. Surely you don't imagine that
God's going to somehow have somebody interfere in what He's done.
I give 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 can pluck them out of
my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. And Jesus grabbed him
by the hands full of stones and said, we'll kill you for talking
like that. We're killing for that. Why? Because I'm God. My sheep can't die. Because I'm God. My sheep shall never perish. A fellow sitting there, he don't
dare say no matter what. I heard a fellow say that recently. I
thought I'd better go home and say, no matter what. No matter what. No matter what? Now the new sheep, wherever they
fall, He'll go and fetch them again. Whatever their corruption,
He'll bring them and cleanse them again. And then, there is
this thing called resurrection. When Christ comes again, He's
going to raise us from the dead. And after that, glory. Then shall I be satisfied when
I awake with thy likeness. That's salvation. That's Christ. May God make Him
yours. Amen.