Colossians chapter 1. I'd like us to read this chapter
tonight and just make a few comments, a few observations along the
way here. Colossians chapter 1, beginning
with verse number 1. Scripture says, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, by the will of God and Timothy, our brother,
to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ, which are at Colossae,
grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. 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. Stop there for just a second.
You see in verse three, Paul said that we give thanks to God
and the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
And then in verse five, one of the things that he gives thanks
for and that I give thanks for tonight, when I think of you,
when I think of myself, is for this hope. You notice, for the
hope which is laid up for you in heaven. I give thanks unto
God, the Father, that you're living your life in this world
with hope and hope of eternal life. When we think of eternal life,
that doesn't only speak to us about the length of it, that
it's eternal, but of the quality of it, right? We live our life
in hope of eternal life, a life in which we shall live. We spend,
even if we live a long life in this world, it's still a pretty
short time. And we live this life and struggle
with sin and all the troubles that come with this life, but
we live it in hope of eternal life. A life when we shall be
with Christ, a life when we shall be like Christ, a life when we
shall be without sin, when we'll enjoy God. Enjoy Him as He should
be enjoyed. Enjoy Him as He's worthy to be
enjoyed. You see, we give thanks for this,
don't we, tonight, in hope of eternal life, which God, that
cannot lie, See, if it wasn't for this, then
we would have no reason to live our life in this world and hope.
But we do because God that cannot lie promised this before the
world began. You think about think about that
for just a second. Well, if he promised this before
the world began, who did he promise this to? This is speaking of
that eternal covenant, isn't it? Eternal covenant that God
made with himself that he would save a multitude of sinners and
give them eternal life. I thank God that you believe,
that you trust, and that you love the Lord Jesus Christ. Not
everyone does. The Lord Jesus, which is our
hope, I think could be better translated, who is our hope,
right? The Lord Jesus, who is our hope?
The Apostle Paul, he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to tell the
Ephesians this. He said that before the Lord
saved them, and this is true of every sinner before God saves
a sinner. For those who are walking through
this world lost today, this is who they are and what their life
is like. Paul said that at that time,
having no hope and without God in the world. What an awful way
to live our existence, our time in this world, without hope,
without God in the world. And then one last comment there. the prayer of Paul in Romans
15, as he was closing that book. He said, now the God of hope
fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound. That word abound actually means
to super abound, that you may overflow. With what? That you may abound in hope. through the power of the Holy
Ghost. Isn't that your prayer tonight?
That should be our prayer tonight, that we might abound in hope,
regardless of the circumstances that we find ourselves in this
world, that we may abound, that we would just be overflowing
with hope. You say, is that possible? I
believe it is. Paul prayed for it. That was
his prayer, right? For these believers. Now notice
verse number six. It says that the verse five ends
in the word of the truth of the gospel, which is common to you
as it is in all the world and bringeth forth fruit as it doth
also in you since the day that you heard of it and knew the
grace of God in truth. I can't pass by that verse there
without stopping for a second. Oh, wonderful day. Oh, happy day. That day when
the Lord Jesus enabled us to know the grace of God in truth. Everyone talks of grace. Everyone
talks of grace, but not everyone knows the grace of God in truth.
Do you remember, and maybe you don't, it's okay if you don't,
but do you remember that time when you came to realize that
it's by grace that you're saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves, that it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any
man should boast. You know, I don't have a ton
of memories of my childhood, but I remember a summer when
my dad was a missionary in Mexico. We would spend a few weeks every
summer, and he would go visit various churches that helped
support us there in the ministry. But I remember one year, he preached
from that verse of scripture, for by grace are you saved through
faith, and not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works. lest any man should boast. I don't know if the rest of my
family remembers that summer, but he preached that message,
I think, at every church. Every church that we visited
that summer. I think the Lord had gotten hold of his heart
and taught him that it's by grace that we're saved through faith.
And that, not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. You say, well, when it says that
not of yourselves, what's it talking about? Is it talking
about faith or is it talking about grace? Yes, it's talking
about faith and of grace. Both are gifts of God. Now going
on here, verse number seven. He said, as you also learned
of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful
minister of Christ, who also declared unto us your love in
the spirit, for this cause we also Since the day we heard it,
do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might
be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and
spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the Lord
unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing
in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might, according to
his glorious power unto all patients and longsuffering with joyfulness. You know, when I read this passage
this week, I must confess that the Lord convicted me. I felt
convicted that I have not prayed for you as I should. This prayer that Paul mentions
here, You know, you say, well, haven't you mentioned our name
in prayer? Yes. But you know, a lot of times
when we pray, Lord, bless this one and bless this one, bless
this one. You see, Paul went further than that. You notice what he prays for
here. You say, well, I don't know what to pray for. Well,
here it is. Here's the blueprint for us. When we pray for each
other, what should we pray for each other? Notice, starting
in verse nine, he says, we do not cease to pray for you
and to desire, first of all, that you might be filled with
the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Now, what is Paul referencing
here when he says, you know, being filled with the knowledge
of his will? He's not talking about God's
secret will. He's not telling these people
he prayed for them that the Lord would help them know what God
had in store for them in his providence. There are many things
that God hasn't chosen to reveal to us about what even lies ahead
later tonight. Those are things that belong
only to God, and in his wisdom, he's seen fit that it wasn't
good. It was not good for us to know those things. But he's
given us his word. He's given us his will. And that's
what the apostle said, that he prayed for these people that
they would be filled with the knowledge of God's will to understand
what God is telling us in this word. That should be our prayer
for each other, Lord. As my brother or sister, as I
read the scripture, as they hear the scripture preached, that
they may be filled with understanding, with the knowledge of your will.
Not that we would just come fill the time, but that we would come
and that God would fill us with the knowledge of his will. That's
a good blessing to pray for, isn't it? And notice verse 10,
we should pray that our knowledge of God's will would result in
practice. That's what he says, that you
might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful
in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. For
you see, knowledge without practice is vain, just like faith without
works is dead. And that should be our prayer.
That's the prayer for myself. That should be my prayer for
you, believer, right? That we would not only be hearers
of God's word, but doers of his word. That we not be, as Brother
Streeter talked about this morning, those who have a form of godliness,
but we deny the power thereof. What does that mean? That means
we say, yes, we believe these things. We believe what God says.
But if we go off and live in sin and live in rebellion against
God, that faith is dead. We deny what we say we believe
if we live that way. You remember the Lord, he washed
his disciples' feet, and when he finished washing his feet,
washing their feet, you remember what he said unto them? He said,
if you do these things, he didn't say if you know these things,
he said, if you do these things, happy are you. If you know these
things, happy are you if you do them. It's great to know them. That's good. But he said, if
you know these things, happy are you if you do them. That's
how we should pray for each other. I covet your prayers. Pray for
me. Pray for me that I wouldn't just be a hearer of the word,
but a doer. That I wouldn't have a form of godliness, but deny
the power thereof. Do you need that prayer? I know
that I do. And then in verse 11, he says,
strengthen with all might. according to His glorious power. That's how I should pray for
you, that you would be strengthened with the might of God, with the
might of the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, do we need strength?
Yes. We need God's strength, don't
we? The Lord told his disciples,
without me, his apostles, without me, you can do nothing. Do you
believe if that was true of them that it's not true of me and
of you? Without the power, the might
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can do nothing. We need might,
first of all, to resist the temptations of Satan. There's one thing that
I can tell you for sure tonight. that apart from the might of
God, we will give in to the temptations of the tempter. Remember what
the Lord told Peter. He said, Peter, Satan's desired
to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. You remember what
he said? But I've prayed for you. I've
prayed for you that your faith fail not. You see, the Lord allowed Peter
to fall. He did allow him to fall, but
he didn't allow his faith to fail, did he? He raised him back
up. I was thinking about this week.
What do you think that first message was like when the Apostle
Peter got up to preach that first time after he had failed his
Lord as he did? Do you think it was a message
of grace? I know. I know. All he wanted to talk about was
grace. We need the Lord's might, secondly, to overcome the corruption
of our nature. Our nature, who we are in and
of ourselves, we're corrupt, right? It's from the heart that
sin proceeds. And we still have a heart that's
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And without
grace and strength in Christ, listen, Without the Lord Jesus
with his might keeping us, we're going to dishonor him, and we're
going to run our testimony. Guaranteed. That's why we need
to pray for each other, Lord. See, this is how we're to pray
for each other, Lord. Lord, undergird him with your
might. I don't have any confidence in
my flesh nor your flesh, but we do have confidence in him,
don't we, that he can keep us. And notice here also in verse
11 how we pray. He says, unto all patience and
longsuffering with joyfulness. We need patience, don't we? We
need patience to run the course, the race that the Lord has set
before us in this world. It's not always an easy race,
is it? I don't know if any of y'all have ever ran some distance.
I've tried to run a little bit of distance before, a few miles.
And you ever hit that wall, that wall that they talk about, the
marathon runners? They're just going along, just
running that race. And then all of a sudden, it's
like they just run into a wall. They feel like they can't go
another step. Well, that is how our spiritual life will be. Right? We need the Lord to give us patience,
to run this race that he set before us, because it's going
to be a hard race. And we need long-suffering. That
is, to forgive any injuries that we may experience in this life.
We experience injuries from others, right? We get our feelings hurt.
We get offended, this, that, and the other. Well, we need
long-suffering. And we don't want to just endure. I said, well, I've ran my race. I endured it. He says he wants
us to have patience and long-suffering with joyfulness, to run this
race with joy, not just to put up with it, but to be thankful,
to be rejoicing. Now, I'll stop there and say,
is there a better example in the word of God of how we should
pray for each other? If there is, I don't know where
it's at. So my prayer is that God would
forgive me and help me, help me to pray as I should for you,
and for you to pray for me. We need each other's prayers.
I can assure you, I do. And Paul, he knew these believers
in Colossae, they did as well, and so he did. He said without
ceasing. Now notice verses 12 through
13. He said, giving thanks unto the
Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear
son. God in his mercy believer has
translated us out of the kingdom of darkness, that is the kingdom
of Satan, into the kingdom of his dear son, the kingdom of
light, the kingdom of joy, the kingdom of grace, of spiritual
life. You say, well, when did he do
that? In the new birth, in the new birth. God, the Holy Spirit,
when he gives us spiritual life, he takes us out of one kingdom,
that kingdom of darkness, and he places us in a new kingdom,
a kingdom of light and grace, a spiritual life. Notice verse 14, finishes verse
13, of his dear son, in whom we have redemption through his
blood, even the forgiveness of sins. and whom we have redemption. You know what that word redemption
means? It actually means to be ransomed
in full. In full. That means since we've been ransomed
in full, therefore we have forgiveness of sins. Of all our sins. How can we be forgiven for all
our sins? Because the Lord Jesus Christ
has paid the price for every one of them. He didn't ransom
us in part. He didn't ransom us most of the
way. No, we've been ransomed in full,
even the forgiveness of sins. The wages of our sin was infinite
judgment, but the Lord Jesus offered a sacrifice of infinite
value. And with that sacrifice of infinite
value, our sins have been fully paid for. We've been fully pardoned,
fully redeemed. Verse 15, speaking of the Lord
Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of every creature. For by him were all things created
that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things were created by him and for him, and he is before
all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of
the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence." You know, God's providence, I
said earlier that the Lord doesn't reveal to us what it is, but
Earlier today, Brother Ross said to you, what passage are you
going to preach from tonight? I said, I'm going to try to preach
from Colossians chapter one. He said, yeah, the preeminence
of Christ. Brother Craig wasn't around when Ross said that. And in his prayer, you remember
what he asked for in this service? That the Lord Jesus Christ would
have all preeminence. What does that mean? That means
that he should come first. That's what, in all things, that
he should come first. It's only right for it's he who
has ransomed us in full, right? Now, verse 19. For it pleased the Father that
in him should all fullness dwell. and having made peace through
the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto
himself, by him I say, whether they be things in earth or things
in heaven, and you." Don't you like that? He's talking about
things in heaven, things in earth, but then he brings it down to
our level. And you. Don't you like that? And you. That's right, in you
that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now have he reconciled in the body of his flesh through
death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in his sight. if you continue in the faith
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel, which you have heard and which was preached
to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made
a minister, 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. whereof I am made
a minister according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for
you to fulfill the word of God, even the mystery which hath been
hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his
saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. What is that? which is Christ in you, the hope
of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. You know, the apostle here in
verses 26 and 27, he calls the good news of the gospel, he calls
it the mystery. The mystery. You remember our
Savior told his apostles, he said, to you it is given to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. See, that's a gift. To know the gospel is a gift. This great mystery, to understand
this great mystery, it's a gift. To believe this mystery is a
gift. The Lord God must do something
for us. There are many, you see, who
hear the words, they hear the truth of the gospel. Many. There are many that know this
book so much better than I do. There are many who know what
this book teaches better than I do. But there are many in that
condition who are lost and without Christ, who do not have Christ
in them, the hope of glory. Why? Because God has to do something
for us. It's not enough to know what
this book teaches. That's not enough. We must know
him, the Lord Jesus Christ in you, the hope of glory. We must
be born again. That's what the Lord told Nicodemus,
wasn't it? You must be born again to see
the kingdom of God, to enter into the kingdom of God. God
has to do something for us. You see, this is a mystery. That
doesn't mean that the teachings in here are all hard to understand. Humanly speaking, it means that
we cannot hear this book and we cannot hear these words. And
we cannot hear of Christ and believe in him and trust him
and have faith in him unless God first does something for
us. We must be born again. That's why there's no debate
whether salvation is of the Lord. There's no debate. It's salvation
of the Lord. Well, unless you're born again,
you can't see the kingdom of God and we can't enter into it.
Of course, salvation is of the Lord. Who else would it be of? You remember that religious leader,
Nicodemus, the Lord said, you must be born again. His mind
started running. Lord, master, how can a man who's
grown, you know, be born again? Can he enter a second time into
his mother's womb and be born? No, Nicodemus. You must be born
from above. The Spirit blows where it listeth,
and you hear the sound thereof. But you cannot tell from whence
it cometh and where it goeth. So is every one that's born of
the Spirit of God. And when we're born of the Spirit
of God, this mystery no longer is a mystery. I see. One thing I know, once
I was blind and now I see. That's what that blind man said,
right? He didn't know a lot, but he knew that. He knew that
once he was blind and now he could see. Now, I need to hurry
here and finish. But we must be born again. We must be born from above. Paul,
he prayed, and this is how we should pray for our pastor. He
prayed for our missionaries, for our Sunday school teachers,
that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of
the gospel. We're to declare this boldly,
yes, and then we need God the Holy Spirit to bless, to open
our eyes. And notice Paul calls it a glorious,
the glory that he would make known, to whom God would make
known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery. This is a glorious gospel. It's
a glorious mystery. It's glorious in so many ways. I just want to quickly mention
five ways and I'll finish up. Number one, it's glorious in
its author. This is God's gospel. It's glorious
because it's his gospel. You know, as Brother Lance was
preaching this morning, thank God for the eyes to see, the
spiritual life to see as he spoke of Abraham and Isaac and that
type we have of the father and the gift of his son, God's unspeakable
gift. Man could have never envisioned
this gospel. This is God's gospel. He's the author. Apart from God giving us faith,
it's impossible to believe that God would give his only begotten
son. We have been by the grace of
God allowed in the gospels just to see glimpses of the beauty
of the Son of God. And that God would give him for
me. See, this is God's gospel. We
would have never come up with this gospel. Number two, it has,
it's glorious in its subject. The subject of the gospel is
glorious. Isn't it the subject of this mystery? First of all,
the glory of God. You say, how do I know if my
preacher is preaching the gospel? Is God being glorified? If you can't answer yes to that,
then he's not preaching the gospel. The glory of God is the subject
of the gospel. The preeminence of Jesus Christ
is the subject of the gospel, that he should be first in all
things, that God had pleased the Father, that in him should
all fullness dwell, and that in all things he should have
preeminence. And in his subject, think of this, the rescue, the
rescue, the redemption, the adoption of sinners, into the family of
God. Isn't this isn't the subject
of this mystery? It's glorious, isn't it? The
gospel is glorious and it's glorious in its use. Think about this
for a second, how God has chosen by the foolishness of preaching.
By the preaching of the gospel, this glorious mystery to save
them, which believe. You know, only God knows what's
in our hearts. But I believe, for the most part,
most of you are here tonight because you believe that this
is true, that God has chosen, by the foolishness of preaching,
to save them which believe. Save them which believe. And
you want to be saved. That's why I'm here. I want to
be rescued. I need to be rescued. I need
to be forgiven. I want to be adopted into God's
family. And God has chosen with preaching,
by the foolishness of preaching, to save them. You see the glory
in the use of the gospel. You know, the preaching of the
cross, Paul said, is to them that perish foolishness. I can't
believe you went and heard the preaching of the cross this morning.
Are you going to go back and hear it again tonight? That's
just the natural man, they don't know any better. It's foolishness
to them that perish, but unto us which are saved, the gospel's
the power of God. That's why we're here. Fourthly,
it's glorious in its power. The gospel, the mystery, it's
glorious in its power. I'm talking about in its efficacy.
Think about the power of the gospel. God's gospel is so powerful
in the hands of the Holy Spirit that it can take a sinner who
loves nothing but sin and wants to run as far and as fast away
from God and from the Lord Jesus as he can and cause him to repent,
to turn, cause her to repent, to turn. And then the prayer
of God, let me, let me get to him. Let me get to the Lord Jesus. The power, the efficacy of the
gospel, so powerful that as Peter said, it can cause sinners like
you and I to love someone who we've never seen. What else can do that? But the
preaching of the gospel. And here's the last thing that
I would talk about, but I apologize, I have five or six bullets on
this. But I want to be brief. This verse in 1 Timothy 3.16,
I'll read it to you. Scripture says, and without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness. Without controversy. He said,
Paul said, there's nothing to argue about here. Without controversy. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. The Word, the eternal Son of
God became flesh. He became, the Son of God became
the Son of Man. A lot of times we stop there
when we quote that verse. And truly, that is a wonderful,
an amazing, lifetime is too short to try to even begin to understand,
which let's explain that one statement. But Paul didn't stop
there. He said, great is the mystery of godliness. God was
manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit. That's the second
thing that he talks about, this mystery. Justified in the spirit,
what's he talking about? As the Lord Jesus Christ walked
through this earth, we're given just a glimpse in the gospels.
One of the writers says that, you know, if he wrote down all
the things that he did, that the world could contain the books
that should be written. That was God, the Holy Spirit.
He was being justified in the spirit that he was God manifest
in the flesh for who else could do those things that he did.
Justified in the spirit. Then he says, scene of angels. Scene of angels. That word scene,
it means to gaze upon. Can you imagine the angels gazing
upon Jesus Christ as he walked on this earth? Their creator,
the one who they knew to be the sovereign, eternal, almighty
God being spit upon. being persecuted, being ridiculed,
being made fun of in this world. They gazed, seeing of angels. I'm sure they couldn't believe
what they were seeing, that he that was so rich became so poor,
that we, through his poverty, might be made rich. See, great
is the mystery of godliness. preached unto the Gentiles. Aren't you glad? Paul said that's
without controversy, this Jewish man, the God man, preached to
the Gentiles. You know, we talk a lot about
the Jews hating the Gentiles. Well, guess what? The Jews were
not so popular with the Gentiles either. But Jesus Christ, this
man, the son of David, the son of God, the son of man, he was
preached to the Gentiles. Notice, believed on in the world. Do you believe on him tonight?
I hope that with me you can enter into this, the glory of this
mystery. You believe that Jesus is God. Can we get a hold of the wonder
of that? It's without controversy that
great, great is the mystery of godliness, that sinners like
you and I would believe that that man, Jesus Christ, It's
no other than God manifests in the flesh who lived for us and
died for us and who rose again and who's coming again. That's
a great mystery that we could do that. Received up in the glory. That's pretty good summary, isn't
it? Of the glory of the mystery of the gospel. You know, I know we didn't do
justice to that chapter. There's a lot in that chapter.
But that's just a glimpse, isn't it, to what is here and just
a few observations of how we should pray for each other
and just how blessed, just how blessed we are, no matter what
else is going on in our life tonight, believer. If we understand
this mystery, if we know Christ, if we have Christ in us, the
hope of glory, we're blessed. May God bless us. Thank you.