The Incomparable Christ:

An Exposition of Colossians

by Dr. J. Ligon Duncan

Table of Contents

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 1

- Colossians 1:1-2

- Colossians 1:3-8

- Colossians 1:9-15

- Colossians 1:13-20

- Colossians 1: 15-20

- Colossians 1:21-23

- Colossians 1:24-28

- Colossians 1:29 to 2:5

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 2

- Colossians 2:6-7

- Colossians 2:8-15

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 3

Colossians 3:1-8

Colossians 3:5-17

Colossians 3:18-21

Colossians 3:22 - 4:1

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 4

Colossians 4:7-18

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 1

Colossians 1:1-2

The Incomparable Christ

Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Colossians. Colossians, chapter 1. We begin with a series of expositions of this great epistle of the Apostle Paul. Hear now the word of God.

Colossians 1:1-2

Our Lord and our God, this is Your Word. We ask spiritual insight and we ask for a spiritual posture that we might obediently sit under the word allowing it to search us out, to see if there is any unclean thing in us, allowing the spirit to freely move within us to move us, to encourage us in our graces and to mortify those sins which remain in us. Open our eyes that we might behold wonderful things from Your law and we'll give You all the praise and all the glory, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

The book of Colossians is about the incomparable Christ. It is about the soul-sufficient Christ, the sovereign Christ in whom is everything that we need, in whom is everything that we have as Christians. The gospel of Jesus Christ was not brought to the Colossians directly by Paul. Paul tells us in the passage we just read that Epaphras had come to the Colossians with the word of truth. It is very likely that Epaphras had been in Ephesus some hundred miles to the west of the Lycos Valley and he had heard the preaching of the Apostle Paul there and that faithful man and the Apostle Paul compliments him with that great accolade, that faithful man took back the gospel to the Colossians and they came to Christ and a church was formed in that city where Paul had never been. In this letter, Paul is responding both positively and negatively to the Colossians that Epaphras has now told him.

Epaphras has visited Paul and one of the things that he has told Paul is that there are apparently new teachers, false teachers in the congregation which are confusing young converts. They are teaching an add-mixture of Christian truths with Jewish ritual practices and even pagan beliefs and practices. They are not outrightly denying Christ, but they are mixing the gospel of Christ with truth and error. It's a hodge-podge of things that they are teaching. Paul will outline for us in chapter 2 some of the distinctives of this teaching.

For instance in chapter 2:11, 16, and 17, the Apostle Paul tells us that these people were apparently requiring that Gentile Christians obey Jewish Old Testament ritual law.

In that same chapter, just a little bit further on, you will notice in verse 18 that apparently these people were teaching that we ought to worship angelic mediaries, the worship of angels apparently was part of their bag of tricks. And you may say now how in the world could a young Christian fall for that. But you could imagine a presentation like this. God is great and awesome and spiritual. We are small and weak and material. How can the material world have fellowship with the spiritual world? We need a mediary between us and God and even between us and Christ if we're really going to have a fullness of fellowship and so we should worship these mediaries. You can hear the logic going something like that and young Christian converts scratching their head and saying, 'well I guess that makes sense.' And certainly in the culture of their day that would have been a very compelling sort of argument.

Thirdly, in this same passage, chapter 2:20-23, you see that these teachers are also teaching sort of an asceticism, a bodily form of excessive self-denial which was apparently very significant in their teaching. All these teachings were being add-mixed with Christian truth and according to the Apostle Paul, not only changing the gospel but endangering the spiritual lives of the believers at Colossae because truth is unto godliness and untruth leads to destruction.

And so the Apostle Paul writes this letter to combat this error, to combat this error which offered a fullness of spiritual experience which had never been previously known by the Christians in Colossae, to combat this error which offered a new spiritual freedom for those who would follow it. To combat this error which claimed a particular insight into the powers of evil and the ability to protect the Colossians from those powers. To combat this error which offered a deeper knowledge of God and a greater experience of his power. To combat this error which inclines some to think of themselves as superior to other believers. To combat this error for its impressive self-denial and to combat this error which was divisive in the church in Colossians, the Apostle Paul presses home one truth applied in a multiple variety of ways over and over again in the book and that one truth is the sole sufficiency of Christ to this error. Paul's antidote is the unfolding of the cosmic implications of Christ's absolute pre-eminence and directing us to the sole sufficiency of his saving work. Paul's one answer to this erroneous teaching is the person and work of Christ. For the message of the book of Colossians is that believers are complete in Christ and that faith in him necessarily rules out reliance on anything outside of him, anything subsidiary or under him. For nothing in the universe is outside the scope of his sovereignty and so the Apostle Paul sets forth before them the sufficient Christ, the solely sufficient Christ, the sovereign Christ and the incomparable Christ.

I. Christians receive Scripture as authoritative in all matters of faith and life.

This morning I would simply like to look with you at the first two verses. Please direct your attention there. "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God and Timothy our brother to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae. Grace to you and peace from God our Father." The Apostle Paul in this brief greeting is doing just that. He is giving a salutation to the Church but it's not just a polite ritual. Paul has significant content in that greeting meant to minister to the souls and in fact we'll see in a few moments the content of his greeting actually undercut everything that the error that is being taught in Colossae purports to teach. Paul in this brief greeting sets forth a claim, a claim about himself. He gives a description of what believers are and then he gives a blessing to the believers at Colossae. I would simply like to look at this great salutation with you this morning and see if we can glean truths, truths from the word of God to be applied to our own hearts and our own situations.

Paul's claim begins first. You note the words. "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God." You see that phrase is an assertion of Paul's authority. Paul has never been to this church before. There are new teachers at this church, visiting professors, if you will, coming to this church to teach them new and improved versions of Christianity. The Apostle meets this congregation by letter. He does not know them personally. They do not know him personally. He tells them who he is to begin with. I am an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. The Apostle is setting forth very clearly the fact that he is an authority. What he is about to say is not an opinion. He comes with decisive directions and truths.

The Apostle Paul is laying forth a foundation for the Colossians to receive the word which he is going to preach and teach and write to them and so he emphasizes that he is an apostle by the will of God. This reminds us of the importance of the authority of the scripture in our own experience. For Christians receive scripture as authoritative in all matters of faith and like. When the Scripture is read this morning it comes with no arguments to try and convince you that it is what it is, except itself. It is self-evidently true. It testifies to your heart when you read the Scripture that it is true because it describes what you are like inside. It unfolds the mystery of salvation. It is perfect in the scope of the plan of redemption. It reveals a plan that men nor angels could have invented for the plan of salvation. The scripture shows forth itself to be what it claims to be, the word of God. And it's our job to receive it.

Now I doubt that there are many here who would openly reject the scripture. If we did at least we wouldn't talk about it amongst fellow church members. Most of us struggle not in the area of openly rejecting the scripture but rather an apathy or an indifference about the Scripture. Perhaps we are not interested personally in coming to be believers who know the word of God, who thirst for the word of God, who drink in the word of God day in and day out, in private, in family devotions as well as corporate study and worship. Perhaps our problem is not so much with an interest in the scripture. Perhaps our problem is with a practical denial of his authority in our lives. We accept that it's the word of God and yet we live in ways which contradict it. We say that it is the authority but we live as if it were not the authority in our lives.

But the mark of a Christian is a love for God's word. The mark of a Christian is a love for God's love. We not only desire to be under it for teaching, we desire to be under it for living. Calvin said a long time ago that "the Bible is the scepter by which the heavenly King rules His church." And so I ask you this day what is your attitude to Scripture? Do you have the proper attitude, the attitude which the Apostle Paul wanted the Colossians to have to his word? Do you come to the Scripture expectantly, bowing the knee, ready to be changed, ready to be corrected, ready to be encouraged, ready to be strengthened, ready to be directed? Is that your posture for its holy Scripture. Christians receive Scripture as authoritative. That is part of Paul's first claim. He is authoritative. The words that he is writing are Scripture and the Colossians are to receive it. And if you will look with me in verse 2 you'll see at least three components to this description that the Apostle Paul gives of these Christians.

II. Christians are chosen by God, set apart, dedicated to be His own people.

The first you'll see in the phrase "To the Saints at Colossae." To the Saints at Colossae. Here we see that Christians are chosen by God, set apart, dedicated to be His own people. When Paul says "To the Saints at Colossae," he doesn't mean to those extraordinarily holy people who are members of that congregation. He doesn't mean to that super spiritual set of Christians that are a part of a larger body, to those who are most involved in all the activities of the congregation. No, the Apostle Paul means to all the members of the congregation. Those whom God has chosen for Himself. Those who have been set apart by God for his own people. This relationship to God is underscored by the word saints just like the relationship that they have to one another is underscored by the word brothers or brethren. Saints, your relationship to God. Brothers, your relationship to one another. And that word saint is to bring to mind God's electing rights of the people of Israel in the Old Testament. He did not choose them because they were the greatest, for they were the least. He did not choose them for anything in them but because he loved them we are told in Deuteronomy 7. He chose them to be a peculiar people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and now the Apostle Paul says to these Gentiles in the Lycos Valley surrounded by the mystery religions who thirty years ago had never ever heard the Old Testament. They had never, ever heard the prophets preach. He tells them you are now saints.

My friends do you have any idea of the implications of that for our security? C. S. Lewis said a long time ago "Amicable agnostics will talk cheerfully about man's search for God. For me they might as well talk about the mouse's search for the cat. God closed in on me." You see this is the truth of our sainthood. This is the truth of God's electing love. He has sought us out. Before we came to Him, He came to us. The reason we came to Him is because He came to us. Oh, the implications for our security. And you think about these brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae in the midst of the mystery religions and the immorality of the Lycos Valley in their day. Laodicea is only a few miles away and you remember about Laodicea. This was not a place noted for its orthodoxy or its holiness and yet here are people who have been called out of darkness into light.

You are saints. Paul doesn't say explicitly in this greeting how one becomes a saint but he sure does give a hint doesn't he in that little phrase, verse 2, in Christ, saints in Christ. Those who are in Christ and those only are saints. To be in union with Christ, to be in fellowship with Christ, to be in relationship with Christ, this makes one a Saint. The Spirit unites us to Christ and the instrument of that bond of the Spirit is faith. So those who are in Christ trust in Him, they believe in Him, they rest on Him, they flee to Him. Faith is the invariable response to spiritual initiative and so this is the first thing that we see in the description. Christians are chosen by God. Saints. Notice again, he calls them faithful brethren at Colossae.

III. Christians, in response to God's initiative, are faithful or loyal to their calling.

And so we see a second thing. Faithful brethren at Colossae. Christians in response to God's initiative and response to God's love are faithful or loyal to their calling. This word from Paul is a stimulus, it's an encouragement to faithfulness, to obedience. We have been made to be the true Israel. We have been chosen by God and now as we have been dedicated by God we are to be loyal to God. Do we reflect that reality in our own experience? Is faithfulness something that we could say that we are characterized by. Are we loyal to God? Is He our priority.

A. W. Tozer said, "The Bible recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any obedience that does not spring from faith." The two are opposite sides of the same coin.

IV.Christians, in virtue of their relation to God, are now all brethren.

A third thing you notice as well, in verse 2, Christians in virtue of their relation to God are now brethren. They are not simply faithful, they are the faithful brethren, Paul tells us. Now you know that brethren is a common New Testament term for Christian. Paul has just used it for Timothy in the first verse. It is Paul the apostle and our brother Timothy. But for Paul to repeat that greeting, brethren, so soon after he's just called Timothy his brother must bring to mind the unity which is established when we are brought into Christ. For you know how Paul felt about Timothy his son and you know how Timothy felt about his spiritual Father, Paul. And Paul uses that term brother to show their closeness, and when he calls the Colossians brethren it is as much as a call to the unity and community of believers We are to be united in love, united in mutual love, united in ministry, united in mutual ministry, united in fellowship, and I don't mean the sentimental insipid definitions of fellowship which float around in the environment today. I mean shared life, real Christian fellowship, mutual commitment, mutual concern, mutual involvement in all our losses and crosses, in all our trials and our triumphs. That type of mutuality of what the Apostle Paul's application of the term brothers implies with regard to the way we relate to one another.

Do we reflect those realities in our experience? Can we look back and say, that's a description of me. I know what it means to be chosen, to be called out by God, to be saved from myself, to be saved from my sins, to be rescued and brought to Christ. I know what it is to love my brothers and I know what it is to respond in loyalty to God. Does that reflect our experience? That is the description that Paul gives of what a Christian is to these Colossians.

Let me just remind you that the Apostle Paul is not speaking from personal experience of these people apparently. He's never met them. The Apostle Paul is setting forth our status. He's saying this is what we are and think how often he does this. He says this is what you are, Christians, now be who you are. It's just like the land of Canaan. Joshua, that's your land, now take it. He says, Christian, this is who you are. Now be who you are. You have been chosen by God. Realize what that means. You have been made to be faithful, now be faithful. You are brothers and sisters in Christ, now act like it.

The Apostle Paul always places the indicative before the imperative He says what you are before he tells you what he wants you to do. Here's who you are, believer. Now live in accordance with what God has made you to be. That leads us to the blessing. Again we look at verse 2.

V. Christians are recipients of God's unmerited favor.

Here Paul pronounces a blessing, a benediction, on the Colossian Christians. He says grace to you, grace to you. That grace, of course, refers to God's favor towards you. You probably know that the Hebrew term behind that word signifies the blessedness enjoyed by one from a superior, one who is favored by a superior. And so the grace spoken of speaks of the favor of God and the blessedness of life of those who are so favored by God. Paul takes the term and he reminds us that this grace, this favor is freely bestowed by God apart from our deserving, apart from our sin, apart from what we are at enmity with God. God's grace is undeserved and it is despite our demerit. And the use of that word in this salutation, you see, is much more than a simple greeting, a politeness. It is a prayer that these Colossians might enjoy the blessing of God himself, that they might see the face of God and commune with him.

Thomas Manton, the Puritan, said many years ago "There is no chemistry like grace. Where grace is it reigns, and it is the dominant thing in that experience." Have you tasted that kind of grace? Do you know what it is to be favored by God, to be brought into fellowship with him, to know the sweetness of that fellowship? Is it the desire of your heart? The Apostle Paul's blessing calls you to examine yourself in that area.

VI. Christians, in virtue of God's grace, enjoy an inner peace with God.

And then the follow up, the subsequent to grace in the blessing, we see again in verse 2, grace and peace from God our Father. This peace speaks of spiritual prosperity. It is the healthy condition of life experience by the person who enjoys the favor of God. It is both objective and subjective. It's not just an inner peace, though it is that. It is a peace that first knows that I have been brought into right relationship to God by trusting in Jesus Christ and there is now nothing that can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ. And then, it is a peace which keeps the waters from overflowing us when we go through the trials of life because it is a peace not brought to us by circumstances but in spite of circumstances. For our peace is not based on an absence of adverse circumstances, it is based on the presence of Christ in our lives. He who is in us who is the hope of glory. It is the kind of peace that enabled a godly man named Job to survive the messengers who told him that his fields were lost and his animals were lost and his houses were lost and his children were lost. And to fall on his face and say. "blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord who gives and who takes away." That is the kind of peace that comes from relationship with living God.

Do you know that peace? Have you ever once left your own strivings and your own attempts to be righteous, and your own attempts to hoist yourself into fellowship with God or to get relief from your conscious. Have you ever left them behind and simply come to Christ, fled to Christ and clung to Him? David Dixon the great Scottish minister said many years ago, "I have taken my good deeds and my bad deeds and thrown them together in a heap and fled from them both to Christ and in Him I have peace."

Have you been there? Have you fled to Him? Do you know what it is to have the benediction of God pronounced on your soul? Oh, my friends if you come this day and you have not tasted of that, I plead with you close with Christ. He awaits. He awaits with arms open to receive any who will come to him. And if you come as a Christian today, and you have forgotten some of these great truths, these great varieties which uphold us in the midst of trial, I pray that the spirit would bring them again to forceful remembrance in your life that you might walk in the security and the holiness that we are called to by God. May the Lord bless his word. Let's look to Him in prayer.

Our Father this is Your word and we know it's meant for our encouragement and for our edification and so we ask, O God, that you would bless it to our spiritual nourishment. Help us to realize these things. O God, if there is even one who have not tasted of the peace which you hold in your breast enfold them now in the shelter of the shadow of the wings of the Almighty and we will give you the praise and the glory, for Christ's sake. Amen.

Colossians 1:3-8

The Incomparable Christ

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians, chapter 1, we will continue the study we began last week. You remember we said as we looked at the first two verses that in this great letter, the Apostle Paul is battling a false teaching. A heresy amongst the church at Colossae. This false teaching does not reject Christ outright, it claims to introduce these Christians to something in addition to what they had heard from Epaphras originally. It claims to introduce these Christians to a deeper knowledge of God, a deeper experience of God, a higher life. It claims to do it in a variety of ways, keeping certain ritual rules, believing certain mystical things. It intends to supplement the teaching which Epaphras had originally brought to the congregation. We said it actually mixed elements of Judaism as well as great paganism and mixed it with the original preaching which the Colossians had heard. It claimed to give them something more, something deeper, something that they had not heard of to supplement their incomplete teaching. It didn't outrightly deny that teaching, it just said you need more. You need Christ plus these things.

Now in response we saw last week that the Apostle Paul had made the antidote to this particular teaching an unfolding of the implications of Christ's preeminence. Paul directs us to the sole sufficiency of Christ in his person and in his saving work. In fact we had said that the message of Colossians is that believers are complete in Christ and that faith in him necessarily rules out their dependence on any resource outside of him. For in him we have our all in all. In that context, we come to verses 3 through 8 which we are going to concentrate on today. But let's read, beginning from verse 1. Hear the word of God.

Colossians 1:1-8

"Our Father, this is Your word. It is intended for Your people's edification, for our encouragement, for our instruction, for our correction. Use it this way in us. Cause our hearts to be open to this word. If we come this day distracted or fearful or cold, by Your spirit draw us to Yourself and open us up to hear Your word. Apply that word to us in our own particular situation by Your spirit that we might not only be hearers but also become doers of the word and, we'll give You all the praise and the glory. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen."

Now that we have a little context about this epistle, and let me say as we turn to verses 3 - 8, it is very clear that Paul is trying to do two things in this passage. The first thing he wants to do is reassure these loyal, Christian believers at Colossae that they have in fact heard the gospel. They haven't heard only a part of the gospel for which they need to gain some new and improved gospel, they've heard the whole gospel. And secondly, he wants to confirm the message which Epaphras had brought to him. You remember that we read that Epaphras was a faithful servant, he came to Christ in Paul's Ephesian ministry a hundred miles away. He brought the gospel back to Colossae and now these new teachers, these false teachers, are saying well, what Epaphras is saying is okay, It is just that we have some new teaching that you need to hear to add on to what He is saying. And so Paul wants to make it very clear that he has the highest confidence in the preaching that Epaphras has done to the Colossians. He is saying, "No, my friends, he gave you the whole truckload. He gave you the whole gospel and I want to commend the work that he has done."

Now this passage outlines fairly easily today. In fact, very conveniently it falls in to three parts If you look at verse 3 you will see Paul give a thanksgiving in prayer. That is the first section. If you look at verses 4 and 5 we see the second section. That is Paul's description of the triad of faith, hope and love. The triad of Christian experience. So you have the thanksgiving in verse 3. In verses 5 and 6 you have the triad of faith, hope and love and then in verses 5 through 8, the end of verse 5 through verse 8, we have a testimony from Paul. So here we have a thanksgiving, a triad and a testimony. Let's look at this passage together today.

I. Paul's thanksgiving in prayer.

Notice verse 3. "We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you." Paul begins by announcing a prayer of thanksgiving. He thanks God for the Colossians and specifically for what God is doing in the Colossians. And before we go on I simply want to stop and note Paul's generosity. Paul could have come with words of criticism. Why in the world are you Colossians giving in to this false teaching that is in your midst. You're messing it up. He could have legitimately brought and opened with many words of criticism, no doubt. But Paul's first words are words of thanksgiving for what God is doing. I want you to stress that this is sincere thanksgiving. The Apostle Paul is following a convention of his day. When people wrote letters back then after the salutation they usually said something nice about the person that they were writing to. We still do that today. But you know Paul doesn't always open with a word of thanksgiving. If you read his epistle to the Galatians he does not begin with a word of thanksgiving. If you read his epistle to the second Corinthians, he does not begin with a word of thanksgiving. And you know why? Those churches were really, really straying from the truth of Christ and Paul was not going to give false or flattering compliments.

But look how Paul takes this opportunity to give a word of sincere thanksgiving to the Colossians. I thank God for you and I simply want to stop and say, Is that our attitude? Is that our outlook? Are we always looking to give thanks to God for what He is doing in our midst, in our friends, in our families? Are we looking at the other members of this congregation and the pews on Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights or when we see one another in the week and thanking God in our hearts for what he is doing in them? Do we have an outlook of thanksgiving, of generosity? There are always going to be things we can be depressed about. There are always things that discourage us and yet Paul works in a spirit of thanksgiving. You think of this man. If anybody could have been depressive and downcast, It is Paul. The man is in prison. The man's ministries are under attack both from opponents from the Jewish faith and also from other people within the church who hate him and who are opposed to him, some of the churches that he has planted have begun to disintegrate. This man could be depressive and yet he is a man characterized by sincere thanksgiving. You'll find it in all of his letters. It is an amazing thing, my friends, this thanksgiving. Paul thanks God constantly and that thanksgiving becomes a blessing for him. It is an irony, isn't it? When you thank God, the blessing comes back on you.

One of the old Puritans once said the thankful heart has a continual feast. You see Paul could have been a man in the midst of a famine. He knew trouble and yet he looked for things to be thankful for to God.

Is that our attitude? Is that our outlook? Are we looking to our brothers and sisters and lifting up thanksgiving to God for them? Now Paul thanks God very interestingly for the faith of the Colossians. He sees the faith of the Colossian and he says "Oh, Lord, thank you for their faith." Now that may seem strange to us, but it is not strange for Paul. If you read the Apostle Paul, he never, ever once in his writings congratulates his readers for his faith. He always thanks God for it. And that reminds us that faith itself is the gift of God. Faith itself is authored by God. Yes, we believe. Yes, we believe in Christ but it is God who works faith in us. Faith is not something which comes natural, faith is a gift of God. It is wrought in us by the work of the Holy Spirit. And so the Apostle Paul congratulates and thanks God for the faith which he sees in the Colossians.

Now let me say in passing that Paul's thanksgiving also has the effect of undercutting the teaching of the Colossians. You see the false teachers are saying to the Colossians what you have is good, but you need more. You need the secret teaching that we can bring to you which will improve your Christianity. It will give you a deeper experience of God. And here is the Apostle Paul saying to the Colossians, I thank God that you have the real thing. I thank God that you have experienced God in his fullness. I thank God that I see evidences, signs, marks of God at work in you. I thank God that you do not need to be looking for a new and improved teaching because you have got the truth. You see he undercuts the false teaching by his very thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a powerful thing my friends. Christians must recognize the importance of thanksgiving. We ourselves must follow in this pattern. Do we imitate his thankful spirit? And let me ask you this. Are we spiritually minded in our thanksgiving? It is very easy in all the blessings which surround us to be thankful for the temporal things that God gives us-relative, wealth and prosperity, clothing, food, friends, families, all manner of blessings and vocation. All of those are temporal blessings. All of those are real blessings. We would be wrong not to be thankful for them but so often we are so caught up in those things that we forget the spiritual blessings that are being heaped on us. Are we thankful like Paul for the spiritual blessings? No doubt Paul's congregation was mixed. There would have been some who would have been well off, some who were not? There would have been some from the higher social classes, some from the lower social classes. Some with certain blessings, others with other blessings. Paul doesn't concentrate on those blessings.

He says, I thank God for the faith and the love and the hope that he has worked in you. Do we look at one another and think that way? Are we thanking God continually and praying for God continually to do works of faith and hope and love in us. Are we spiritually minded in our thanksgiving? Do we realize that faith is the gift of God? Do we realize that when we believe that itself is a sign that God has been at work in us. This is so important my friends because from time to time Christians struggle with assurance and invariably those of us evangelicals in the 20th Century begin to ask questions like this. Was my faith perfectly pure when I first believed in Christ? Was I 100% sincere? Can I be absolutely sure that my faith was enough to gain my justification? Well, we are asking the wrong questions. No, your faith wasn't perfectly pure. No, your heart wasn't undivided. No, your faith wasn't strong enough to save you because your faith can't save you. Christ saves you. Faith is that whereby you lay hold of Christ and the very fact that you had faith at all was an evidence that God was already at work in you. And the Apostle Paul's thanksgiving reminds us that that is something that we need to be thankful for.

All of us are going to undergo, and some of us are perhaps now undergoing, experiences which take us into the valley. In that valley it is very easy to forget all the temporal blessings that God is giving you and It is even easier to forget the spiritual blessings. Even in that valley we must be thankful for what God has been doing to us. And as we walk with him we can always be thankful of the faith that he has implanted within us. We must be encouraged by that. That is a design of God to give us an intimation of his love for us. I love you, Christian. You see that faith in you. That is a gift that I've given you because I love you. You see that hope that is in you? That is not natural, I implanted it in you. That is a gift from me to you. Be encouraged. Walk in faith, go forward because these are testimonies of my love to you. When all the other testimonies because of the difficulty of our circumstances tend to be blotted out, we have to call our hearts back and we have to say, "Lord, I am going to thank you even though I do not feel like thanking you right now. It is an ironic thing my friends, if we fail to thank God for his blessings we will begin to doubt that God hears our prayers. If we fail to remember that he has blessed us in the past, it will be difficult for us to believe that he will bless us now and in the future. And so thankfulness not only is a responsibility of us because God has done great works for us and we must in hearts of gratitude give to him back the praise and the glory but It is also important for us because as we thank God for what He is done for us we remember in fact all the things he has done for us and that encourages us to go back to him in prayer. And so the Apostle Paul begins with a thanksgiving. And that is the first thing we look at today.

II. Paul's triad - faith, love, hope.

Now let's look at this great triad. Faith, love, hope. This is the order that he gives it in this passage. You know we could turn to other passages, too. Paul speaks of this triad: faith, love and hope elsewhere. First Corinthians 13 is a place where he mentions it. He also mentions it in I Thessalonians 1:3. There are many places in Paul's writings where he points to these three great characteristics.

Before we look at them though, let me quickly say this. Paul, when he says faith, love and hope, is not talking about natural characteristics. He is not talking about things that we have naturally as personality attributes. Paul is talking about qualities which are worked in us by the Holy Spirit. These qualities of faith, and love and hope are hallmarks or evidences of the work of God in the soul of a man or woman. When you see these things in a person, you are seeing evidence of the work of God. These are not things which come naturally. They are not temperamental, they are not personality based.

When we say faith, for instance, we are not talking about a person who has a propensity to believe or a credulous person, much less. We are not talking about people who just love to believe. Sometimes we say, 'Oh, that person was just born to believe.' That is not what we are talking about. Faith is something different. When we say love, we are not talking about a person who is nice. There are all sorts of people in the world who are nice but who do not love and who do not have this love. When we talk about hope, we are not talking about people who are optimistic and who in the face of the greatest disaster can bubble over with enthusiasm. No, we are talking about things that the Holy Spirit works in a person. These things are things that the Spirit works. That having been said let's look at these three great things.

Look with me in verse 4. "We give thanks to God since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus." We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus. Paul, as he speaks of this faith, is speaking of that reliance on Christ, that trust in Christ, that belief in Christ, that commitment to Christ which these Colossians have made. And I want you to note that he stresses the fact that Christ is the object of that faith. In each of these three qualities that he speaks of there is an object. For faith, Christ is the object. For love, the brethren is the object. For hope, heaven or the future glory is the object. In each of these great qualities there is an object and Paul says I thank God when I heard of your belief, your reliance on, your trust on, your relationship with, your commitment to Christ who is the sole sufficient object of saving faith. He thanks God for that.

Then he goes on and he says, and I thank God for your love. Look again at verse 4. The love which you have for all the saints. Again, this is not simply a human affection that is being spoken of here. This is self-denying concern which puts the best interest of others as a priority in our relationships to them. Love says I will look out for the best interest of my friend, of my family, of my neighbor, of whomever I am loving. You are looking out deliberately for the best interest of others when you engage in love. Affections come with it, but we can love even when we do not feel like it. It is possible, however, to have great affection and never actively engage in love though. Because love not only works and feels and thinks, love acts. And so the Apostle Paul thanks God for the love which they have for all the saints. Notice again this is a love of the Christian brotherhood which he is emphasizing here This is not just love to family or love to spouse or love to children. This is a love for the Christian brotherhood and we know that that is a distinctive gift of the spirit. Jesus and John both said it is true; they will know you are Christians by your love for one another. Our Lord said, behold how they love one another. And so this love for the brotherhood is a distinctive gift for the spirit.

Notice as well that it is stressed that all the brothers and sisters are loved. Paul says your love for all the saints. Jeff Wilson has said this. "The remarkable repetition of the word all in this letter is evidently directed against the exclusiveness and caste feeling which is fostered by the false teachers' claim to superior knowledge." You get the idea. This group is out here saying that we have found the real truth and the rest of them haven't quite caught it yet. What does it do? It naturally causes a division which makes one part feel as if It is superior to the other part of the body. And so Paul stresses on, he goes on. This should teach us that there is no room in the church for any intellectual, spiritual or social elite which separates itself from fellow believers whom Christ has accepted. Is your life characterized by a love for all the saints?

Let me say this. We live in a place, a location and a culture where love of family and love of friends is very strong. That is good. That can also be a barrier to our going beyond and loving all the saints because we can be so comfortable in our love for family and for friends that we have grown up with and gone to school with that we forget the saints that are out there, some who are perhaps lonely, some who are perhaps with us this day, who feel outcast, neglected, overlooked.

Oh, my friends, love for the brethren for all the saints is a mark of the work of the spirit. It goes beyond family love. Jesus says even thieves and robbers and gentiles love their families. They look out for one another. But you are to show your love as coming from a divine origin by loving one another. In other words, you're going to love beyond family boundaries. You're going to love beyond the boundaries of your friends and your social class. You're going to love all the saints. That is the sign of the spirit. My friends that is something that is a prayer of mine for our body. That we would become characterized as a congregation who loves beyond conventional boundary, who love beyond the boundaries of the spheres of life that we normally work in, whether it be our friends that we work with, or our friends in our neighborhood, or our friends at school, or the friends that we grew up with and went to school with or the friends with whom we go to church or our families. If we will love beyond those fears, always looking to show our love to all the saints, we will bear a testimony to the love of Christ in us. Then Paul points to hope.

Notice again, he says because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Note here that Paul says that hope is the cause of faith and love. You might not think it that way. You might think well faith causes hope. But Paul says It is the other way around. The hope in you enables you to believe and to love. Hope is the cause of faith and love. Hope is confident assurance and expectancy of the vaster blessings in store for believers in the world to come. Hope expects what faith believes. Hope expects what faith believes and by expecting it, enables you to believe it, even when you can't see it. You see faith is called on to trust despite the evidence to the contrary, but hope expects the realities that God sets forth. It has been said the future belongs to those who belong to God. That is our hope and as we expect that reality it breeds faith and love. How can you love in an unjust world? How can you love when people have been unloving to you, when there are past tragedies that haunt you, when justice has not been done in your own experience, because God will set it right and you know it. And so you can set aside your need to have justice satisfied and you can love even when you haven't been loved. How can you believe when the world seems to be going crazy, when everything seems turned upside down because you hope a Christian hope. You expect the reality of the promise of God and you know He is coming again and therefore you are able to believe in the midst of a turbulent storm.

Notice again Paul acquires the remedy to the subjective teaching of the false teachers. They say look you people lack an important part of Christian experience and you need to find it in the subjective experiences of mystical union with God that we can foster for you by keeping these rituals or believing these particular occult beliefs. And the Apostle Paul says you want to see the work of God in you? You want to see evidence of the work of God in you? Do not go looking for mystical experiences. Look at Christ, look at the brethren and look at heaven. Believe, love and hope. Belief, hope and love are evidences of the divine work in you. You do not need any more than that. If faith has been worked in you, if hope has been worked in you, if love has been worked in you, then you have the evidence of the finger of God in your soul. Paul says you do not need these mystical things. You've got the real thing if you have faith, hope and love. You look to Christ and you love the brethren and you hope for glory. That is the sign of the work of God in you.

III. Paul's (fivefold) testimony.

And then finally Paul gives a testimony, verses 5 through 8. He testifies to the truth that these Colossians have already received. He says five things. First of all, he says this. You have heard the word of truth, the gospel. He first comes to the Colossians and he says look, you've already heard the truth. Somebody can't come to you and say okay now we are going to give you the rest of the truth because you've already heard it. Epaphras has already preached it to you. Do not be tricked. You have already heard the word of truth.

Secondly, this word of truth not only came to you (verse 6), it is in all the world. In other words, this is not some secret that only a few people know about. The whole world knows about the word of the gospel. It is being spread everywhere. The Apostle Paul is saying that the gospel is not a secret code for the initiated, it is in all the world.

And Paul gives thanks that the same message of salvation which was preached to the Colossians is being preached all over the world. So somebody can't come to you and say now we have got a secret that nobody else knows about. All the world knows about it. Thirdly, he says this gospel is working. You can imagine the false teachers saying yeah, well what Epaphras is saying is fine but we have got something that will really work. It will just revolutionize you're experience with God and the Apostle Paul says it is working.

Look at verse 6. In all the world it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing Exhibit A, you, faith, love and hope is being rooted in you. You're being built up in this love. You show love for the saints. That love is of the spirit, he says in verse 8. It is working, It is effective.

Then, fourth, he says that Epaphras was faithful in his preaching. Notice what he says. You heard it, you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bondservant, who is a faithful servant of Christ. In other words when these men come and say, 'Oh Epaphras hasn't told you the whole story. ' Paul's response is that is wrong. He has told you the whole story. He is a faithful servant and just like he reported to me about the wonderful things that the spirit of God is doing in your midst, he was faithful to report to you the whole of the gospel which I've been preaching. I know that he is given you the whole counsel.

And finally Paul says this. Not only have you heard it, not only is the gospel everywhere, not only is the gospel effective, and not only did Epaphras preach to you the whole of the gospel, he says you understood it. Do not be tricked, do not be tricked by someone saying that you need a new and improved teaching. You do not because you understood the grace of God when he first taught it to you. And I see the evidences that you understood it because God has worked in you faith and love and hope.

My friends, let me ask you this. Do you believe Paul's testimony? Do you believe that testimony that the gospel that he has given is soul-sufficient, that the Christ which he preaches is the answer to every spiritual question that you have? Do you believe that the Christian life ought to be characterized by faith and love and hope and is, in fact, your Christian life characterized by faith and hope and love? Not optimism, not niceness, but faith and hope and love. Has God worked that in your midst? If you do not see those things there, then I still have the answer. Come to Christ. He will give them to you. You do not see enough of them there and I think we are all there. Ask of him and He will fill you exceeding abundantly with faith and love and hope.

Do you live in a spirit of thanksgiving? Are you a genuinely thankful person, not denying reality around you, not living in a state of psychological denial, but a person who in spite of the difficulties of life can honestly thank God for what he is doing in your midst? If not, maybe you need to do some business with God. Maybe you need to ask him to work in your heart a thankfulness which is befitting the Christian. Oh, may God make these realities for us. May we truly become a people characterized by faith and love and hope. May the Lord bless His word. Let's look to Him.

Our Lord and God, this is Your word. Prosper it in our hearts. For we ask it Jesus name. Amen.

Colossians 1:9-15

The Incomparable Christ #3

Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Colossians, chapter 1. We continue our study in Paul's great Epistle to the Colossians. We will read beginning in verse 9 through verse 15, although we will concentrate on verses 9 through 14. Hear now the Word of God:

(Colossians 1:9-15)

And thus ends this reading of God's holy word, may He add his blessing to it. Let's look to him in prayer:

Our Lord, we cheerfully acknowledge that this is your Word. We come to sit under its teaching. Not the words of men, not the thoughts of men, certainly not the cleverness of speech, but the very word of God. And so we ask that You would enable us to come with interest, and with understanding to the Word. Captivate us by this word of Your servant, Paul. Cause us to understand it, and then, O God, by the Spirit apply it to our hearts, for we know this word is meant for our profit in instruction, in training, in correction, in being built up in righteousness. So do that great work in us, by Your spirit, in accordance with Your Word, for we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

When we began our study, we said that the Apostle Paul was writing to these Colossian Christians, acknowledging that they had come into contact with a sort of false teaching. New teachers, a visiting group of teachers, or lay folks had come to this particular congregation and they had said, 'what Epaphras had taught you at first is good, but what we've got is better. We'll give to you a deeper realization of spiritual experience. We'll give you a fullness of faith which you've never seen before. We'll give you a deeper knowledge of God, We'll give you a greater experience of His power if you'll only follow us in these rituals and speculative beliefs which we are going to teach to you, which Epaphras never did tell you about.' And we saw when we first began our study in verses 1 and 2, that even in his greeting the Apostle Paul begins to undercut the teaching of these false prophets. Even in his greeting he expresses the fact that these Christians have received the fullness of the gifts of God in the spirit, that they are equipped by God, that they have heard the faith once delivered.

Last week as we looked at verses 3 through 8, we saw him give a testimony to just how faithful Epaphras had been. Paul says, 'he was a faithful minister, he didn't tell you only part of the story, he gave you the whole story. Surely, yes, you'll grow. Surely, yes, you'll increase in faith, but it's not because Epaphras hasn't told you everything. It's because you're going to grow in what he's already told you. You're going to grow in the very same gospel that Epaphras has already preached to you, Not a different gospel, Not a supplement to that gospel, But in that very same gospel.' And the Apostle Paul in that passage that we looked at last week actually commends the believers, and he says,

'look, God is already at work in you, Let me prove it to you. I can see the graces of faith and love and hope already growing in you. In fact, when Epaphras came to visit me here in prison, he told me about the faith and the hope and the love which was growing in the church at Colosse. That's proof that God is at work.' And the Apostle Paul said, 'look, those things don't come naturally.' We may think it's natural to believe, natural to love, natural to hope. Paul knew better. Paul knew that you really can't do those things the way God intended them to be done unless the Holy Spirit is at work in your life, and the Apostle Paul says, 'I've heard of what is happening in your lives. That is evidence that God is at work.'

And now, today, the Apostle Paul gives us his prayer in response to that report from Epaphras. Throughout Paul's writing, you will hear him or see him give you an outline of his prayer line. Sometimes he actually gives you the prayer that he's been praying for you. Other times he gives you a report of the prayer that he's been praying for you. Sometimes he gives a request about what he wants you to pray of him. Here, he gives an outline of his prayer for the Colossians, and I'd like to point to you today four great truths that we learn in this passage. There are so many more, but I've got to restrict myself, lest we completely run over.

I. Every spiritual work is a motivation to prayer

First of all, I want you to look with me at verse 9. Here the Apostle says this, "for this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will." The Apostle says, 'when I heard the report from Epaphras, about what was happening in your midst, about how the Holy Spirit was working in your lives, about the graces that He had implanted, your faith, your love, your hope. We immediately started praying. We immediately engaged in a continuous round of prayer for you." Now that may seem to be a rather strange response. but there's a great principle in that, my friends, and the principle is this: Every spiritual work is a motivation to prayer, not a discouragement of it. Every spiritual work, that is every work done by the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, is a motivation, is an encouragement for us to pray for them, not a discouragement.

You see, so often our prayer is in response to disaster, or affliction, or difficulty, and, of course, that's entirely appropriate. There's no better place to go than to God when things are going wrong. There's no better place to go than the shelter of the wings of the Almighty when we're in an hour of need. But, Paul's logic also drove him to prayer when he saw God at work. And that's very important for us, because we don't tend to think that way. Normally, when things are going well, we are tempted not to pray, to put it on autopilot, to let God handle it, to presume on his blessings, to cease to pray faithfully for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters. But not so Paul. That wasn't his spiritual logic. His spiritual logic said, 'God is at work, that must be a reminder to me to go to Him in prayer and ask Him to continue that work and increase that work. This is such an important principle, my friends, because those of us who have learned the Reformed Faith and know of God's initiative and salvation in God's doctrine of grace are sometimes tempted to think, 'well if God is taking the initiative, why should I bother praying?' That's never Paul's logic. When Paul sees God at work, that is an impetus to prayer. Why? Because Paul knows that prayer is the instrument which God has ordained to bless His people through.

And so the old Puritans used to say, "When God is preparing to bless His people, He sets them a praying." When God is preparing to do a great work in His people's midst, He puts it on their hearts to pray for Him to do a great work in their midst. And so their prayers at God's initiative become an instrument of God's blessing in their situation. Paul knows when he sees God at work, that that's a sign that he needs to go to prayer. How encouraging it is to see Paul's example. Is this what we ourselves follow?

When we see God at work in our midst, do we become complacent in prayer, or do we implore Him all the more to continue and increase the work that He's doing? Paul's example for us reminds us that we must attend to prayer, not only in the hard times, but especially in the times where spiritual work is going on, that the work of the spirit might continue and increase.

That's the first principle we see in this passage. Now let's look at the content of the prayer. Paul begins by giving thanks. He begins by announcing this prayer. He begins by telling them of how continued his prayer has been for them, and then he tells them what he's praying for them. In particular, we see three things that the Apostle Paul is praying for and those are the remainder of the main points that I'd like to look at today. The first thing that he says, that he prays for, is this, that they would be filled with a true knowledge. Now you remember the new teachers, these visiting scholars, these false prophets, had been telling the Colossians that they could give them a knowledge of God that they had never attained before. They could give them a deeper, a higher, a broader, a more profound experience of the knowledge of God. Now the Apostle Paul isn't unconcerned that these Colossians grow in the knowledge of God and so his very first petition is: I'm praying that you will be filled with the knowledge of God; But not a knowledge that they want you to have .A knowledge which is in accordance with the Word of God, which is a practical knowledge, which impacts your daily living, and which bears fruit. That's the kind of knowledge that I want you to grow in.

Let's look at what the Apostle Paul says for a few moments. Look at verse 9, he says, "we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding." Paul wants them to increase in the knowledge of God, but he wants the knowledge of God which is consistent with the gospel that's already been preached. He wants a knowledge of God which is biblical. He wants a knowledge of God which is not merely abstract or speculative, but which has practical content to it, and he wants a knowledge of God which bears fruit. In fact, we may ask, 'How do you tell the difference between this false knowledge of God that's being set forth by the false teachers, and the true knowledge which the Apostle Paul wants these believers to be filled with?' It's very easy. You look at the nature of the knowledge, the roots of the knowledge, and the fruits of the knowledge. Look, the false teacher's knowledge is a speculative knowledge. We don't know exactly what sort of knowledge they were purveying, but if it's anything like the type of teaching which prevailed in the Mediterranean world a few generations later, it was a speculative knowledge that only a few people had. Only those who were initiated in the rights could know this knowledge. It was a speculative, hidden, secret knowledge. In contrast, the Apostle Paul says, 'The knowledge I want you to have is a practical grasp of the will of God.' Look what he says, "That you might be filled with the knowledge of His will." Not some abstract or speculative knowledge that only a few have, but a knowledge of His will as He's revealed Himself in the Word. I want you to know His will.

Then, not only is there a distinction between the nature of the knowledge, that is the false knowledge which is speculative, and the true knowledge which is a practical knowledge, a practical grasp of God and His will, but there's a difference between the roots of these knowledge. The false knowledge does not come from the Bible. We've already said that was a mixture of different types of beliefs, a little bit of Jewish belief thrown in, a little bit of pagan belief thrown in, but it didn't come exclusively from the Scriptures.

In contrast, the true knowledge of which Paul speaks is biblical truth. It is in accord with the Scriptures and it flows from the revelation of God in the Scripture. And so the origins or roots of these two knowledges are different. Not only is their nature different, but their origins are different. One is unbiblical, or extra-biblical, the other is biblical in its origin.

Thirdly, the fruits of these two different knowledges are different. The false knowledge either bears no fruit or it bears bad fruit. Now, that may seem somewhat contradictory because we all bear fruit of one sort or another, but let me explain what I'm driving at there. When I say it bears no fruit, I mean this: Very often the type of knowledge that was purveyed by these types of teachers had no practical significance other than to set you apart from other people in some sort of a secret club. You knew certain things that nobody else knew, and that was it. It didn't impact the way you lived, it didn't impact the way you related to your families, your wives, your children, anybody in the community. It was just something you knew, and the Apostle Paul said, 'that's not Christ's knowledge.' Christ's knowledge of God is different than that. It impacts the way you live, and, on the other hand, sometimes this fruit, the fruit of the false teaching, led to actual wrong behavior amongst Christians. Like a false buffeting of the body or a false denial of the fact that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, or a false aspersion on material things, or some other form like this. So, the false knowledge leads to fruits of either no fruit or bad fruit, whereas Paul says, 'the true knowledge bears good fruit.' Right standard, right motivation, right aim of life, all of these things flow from a true knowledge of God, and the Apostle Paul says, 'I pray that you will be filled with this practical knowledge of the will of God, a knowledge that leads to all spiritual wisdom and understanding.' The kind of knowledge that Paul is talking about is character transforming knowledge. Paul is not trying to create eggheads, nor is he trying to create a spiritual clique. He's trying to challenge these Colossians in a knowledge which will transform what they are. They can't stay the same once they've had an experience of this knowledge. The wisdom and the understanding that he speaks of represents that settled condition of a spiritually enlightened mind. Wisdom is a work of the Spirit in us. You can't get wisdom in the biblical sense from being a very profound, rational thinker who can study all sorts of things in the empirical world and make deductions from them. Wisdom is a work of the Spirit in us, and understanding is the application of that spiritual wisdom to the practical situations of our daily lives. And the Apostle Paul says, 'that's the kind of knowledge I want you to be filled with.' Not some airy, very speculative theoretical theory that comes from somewhere apart from the word of God. I want you to be filled with the knowledge of God which transforms your character and leads to wisdom and understanding.

Notice his specific fruits that he wants to see from this knowledge of God in verse 10: "so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work." Three things you see, he says, result from this kind of knowledge of God. When you are filled with this kind of knowledge of God, you walk in a manner worthy of your Lord, you seek to please God, and you bear fruit. Let's look at each of those things.

When the Apostle Paul speaks of walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, he's speaking of the standard of our behavior. We are to emulate our Savior. We are to walk like Him as He did in the world, in faithfulness to God, in love to men, quietly honoring God in all His works and ways, walking in accordance with His word, blessing those who curse us. All these things are part of the standard that Paul expects to flow from a true knowledge of God. A person who has true knowledge of God walks worthily of the Lord, walks in a manner worthy of his Lord.

II. Filled with TRUE KNOWLEDGE

Secondly, the Apostle Paul says that those who have true knowledge of God are going to desire to please God, to please Him in all respects. Their motivation for behavior is out of a sincere and appropriate desire to please God. I'm a typical first-born child. I like to please my parents, and the worst thing they could have ever done to me in discipline would have been to look at me and say, "Ligon, your behavior has truly disappointed us." Those words laid on my heart like a stone because I loved my parents, I had a good relationship with them, and I wanted nothing more than to please them. The Apostle Paul wants us to have that attitude towards our heavenly Father, to desire, earnestly, not slavishly, but earnestly to please Him, and to gain pleasure from pleasing Him. You remember Eric Liddel in Chariots of Fire, when he tells his sister one of the reasons why he runs: "I run because when I run, I feel His pleasure?" What's Eric Liddel saying? When he runs to the glory of God, he knows the pleasure of God. God takes pleasure in it because he desires to please God, and he says that there's no feeling like that in the world, to know that the Lord accepts my offering to Him. And Paul says that's how I want you to live: 'I want you to have a knowledge that leads you to desire to please God, not slavishly, but enthusiastically.

Finally, he says the true knowledge of God of which I speak bears fruit in every good work. It's not fruitless. There are good fruits which result from it; love to God, love to neighbor, self-denial, sacrificial love. All those things are entailed when the believer has this type of knowledge, and so the Apostle Paul says, 'I'm praying that you will have that kind of knowledge.'

Now, there are many obvious applications of that truth to us, and I would simply remind you of a few of the struggles we have with knowledge today. There are many professing Christians in the church today who have absolutely no desire for knowledge. They want absolutely no knowledge of God, no knowledge of His Scripture. They want to go through the motions and they want to be left alone. Obviously, if that's the case, something is wrong. Something's wrong in us if we have no desire for the knowledge of God or knowledge about Him, because the Apostle Paul says, 'I'm praying that you Christians will have that.' On the other hand, there are some Christians who want to bypass knowledge and they want an experience. They want an experience of God without the hard work of knowing His Word and the hard work of relating to Him in accordance with His Word. They seek experiences, so in their minds the weirder the experience, the more real it is. The weirder the experience, the more spiritual it is. The weirder the experience the more knowledge they think they have. But the Apostle Paul says, 'No, no, I want you to know God in accordance with His will, and that knowledge will flow forth in a life which is worthy of the Savior, in a life which desires to please the Savior, and in a life that bears fruit.'

There are, of course, others who want to know notions, they want to know teachings, but there is no practical implication of those things in their lives. They want to know about God, but they never come to know Him. We, in a place where teaching is stressed, must be on guard that we never let our knowledge about God hang in the air, but that it is rooted in practical Christ living. We must remember Paul's great dictum that truth is unto godliness, that the knowledge of God is not so that we can go home and impress our friends with what we learn in Sunday School, it's so that we can become more like Christ and can better carry out God's directives to us and experience truth for the purpose of promoting godliness. All those things we must remember in light of Paul's words about true knowledge.

III. Filled with REAL POWER

The third thing I would point to, in addition to every spiritual work being a motivation to prayer, in addition to Paul's call, or a prayer for our being filled with knowledge, is that he prays that we will be filled with power. In verse 11 the Apostle Paul also asks that we would be strengthened with all power. Remember again, these false teaches at Colosse had said, 'Not only will we give you a deeper knowledge, 'we'll give you a deeper, a more profound experience of the power of God than you've ever had before. We can manifest the power of God to you in a way that you've never seen it before, if you'll go through these rituals, if you will attain to these secret teachings that we offer.' And so the Apostle Paul again prays that the Colossians would be strengthened with real spiritual power, real divine power. He asks, in fact, that they would be strengthened with all power in accordance with His glorious might. You know that the word "glory" was a substitute word that the Jewish people often used for "God" Himself. They used reverential titles for God. They would not speak the name of God out of reverence for Him and attempting to avoid a breaking of the third commandment, and so they came up with all sorts of circumlocutions, little words that they would substitute for God, and "the glory" was one of them. When they would refer to "the glory" they were referring to God, and Paul says, "I'm praying that you would be strengthened with all power in accordance with His glorious might." Paul is hinting at the might, the power, the strength which resides in the Almighty Himself , he's saying to these Colossians, 'I'm praying that you will be filled with the power of God Himself. You've already tasted of the power of God. I'm desiring that it would increase in your midst.' It's so important to note again that Paul is pointing to a power outside of the Colossians. It's not a power within the Colossians that he's praying to be increased, it's a power which comes from God and which God implants in us and strengthens us with.

This power again, according to Paul, produces three things. It's not a power for the sake of thrills. it's a power which produces certain realities in our lives, and Paul lists three of them. Again, verse 11: "for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience," and, depending on how you translate, "joy" Let's look at these three things. First, steadfastness or endurance. Paul says, 'I'm praying for a power in you which produces endurance. Endurance is that quality of steady persistence whereby a person is able to continue until they reach the goal. Many of you ladies have been objects of that persistence, as a young man has courted you and sought your hand in marriage, and he may have had to be very persistent before you were convinced that he was really the one for you, but he stayed to the end. Persevering in his goals and aims, Paul is praying for a spiritual endurance that these Colossians would continue on in the faith. They were going to have to live in very difficult times. Paul's death in the mid 60's would set off a wave of deaths in the Christian community. Perhaps many of these Colossians would be called on to give their lives for the faith. He prays for them, power that would give them endurance.

Secondly, notice, he also prays that they would have patience, or long-suffering. That is the virtue of a quiet spirit in the face of provocation or trial or tribulation, that they would be able to have the Spirit of Christ, who was able to pray to His heavenly Father, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing." Paul says, 'that's what I want the power to produce in you: Endurance, long-suffering, patience. That's what I want the power of God to produce in you. Not just a raw power which gives you some sort of an experience that other people haven't had, but a power which empowers your Christian life.' And finally, he says, 'I desire it to be a power that produces joy.' For the Christian does not go through these life experiences simply with our teeth gritted, nor do we go through it impassively, without any feeling. Paul's not saying, 'I want you to go through those things and never, ever, ever struggle with it. I want you to go through these difficulties and never, ever, ever sorrow at your trials.' No, Paul is saying, 'I know that you're going to be downcast, but even in your downcastness, I want you to experience joy, and the only way your are going to experience joy in the midst of your endurance, in the midst of your patience, is if the Holy Spirit is at work in you in accordance with the power of God.' Isn't it a beautiful phrase to be used? "I'm praying for you to be strengthened with all power in accordance with His glorious might." If a rich man gives you of his money, he may not be giving you very much. A multi-millionaire could give you of his money and only give you a hundred dollars, but if a rich man gave you in accordance with his wealth, you would be in for a big treat. Now the Apostle Paul is saying, 'God is going to give you this power in accordance with His glorious might.' That's how powerful the power of God is going to be. We, in our own Christian experiences know how powerful that power must be in order to endure some of the things that God calls on us to deal with. I want to remind you that today there are all sorts of sheisters in the world; in the business world, in the educational world, and elsewhere who are attempting to tell you that you can become a successful person if you'll simply tap into the power within. They say that's what you need to transform your life, the power within. My friends, what Paul is saying is exactly opposite of that. He is saying, until you realize that there is no power within and you start to seek the power above, until hen you will never know true power. Seek the power outside yourself, because in God's economy, our weakness is made strong by His strength, because His strength is perfected in our weakness. John Owen said many, many years ago, "We have no power from God unless we live in the persuasion that we have none of our own." We have no power from God unless we live in the persuasion that we have none of our own, because this power to live, this power to endure, this power to be joyous, this power to be patient comes from outside of us. It's not a power which is naturally within us, or a power which is merely untapped, or unrealized, or needing to being awakened or unlocked. It's a power which comes from God himself and the Apostle Paul says, 'I'm praying that for you. That's the kind of power I want you to have, not this airy-fairy knowledge, not this airy-fairy power that's spoken of by the false teacher, but real power which helps you where you are.

IV. Moved to THANKSGIVING

And finally Paul says this, and this is the fourth thing, in verse 12, "giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints." I don't know whether that's Paul saying, 'I'm giving thanks,' or whether Paul is saying, 'I want you to give thanks,' but it really doesn't matter because I want you to note that from verses 9 to 11, the Apostle Paul is constantly saying, 'you, you, you.' I want this for you. I'm praying this for you. When he gets to verse 12, the language turns to 'us.' Paul is getting ready to recount the things which are true about all believers; that we share in the inheritance of the saints, that we have been delivered from the domains of darkness, that we have been transferred into the kingdom of Sons, that we have redemption and forgiveness of sin, and Paul can't possibly say 'you' in that context. He has to say 'we.' He has to say 'us.' Remember, Paul knew what it was to be lost and he knew what it was to be found, and Paul can't possibly say 'you were lost and you were found.' He has to say 'we were lost and we were found.' It's 'us' and so it leads to 'us' giving thanks and that's the last thing I'd like to point to.

Paul gives thanks for God having qualified us for His inheritance. In other words, he says, 'all the conditions have been met which entitle us to a full standing as the children of God. That's been done for us.' And he goes on to say, "and God has rescued us from the domain of darkness." It's so important for us to remember in our forgiveness we're not simply pardoned by the dominion of sin being broken in our experience. God both pardons and He breaks the dominion of sin. We have been taken out from under the domain of the kingdom of darkness, and we have been placed in the kingdom of His Son. Paul uses a beautiful phrase. It's translated in our passage, "His beloved Son," but it literally reads "the Son of His love." That's the kingdom you've been placed in. You've been placed in the kingdom of the Son of His love. That's where He's put you, and the Apostle Paul lays all those truths before the Colossians. How in the world could anything else be more appealing, be more glorious, than this which Paul is praying for? Let me ask you this: Is this how you're praying for one another? Are you praying that your brothers and sisters in Christ here at First Presbyterian Church would be filled with that kind of knowledge, that kind of power, and would overflow with this kind of thanksgiving? This is what God desires for us. Do you desire the kind of knowledge that Paul is speaking about today? If you don't, my friend, something's awry, something needs to be checked, something needs to be changed. Perhaps you need to avail yourself the first time to Christ. And here Paul, in this thanksgiving, sums up all of what God has done for us in Christ. And he holds it up before us and he's going to meditate on it for the next several verses. So we've only touched the tip of the iceberg here. And he says this is more glorious than anything that anyone could ever offer to you. Never accept a substitute. O my friends, may God make that so in your life. Let's pray.

O God, we pray that You would bless Your Word. Work in us this knowledge and this power , and we'll give You all the thanksgiving. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Colossians 1:13-20

The Incomparable Christ #4

If you will kindly take your Bibles and turn with me to Colossians chapter 1, we will continue our study of this great book. We began our study by saying that the Apostle Paul was writing to the Colossians, who were being infested with new teachers who brought a new teaching. That teaching did not deny the supremacy of Christ, but by suggesting that one needed to move on from the gospel which Epaphras, Paul's faithful friend, and the man who first brought the gospel to the Colossians - by suggesting that we needed to move on from the gospel which he had first preached, called into the question the sufficiency of Christ in the gospel. They suggested that it was possible to attain a deeper, a more profound experience and knowledge and power apart from those initial teachings that they had received. So the Apostle Paul is writing to correct this misimpression on the part of the young Colossian believers. Today, we move to verse 13, which is really the beginning of the meat of the book itself.

We have been in the introduction, in which Paul has given a greeting, and in which he has offered up prayers of thanksgiving, and has given the Colossians an idea of how he intercedes for them. Now, he begins to address the issue straight on, and basically this is what Paul does: He says, 'you think you need Christ plus something else, this deeper Gnostic experience of God in His knowledge or power? Well, let me answer that by showing you who Christ is.'

The Apostle Paul's answer to the temptation on the part of these young believers in Colosse to believe this new teaching is to say, 'look, if you will understand who Christ is, that will take care of this false teaching. If you will just know who He is, you will recognize that you don't need this teaching and that this teaching is wrong. If you will simply recognize who Christ is, so much of your Christian life will fall in place.' With that, let's look at God's word, and we will begin in verse 13. Hear the word of the Lord:

(Colossians 1:13-20)

Thus ends this reading of God's word, may He add His blessing to it. Let's look to Him in prayer:

Our Father, this is Your word. It's intended for Your people's edification. It's intended to be an instrument in the hands of the Spirit to bring men and women to Christ. Send it out with power we pray. Make our hearts willing to receive its message. Cause us to be captivated by this description of our Lord and Savior, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Who do you think Christ is? What do you think of him? Jesus Himself asked that question of His disciples that day in Caesarea, Philippi, when He wanted to find out what they were hearing from the crowds. What the crowds saying about Me? And then he turned the question to them: 'Okay, I know what they are saying, what do you say? Who do you say that I am?' That is a question we all have to face. Who do you think He is? Do you think He is a great moral teacher? Do you think Christ is a great man, a great prophet? Paul says He is more, and Paul says the answer to the question, 'Who is Christ?' and 'What is He like?' will have a profound impact on our Christian experience. Perhaps we spend too little time thinking about that question. We are evangelicals, and we spend a lot of time telling people how to come to Christ. That is good, because that is an important thing to do, but, if we don't spend enough time thinking about 'Who' we are coming to, we may be robbed of much of the grace and power and blessing and benefit of Christian experience. If we don't know very well Who we are coming to, we may not be actually coming to the Christ who saves at all. In this passage, the Apostle Paul's description of Christ is so deep and so profound that we could never ever plumb the depths of it, if I preached a hundred sermons. I can't even handle what Paul says in brief outline in the text, so I am going to confine myself to four phrases that the apostle Paul has for us in verses thirteen through fifteen, and then we will just have to come back and pick up the rest the next time.

I. Christ is the Son of His Love

I want you to see four phrases that he applies to Christ as he says to the Colossians, 'Colossians, look at Christ. Look at Him. And, if you will look at Him and apprehend who He is, you won't need this new teaching that these false teachers are believing and teaching. You won't need this new teaching to find fullness of grace, because in Him is everything that you need.' Let's look at it together today. The first phrase that I would like to direct your attention to, is this phrase in verse 13: "He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son." We said last week, literally it reads, "the kingdom of the Son of His love." And so, here is the first phrase: Christ is the Son of His love. Now, that is interesting, because that phrase points you back to the Father, and it tells you something about the Father. He is the Son of His love. Some of our translations translate "the beloved Son." It is true, it does mean that, but it means more than that. This phrase means more than that Jesus Christ is the object of the Father's love. That in some senses is obvious. He is the only begotten Son. Of course, He is the object of the Father's love, but Paul means more. Christ is not only the object of the Father's love, He is not only the One that the Father loves, Christ Himself is the embodiment and the manifestation of God's love for you. Christ is not only the One that God loves, Christ is a standing witness of God's love for His people because the fact that He is incarnate. It is a manifestation of God's saving love, His plan which He has set in motion to redeem the world from sin and destruction, and to make a people for Himself. You remember the first line of that hymn that we sing often at Christmas. It comes from the early fourth century. It was written by Prudentious, and it is called Of the Father's Love Begotten? I don't see far into the meaning of the great phrase, but that is what Paul's getting at here. It's not just that the Son is the object of the Father's love, it is because of the Father's love He was begotten for our sake. "Of the Father's Love Begotten," the hymn writer says. Now that teaches us a very important lesson about the love of God itself. It teaches us that the Father's love is the great love on which all other loves are modeled, from which all other love flows, and of which all other love is merely shadow, a reflection, a representation, because the Father's love for the Son is the archetypal love. It is the great love. It is the real love, and every other love in human and angelic experience is only a reflection of that love. Now, that is a lofty thought but I want to apply it very specifically.

It is vital for us not to fall into believing that the Father is unloving, and yet we each know in our own experiences the temptation to believe that the Father is less than perfect in His love. Sometimes things happen in our own experience which make us question whether He is loving. 'If He is sovereign, why is the Lord letting this happen to me?' Sometimes we are looking at other's experiences, friends experience and we say, "How in the world could a God that is almighty and loving let this happen?" And in those moments, we are tempted to question His love, and in those moments we must remember that our love is only a reflection of His love. When we call His love into question, what we are suggesting, though we may not know this explicitly, is that we are more loving than He is. We are saying, "If I were almighty, and I were all loving, I wouldn't let that happen. I would be better than God would be in this circumstance. I would be more loving in this circumstance." And that's a false start because all our love is merely a reflection of His greater love, and that love is manifested in the Son.

I remember a conversation that I had with a young lady in my youth group in St. Louis. We were going through the Apostle's Creed, and we had come to that place in the creed which speaks of the judgment of the quick and the dead, the living and the dead. We had discussed in that section the doctrine of hell. It is an awful doctrine, but it is a biblical doctrine. It means that it lasts. There will be some who are separated from God eternally. Banished from His presence. Never again tasting of the fullness of His fruits. At enmity with him for eternity, cast off, outside. It is a hard doctrine, but it is a biblical doctrine. Many people wince at that doctrine and they want to modify that doctrine and they want to say that doctrine is unloving, and a God who is loving couldn't do the things that the Bible says that He does.

This young lady in the youth group came to me in tears after that meeting and she said, "How could a loving God send anyone to hell?" And we had a long discussion about that reality, but as we talked I said, "Nancy, have you ever sinned?" "Yes." "Would you say that you sin frequently?" "Oh yes." "Are you unloving sometimes?" "Oh yes." "Do you do things wrong toward your parents?" "Oh yes." "Does God ever sin toward you?" "No." "Has God ever done anything wrong to you?" "No." "Has God ever been unloving to you?" "Oh no." "Well, let me see if I am getting what you are saying, Nancy. You who admit that you sin and you do things wrong and that you are unloving from time-to-time, you are worried that God might do something unloving? Do I get you right? You, who have admitted that you are an imperfect person, are concerned that the God who has never done wrong and of which the scripture say He never does wrong, you are concerned that He might do something wrong?" She said, "Yep, I guess that's what I'm saying. I guess that's kind of stupid." I said, "Well, it may not be stupid but it is a bit perverse." We must never question the love of God. He is maximally loving. He is the archetype of all love. Our love is only a reflection of His, and we if are tempted to think that we are more compassionate than He is, we must stop and remember that the compassion that resides in us, how ever great it is, is but a faint shadow of His love and His compassion. And so, Paul says, Christ is the son of is love.

He gives a picture in verse 13 of the activity of God the Father on our behalf. He uses the phrase rescuing and transferring. Rescuing us from the domain of darkness, transferring us into the kingdom of His Son, and the Apostle Paul stresses that it is the Father who does this. The Father rescues us from the domain of darkness. The Father brings us into the kingdom of His son through the work of Christ on the cross. It is not the Son doing this, it is the Father rescuing us. People in Paul's day would have been very familiar with transfer after conquest. Conquering kings would come in and they would transfer people from their own homeland into another homeland, but that was a transfer from freedom to slavery. This is a transfer from slavery to freedom, and it is done by the rescue of the Father and His transfer of His people into the kingdom of His Son by the redemption of His Son on the cross. We must never, ever think that what Christ is doing on the cross is trying to get the Father involved with His people, trying to get the Father to love His people. That is not what is happening on the cross at all. The cross is the expression, it is the instrument of the Father's love for His children. Christ wouldn't have been on the cross, if the Father had not had a prior love and plan for His children. The cross itself is the stratagem of the Father, which the Son willingly takes upon Himself, in order to unite His people to Him. Think of how the New Testament stresses the activity of God the Father "For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son." So often it is God the Father who is emphasized in the New Testament with regard to what is happening at the cross.

We must never forget that, because the cross is not about getting the Father to love His children. The cross is the instrument by which God can be both loving and just, merciful and righteous, in His redemption of His people, and the cross happened precisely because the Father ordained it in His love. Read Ephesians one. We must never forget this. Christ is the Son of His love. That phrase teaches us something about the love of the Father.

II. Christ is our Redeemer

The second phrase I would like to point you to is in verse 14. Christ is our Redeemer. In verse 14 we read, "In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Christ is not simply a revelation of the Father. There are many people who teach that Christ came to show us the Father's love. That is true, but that is not all of the truth. Christ came to do more than to reveal to us what God is like. He came to do more than to give us some sort of an apprehension of what God is like, to give us some sort of a veiled knowledge of God. Christ came to redeem us from sin, and if we say that Christ has revealed God. and we say nothing else, we are cutting out a very important part of Paul's gospel message. For, if we say a half truth, as if it were the whole truth, it is a whole lie. It is true that Christ came to reveal, but Paul stresses here that Christ is our Redeemer, not simply the One who has revealed God. Christ has delivered us from tyranny to sin. The metaphor is again commercial. In Paul's' day, if you wanted to set a slave free, you paid a purchase price for that slave and you redeemed, you literally bought that slave, and set him to freedom. This is precisely what the Apostle says Christ has done for us at the cross. He has paid a costly price for us and set us free. He has redeemed us at enormous cost, and this has brought to us both forgiveness of sin. That is pardon from sin and deliverance from sin. Every single one of us struggles with two aspects in sin. We are guilty of sin and therefore we are due its penalty. We are enslaved to sin and therefore we are under its power. Christ, in His redemption, redeems us from both. Forgiveness of sins entails both pardon for sin's guilt and deliverance from sin's power.

Now, these Colossian's new teachers were coming to them and they had said, 'Yes, Christ has forgiven your sins, but if you want to be released from the powers of darkness, from angelic powers of evil forces, then you need to be initiated in these other rituals.' And the apostle Paul is saying, 'Christ redeemed you from the domain of darkness. To talk about going to someone else, or going somewhere else in order to be relieved from the dominion of darkness is ridiculous. You have been redeemed. When you were brought under the lordship of Christ, you were brought under His lordship and no one reigns where He reigns. You are no longer under the dominion of sin. You are no longer under the guilt of sin.' And this is so important for us. So often there is an attempt in the Christian life to divide forgiveness from deliverance and sin, and so people say, 'Well, I'm forgiven but I'm walking in a carnal way. I'm just sinning against the Lord all the time. I'm in the flesh.' As far as the Apostle Paul is concerned, when you are forgiven, you were delivered from the dominion of sin. It does not mean you are sinless. It does not mean you are perfect, but you are no longer under the dominion of sin. Your life is no longer as a whole characterized by a bent toward wickedness. When you sin, you are frustrated by it. You are not only remorseful of it, you are repentant of it. It is not the norm in your experience. And even those pet sins, those habitual sins that we fight against, year after year after year and seem never to be able to put away - they are not the rule, they are the exception, and it is precisely because of they're the exception that it hurts so badly and they frustrate us so deeply. Because when Christ brings forgiveness, He brings release from dominion. Christ is our Redeemer.

III. Christ is the Image of God

A third phrase that I would point you to in verse15. He is the image of the invisible God. Now, that is a tricky phrase, because you know that in Genesis 2, and elsewhere in Paul's writings, he talks about man being the image of God. Is he suggesting that Jesus is something less than divine? Absolutely not! How do I know that? Two things. First of all, he is about to tell you that He is the One by whom the world is created, and every good Jew in the audience would have known that the Person who created the world was God. And he is going to stress, furthermore, that Christ didn't just create some of it, He created all of it, and that the whole world was created for Him. So the idea that Christ is not divine is not entering Paul's mind. Why then is he using the word image? It is found in the key little world, invisible. "He is the image of the invisible God." God is a Spirit. We can't see Him. He doesn't have a body like we do, but Christ is the image of the invisible God. He has manifested, He has represented to us what the invisible God is like. He is God in the flesh. He is deity incarnate. He has been enfleshed and made visible. If you remember the interaction between Philip and Jesus in John 14, Philip says, "Lord, show us the Father and it will be enough." And Jesus says, 'have you been with Me so long and you've still not seen?'

If you've seen Me you have seen the Father. If you've looked on My face you've seen what the Father is like. To reverse the message, the metaphor, just slightly, Archbishop Michael Ramsay once put it this way, "God is Christ-like and in Him there is no unChrist-likeness at all." You want to know what God the Father is like? Look at the Son. He is the perfect reflection of the Father. He is deity in flesh. He is the representation and manifestation of God. He is the image of the invisible God, not less than Him but equal to Him, and the visible representation of that spiritual reality which transcends our sight and our senses.

IV. Christ is the First-born of Creation

The fourth thing I'd like to point to is this. Here in verse15, "Christ is the first-born of creation." He is not only the Son of God's love. He is not only our Redeemer, He is not only the image of God, He is the firstborn of creation. Now again, that phrase brings some questions into people's mind. If He was the first-born, was there a time when he didn't exist? Is Paul saying that Christ is the highest of all creatures? Absolutely not, because in the very next phrase, he is going to say, verse16, "For in Him all things were created." Paul doesn't include Christ in the created order. Christ brought the creation into being. All of it. And Paul goes to pains to stress, and I don't just mean earthly realities, I mean heavenly realities. Look what he says, "in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -- all things have been created by Him," and then here is the coup d'etat, "and for Hhim."

Christ is not only the Creator of creation, creation was created for Him. He is the beginning of creation, He is the source of creation, and He is the end of creation. He is God over all. God bless forever. But what in the world does Paul mean by first-born? He means the same thing here, as the author of Hebrews means in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 2, Christ is …"the heir of all things." When you think of first-born in the context of a king, of a monarch, what do you think? You think of the heir. You think of the one who has primacy given to him. Paul is speaking of a primacy of power here, not a priority of time sequence. He is not saying that Christ was born first, and then everything else came. He is saying that Christ has a primacy over everything. He is the first-born. He is the Father's heir. He is the heir over all things. That is exactly what is meant in that Christmas hymn that we sing, "O come all ye faithful," in the second stanza. When we sing the beautiful line which actually comes from the Nicene Creed that goes, "Very God begotten not created." You see, Christ was the first begotten, the first-born, not the first created. You ask me, "Well Ligon, what does first-born mean?" What does born mean? What does begotten mean? I say to you it means not created. I'm not sure I can go much more than that, but to be begotten is not to be created. He sustains a relationship with the heavenly Father. He is the begotten, but He is not created, just like the hymn says. The Eternal Word stood in the same relation to the first creation, the original creation as Jesus Christ the Incarnate One stands in relation to the church. As Christ the Eternal Word brought the worlds into being, Christ the Incarnate One brought the Church into being at the cross. He is the Creator, He is the first-born of creation.

Now, the Apostle Paul goes on, but we are going to stop there. But let's look at what Paul has laid before us. He is the Son of God's love. He is the great and primary object, and the expression of God's love. He is our Redeemer. He has not only redeemed us from guilt, He has redeemed us from the powers of darkness. He is the very image of God. He is the One in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form, and He is the Creator of everything. The Apostle Paul says to the Colossians, 'Where exactly else are you going to go, for deliverance from the world powers, for a deeper of knowledge of God? You are going to go somewhere else other than Christ? This is the Christ who saved you. Where are you going to go? He has it all, it's all in his hands. The whole world is His. He brought it into being. It exists for Him. Why would you possibly need to go somewhere else other than Christ?' Everything resides in him, my friends. Today, have you gone to Him? Is He where you are going for fullness? Is He where you are going for meaning, for fullness of meaning in life? Is He where you are going for redemption.

Bear with me as I apply this in perhaps some surprising ways. We have officer elections coming up here. If I read Ephesians 4 right, officers are gifts of this Christ, this incomparable Christ to his people. That puts a pretty heavy task on you, because that means in a few weeks when you vote, you are going to be saying, 'Lord, I see evidence in that man that he is one of your gifts to our people.' Now, what sort of evidences will you look for? Well, you will at least look for this. Is this a man totally in love with this incomparable Christ? Ready to obey His words to the death, to minister this word, this Christ to His people? Who cares for his family like this Christ has told him to care for his family? Who has the evidence of this Christ's blessing and beatitudes implanted in his breast? Will that be the kind of man you look for and expect to be a gift from this Christ to His Church? Perhaps another application: We are going into stewardship season in a few weeks, and God has given to us prodigiously, extravagantly in Christ. He has given beyond that which we would have asked or thought in Christ. Can you image Adam in the garden saying, 'O Lord, I have sinned. Why don't You give Your Son on my behalf?' And that's precisely what God did. Now if God has given that way, do our hearts reflect that same type of cheerful giving, extravagant giving spirit? You see, giving is basically a spiritual issue. If you know how much you have received, you will be like that dear woman who bathed our Lord's feet in expensive perfume. Be ready to give in great measure from a cheerful heart. Ultimately, giving is that type of a spiritual issue. It is not accomplished through our own campaigns or anything else. It is accomplished through the work of Spirit in our own hearts.

How about those of you have come today and you are still seeking for something else outside of Christ?

Perhaps you have been promised some sort of experience - you have Christ first, and then later on you get this deeper experience. Pray tell if Christ is all and all, and all things are His, where is it elsewhere that you go to get this experience apart from Him? And if you have been united to Him once, what is it that you are lacking if you are united to Him? Is there someone who is saying to you that 'you have not enough, that you need a fuller gospel?' My friends, if you are sitting there today and you have Christ, I am here on Apostolic authority telling you, 'you have it all.' And for those of you who come here not knowing this incomparable Christ, 'you are lost.' There is no hope outside of this cross, but if you will come to Him and you will trust Him; if you will receive Him, you will find in Him all your needs met and more, because He is the incomparable Christ and He brought the world into being and he holds it in His hand. May the lord bless these words. Let us pray

Lord God, we cannot do justice to Your word, but O how we love it. Give us a taste of this Christ, help us to sing of this Christ, help us to walk with this Christ, and seek nothing apart from Him. Less would not satisfy and more is not desired. In His name we pray. Amen

Colossians 1: 15-20

The Incomparable Christ - Part 5

Let us pray.Our Lord, God almighty, Father,Son, and Holy Spirit, we come to You praising You thisday, because You are the Creator and the Sustainer, and through our Lord Jesus Christ, have become the Redeemer of Your people. We confess that You are the onlytrue God,and that we are Your people, brought out of darkness and into Your wonderful light through faith in Jesus Christ.Work in us through the workings of the Holy Spirit by grace, we pray, O God, confession of our sins before You this day. We acknowledge that apart fromChrist we are undone, and we acknowledge that even as believers we stumble in the way. And yet, by the Holy Spirit, You mortify sin in us and You vivify those graces that You have first implanted in us in regeneration. And so we confess our sins silently, and yet joyfully, for You have told us to come boldly into Your presence by the name of Christ. Receive our prayers and praises this day. Speak to us by Your word. Meet with us here. Reveal to us Your glory in theSacrament and in the word of the living Scripture. And we pray, O God, cause our hearts to be drawn to You, for we ask it all in Jesus' name.Amen.

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1, and we'll continue our study of this great book of the Apostle Paul. You'll remember that we had said in our studies in weeks past, that Paul is combating a teaching in Colossae that questions whether Christ is sufficient.It doesn't deny His lordship, it doesn't deny His supremacy, it simply says, 'you started well with Christ, but we can take you deeper in the faith, with deeper knowledge and deeper experience of God's power by following after certain teachings and rituals that had not been spoken of in the gospel of Christ first preached inColossae.' And, we said, that theApostle Paul responded to that from the very moment that he opened his word of greeting to the Colossians.

In his very greeting, he undercuts that teaching, and then in verses3 through 8, he offers up a prayer of thanksgiving for whatGod is doing in the lives of the Colossians, and that undercuts this idea that there is something else other than Christ that these Colossians need for light as believers. And then, finally in verses 9 to 14, we saw him continue to pray specific things for these Colossians to know and experience as part of their belief in Christ. Last week, we said we got to the main section of Paul's message.There, he began to set forth who Christ is, because as far asPaul is concerned, if we will simply learn who He is, so much of the rest of the Christian life will fall into place. If we will know Who it is that we love and serve, we will know that we don't need to go anywhere else other than Christ to find all the resources necessary for Christian growth and grace, for deeper knowledge of God, and for clearer experience of His power in ourLives. Having said that, let's look atPaul's words beginning in verse15:

(Colossians 1:15 -22)

Thus ends this reading of God'sHoly word.May He add His blessing to it.Let's look to Him again inPrayer:

Our Lord, we do confess that this is Your word. Our hearts come to You this day in different conditions, some cold, some wounded, some disinterested, some apathetic, some under conviction, some in need of comfort, some in need of encouragement, some in need of instruction. Lord, we could go on, but You know better than we do. By Your Spirit, minister YourWord to each of us in his or her own condition. Draw us to Yourself. Quench the spiritual thirst in each of us. Kindle it if necessary, and we'll give You the praise and the glory. Open our eyes that we might behold wonderful things fromYour Word, and cause us to glorify You in our response to Your Word, for we ask it in Jesus' name.Amen.

Seems to me, that everybody on this planet has either one or another problems with Jesus Christ. Some people doubt His supremacy. Others doubt His sufficiency. Those who doubt the supremacy of Christ are normally non-Christians. They may be atheistic. They may be religious. They may be members of another religion or than Christianity, but they doubt what Paul claims here about the supremacy ofChrist. They may honor Christ as a great moral teacher or as a prophet, but they do not believe that He is the Lord over all as theApostle Paul is going to argue today. Others, perhaps within the Church, within the Christian fold, may acknowledge Christ's supremacy with their tongues, they may give assent to the idea that He is supreme, but they have questions as to whether He is sufficient. They continue to try and supplement Christ in theirChristian experience. They start with Christ, but they move on to other things. Sometimes they move to their own works, and they think that they can begin with Christ and yet if they are going to stay in fellowship with God, they must supplement it by meriting God's favor, by earning His favor in their obedience. Other times they think that there is some deeper spiritual principle. Sometimes they actually mix Christianity with other types of belief.They mix it with something as seemingly crazy as astrology, or something more profound like some other form of religion, whether it may be a New Age teaching or they mix Christ with some secular teaching which is on the market. But there are many Christians who doubt the sufficiency ofChrist. They believe in Christ, they profess His name, and yet in their experience, and even in their belief, they think that in order to have fullness of life, they need to supplement what they have inChrist in something else. Paul is speaking precisely to those conditions today. We don't have time to do everything that Paul does in this glorious passage, but I want to point you today to four phrases in verses 15 through 20, and I want to look at those as closely as we possibly can.Let me mention them to you, and then we'll look at them.

In verse 15 and all the way down to verse 17, Paul asserts that Christ is the Lord ofcreation. If you look at verse 18, therePaul asserts that Christ is the head of the Church. In verse 19, Paul asserts thatChrist is the fullness or that the fullness dwells in him. And then in verse 20, Paul says that Christ is the Reconciler,He is the one who reconciles the world to God. I want to look at those great phrases, those great assertions, those great truths that PaulSets forth here with you today. Before we do so, I'd like to remind you, however, of some interesting connection in these verses.I won't even be able to follow up on these connections, but perhaps you in personal Bible study, will be able to go back and look at some of these connections this week, because they are quite magnificent.

First of all, I want you to notice this week, look at these phrases today, at the connection between Christ's supremacy andChrist's sufficiency, according to the Apostle Paul. Christ is sufficient, Paul says, because He is supreme. He assumes that these Colossians, unlike the non-Christians thatI spoke of a few moments ago, he assumes that these Colossians accept Christ's supremacy, thatHe is lord, that he knows that in their baptismal profession, they made a profession that Jesus is Lord. So he knows that they won't deny that He is Lord, but he wonders if they'll understand the implication of Christ beingLord, and Paul says the implication of Christ beingSupreme, the implication ofChrist being Lord, is that HeIs sufficient. He's sufficient for everything that you need for salvation. You don't need to look anywhere else, because He is supreme. Notice that connection between the supremacy and the sufficiency of Christ.

Secondly, notice the connection between Christ as Creator andChrist as Redeemer. If we were to lay out this passage side by side and put verses 15, 16, and 17 in one column, and then verses 18, 19, and 20 in another column, we would see a beautiful parallel. In each of those passages, we would see Paul repeat 4 phrases. In verse 15 and in verse 18, he uses the phrase "who is" to open that section. In verses 15 and 18, he speaks of Christ as the first-born. In verse 15, he calls Christ the first-born of creation. In verse 18, he calls him the first-born of the dead. In verses 16 and 19, he speaks of the phrase "for in Him" inChrist, and in verses 16 through 20, he uses the phrase "in the heavens and on the earth." In each of those phrases, he parallels Christ's lordship in creation with Christ's lordship in redemption. And he sees those as going together, being inseparably connected. Christ's lordship in creation enables Him to be a Redeemer who can redeem us from any force, for if He created creation, and if He is the LordOf creation, what is there in creation that He is not capable of redeeming us from, or of exercising dominion over? So Paul says Christ is bothCreator and Redeemer.

Now one last thing I'd like to point to before we get to these great phrases, notice how often Paul repeatstwo phrases:"all things" and "he is." Look with me briefly in verse 15, "He is the first-born of all creation." Verse 16 "for by Him all things were created." And down further in that verse,"all things have been created by Him." Verse 17, "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Verse 18 at the end, "that He might have first place in everything." In verse 19, "for all the fullness." And finally in verse 20, "through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things in heaven or things on the earth." The Apostle Paul, you will remember, from our past studies, has already prayed that theLord would give these Colossians all wisdom and knowledge of theLord, and that they would experience all the divine power, and so over and over he repeats this phrase "all things." Why? To stress that all things have been subsumed under the rule, under the dominion of Christ, so that if the Colossians need to pray for something, they don't need to look anywhere else but Christ, because all things are His. He made it. He rules over all things. And then there's that phrase"He is." Notice in verse 15, "He is the Image of the invisible God." Verse 17, "He is before all things." Verse 18, "He is the head of the body." What is Paul repeating that for? Again, because he wants to stress to the Colossians that it is absolutely vital that they understand who Christ is. For if they will understand whoHe is, it will take them a long way down the path of spiritual growth, and it will protect them from the false teaching which says we need Christ plus something else, whether that is Christ plus another religion whether that is Christ plus our own meritorious works, whether that is Christ plus fill in the blank. If we will remember who He is, we will know that He is supreme and all-sufficient. And that is a message not just for the Colossians, but for us today.

And to that end, I would like us to look at those four great phrases together in verses 15 through20 so that we might learn again, afresh, who Christ is, and would be. Therefore, edified in the faith, let's look at verses 15 through17.

I.Christ: Lord of Creation.

First, Christ is the Lord of creation. Look at Paul's words, "He is the image of the invisibleGod, the first-born of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and forHim. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." What is Paul stressing there? He is stressing the supremacy of Christ over all of creation.

Now he does so much in that short passage and those few phrases, that we couldn't possibly do it all justice today, so let me zero in on a few things that he asserts aboutChrist in that passage.Christ is Lord of the creation. First of all notice, last week we looked at the phrase "He is the image of the invisible God and the first-born of all creation." And we said that in that phrase,Paul is stressing that Jesus is very God. He is not something less thanGod. He is not the highest of created beings, He is not simply a great man, a good man, a good moral teacher, a philosopher, a prophet or anything else, He is very God. He is the image of the invisibleGod.He is a visible manifestation of deity. In Christ all the fullness of theDeity dwells in bodily form, asPaul will say in Colossianschapter 2 verse 9. That is so central to Paul's proclamation. Paul is not proclaiming a Christ who is a good man, who is an almost perfect man, who is a caring man, or a loving man, he is proclaiming more than that. He's proclaiming Christ who is both God and man: He is divine. He is the second Person of theTrinity, the eternal God in the flesh:He is God and man. He is perfectly Divine. This is so important for us to see. Paul sees it as central to his message. Today there are many people who belong to denominations ofChristian churches that do not believe that Jesus is divine. They believe that Jesus was a good man. They believe that He had wise sayings. They believe that He had things that He taught that could help us in our daily living. But they do not believe that HeIs divine. As far as the Apostle Paul isConcerned, if Jesus is notDivine, we are undone. We might as well give it all up, pack it in and go home, because if Jesus is not divine,He cannot release us from the powers of darkness, He cannot free us from sin,He cannot bring us into the glorious light of God, and 'we are still in our sins,' the Apostle Paul says.

Jesus is divine and I want to remind you, especially you students, one day you're going to be in a university classroom, and a religion professor somewhere is going to tell you that the early Christians didn't believe that Jesus was God. Then they're going tell you that the early Christians didn't believe that Jesus was divine. That was something that earlyChurch gradually made up. My friends, these words were written less than three decades after our Lord walked this earth, and the Apostle Paul is reflecting a truth that the whole Christian community embraced, that Jesus Christ is very God.

When we say that He is the Son of God, we don't mean He's less than God, we mean he bears a special filial relationship to God. He is very God just like your sons and daughters are no less human than you. This Son of God is no less God than the heavenly Father. He is in eternal relationship with Him.He is very God, and that is at the very core of His ability to redeem us from sin. I want to tell you that in the early Church, it was three centuries before a heresy arose withinChristian circles that denied that Jesus was divine. In fact, the early Church was so convinced that Jesus was divine, that the only heresy about the person of Christ which flourished within the ChristianChurch for the first three centuries was the denial that He was human.

The first heresy about Jesus Christ was a denial that He was human. No Christian would have questioned whether He was divine. The question was how could someone who is so clearly divine, truly be human? That's how convinced the earlyChristians were.Why? Because Christ himself had taught and claimed to be divine, and He had demonstrated that claim in His resurrection and in His ascension. And His Apostles, to a man, all joined in the profession that Jesus is very God and the Apostle Paul sets that forth before us again.

He is the Lord of creation.Why? He made creation. He's the creator. Now Paul goes on and says a few other things in these few verses. Notice that he says that 'He is the creator of all things.' And he uses that word "all things" to stress that there was nothing that Jesus didn't create. Do you remember that some of these people who were teaching in Colosse would believe that there is a very sharp divide between matter and the spiritual world? They would have thought that the spiritual world was of higher value than the material world. They would think that the material world was insignificant or less spiritual or less valuable in the sight of God. In fact, some would actually teach that what is was positively bad, that the matter, the material world was bad. And they might have been tempted to think, 'well, Jesus may have been the creator of the world that we can see, the material world, but surely He wasn't the creator of the invisible world. Paul says He's the creator of all things, and what does he say, "visible and invisible." And just to make himself clear, he goes on and he throws this in, "of the heavens and of the earth, whether rulers or thrones or dominions or authorities." What is Paul doing? He's piling up words to tell you, 'look, you're not going to find something in creation that He didn't create. He's the Lord over creation. This is the One who our LordJesus Christ, who is the Lord over creation.' And Paul doesn't stop there, he says, 'look, He's not only the One who created creation, but creation was created for Him.' Creation finds its reason for being in glorifying Him. Look at the glorious phrase there in Colossians chapter 1 verse 16, at the very end of the passage: "all things have been created by Him and for Him." He not only created it all, but they were created for Him, for His pleasure, for His glory. Their goal of being is to bringHim glory. Now the Apostle Paul says, because of that, He has a primacy over all creation. All things are upheld by Him. All things are held together by Him.

The philosophers look for their principle of coherence.The scientist, the chemist, the physicist, they look for the mystery of binding energy or binding force, and the ApostlePaul is saying, 'He's beyond all that, He is the thing in which the whole universe coheres. He holds it all together. He created it all. There is nothing in this universe that is outside of HisControl. You can see these false teachers come in to theColossians saying, 'you been saved from your sins by Christ, but now you need to be saved and freed from these demonic forces in the spiritual world.' The Apostle Paul says, 'nonsense! Christ is the Lord of all. If you are in Christ, you have been saved from those forces of darkness. You have everything you need to exercise dominion in Christ.'

II. Christ: Head of the Church

Secondly, in verse 18, we see this phrase, "Christ is the head of the Church." He is not only supreme over creation, Paul says, He's supreme in the Church. He is the head of the body in theChurch. He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. Notice what Paul stresses here. Christ is the head of theChurch, He is the authority. He is the only head. He is the only Lord of theChurch. My friends, that is the charter of freedom for you as a Christian, that you know that no human being can make up for you rules or teaching in the sphere of your Christian faith which have not been ordained by your Lord. You are free to be who yourLord intends you to be, and no man, however spiritual, may add to the commands of theLord for what you are to be. That is your charter of freedom. So many people feel like they're bound, and they're groaning under the load of having to obey the Bible. Oh, that's so untrue, my friends. The Bible frees you from the foolish and capricious commands of men, for who has the authority to tell another man's servant how to serve. Who has the authority to tellChrist's servants, yea, his brothers and sisters, how they are to live and serve? The answer is, no one. He is the Lord over the Church, and when anyone claims to be the head of the Church, other thanChrist, they are committing blasphemy against Christ. Whether that person be a leader of a great church and denomination, or whether that person be a person in a local church setting who is claiming to add commandments for the behaving of the Christian life, thatChrist himself has not inaugurated and initiated. We are set free from the commandments of men, because Christ is the Lord inHis Church. He is also the head of HisChurch in the sense that he is the source of all spiritual life in the body. Paul says He is the source, He's the head, He's the fountainhead of all spiritual life in the body. If you have life today as a believer, it's because you are united to Christ by faith. If you have life today, it is evidence that the work of the head of the body of Christ is at work in you.

Paul goes on, not only to say that He is the head, that He is the authority, that He's the source of the life of His people, and he goes on in verse 18 to say that "He is the first-born of the dead." This points to the resurrection ofChrist, and he says that His resurrection is the ground of our hope. He's the first-born of the dead. Because He's raised from the dead, we have hope of resurrection. It is precisely because of the truth, because of the reality of Christ's resurrection, that we expect, that we hope, in the fullest sense of that word, as a Christian, that we hope for our resurrection. And the Apostle Paul says elsewhere, that "if Christ be not raised from the dead, we are of all people most miserable." We might as well eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. But Christ is raised, and Paul says that He is the first-born of the dead, and because He is the head of the Church, and because He is the first-born of the dead, because He's preceded us in resurrection,Paul says He has primacy in the Church. He has supremacy.

III. Christ: the Fullness

In those passages, verses 15 through 17, and in verse 18,Paul sets forth the supremacy of Christ. He knows that these Colossians believe in the supremacy ofChrist, at least in theory, but they haven't understood its implications, and he turns to the implications of it in verses 19 and 20. So what, Christ is Lord? So what? Here's Paul's answer to that question: verse 19, for "it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him. It was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him." Paul is arguing that becauseChrist is supreme, in creation and in redemption, therefore, He is sufficient,His person is sufficient.The person of Christ is sufficient for our redemption, and he uses this glorious, this mysterious phrase, "it was theFather's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him." Now, how do we interpret that? That's a hard passage to interpret. Let me just say a couple of things.

First of all,"the fullness" is a word that the false teachers in Colossae liked to use. They liked to talk about this fullness that believers could attain if they would go through the mystic rituals. Isn't it interesting that theApostle Paul fires back by saying, 'no, Christ is the fullness. You don't look somewhere else other than Christ for the fullness. You look in Christ for the fullness.'

Second interesting thing. If you were to turn over with me to Colossians chapter 2 verse9, you would see the ApostlePaul say, "For in Him all theFullness of Deity dwells in bodily form." There, the word "fullness" is stressing that in Christ is a fullness of divinity. He is fully divine. Now that may well be what Paul is driving at here in verse 19, but let me suggest something slightly different. Because in verse 19 it says, "it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him," and because it says it was theFather's good pleasure, or theFather's will for this fullness to dwell in Him,I'm not sure that Paul is talking about the deity of Christ. Paul's already asserted that. There's no question that Paul is teaching the deity of Christ here, but Christ is divine not because the Father wills it, but because in His essence He is divine. The Father doesn't will the Son to be divine. The Son is divine. So what is it that the Father is willing, what is His good pleasure? What kind of fullness is this that it's the Father's will forChrist to have? I suspect that Paul is talking about the honor and the glory and the reward which is due to Christ alone because He has fulfilled all the responsibilities of His office as our Savior, as our Mediator, the Mediator of the Covenant ofGrace. Paul is speaking of that fullness which God has been pleased to give to His Son, because He is pleased beyond measure with the perfection of our Savior's obedience and sacrifice. That fullness is all found inHim. That fullness belongs to Him alone. In the words of Philippians 2, He is given "that name which is above every name" because He humbled Himself and because He took on the form of a servant, and because He died the death on the cross. And because He was raised again, He was exalted to that name above every name. This is speaking of God'sCovenantal reward of His Son who is our Mediator. becauseHe has fulfilled everything He told the Father He would do on our behalf. And that is so important, theApostle Paul says, for this reason: We are told that in Him we are more than conquerors. We are hyper-conquerors. We are hyper-exalted. As He is hyper-exalted to the fullness of the Father because of the Father's pleasure in His obedience, we are exalted with Him. And the Apostle Paul is saying,'You want the fullness?' You've got the fullness in Christ. Don't look somewhere else. If you are in Christ, you will reign with Him in glory. You will be hyper-exalted. You will be hyper-conquerors. For in Him, all the fullness dwells by the Father's pleasure. There's nothing of glory and honor and blessing which is to be found outside of Christ.

IV. Christ: the Reconciler

And then finally, the ApostlePaul, in verse 20 stresses this: Christ is the Reconciler, the only Reconciler. Not only does he stress the supremacy of Christ in creation, not only does he stress the supremacy in the Church, not only does he stress the sufficiency of Christ's person, he stresses the sufficiency ofChrist's work. He is the Reconciler. Through Him, God reconciled all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of Hiscross,"through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven." As Christ is the creator,Paul says, He is also theReconciler. As sin destroyed the relationship between creatures and the Creator, between man and God, so Christ restores that fellowship and relationship between man and God, and He does it through the death of His cross.

Now my friends, this is a stratagem of Paul's teaching, and it's a stratagem of God, and it's a stratagem of Christian theology. We can never leave out theCross, because the cross tells us that we were already at enmity withGod, and the cross tells us that God provided a way back into fellowship with Him, and there is no way back into fellowship with God apart from that cross. There is no way to get to Him. There is a theology which has floated around in the Church for the last 100 years or so, which says that men really aren't sinners, and God isn't really a just God who is going to punish sin. He's really just an amiable grandfather in the sky who's going to bless everyone in the end, and so we need to put away all this stuff about sin and forgiveness and atonement and get on with it, and teach good moral teaching from the pulpit. But as far as the Apostle Paul, that is not true. Paul says that God has been reconciled to the world through the death of Christ on the cross. One theologian, many years ago, described this liberal theology which has no cross of Christ this way,He said, "a God without wrath," in this theology, "a God without wrath, brought men without sin into a kingdom without righteousness through the ministrations of aChrist without a cross."

That is not Christianity. This is Christianity. Christianity says that we have been estranged from God, and that we deserved to be judged, but through the atoning death of Christ, the wrath of God was quitted for all His people. And as we embrace Christ by faith, as we repent of our sins, as we turn to Him, we find in Him the blessing of all the benefits of reconciliation with God. Have you embraced Christ? Have you realized if you are apart from Christ, that you are at enmity with God? Have you realized that there is no way that you can be indifferent to God? You're either for Him or against him. You're either His or you're not. If you are in Christ, have you recognized how sufficient He is? There's no need to go anyplace else, Paul says. He is the Creator. He is the Redeemer. He's the Reconciler. He's the fullness. It's all here in Christ. The Christian life, my friend, is a process of learning that truth, applied with all of Christ's word in his word, deeper and more consistently. We begin with Christ. We end with Christ. He is the Alpha. He is the Omega. Let's pray.

Our heavenly Father, we commit ourselves to You this day. We ask that You would show us the truth of who Your Son is, and as we see Him in all His glory, we would embrace Him willingly, freely. If there are those who have come not knowing who He is, reveal Yourself to them through Him by the Word and by the Spirit.

Colossians 1:21-23

The Incomparable Christ - Part 6

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1. Paul has been writing to a congregation that has had some people come to it and say, 'Your belief in Christ is fine, your acceptance of the gospel is fine, but if you will add to your belief in Christ, in the gospel, this secret teaching, this extra ritual, your experience and knowledge of God will be deepened.What you believe about Christ is fine.There are just some other things that you don't know about in addition to Christ and to His gospel that will truly deepen your experience of God.' We've seen the last couple of weeks that one way the Apostle Paul undercuts that type of false teaching is to say, 'think about who Christ is. How can you add to him? What is there to add to Christ?'And in verses 13 through 20, we see the Apostle Paul give a cascade of truths about the person of Christ, specifically to convince us that we don't need to go anywhere else but Him for the fullness of the gospel.

(Colossians 1:21-23)

Father this is Your word, we praise you for it.We love Your word. Make us sensitive to it. Help us to respond to its authority and to see its direct applicability to every area of our lives. By the Holy Spirit apply it. Open us to sit under it. Make it a blessing to us. Make us a blessing to all the world, both as an encouragement to believers and as a witness to unbelievers through the word, and help us to understand this word for us. To Your praise and glory, we ask it in Jesus name.Amen.

Paul, we have seen the last two weeks, has piled up descriptions of Jesus Christ. These Jews, proselytes, gentiles, some believers, some unbelievers, some there because they've already come to Christ. Others in the congregation, perhaps who are interested in the teaching of the gospel, but have not come to Christ yet.,He sets before themwho Christ is, because he says, 'If you understand who Christ is, you will never fall for a teaching which says you need Christ plus something else. 'It's O.K. to start with Christ and to believe in His gospel, but to really get deep into the faith, into the knowledge of God, you need something else; some ritual, some action, some belief, some experience of power, which isn't received upon the first closing with Christ or coming to faith with Him, some extra thing. And the Apostle Paul says, 'If you really understand who Christ is, then you'll understand that as long as you are in relationship with Him, He is sufficient for everything you need in your salvation.'

And we reviewed some of the things that Paul said. Look at verse 13 where he says, 'who is this Christ?He's the Son of the father's love. He is the very manifestation of the love of God for the world. If you want to know how God loves the world, look at Jesus Christ. If you want to know how far God is willing to go to redeem His people, look at Jesus Christ.' But he doesn't stop there.Not only is He the Son of His love, he goes on to say in verse 14 that Christ is the Redeemer, "In Him we have redemption." He's the Redeemer. He's the one who brings us out from under the domain of darkness. Can't you hear this false teachers saying, 'O.K., you have Christ, but if you want to be freed from the dominion of darkness, and of demonic powers, then you need to have these extra things.' And the Apostle Paul says, 'He's the Redeemer. He's the one in whom we have redemption.'

And then he goes on in verse 15 to say that Christ is the very image of God. He's the image of the invisible God. He's the manifestation in the flesh. He's God in the flesh. You want to see God, look at Christ. Christ is God incarnate. He is divine. He is in the flesh. He is the image of the invisible God. He's also, Paul says, "the first-born of all creation," in verse 15. He is the one who has primacy. All of creation is under Him, because He is the first-born. In other words, He's the Inheritor, He's the one who is of priority, of primacy. But also, creation is for Him. Paul tells you that later on in verse 16, that it's been created by Him, but it's also been created for Him. He's the goal. He's the purpose of that creation. This is the Christ that we love and serve.

In verses 15 through 17, he goes on to explain that because He is the first-born of creation, He's the Lord of creation. Because He is prime, because He is supreme over creation, He is also the Lord of creation. His supremacy over creation is discussed in verses 15 through 17. And then Paul doesn't stop there, he goes on to say, and by the way, He's supreme in the Church as well. He's not only the Lord of creation, He's the Lord of the Church. He is the head over His body, the Church. He goes on to say in verse 19, "that in Him the fullness dwells." Apparently some of these teachers were saying, 'O.K., you have Christ that's fine, but if you want the fullness you have to follow this. You have to this. You have to believe this. And Paul comes back and he says, 'He is the fullness. The fullness is in Him. You don't need to look elsewhere to find the fullness. You want full gospel? You want full Christianity? You want the whole thing? It's in Him. You don't look somewhere else other than Him. You start with Him. You continue with Him. You end with Him. All the fullness is in Him. You want to participate in the fullness? You don't look elsewhere from Him, because it's the Father's pleasure for the fullness to dwell in Him.'

And then finally, we saw that Paul says that 'He is the Reconciler' in verse 20. Christ is the One who has reconciled us to God. He is the agent of reconciliation which the Father has appointed. We were alienated from the Father, and the Son is the one who has reconciled us. So again, you can hear these teachers saying to these people, 'Well, this is good, but if you want to be reconciled to God in the midst of all those heavenly powers up there, then you need these extra teachings.' And here Paul is saying, 'Look, He has reconciled. That's his job. All of these things are in Christ.' What's Paul doing that for? Because Paul wants to drive home one grand point that he never wants us to forget: Christ is the sole and sufficient Savior of His people. He is the only and he is the effective Savior of His people. He is the sole and sufficient Savior of His people.

And in the passage before us today, verses 21 through 23, he's going to drive that truth home again and apply it in four different ways. And I'd like to point to some of those things to you briefly this morning. Notice four great truths that Paul is going to drive home to stress that Christ is a sole and sufficient Savior. He is the sole and sufficient Savior of His people.

I. All people, apart from Christ, are out of fellowship with God, hostile to Him, and unable to please Him

In verse 21, we learn that all people apart from Christ are out of fellowship with God. In verse 22, secondly, we learn that all people in Christ are fully reconciled to God. In the second half of verse 22, we learn that God purposes to perfect all His people. And the fourth great truth we learn is that Christians are to strive towards the hope of the gospel. We learned that in verse 23. Let's look at these verses together this morning and see these four great truths set forth. Notice what Paul is doing. In verse 21, he tells us what we were apart from Christ. In verse 22, in the first half of the verse, he tells you where you now stand in Christ. What is Your standing in Christ? Are you lacking something? In the second half of verse 22, he goes on to tell you what God plans to make of you in Christ. And in verse 23, he tells you what your responsibility is in sanctification, in light of these glorious things that God has done and promised, and in light of the sole and sufficient Savior, Jesus Christ.

Let's look at these words today. First let me draw Your attention to verse 21 where we read:"And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds." There in verse 21, the Apostle Paul tells you the state of people who are not believing and trusting in Christ. It says, you want to know what you're like if you're not believing and trusting in Christ? This is what you're like. Paul says, 'all people apart from Christ, are out of fellowship with God. They are hostile to God, and they are unable to please God.' Paul says all three of those things to these folks in Colossae. Now you may quickly say, 'Oh yeah, but these people were Gentiles. They had never heard the Jewish law.' And Paul is not just saying, 'Boy you Gentiles in Colossae really live wicked lives, and now since you have become Christians, you are doing better.' Paul is saying much more than that. It is true that he is pointing out what they were, because he wants to show them just how sufficient Christ has been as a Savior, because He's brought about a change in their life, but when Paul says to this congregation that before they were in Christ, they were alienated from God, that they were hostile to God, that they are engaged in works of wickedness; that can be said of every human being who does not trust in Christ. Now that's a radical statement, but it's Paul's statement. Apart from Christ, we are out of fellowship with God. We are hostile to Him. We are unable to please Him.

Let's unpack those three things that he says. What does it mean to be out of fellowship with God? What does it mean to be alienated, to be estranged? Those are the words that Paul uses. It means to not be in a living relationship of blessing with the only Being in the universe who is able to bring blessing. If we are alienated from God, we are apart from hope of being blessed. If we are not in relationship to Jesus Christ, we will not receive blessing from God. My friends, that contradicts so much teaching today in religious circles, which say, 'Oh, God is going to bless everyone. God is going to give everyone salvation. God is going to pour blessings out on everyone.' We have this view of God as a grandfatherly figure in the sky, distributing gifts to everyone without distinction, and here is Paul saying, 'Oh no, apart from Christ there are no ultimate blessings.' Why? Because we are alienated from God. We are His enemies.

But Paul doesn't stop there. He goes on in that second word to say that we are hostile in mind to Him.What's Paul saying by that? He means, look, you're self centered. Apart from Christ you are turned in on yourself. You are turned in upon yourself. You are self centered. You are self preoccupied. Your prime concern in all of reality is you advancing your agendas, your desires, your goals, because you've turned your back on God. And a person in a state of self-centeredness is incapable of submitting to the rule of God in their lives. We're incapable of having God's outlook on life. His outlook is, he says, 'I am first. I am first in everything.' You are to love Your neighbor. You are not to be so caught up in yourself that you fail to love your neighbor. And you are to give of yourself to your neighbor. You're not to be turned in on yourself, constantly self preoccupied, so that you are not loving Me and you are not loving your neighbor. The Apostle Paul says that until we are in Christ, we are hostile in mind. We are resistant to that type of thinking. We're resistant to God.

And you may think to yourself today, if you're not in Christ, 'But I'm not hostile to God. I don't hate God. I'm not at enmity with Him. I may be a little apathetic. I mean, what's O.K. for you, preacher, is fine, but I don't have to accept it myself.' The Apostle Paul says that if that's your posture, you're hostile to God, because He won't accept indifference. He wants the knee to be bowed. He wants you to understand that He is Lord. He wants you to acknowledge that, and not only with your lip, but in your experience.

The Apostle Paul says, 'we are estranged, we are hostile in mind,' and he goes on to say that in light of that, 'we do wicked works.' Now this is another hard thing, because we look around at people who don't profess faith in Christ, and we see them do things that seem very good. But the Apostle Paul characterizes all the actions of those who do not believe in Christ as wicked works. Why, because the things they are doing in and of themselves are bad? Not necessarily. But apart from Christ, you cannot do things for the right motives, for the right reasons,for the right goal, and with a right interest in serving your neighbor, and serving God. We are intrinsically self centered. We are naturally disobedient to the law of God, and the Apostle Paul says, this is the state of a person apart from Christ. Alienated from God Hostile to Him in their minds, and actually doing wicked works.

It is so vital that we recognize that my friends. Human beings are not standing in a neutral relationship to God. There are only two relationships in which human beings stand to God:Either alienated from Him or reconciled to Him. Those are the only two relationships that we stand. We do not say that as Christians to congratulate ourselves and to say to those who are not Christians, 'Oh look at you.You haven't arrived, I have.' We say that because we love nonChristians and we want them to have the fullness of the blessings of God. When I stand up and say, "If you're apart from Christ, you are not in a relationship of blessing with God," I'm not bragging, because I would be in a relationship of curse had God not saved me from the pit. I am saying to you, my dear friend, come to Christ because you will not taste the blessing of God apart from him. That's what Paul is saying to these Colossians. There is no blessing outside of Christ. There's only blessing inside of Christ. He is the sole Savior. Remember that, Paul is saying. Remember what you were. You have seen your lives change. That is evidence that He is the sole and the sufficient Savior. And that's the first great truth that Paul teaches.

II. All people, in Christ, are fully reconciled to God

What's the second thing that he drives home? We see it in verse 22. All people, Paul stresses, all people in Christ are fully reconciled to God. Not partially reconciled. Not mostly reconciled. But fully reconciled to God. If you are in Christ, you have been, past tense, reconciled to God. Paul says, note the words, "He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death." His death. What's Paul pointing to? Paul is saying that the cost of God reconciling you was born by Christ. He bore the cost of your being brought out of alienation and into the family of God. An awful cost. And He is pointing out that this blood reconciliation, at the cost of the price of the death of the Son of God's love, provided full reconciliation. Notice how he says it, "you have been reconciled." He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death.

What's Paul's point? Christ has completely reconciled you and nothing need to be added to that for you to stand right before God. What stands you before God? What makes you right before God? Christ, Him crucified, and your having appropriated the benefits of Christ by faith, that stands you before God reconciled. The hymn writer put it this way:"In heaven," he said, "we will be more happy, but not more secure." More happy, but not more secure. You see what he's saying? When you are reconciled to God as you have embraced Christ by faith in your present experience, because God has reached out to you in love and grace and drawn you to Himself. He has finished His hostility with you and He has finished your alienation from Him. You are now in fellowship with Him, saving fellowship, and you cannot be more reconciled than you are now. You may be one day more holy than you are now. You may one day be more happy than you are now. But you will never be more reconciled than you are now. In glory, we will be perfect. In glory we will be without tears, but we are no more secure in glory than we are now, because of the perfection of the reconciling work of Jesus Christ. Look what Paul is saying:'Colossians, somebody telling you that you need Christ plus something else? You're reconciled in him. What are you looking someplaceelse for? He has reconciled you. He's put an end to enmity between you and God. You don't need to look anyplace else.'

III. God purposes to perfect all His people

Thirdly, notice what he says in the second half of that verse. God purposes to perfect all His people.This is another great point we learn. You see, Paul says it's not just that Christ has reconciled us and saved us from the punishment that we deserve, it's that God is working His plan in us to make us perfect. If you hear those false teachers saying, 'Oh this Christianity stuff that you learned so far, this gospel stuff you learned so far, it's good, but we've got some stuff that will really make your life sweet.' The Apostle Paul is saying, 'God's plan for you is for you to be perfect.You need nothing that you don't find in Christ.' Got a better alternative than that? The Apostle Paul says 'in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach,' that's why God has reconciled us, to present us to Himself, holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

Let's unpack those three words. What does Paul mean when he says, 'I am telling you that God is going to present you before Himself holy?' He means cleansed from sin. He means separated from the world to God for His service. You are wholly His. You are holy, cleansed from sin. What does he mean, when he says you're 'blameless' or 'faultless'? He means you are without any blemish whatsoever. No imperfection remains. What does he mean when he says you're blameless or beyond reproach? He means that there is absolutely nothing that anybody could find in your character which was less than perfection. Now the Apostle Paul says, that's what you get when you're reconciled with God through Christ, because that is what God is working towards. One day He will present you to Himself, holy, blameless, and irreproachable. Top that. He stresses that God is doing this. Why? Because God wants to present us to Himself.

What is that pointing to? It's pointing out the fact that God's ultimate purpose for us is fellowship with Him. We see it in The Shorter Catechism. We say that, "Man's chief end is to glorify and enjoy God." We are made for eternal fellowship and relationship with the living God. But God is holy and He cannot fellowship with sin and darkness. So our holiness is not a little addendum, a little afterthought that He tacks on to the end of our salvation. Our holiness, this holiness that He is working in us, is because He wants to fellowship with us eternally, and one day he is going to present us before Himself spotless and we will inaugurate at that point an eternity of fellowship. A time, if I may speak in that term, a time that will not end. That's what it is created for. The Apostle Paul says, 'and you're looking somewhere, you're looking at Christ plus something else? This is what God has planned for you in Christ and you're thinking about looking at Christ plus something else?'

IV.Consequently, Christians must strive toward the hope of the gospel and rely on Christ.

Fourthly he says this, 'what's your response going to be?' How do we respond to that understanding that Christ is our sole and sufficient Savior? He says this, 'Christians must strive towards the hope of the gospel and rely on Christ.' Look at his words in verse 23, "if indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel." Paul is saying, 'we as Christians must strive toward the hope of the gospel. We don't turn away to another hope. We stay with the hope that the gospel is set before us. That hope that one day we will stand before Him faultless with exceeding glory and great joy. That's our hope. We stay with that hope. We don't find some other hope outside of Christ. We don't find some ritual outside of Christ. We don't find some teaching outside of Christ, something outside of Christ at all, we stay with that hope and we rely on Christ.'

How does Paul mean that we continue in the faith? Look again at the three words that he uses. How do we continue in the faith? Firmly established, steadfast and not moved away from the gospel. What does he mean by that? What does Paul mean by that, 'we are to be firmly established as we continue in the faith?' He means that you should be stable. What does he mean by being stable? He means that you should be established or well founded in the truth. Stay with the word of the gospel. Don't let someone else say, 'I've got something in addition to the gospel. I've got something in addition to the word of God that will take you deeper in the knowledge of God.' There are commercials put on by a particular group today, which advertise for you another testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hear the word of the Apostle Paul,'stay with the gospel. Reject those who say Christ plus something else.'

He goes on to say, 'we are to be steadfast.' What does he mean by steadfast? Is he just repeating himself? Stable. Steadfast. Established. Steadfast. No. Steadfast is to remain loyal to the truth which you first heard. He said stay with that truth. Be loyal to that truth. Don't waiver from that truth.

And finally, do not be moved. Don't shift. Don't be dissuaded from the hope that I've set before you. Paul piles up three reasons why they shouldn't be dissuaded from the hope that they have had presented to them. First of all, because they have already heard of it. Second of all, because the whole world is being preached this hope and many are coming to this hope. Thirdly, because he himself is a minister of that hope. He says for all those reasons, don't you give up on that hope. Don't let someone come in with a message which tickles your ear and lead you away from that hope. Stay with the hope.

What does it all mean for us? We too have this temptation, my friends. There are people who still peddle the teaching, that it's Christ plus something else.'Oh, it's O.K. for you to be a Christian, but if you really want to live the fullness of the experience of the Christian life, you need to have the second blessing, or you need to have this definitive experience of the Holy Spirit which allows you to do miraculous things that you have never been able to do before, and that will really take you in the depths of Christian experience. The Apostle Paul is saying, 'if you have Christ, you have all the blessings that go with Christ. So do not look for Christ plus something else. Don't change the focus of Your original hope. Don't add to Christ, because to supplement Christ is to supplant Christ. To add to Christ is to take away from His sufficiency. To suggest that there is something outside of Christ that we need is to mock His glorious, all sufficiency and the very provision of the Father who loves us.'

For those who are looking for assurance this day as they come, Paul is reminding them, don't look somewhere else for reassurance. Don't even look at your own good works. Look to Christ for your assurance. Your good works provide a beautiful evidence or mark of your being in Christ, but ultimately Christ is the ground of your assurance. He is solely sufficient. Rest in Him. That's why Calvin calls Him "the mirror of God's election." Look into the face of Christ. Rest on Him for your assurance of salvation. And if you come apart from Christ this day, Paul is most assuredly saying to you that all the blessings that you could ever desire are found in Christ.

But if you are apart from Him, if you do not love Him, if you have not had faith in Him, if you are not walking in relationship with Him, you are not a party to the blessings which He will bring to all His people. Now what do you do about that? You flee to Christ. You cast your cares, your burdens on Him. You rest or you trust in Him to save you from your sin which will assuredly condemn you, and to give you the blessings of which you are now bereft. And I promise you, on the authority of the Christ who is solely sufficient, that He will not cast you out. Come to him. Let's pray.

Lord the word is much bigger than we are. It's so much more glorious than we can take in. We can't do justice to it when we speak. We grasp at it, like trying to catch light. It's meant for our edification, its meant for Your glory. Glorify Yourself in Your word and in our hearts, and we give You all the praise and all the glory, for we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

Colossians 1:24-28

The Incomparable Christ - Part 7

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians, chapter one, and verse 24.We have been noting the past several weeks how the Apostle Paul has been setting forth the truth of the sufficiency of Christ; that there is no one and there is nothing outside of Christ that you need in order to have the hope of glory.Paul has been doing this in various ways.In verses thirteen to twenty, we saw him list all sorts of descriptions of who Christ is and, by those descriptions, attempt to convince the Colossians - and of course by extension you and me - that we, in view of what a great Savior we have, ought not to look anywhere else other than Him for the fullness of our redemption.

Last week we noted in verses 21 through 23 that Paul taught us what we were apart from Christ, and what we are in Christ.Apart from Him we are estranged from God; we are enemies of God.In Christ, however, we are reconciled to God, and he went on to teach us what God is making us in Christ.He is making us holy, and blameless and beyond reproach, and finally, he talked about our responsibility to persevere to the end, to continue to walk in the faith which we first received.This week, Paul begins this section by talking about himself, and that may seem a little strange when we have seen the focus being on Christ.You'll understand when we read the passage.Let's attend to the word of the living God -

(Colossians 1:24-28)

Our Father, this is Your word intended to edify Your people.We are convinced it is a deep word, a profound word, and yet it is a word intended for men and women and boys and girls to be built up in the faith.We pray that by Your Spirit You would edify and instruct us through this word, that You would correct us and challenge us through this word, that You would encourage and strengthen us through this word, and we will give You all the praise and all the glory, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Apostle Paul has been speaking to the Colossians about the sufficiency of Christ.He's been speaking to us about the sufficiency of Christ and he sets forth Christ in all His glory, and then suddenly he stops to tell the Colossians something about himself, and something about his ministry.But he doesn't do that to take our eyes off of Christ.He does it to help us understand about the completeness of the message they had first heard when the gospel was preached in their midst.Paul wants to tell these Colossians something about his ministry so that they will be confident that the message that they heard is not only part of the truth, but it is the fullness of the truth; that Paul has not secretly kept something back from them that they needed in order to grow in their spiritual lives.And so I would like to point to three great truths - three great principles among many - which Paul sets down in this passage before us.

I. By virtue of our Union with Christ, we share in His sufferings

The first one is this:By virtue of our union with Christ, we share in Christ's sufferings.By virtue of our union with Christ, we share in His sufferings.Paul teaches this truth in verses 24 and 25 and, in particular, you see it in that tantalizing phrase, "filling up that which is lacking in Christ's afflictions."What in the world is Paul talking about, "filling up that which is lacking in Christ's sufferings"?In Christ's afflictions?What is he saying?Paul is asserting in that phrase that he is suffering for the sake of the Colossians and, by extension, for all believers and that he is supplementing Christ's sufferings.But still, what does he mean, "supplementing Christ's sufferings"?What does he mean, "filling up that which is lacking in Christ's afflictions?"

Well, very briefly, let's look at that phrase and break it apart.Let's look at the phrase lacking . What is lacking in Christ's afflictions?What does Paul mean when he says that?Well, first of all, he does not mean that Christ's sacrifice was insufficient.He does not mean that Christ's atoning suffering needs to be augmented, needs to be supplemented, and needs to be added to.He doesn't mean that at all.How do I know that he doesn't mean that?Because he spends the first 23 verses of the chapter trying to convince you that Christ's sacrifice is totally sufficient.He didn't forget what he's been saying.The Apostle Paul didn't say one thing for 23 verses and then it just slips his mind when he gets to verse 24.The Apostle Paul is not saying that Christ's sacrifice is insufficient somehow.

Well, then what is he saying?What does he mean when he says that he is "filling up that which is lacking in Christ's afflictions"?Paul means that the sufferings endured by the body of Christ while Christ is at the right hand of God are not done yet, and therefore all believers participate in those sufferings.Jesus was God in the flesh.He had a human body like ours and He suffered on our behalf in His earthly ministry.Christ, our Lord is now at the right hand of power.His human body - physically speaking - is no longer undergoing the curse of sin.His sacrifice is totally sufficient.But we - His body - are still here, in this world where there is affliction and where there is persecution and we as His body still suffer.And so the Apostle Paul says, when he speaks of what is lacking in Christ's affliction, he is speaking of the sufferings which we endure as the body of Christ while our head, the Lord Jesus Christ, is at the right hand of God.Those sufferings do not add to the treasury of merit.Those sufferings do not bring about atonement for our sins.But, those sufferings are always part of the consequences of sin which Christ will not take away until the day of the final judgement.And the Apostle Paul says, "I'm participating in those sufferings."

Second part of the phrase - what does Paul mean when he says that he is filling up that which is lacking in Christ's sufferings?He's not saying that Christ's sufferings are insufficient and he's having to make up for it. So what is he saying?Well, I'd like you to turn to Acts, chapter 9, because if you'll look at three verses there, I think that you will understand what Paul means.You remember that before Paul was Paul, he was a Pharisee named Saul.He was a Pharisee who hated Christians, who looked down on Gentiles and who even despised Jews who were not zealous for their faith.He was a Pharisee of Pharisees, and Luke tells us in Acts chapter 9, verse 1, that even after the death of Stephen, the martyr, Paul was still breathing out threatenings and murder against the Church of Christ, against the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.Now if you will glance down a few verses, in verse 4, you will remember that one day this Saul, the Pharisee, was on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus to persecute some more Christians, and the Lord Jesus Christ met him on the way, and when Christ met him, Christ said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?"Notice that Jesus did not say, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting My disciples?"He said, "Saul, why are you persecuting Me?"Now Jesus is not simply saying that because He takes this personally.Jesus is saying this to Saul because when you touch Christ's body, you touch Christ.When you lay your hands over against the people of Christ - His body - you strike at Christ Himself.And so the Apostle Paul, or before when he was Saul, is said to by Christ, "Why are you persecuting Me?As you persecute these, My disciples, you are persecuting Me."You're touching My body. You're attacking My body. You're causing My body to undergo affliction and suffering.

Now, notice again what he said down in verses 15 and 16 of that chapter.You remember a very faithful Christian is told to go find Paul and bring him into his house.Go find Saul and bring him into his house.And that Christian says, 'Now Lord, we've heard reports about Saul.We understand that this man persecutes believers. Are You sure that You want me to bring this man into my house?He will know where I live, and if he knows where I live, perhaps he'll take me and torture me and find out where other Christians live, and take them and torture them.' But the Lord says to this man, in verses 15 and 16, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and sons of Israel, for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake."Paul, when he became Paul, never forgot that encounter.He knew that, though he had been an instrument of persecution of the Christians, that God had made him an instrument of blessings for believers and had appointed him to suffer on behalf of Christ and His disciples.And Paul is telling the Colossians, 'Look, I have been appointed to suffer for you. I have been appointed to be your apostle.Why would I possibly not tell you some part of the truth that you need to know in order to grow in Christ?I have been appointed to suffer on your behalf.Surely if I'm going to suffer on your behalf, I'm going to tell you the whole of the truth.'Where was Paul writing from when he wrote these words?He was in prison.Paul is saying to them, 'I am suffering on your behalf.I am not atoning for you.Christ has already done that.You're already reconciled.But I am participating in the suffering of the body of Christ.'And Paul doesn't just mean that for himself.Paul intends us to understand that we participate in the suffering of Christ.In Philippians, chapter one, verses 29 and 30, Paul tells us this, "For to you it has been granted, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict that you saw in me and now hear in me." The Apostle Paul is reiterating that because we are united to Christ, because we are His body and He is our head, we join with Him in the fellowship of His sufferings.We participate in the sufferings of Christ.We do not atone by those sufferings, but we share with him in the fellowship of his suffering and our suffering.

Now, there are several things we need to learn from this my friends, and the first one is this: no suffering, no affliction endured by a Christian is meaningless.You remember that from under the alter, the martyrs in the Book of Revelation, chapter 7, cry out to the lord, "How long?" And their death and their affliction is considered precious in His sight.We must never forget that our affliction, our suffering, is precious in the sight of the Lord because our affliction - as those who believe in Christ - is now part of the fellowship of His suffering.Furthermore, we must take care to minister to those who are afflicted and especially those who are persecuted for the sake of Christ.Why?Because when we see a brother or sister in Christ persecuted for the sake of the gospel, under the hand of affliction, we are seeing with our own eyes the sufferings of the body of Christ and we cannot be apathetic about that.We cannot be indifferent about that.We cannot but be concerned to minister to one who is participating in the affliction of Christ.

And another thing that we learn in this passage is that we must prepare to suffer ourselves.Christ warned His disciples that if they treat the Master that way, will they not also treat the disciples likewise?He told His disciples to prepare for suffering.Paul has told us to prepare for suffering.We must expect affliction in our Christian experience.Christ has told us that we will experience it.We must not be surprised.Are we prepared to suffer?One of my jobs as a minister appointed in this church is to prepare you to suffer for Christ.That is an awesome thing because we have lived in a day when it has not cost us much to be Christians.So my friends, I say it solemnly: I expect there to be a day when people in this congregation today will be called in this land to suffer for Christ in ways that we have not had to suffer before.I pledge to you that I want to help prepare you for that day so that you will give a good account of yourself in the day of the Lord.We must seriously prepare to take our stand to witness for Christ and to suffer for His sake if He calls us, because we are united to Him and therefore we share in His sufferings.

II. The gospel plan is an open secret, a revealed truth: made known by God

Notice in verse 26 and 27, a second great truth.The second great truth we find there is the gospel plan is an open secret.It's a revealed truth. It's something that has been made known by God.Paul speaks of the mystery, the mystery that has been hidden from the past ages and generations, a mystery which has been made known among the Gentiles.Paul is contrasting two ideas of mystery.Paul knew that there were some of these new teachers who were at Colosse who were teaching the Colossians that they had a mystery, a secret, a secret knowledge, a secret code that they needed to know if they were going to walk faithfully and grow and have a deeper knowledge of God.The Apostle Paul says, 'Well I have a mystery, too, but its not a secret code.It's not something that only a few people know about.'Paul is saying, 'this mystery is not mysterious in the sense that only a few of the initiated can understand it.'Paul is saying that, 'this mystery is an open secret.'For Paul, you see, a mystery is not a secret code.It is something that we couldn't have known unless God revealed it.In fact, he gives us a definition of it here in this passage.He says it's something that has been hidden in past ages but which has now been revealed, a mystery is that was once concealed but has now been revealed, and the Apostle Paul says, 'I have been given a stewardship to preach that mystery, that open secret, that revealed truth, to the Gentiles.It's not a secret code, or a secret teaching.It's a proclaimed truth that would not have been known unless God had willed to reveal it.'

And the Apostle Paul says in verse 28 that the goal of his preaching of that mystery is that you and I would be complete in Christ.Again, he's saying to the Colossians, 'If my job is to preach that mystery and my goal is to make sure you are complete in Christ, why would I have held something back that you needed to know in order to be complete in Christ?'That makes no sense.

My friends, today there are many who tempt us to go elsewhere than the word of God to find the true mystery of spiritual life.When we are tempted so, we must respond in remembrance of Paul's word.He has given us everything that we need to be fed and to built up and to be complete in Christ in His word and by the ministry of His Spirit.We don't need to look at some addition.The Apostle Paul reminds us that we are complete in Christ and He has given us the fullness of the gospel we need in order to walk in Christ.

Let me also remind you in passing that its a very special thing that the Apostle Paul was appointed to preach this word.Paul, the Jew, the one who hated Gentiles, who hated Christians, who hated those Jews who were not committed to their faith, he is the one who was appointed to be the apostle to the Gentiles.Think of the consequences, my friends, humanly speaking, if it weren't for God's having appointed the Apostle Paul to be the preacher of the gospel to the Gentiles.Paul's the one, the Jew, the hater of Christians who was appointed to bring us to Christ.It's an enormous blessing to me to think that this man, who would not have wanted to have fellowship with me, this man who would not, in fact, have had fellowship with me, as a Christian or as a Gentile because of his pharisaical belief, he is the one who was appointed to bring me to Christ through the preaching of the gospel.It's a blessed thing, isn't it?God works in such ironic ways that Paul, the Jew of Jews becomes the preacher of grace to the Gentiles.It's something that ought to cause us to praise God.

III. Our hope is in our union with Christ

A third and final thing as we close - I would point to in verse 27: Paul tells us there what the content of that mystery is.He's been given this mystery to preach, this open secret, the thing that God has revealed.What is it?That mystery teaches us that our hope is in union with Christ.Look at Paul's phrase:"Christ in you, the hope of glory."Paul is saying, 'the revealed secret that I have been given a commission to preach, is that Christ in you, my Gentile friends, is the hope of glory.'Christ for you, my Gentile friends, is the hope of glory.You who are apart from the promises, apart from the covenant, have no part of the preaching of the prophets or the hearing of the law of Moses.Christ in you is the hope of glory.Christ has been revealed to you.

This is the message that the Apostle Paul has for us.Union with Christ is the only hope of glory.There is no other place where we can go to find our fruition, our satisfaction.People make two mistakes.They either seek the wrong hope or they seek the right hope in the wrong way.The only right hope is the hope of glory which is in Christ.The only way to that hope is through Christ.The Apostle Paul says here, "Christ in you is the hope of glory."The Holy Spirit uniting you to Christ is your hope.Roland Hill once said, "Unless you live in Christ, you are dead to die."Those who come this day who do not know Christ, who have never trusted in Him, who have not repented, who do not walk with Him, who do not love Him, you are dead to die.There is no hope for you.The hopes that you have are vain, they are empty.They are meaningless; they'll never be fulfilled.The apostle makes it clear that we must seek the right hope in the right way.Christ is the hope and Christ is the way.

How do you know that you have truly found that hope?How do you know that you are truly united with Him?He has implanted His love in your heart.That love overflows and you begin to love Him.You begin to love Him more than the world, and that's why Thomas Adams once said, "Let us use the world, but let us enjoy the Lord."Christians find their enjoyment, their satisfaction, in Him and the more a person is satisfied with Christ, the more he will find his satisfaction in satisfying Him.If you find your satisfaction in Him, it is a mark, it is a sign, it is evidence that the Spirit has united you to Christ.He has brought all Christ's benefits to bear for you.If you have never trusted in Him, the only hope you have, Paul says, is 'Christ in you.'The only hope you have is to cast yourself upon the Lord, to go to Him, to rest in Him, to receive Him as the only way of salvation, to accept Him as God's plan for redeeming you from sin, and to trust in Him and to walk with Him.As we do this, we find that Christ has worked faith and repentance in us because we have been united to Him and our faith and our repentance is only a reflection of the fact that we have been united with Him.

This day, as we come to the table, I would remind all of you, Christians and non-Christians, that this table is about being united with Christ.It is about His worthiness, about the all sufficiency of His sacrifice.For those who are in Christ who feel a lack, this table is for you.For those outside of Christ this table says, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." If you are a sinner and you sense your need, this table reminds you that that need is filled to the overflowing only in Christ.Let us look to Him in prayer:

Our Father, bless us now as we come to Your table and bless Your word and sacrament to our spiritual nourishment.For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Colossians 1:29 to 2:5

The Incomparable Christ - Part 8

Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Colossians, as we continue our study in this great letter of the Apostle Paul. We looked at verses 24 through 28 last week. As we move into chapter 2, we'll begin again with verse 24 for the sake of getting the context. Hear the word of the living God.

(Colossians 1:29 - 2:5)

O Father, we thank You for Your word. And we pray that You would use it for our spiritual nourishment and your glory. Each of us comes in our own condition today; some discouraged, needing encouragement, others apathetic, disillusioned, needing correction and strengthening. Work by Your word and by Your Spirit in our hearts. We know that this sword of the spirit pierces even to the joint and to the marrow. It finds those places out in our hearts which even our closest friends cannot penetrate. Open us up before that word and make Your word, O God, an instrument of the grace of salvation. And we'll give You all the praise and all the glory. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

The Apostle Paul has spent a chapter arguing that believers are complete in Christ. He will continue that theme in chapter 2. In chapter 2, he will begin to respond to specific challenges to that truth that believers are complete in Christ; that Christ is the all-sufficient Savior. Before we look at that, and before we look at the context in which Paul gives this message, may I ask you a question, though?Are you firm in your commitment to the truth that believers are complete in Christ?Are you firmly convinced that Jesus has paid it all?Are you firmly convinced that forgiveness is found in Him and we need look no place else to find forgiveness? Are you firmly convinced that all the spiritual strength and power which you need for the living of the Christian life can be found in Christ and we don't need to go somewhere else in addition to Christ to find that power? Are you convinced of that?Perhaps someone has come to you suggesting that in addition to these scriptures, there are other scriptures that will help you in your walk with God. They come to you with a lie from the pit of hell when they come to you with that word, because the all-sufficient Christ has said, 'this is My word and it is sufficient for your edification. Look to no place else.' "If they say to look someplace else other than to the law and to the testimony, the truth is not in them," Isaiah once said. Do you know that these Scriptures are sufficient for your edification, for your strengthening, for guiding you in the way of faith?They are Christ's word to you.

Perhaps some one has come to you and said, "Well it's good that you are a Christian but you need a second definitive experience which I can minister to you." "Perhaps this experience will involve extraordinary revelation. Perhaps it will involve you receiving for the first time the Holy Spirit," they say. Do you realize that that is a challenge to the sufficiency of Christ? Christ dispenses the Spirit from the throne of grace, and all those who are in Christ are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, filled by the Holy Spirit. There is no human being who can minister the Holy Spirit to another person. Christ ministers the Holy Spirit to His people. Christ fills, and goes on filling, His people with the Holy Spirit. To be in Christ is to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. It is not Christ plus the Spirit. The Spirit comes with Christ. He is even called the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord, because if you are in Christ, you have all the blessings of the Spirit with Him. It is not Christ plus, it is the all-sufficiency as found in Christ, including the power and strength that we need from the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps someone has come to you and said, "There is some ritual, there's something that you must do. It's not found really in the word of God, but this particular church has declared this to be necessary for you to grow in grace." That is the sound of the evil one whispering in your ear. We are complete in Christ. He has not left out something that we need in order to be presented before Him faultless with exceeding glory, and great joy. He has provided everything that we need. And when the whisperer comes and says you need Christ plus anything, you may be sure that it is the voice of a false prophet. We are complete in Christ. Paul will begin to expand on that.

I. Paul's life and purpose.

I want to look particularly with you at verse 2 today, but before we get to verse 2, I want to make a few passing remarks about the Apostle Paul, who says these words in Colossians chapter 2, verses 1 through 5. Notice verses 28 and 29, where the Apostle Paul shares with you the purpose of his ministry. He says that his goal, his aim, his objective, his purpose is to present every man complete in Christ. He goes on to say that he aims that our hearts might be strengthened. Paul is concerned to present every man complete in Christ. That's the goal of his preaching. Is that what we desire for one another?Is that what we strive for for one another. That was Paul's aim. Is it ours?That was Paul's desire that we be complete in Christ. By implication, Paul is saying, 'If that's my goal, why would I leave something out that you need?Why would I not tell you something that you need to be complete in Christ, if that's my goal?' He's sharing his heart with you. Is that our heart for one another?

Notice also, in addition to Paul's purpose, look at Paul's striving. We see that also in verse 29 of chapter 1 and verse 1 of chapter 2, where the Apostle Paul says, 'I strive for this goal.' Look at his words. "I labor striving according to His power." The Apostle Paul toils, he struggles, for this aim. He knows God is sovereign. He knows that God will reclaim His own. He knows that God will draw men to Christ, but the Apostle Paul still strives to present all God's people complete in Christ. Why? Because the Apostle knows that he is an instrument of the living God, and he is a vehicle by which men and women will be drawn to Christ. He longs to be fruitful in that labor and so he strives for it.

We talk a lot about closed doors today; the Lord closed this door, the Lord closed that door. We get the idea, reading this man's epistles, especially Romans chapter 1, that when this man came to a closed door, he tried to kick it down three or four times before he decided that the Lord had closed that door. He strove to see men and women presented to God complete in Christ. Is that our attitude?

A third thing, however, to see is not only Paul's purpose, and Paul's striving, but Paul's strength. Paul was not doing this striving in his own strength. This is not a driven man that you're seeing. This is a man upheld and undergirded by the strength which is found in Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Notice verse 1 of chapter 2, "I strive according to His power, which mightily works within me." Why is it that the Apostle Paul didn't burn out with all the striving? Because the Apostle Paul was not dependent on inner resources that came from his humanity. The Apostle Paul was consciously dependent on God. He was doing what God wanted him to do, and he was doing it knowing that only God could give the success. Paul couldn't guarantee the success to what he did. He was reliant upon God. He was dependent upon God. He rested in God's strength. He strove by grace. He did the work God gave him. What causes us to burn out in our professions? Relying on our own strength and working on things which God has not gifted us to do. When we do what he would have us do, and when we are reliant upon his grace, we mount up on wings as eagles, and we can do great works, hard works, strivings for God, dependent on his grace and strength.

Notice Paul's care. Not only his purpose, his striving, his strength, but look at his care for these Colossians. The Apostle Paul is said by some people to have been a man who was cold, intellectual, arrogant, brash, obnoxious, confrontive. I've never met the Apostle Paul. I couldn't give you a personality breakdown on him. But that's not what the Apostle Paul of his letters sounds like to me.

This Apostle Paul has never even met the people to whom he is writing. And yet he says, 'My friends, my heart is with you. I'm not there in body, but my spirit is with you. I have concern for you. I have not only concern for you Colossians, but I have concern for the people in Laodicea, and all the people in the Lycias Valley, and all the people in the world that I've not presently met but who love Jesus Christ. This Apostle has a pastor's heart. He has concern for his fellow believers. Do we see these characteristics in ourselves? Do we have Paul's purpose? Are we committed to his kind of striving? Are we reliant upon the strength that he relied on? Do we have a care for one another like he had? We could do worse than to emulate this man. But all that in passing. Let's look at verse 2.

II. The Steady Christian has a Strengthened Heart

I want to concentrate on verse 2 with you, just for a few minutes, because there is a wealth of Christian wisdom in it. You see, Paul knows that the stability of our faith is dependent upon a number of things, and he gives us those things in verse 2. He says that the stability of our faith is dependent on spiritual encouragement, spiritual with a capital "S". The stability of our faith is dependent on mutual love, he says. He also says it's dependent upon deep assurance. And, finally, he says it's dependent on real saving knowledge of Christ. And so he prays for us what he prays for us beginning in verse 2. That we would have those four things: spiritual encouragement, mutual love, deep assurance, and true knowledge of Christ. Let's look at those things together briefly.

Notice in verse 2, at the very beginning, he says that he desires, he strives, that their hearts may be encouraged. According to the Apostle Paul, the steady Christian, the stable Christian, the mature Christian is a Christian who has a strengthened heart. The Apostle Paul longs that the hearts of the Colossians and our hearts would be encouraged, literally, strengthened. He knows that the strengthening of our hearts is essential,in this context, to protect the Colossians against the false teachings, the false doctrines, the false philosophies, the false prophets. He wants them to be strengthened in their faith, so that they are not so easily enticed by that false teaching. But I want you to note that Paul specifically says that he wants us to be strengthened in our hearts. When the scriptures use that beautiful word heart, it often is indicating that which is the inner most core of our being, the very essence of ourselves. And the Apostle Paul is saying, I want you to be strengthened, Christians, from the inside out. I don't want this to be a superficial thing. I want this to be a strength which is implanted in the very core of your being. You are standing firm and being built up in Christ from the very center of who you are to the outside. And he prays for that and he proclaims that and he strives for that and he longs for that. The steady Christian has a strengthened heart. One old saint said, "If you want to be disappointed, look at others, and if you want to be disheartened, look at yourself. But if you want to be encouraged, look to Christ." Paul wants these believers to find encouragement in Christ. And he doesn't just leave them with that amorphous desire, he fills that in. He says this is how encouragement happens.

And we see this in the second thing that he says in verse 2. He says to us there, that our hearts are encouraged having been knit together in love. The Apostle Paul desires the strengthening of believers hearts, but he also desires that we would be knit together in love, because the steady Christian is involved in loving fellowship, according to the Apostle Paul. You see, these false teachers were coming and telling these people, 'Oh we have this knowledge, and this knowledge is great and it will really complete you and give you deeper wisdom of God. It will give you deeper power for experience of the power of God.' And the Apostle Paul says, "Let me tell you about the kind of knowledge that I preach. The kind of knowledge I preach produces love, mutual love. Love which is not puffed up. Love which is not arrogant. Love which does not look out for its own, but it looks out for the interest of others. Love which is self-giving. Love which builds true fellowship across the normal lines of human relations, even across family bounds, even across the bounds of friendship, even across the bounds of nationality and race and all the other things that divide us." Because in the Christian community we are characterized by mutual love, our priority, our love for one another, transcends those things which make us different. We love one another, and that is the great mark which our Savior said would characterize His people, "Behold how they love one another." And our Lord Jesus said, 'They will know that you have been with me because you love one another.' Love, you see my friends, is not merely a sentiment. Love is sentiment and action joined. Love is the deliberate, ceaseless, longing for and pursuit of the loved one's welfare. And Christian love is the great mark of Christian life. That is a truth of Scripture, that where love is, where real Christian love is, that is a sure mark of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul, who never down played either faith or hope could say, "The greatest of these is love…and though I have faith to move mountains and have not love, I am nothing." The Apostle Paul knows that this mark of love is at the very core of what true knowledge produces in Christian experience.

That love can be measured, my friends. We can measure that love in our attitudes toward one another. We can measure that love in our prayers for one another. Do we pray for one another? That love can be measured in our practical assistance of one another in time of need. It can be measured in our forbearance, may I say, it may be measured especially in our forbearance with one another. When we are the victims of sin, how do we forebear with our brethren?Our love for them can be seen, in how we respond when it is our hearts that our wounded. And our love can be measured in our concern for one another. In all of these ways, we see whether we really have that type of mutual love and true fellowship which is the mark of real Christian experience. O my friends, it is something for us to strive after that we cultivate that type of mutual love that goes beyond the normal bounds of family. The infidels love their families. The infidels love their small circle of friends, but we Christians love one another across all the boundaries that separate us. Especially in this time do we need an expression of that.

III. The Steady Christian has attained a Settled Conviction

Paul also in verse 2 says, that along with this strengthening of heart by loving fellowship, there is a strengthening of heart by settled conviction, by assurance. Notice what he says. He prays not only that our hearts would be encouraged, having been knit together in love, but that we would attain to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding. He wants us, friends, to be assured. He wants us to have a settled conviction about Christ, a settled commitment to faith. The steady Christian has such a steady settled conviction. Assurance, Paul says, leads to healthy and fruitful Christian experience. That's why he can talk about the wealth of assurance. Assurance of where we stand in Christ enables us to turn aside the enticing words of the world, to turn aside the enticing words of false prophets, to bear up against the buffeting of the world. Settled conviction is what enabled the martyrs to die a death in faithfulness to Jesus Christ. When Polycarp, an 86 year old man, stood before the Roman procounsel, and the man said to him, "Polycarp, I will let you live. I will not put you into the fire, if you will but deny Christ." That 86 year old Christian said, "For eighty and six years I have served Him and He has never denied me yet. How can I deny Him?" That is a man with settled conviction. He knows Christ. He knows that Christ knows him and he is not willing to trade Christ for anything else or to add anything to Christ. He is settled in his commitment and conviction about the hope which is in Christ. That's why Thomas Brooks could say, "assurance is glory in the bud." It is the suburbs of heaven. If we live in this life with a settled conviction of the glory which is ours in Christ, we foretaste what awaits for us in heaven. And that strengthens us for the living of these days.

IV. The Steady Christian has True Knowledge of Christ

And then the Apostle Paul says this at the end of verse 2: A steady Christian also has true knowledge of Christ. Not only that our hearts might be encouraged by being knit together in love, and by attaining this full assurance of understanding, but also resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery. The people that had been speaking to these Colossians, had been peddling to them true knowledge, real knowledge, deep knowledge. The Apostle Paul says, 'I'll give you true knowledge. Christ, the hope of glory, that's the true knowledge that I want you to have. I don't want you to have knowledge filled with esoteric abstract ideas borrowed from human philosophy. I want you to have a saving personal knowledge of and relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, because He is the hope of glory. That is true knowledge, ' the Apostle Paul says. One old Puritan said, "Knowledge in the head is like money in the bank. But knowledge in the heart is like money ready for use." Knowledge in the heart is what Paul desires for us, a saving personal knowledge of Christ. And there are evidences of that saving personal knowledge. We desire Christ when we have that kind of knowledge of Him. We enjoy Christ when we have that kind of knowledge of Him. And we willingly, freely, gratefully, obey Christ when we have that kind of knowledge of Him. These are marks of steady, stable, mature Christian faith. And the Apostle Paul longs for you to be built up in those marks, to have those graces confirmed.

But perhaps there are some who come today and they do not have that knowledge, and they do not have that type of reigning love in their lives. Perhaps they know that selfishness reigns in their experience, that they do not have any inkling of that type of mutual love for brothers and sisters in Christ of which the Apostle Paul speaks. Perhaps they come today and they don't even begin to comprehend, what it is to have true knowledge of Christ. The Apostle Paul is waiting for you. He is saying, 'you can't have this kind of love, you can't have this kind of strengthening, you can't have this kind of assurance, you cannot have this type of knowledge apart from Christ. It's only found in Him. If you would have that knowledge though, come to Christ. Trust in Him, rest in Him.'

If you don't know how to do that, if you don't know how to receive Christ, if you don't know how to trust in Him or rest in Him, you come and see a minister today. You come and see me. You come and see an elder in this church. Don't leave this place until you have come and done business with Christ. And if you will, I promise you that because He is the all-sufficient Christ, you will be strengthened, and you will be able to love with that unearthly supernatural love, which only Christians can have for one another. You will have that assurance. It will come. It may come sooner. It may come later. It may come stronger. It may come weaker, but you will attain that settled conviction of grace and hope that Paul speaks of, and you will have a true knowledge of the Lord and Savior.

And if you're here as a believer today, and you are struggling in these areas, I am praying that this congregation will be built up in these graces in such ways as they will not only be undeniable to the world, but that our active love for one another is transcending anything that we have ever experienced before. Oh how we need that, friends, to stop playing the games of Christian life and to get serious about the God that we love and serve and love for one another. Oh, that the Lord would do a work in our hearts. Begin with me, begin with you. Let's pray.

O Lord, we are Yours. We long for a fuller expression of the graces which are all hidden in Christ. I pray, O God, for those who have come today perhaps without Him. May they leave from this place in His arms. We give you the praise and the glory. For we ask it in His name, Amen.

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 2

Colossians 2:6-7

The Incomparable Christ

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians 2, as we continue our study of Paul's letter. You will remember in our previous study, particularly in chapter 1 that we have emphasized Paul's focus on the person and work of Christ. There are people in Colossae who are teaching the Christians there that what they believe about Christ is fine, but if they really want to grow in the Christian faith, they need to move beyond Christ. They need to supplement Christ. They need to add something to Christ. The Apostle Paul combats that teaching by showing us who Christ is and what He has done and then asking if Christ is who I say He is and if Christ has done what I say He has done, why would you possibly look anywhere else for Him if you truly want to grow in the Christian life.

In fact the theme of the whole book of Colossians is that every believer is complete in Christ, that all the resources that we need to grow in grace are found in Him. And the process of deepening in the Christian life is not starting with Christ and moving on to something else, but it is starting on Christ and remaining in dependence upon Him every step of the way as we are conformed to His image, who is the very image of the invisible God. Let's attend then to the first seven verses of Colossians 2.

Colossians 2:1-7

"Our Lord and our God, we acknowledge this is Your word, Your very word, Your inspired word, Your infallible word, meant for our edification, meant to glorify Christ. Apply it to us, we pray, by Your Spirit. Touch us so that we might be hearers and doers of it. Encourage us. Strengthen us. Challenge us. Correct us through it and help us to come to it obediently, bowing the knee before our Savior as we hear Him speaking to us by His word. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen."

Verses 6 and 7 of Colossians 2 summarize the whole book. In these two verses, the Apostle Paul sets forth principles which he intends to drive home in a variety of ways in each of the chapters of this book. He summarizes for us his concern that Christians remain faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, but also that Christians grow. He was dealing with people who had come into contact with false teachers who said what you first heard was all right, but let us tell you something additional to Christ which will help you grow more deeply in your Christian faith.

The Apostle Paul does not respond to that by saying it is an illegitimate concern to want to grow deeper in the knowledge of God. He does not respond by saying it is illegitimate to want to have a deeper and greater experience of God and of His power in our life. He says the problem with that false teaching is not that it wants to grow deeper in the faith. It's that it does it the wrong way. It ignores the first principles of spirituality which are as we start with Christ, so we live in Christ; He is the alpha and the omega.

So the Apostle Paul says I want you to grow too. In fact, I want you to grow more than those new teachers to grow, but I want you to grow the only way you can grow and that is the right way. So he utters these words, "As you have received Christ the Lord, so walk in Him." He sets before us truths about Christian living, Christian growing, Christian believing, and Christian thanksgiving in these two short verses and I would like to point you to those four great things this morning.

I. An exhortation concerning the Christian life.

Look first at verse 6. There the Apostle Paul gives us an exhortation concerning the Christian life. Notice this phrase: "Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him." The Apostle Paul is reminding us that all Christians live in Christ the Lord. In other words, Paul is summoning us to live a lifestyle worthy of the Lord. You know that the term "walk" that Paul and others us is found by the way in Psalm 1 which we read today. The term "walk" refers to living. It is a metaphor for living life. Paul is saying walk in Christ, as you have received Him as Lord, so live in Him, so walk in Him. He is calling believers to live in a way which is consistent to what they have professed as far as being followers, disciples of Jesus Christ.

Notice the very words that he uses to describe Jesus, to give us instructions about what it means to live in Him or walk in Him. He calls Him, "Christ Jesus the Lord." "Christ" the Messiah, the One who has come to save His people. "Jesus" whose very name reminds us that God the Savior has come to rescue His people from sin. The "Lord" which reminds us that Jesus is not merely a good man, He is not merely an example, and He is not merely a Savior; but He is a Savior because He is Lord, He is God, He is the ruler of His people. "As you have received Christ Jesus as Lord" and that is the basic baptismal vow of the early church – Jesus is Lord. "As you have received Him as Lord, so walk in Him." Live in a way which is consistent with what you first said when you came to Christ.

And Paul in that little phrase gives us two very important principles in pursuing this great imperative. First, in this phrase he reminds us that receiving Christ is not the end but the beginning of spiritual life. Very often we think of coming to the point of committing ourselves to Christ, that is the culmination of the Spirit's work in us. Far from it. It is just the beginning of the Spirit's work in us. Receiving Christ, professing Him, acknowledging Him to be our Savior, does not end our spiritual adventure; it inaugurates a spiritual relationship which will never ever end. And Paul wants us to remember that receiving Christ is not something isolated, it is not something that you just did in the past, and it is something that continues to go on in your experience.

Coupled with that truth, he gives us another truth in that little phrase. And that second truth is that all growth and progress in the Christian life must be consistent with its beginning. If we began the Christian life by professing Christ as Lord, our living of the Christian life must be consistent with that profession. If Christ is the object of our faith, if He is the one who saves us, then surely it is Christ who must be the sphere of our spiritual growth and development. He is the one on whom we must be dependent. He is the one from whom we are to receive the spiritual resources in order to be edified and built up in our relationship with God.

So the Apostle Paul wants us to remember those coordinate truths. Our profession only inaugurated our relationship with God. It is not the end of it. Do you remember, friends, from your youth who when they first began to be interested in spiritual things wanted to quickly make the profession of faith, whether it be in a youth group or in a grand assembly, so that they could get back to the business of living how they wanted to without fear of eternal punishment. That is to misconceive what it means to receive Christ as Lord. It is not the end of our doing business with God, it is the beginning of that relationship. Paul wants us to remember that and he wants us to remember that the way we grow must be consistent with how we first believed, how we first came into relationship with God.

II. The Christian life entails growing.

Now you may rightly ask Paul could you flesh that out for me, could you explain a little bit what it means then to walk in Him as we received Him. Well, the Apostle Paul was ahead of you because that is precisely what he does in verse 7. And I would like to point you to three phrases in verse 7 in which he describes what it means to walk in the Lord in the manner in which we received him.

First, the first phrase in verse 7 "having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him." This phrase reminds us that the Christian life always involves growth. It involves growing. And Paul is teaching us here that all Christians grow in grace, having been rooted and built up in Him. Paul expects Christians to grow. Notice that these are not imperatives, these are participles. Paul is simply describing what a person who walks in Christ looks like. He is not saying I want you to grow, he is saying you will grow. If you are a believer, you will grow. You are going to be growing in Christ. He expects our interest in spiritual growth and he expects to see growth itself in believers. And He expects this growth not to be by our own strength, but he expects this growth to be dependent on Christ.

Notice his phrase: "having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him." He knows that this growth will only be in Him, in Christ, in union with Christ, in relationship to Him, empowered by Him, instructed by Him, dependent on Him. We will grow only as we are in relationship to Christ, the Apostle Paul says. The power to live a new life depends upon our daily living and communing with the living God through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Paul is reminding us that our spiritual growth is dependent upon our relationship to Christ. We do not grow deeper in our knowledge of God by supplementing Christ, by augmenting Christ, by leaving Him behind to something rudimentary and moving to something more profound. We grow in knowledge and experience of God by our communion with Christ and union with Him.

Robert Murray McCheyne said a long time ago in reflecting on his own growth: "I am persuaded that nothing is thriving in my soul unless it is growing." Are you growing? Are you concerned for spiritual growth? Are you doing business with God? Are you doing self-examination? Are you asking yourselves if the signs of spiritual growth are in you? The Apostle Paul expects them. Paul expects believers to be growing. That is the first thing that he says. Someone who is walking as he originally professed, they will be growing.

III. The Christian life entails believing.

The second thing in verse 7, the middle phrase: "Establish in your faith just as you were instructed." Paul reminds us here that the Christian life entails believing truth. The Christian life entails believing truth. In other words, Paul is reminding us that all Christians are founded on the faith once delivered. We don't just believe in believing. We believe in the truth. We believe in the word which the apostles preached, which Christ preached. We believe in the word which is given to us in scripture. And our faith is established in that instruction. The Apostle Paul reminds us here that to be established in faith means to be consolidated in the truth. We have acknowledged that truth in our first profession: Christ Jesus is Lord. But we continue to be consolidated, continuously strengthened in that truth, not only in our more firmly holding to that truth, not only in knowing more of the truth, but being deepened in our appreciation for the profundity of the truth. In all those things we grow as we believe the faith once delivered.

You see, without a full and mature understanding, there can be no satisfying Christianity for the individual and there cannot be a stable church. Because Paul tells us that truth is for the purpose of godliness. And if we do not attend ourselves to truth, we will not walk in the way of godliness.

C. S. Spurgeon once said that "Men to be truly won to Christ must be truly won to truth." That is absolutely true. But it is also true of those of us who desire to grow in grace. If we are to continue to grow in grace, we must continue to avail ourselves of the truth of the scriptures.

May I ask again, are you interested in that type of spiritual growth? Are you interested in the truth? Do you find yourself loving the word? Do you find yourself loving the study of the word? Do you find yourself occasionally having lifelong habits corrected by your new understanding of what the word of God teaches, penetrating your reality and saying to you, "You must do differently," or "You must do these things which you have never done before." Do you find yourself refreshed in the word, giving yourself to the truth, desiring to know more of God and His word? That is a sign of healthy spiritual growth. And the Apostle Paul says that is a part of what it means to live in Him, to walk in Him in the way you first received Him.

IV. The Christian life entails thanksgiving.

Then at the end of verse 7, the Apostle Paul adds this phrase, "overflowing with gratitude." Here the Apostle Paul teaches that the Christian life involves thanksgiving. The Christian life invariably entails thanksgiving. Paul, in other words is teaching that all Christians are filled with gratitude to God. Notice again the phrase, "overflowing with gratitude." Paul is reminding us that to be filled with thanksgiving, to have a thankful heart is a mark of the Spirit doing a work in you. As we think about gratitude and thanksgiving in our experience, there are two interesting components to is. Negatively, gratitude lifts our thoughts from ourselves because true thanksgiving is born in a spirit of humility. Positively, gratitude directs our hearts toward God, from whom all growth comes and to whom, therefore, all praise and glory should be given. So thanksgiving and gratitude move us from off ourselves and onto God. It comes from humility and it ends in praise.

Notice that Paul considers this to be a hallmark of the Christian life. When he describes what it is to live and walk in the Lord, he includes growing, believing, and thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a hallmark of the spiritual life. And so ingratitude always points to a spiritual deficiency.

Notice, by the way, the Scripture does not say that Christians may begin to give thanks now that they are walking in the Lord. That is not his phrase. Paul says overflowing with thanksgiving, overflowing with gratitude. We don't begin to be thankful as believers, but the ocean of our gratitude is overflowing its perimeters

There are many of you here today who have friends and acquaintances who have a great deal. They are enormously materially blessed. They may be blessed greatly in terms of their status, their influence in the community, their position, and the esteem in which they are held. And yet some of you know some of them to be extremely unhappy people. People who, in fact, some of whom are bitter. And you wonder, "How could a person have so much and be so bitter?"

On the other hand, many of you here this day know many people who don't have so much. They don't share in some of the enormous resources that others around us have. And yet, strangely, we find some of them to be grateful people. They seem to have comparatively little. They are always thanking God for it. What is the difference between those sorts of people?

The first kind of person has much temporarily and nothing spiritually, because God's presence in a person's life makes a person grateful. The second type of person, though they have little materially, yet rich spiritually. Because God's presence makes us aware of who we are and, therefore, what we ought to deserve at His hands. When we see the riches that we have in Christ, we cannot help but be grateful for what the Lord has given us, no matter what our particular lives.

There are some of you, today, who are in the midst of great trials. Or perhaps you have experienced things in the past which could have made you bitter. But you have not become bitter. Why? I would suggest to you that the reason some of you have come to this place this day with burdens that not many other people know and yet have refused to give in to the bile of bitterness because God has done a spiritual work in you. And because of that you have not given in to bitterness in the midst of the trials of life, you have remained grateful. God has blessed you for that. God is blessing you in that. It is a testimony, my friends, when we face difficulties in this life, to remain grateful, to not to concede to bitterness, that testifies to the world around us of the reality of the faith and of the blessings which are held for those who love God.

The Bible says the growing Christian is one who is established in the faith, who is rooted in Christ, and is overflowing in gratitude. Are Christians going to grow into a deeper knowledge of Christ? Absolutely. Are they to do it by supplementing Christ? By going to something else apart from Christ, outside of Him? Absolutely not. In Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the Apostle says. It is in Him that we grow. God help us to center our hope of growth on Him and when people come and whisper in our ears and say, "You need Christ plus this," may we turn a deaf ear to that type of persuasion. However persuasive the words may be, and may we say to them, "Oh, no, in Christ I have my all in all," once you receive Him as your Lord.

Let's look to Him in prayer.

"Our Lord and our God, we thank you that You are concerned for our growth in relationship with Yourself. You made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in Thee. And we find that that is not a point, but it is a line in our experience. We are never filled enough. We are never stopping in our desire and our thirst to know You more. But help us to pursue that in the right way, in such a way that we remember the first principles of faith, that we never leave Christ, that we never question His sufficiency, that we never add something that He has not said is necessary for spiritual life. O, God, bring growth in this congregation, individually and collectively and use it for Your praise and glory. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen."

Colossians 2:8-15

The Incomparable Christ

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians 2. We will concentrate on verses 8-15, but we will begin reading at verse 6 where we looked at this great book the last time.

Colossians 2:8-15

"Lord, this is Your word and it was a word that You have given to us, not just to the Colossians, but to Your people of all ages and even to us this day. So You mean it for our edification, for our instruction, for our training in righteousness. So by Your word and by Your Spirit, reprove us, rebuke us, correct us and build us up in the Lord. We ask, O God, that You would give us seeing eyes and hearing ears and willing hearts to be obedient to Your word. Search us out by the Spirit to find if there is any unclean thing in us and speak to us by Your word, we pray. And we will give You all the praise and all the glory. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen."

In our studies in the Book of Colossians, we have emphasized over and over that Paul teaches in this book that believers are complete in Christ. By and large, his teaching has been positive in the chapters so far. He has set out who Christ is. He has set out the supremacy of Christ. And he says that because Christ is supreme, because all the fullness dwells in Him, therefore He is a sufficient savior. You do not need to look anywhere else.

Beginning in verse 8 of this chapter, however, and for a number of verses, he is going to go negative. That is a phrase you heard in the campaign in the last few weeks. The Apostle Paul employs it theologically. In other words he means he is not only going to tell you what is true, he is going to warn you against that which is false.

But in this passage he is concerned to warn the Colossians against what he calls "philosophy." By that, by the way, he is not warning these students against Plato and Aristotle and Socrates. He is after a different kind of philosophy. He is not speaking of Greek philosophy and he is not even speaking of modern philosophy. He is speaking of this mishmash of teaching which these new teachers, the false teachers in Colossae have been pawning off on the good Christians there in that particular congregation. We will describe that a little later.

But I want you to understand that in this passage, as Paul combats the false teaching, he not only warns the Colossians to be on guard against that false teaching, but he also tells them that in fellowship with Christ, there is fullness, there is forgiveness, and there is freedom. All those things, he says, come in Christ. And he says that precisely because the false teachers are suggesting that it is only through obedience to their teaching that Christians can truly attain the fullness and forgiveness and freedom. But the Apostle Paul combats these teachings by reminding us again of who Jesus is and of the benefits we have in union with Him.

The passage before us outlines fairly easily. In verse 8 we see Paul's warning. He tells them to be on guard against the false teaching. In verses 9 and 10, Paul again reminds us who Christ is and what that means for us in general. And then in verses 11-15, he points out three specific benefits from our union with Christ, and those benefits are designed to counter the teaching of the false teachers in Colossae.

I. Christians must be on the alert for false speculations.

Let's look at this passage together this morning. Beginning in verse 8, Paul makes it clear that Christians must be on the alert against false speculations. You see his words there: "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception." The word "philosophy" can refer to any sort of outlook and philosophy of life. This doesn't have to be an exalted, speculative philosophy that includes epistemology and metaphysics and all sorts of wonderful things that college Classic majors study or perhaps college philosophy majors study even here at Belhaven College. This is something much more humble. This is an outlook of philosophy of life that has been developed by combining Christianity with a little bit of Judaism and a little bit of pagan belief and it has been pawned off on these people in Colossae. In fact, the Apostle Paul calls it something not very complimentary in the next phrase. He says actually it is not philosophy, it is empty deceit. It is vain deceit. There is nothing to this teaching that is being offered to you. He says to be on guard against that.

And he gives us three hallmarks of this sort of false teaching, this sort of philosophy. You see it there in the next phrase. "According to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ." In each of those three phrases, Paul gives us a description of the hallmarks of this false teaching.

First, notice it is according to the tradition of men. In other words, Paul says it is man made. This teaching is not based on the Word of God. It is not based on the words of Christ. It is not based on Apostolic preaching. It is man made. It comes from outside the scripture. You understand what he is saying. Here, these people saying, "Oh, well these things that you have learned in the Scriptures, they are good. If you really want to understand the genius, the fullness of Christian experience, then I have some secret teaching that is not normally understood in the context of Christian churches planted by the Apostle Paul. Go listen to that and then you will really grow." The Apostle Paul says that teaching is man made. It is not rooted in the Word of God. He says you be on guard against anyone who comes to you with the teaching that cannot be grounded and substantiated in the Word of God.

Then he says it is rudimentary. In the next phrase he says it is according to the elementary principles of the world. That is a notoriously difficult phrase and commentators stumble over it. In fact, when I look at that phrase I am reminded of what Peter said in his book when he said Paul writes things which are difficult to understand. This is one of those places. It may be that Paul is referring to ethical principles of behavior which are not grounded in the Word of God. Or Paul may be thinking of a particular teaching that says there are demonic spiritual beings who control elementary principles in the universe like the stars and such. And those stars then control our lives. It would not be unlike astrology, where there are people who believe that the position of the planets and the stars actually control human destiny. And it may be that these false teachers then say we can exercise power. If you will follow our secret knowledge and our secret teachings and our secret rituals, we can exercise power over these spiritual beings who are controlling the elementary principles, the stars, the planets, the sun, the moon. And, therefore, we can take control of our lives and find fullness and freedom. And the Apostle Paul is saying you don't need to follow that teaching, because Christ is over all things. He is over the stars, He is over the elementary principles, and He is over the spiritual world. Christ is head of everything. You don't this new teaching, he says. So any teaching which comes to you saying we have a way of controlling the elementary principles of the world, say I don't need it. My Lord is already in control.

And then a third thing he says, that these teachings are not in accord with Christ. They are not according to Christ. In other words, they don't measure up or, perhaps, they positively contradict the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that the Apostle Paul has been teaching. Perhaps they contradict the sufficiency of Christ's saving work. Perhaps they positively suggest that something needs to be added to the work of Christ. But they don't accord with the gospel that the Apostle Paul is preaching. And he says, "You be on the lookout for these types of speculations and you reject them."

Friends, that is no less important for us today than it was for the Colossians. Because there are just as many religious philosophies on the market today, if not more, than there were in the day of the Apostle Paul and these believers. And there are perhaps more Christians today who are likely to blend their Christianity with these other false teachings than perhaps there would have been even in the days of the apostles.

So Paul's warnings to the Colossians are a warning for us. Are we on guard against false teaching? When you pick up books on religious subjects, are we on guard to make sure they square with the true teachings of the Word of God? Do we get our religious learning from every place under the sun? There are many today who say oh, you should go and learn the truth about God from any source you can find. According to the Apostle Paul, that is not true. He says if it is not according to the Word of God, you stop your ears. Do not listen to it. It is not in accord with the Word of God. If it claims to give you teachings from outside the scriptures and if the teaching is not in accord with the basic doctrinal teaching about Christ, you reject it. Turn it off. You be on guard against it.

Not only that, we must not only be guard against that teaching, but we must positively know the gospel itself if we are going to be able to know the difference between the real thing and a counterfeit. If we don't know Christ, how will we know when someone is teaching us something false about Christ? How will we know about Christ if we do not study Him as He is presented in the gospel? Paul's words here are very important for us. He says be on guard. That is the duty of every Christian. Not just the elders, not just the deacons, not just the minister, but every Christian should follow the example of the Bereans and be on guard against false teaching.

I can tell you of many conversations I have had in the last number of months about ministers who have at one times in their lives been preachers apparently of the truth who have departed from the truth which is in Christ and they have gone after other teachings. If it can happen to ministers, it can happen to members. And all of us must be on guard against that false teaching. That is the first thing that Paul says in the passage.

II. Christians must remember who Christ is and who we are in union with Him.

Then he turns our eyes to Christ in verses 9 and 10, and he reminds us that we Christians must remember who Jesus is and who we are in Him. If we will remember those two things, we will be unlikely to fall prey to false teaching. Notice again his words: "For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. For in Him, you have been made complete. And He is the head over all rule and authority." Again, Paul tells us three things that we need to remember in this passage, in each of those phrases.

The first is the fullness dwells in Christ. In this context, he means in Christ are found not just the attributes of God, not just the works of God, but in Christ is found the essence of God. All the fullness of deity dwells in Him in bodily form. He doesn't just look like God. He is the Second Person of the Trinity in the flesh. He doesn't just do the work of God, the essence of His being exudes deity. There is nothing ungodlike about the Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul says. And any teaching about Christ which says less than that is not the teaching of the scripture. "In Him all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form." So even when other teachers compliment our Lord by saying, "Oh, he was a great prophet," they do not honor Him. "Oh, he was a great teacher," they do not honor Him. He is not merely a great prophet and a great priest and a great king and a great teacher. He is the Son of God. In Him, all the fullness of the deity dwells.

Paul reminds us of that truth because if all the deity dwells in Him, why would we need to go anywhere else to experience the fullness of life and salvation? Why would we need to go anywhere else to experience the fullness of forgiveness? Why would we need to go anywhere else to experience true freedom than our Lord Jesus Christ?

He goes to say we are complete in Him. He draws the inference. "In Him all the fullness of the deity dwells." We are complete in Him. In Him you have been made complete. There is nothing that we need to be spiritually grown and prospered and matured and complete that we cannot find in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no mediator between Him and us that we need to go to. There is no method which He does not provide in His word. There is no means which He has not provided for in His word. Christ Himself is everything that we need to be complete. He has provided the means of grace, the word, the prayer, and the sacraments. He has provided the ministry in order to minister those means of grace to His people. And there is nothing else which needs to be added to that for us to attain completeness.

Then finally, he says in that passage: "He is the head over all rule and authority. That is, everything is under Christ's authority. Therefore, there is nobody else that we need to go to in order to teach some alien power exercising authority over our lives. There is an interesting truth that is set forth here by Paul and that is this truth. The Lordship of Christ brings freedom. In many Christian

circles today, there are people who say that Christ can be your savior and not be your Lord. And by that they say that it is possible for a Christian to live as if that Christ was not his or her Lord. And, of course, there are some good responses to that. It has been said if Christ is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all. But in this passage Paul turns that truth around in another direction and he gets you to look at it from a different angle. His point is this: The Lordship of Christ is, in fact, what brings you freedom and if Christ is not your Lord, you are not free. Christ's lordship releases you from slavery to sin and to the world. Because He is Lord, you have been freed. And because He is Lord over all authority, we do not need to find secret rites in order to bind the elementary principles of the world from having authority over us, because He has already exercised His authority over them.

Fullness of life is in Him, because in Him the fullness of the deity dwells, because we are complete in Him and because everything is under His authority.

III. Christians must remember the specific benefits which flow from our being "in Christ."

And that leads then to verses 11-15 where the Apostle Paul works out the specific benefits which flow from our being united with Christ. We have used that phrase a number of times, united to Christ. Paul is just talking about a doctrine called "union with Christ." It is one of the most mysterious and glorious doctrines of the faith, that believers, by the Spirit, through faith, are united to Christ. I can't tell you all that those words mean. But the scriptures speak of union with Christ with a variety of analogies.

Sometimes Christ illustrates what He means by talking about Him being the vine and us being the branches. Sometimes Paul talks about us being a building and each of us are the collected parts of the building and Christ is the cornerstone. And sometimes Paul uses the metaphor of marriage and speaks of our being united to Christ as a husband is to a wife. Sometimes Paul uses the metaphor of the body and Christ is the head and we are the body. Over and over, these images of being united to Christ are used in the scripture. Paul says in this passage that if we will understand what it is to be united to Christ, we will not fall prey to false teaching which professes to offer fullness and we will be grown in the faith.

What is it to be united with Christ? Well, it doesn't mean to cease to be who you are. When you marry a person, you don't cease to be who you are. You continue to be who you were. But you are united to them in a relationship, in an intimacy, in a closeness, that you have never had before. When we are united with Christ, we do not become Christ, Christ does not become us. We do not become God. But we enter into a covenantal relationship with Him whereby He is ours and we are His. And whereby all the benefits of His life and death flow to us. Paul is going to talk about some of those benefits in verses 11-15. Let's look at them together. The first one you see is fellowship. We have this intimate relationship, this fellowship, this community of life, this sharing of life with Christ. He speaks about it in verses 11 and 12: "and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. "

Now here, Paul speaks about parallels between baptism and circumcision. And before we looked at the context of Paul's argument is here, this opportunity behooves me to say a few words about baptism. A good Presbyterian couldn't let this verse get by without a comment and besides, baptism is on my mind right now.

Notice three or four things that we learn about baptism from this passage. The first thing is there is a definite relationship between Old Testament circumcision and New Testament baptism. John Calvin is not the one who invented that relationship. John Knox is not the one who invented that relationship. Paul is the one who is telling us about it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Look at the two main clauses. "In Him you were circumcised, having been buried with Him in baptism." What is Paul saying? Apparently these false teachers are saying to the Colossian Christians that one of the rituals they need to do if they are going attain fullness is to be circumcised. And Paul is saying you have been circumcised by being baptized in Christ. In other words, there is a precise relation between those two signs. One an Old Covenant sign, one a New Covenant sign. You Gentile Colossian Christians, you were baptized. Having been baptized, you received a sign of the same significance of which Old Testament circumcision stood.

The second thing we note is that baptism here is viewed as a covenant sign. Know that circumcision in the Old Testament in Genesis 17 was a covenant sign. In Genesis 17, circumcision was given to Abraham by God as a sign and a seal of the promises that God had made to him in the covenant in Genesis 12 and 15. So circumcision served to assure Abraham that God would fulfill His promises to him. Paul says here that you have been circumcised, having been baptized. By saying that, he is reminding us that baptism is a sign of the promises of God that are made to us in Christ. And it is meant to assure us that God will fulfill His promises that He has made to us in the gospel. It is a sign to remind us of God's faithfulness.

Thirdly, this passage tells us something about the meaning of baptism. Isn't it interesting that faith is not emphasized as great meaning of baptism? Many of our friends who teach adult believer's baptism only teach us that baptism is about our faith in Christ. But Paul doesn't put it that way in this passage. In this passage, he says baptism is about our union with Christ and about the work of God towards us. In other words, the symbolism of baptism is to symbolize God's reaching out to us when we were helpless, uniting us to Christ, and saving us.

Now, of course, Paul says that we were raised up with Him through faith and the working of God. So there is a place for faith, indeed. We don't downplay that at all. But Paul's point in the passage is that baptism itself is a sign of our union with Christ, a sign of God reaching out to us when we could not reach out to Him.

Fourthly, this passage tells us something about the subject of baptism. Many of our Baptist friends are confused. We Presbyterians and others baptize children and they say how can you baptize infants who are not able to exercise faith or even understand this happening to them. That is precisely the point. For in Genesis 17, the eight-day-old Isaac surely could not have known what was happening to him when he was exercised and he could not have exercised outward, objective faith in the living God. Yet God said Abraham circumcise that boy. Because it is a sign of 'My having set My heart on you and your descendants. And as your descendants embrace Me, they will look back at that circumcision and remember that I embraced them before they embraced me.'

So also in baptism, God reaches out and sets a sign on us so that when we grow and once embrace Christ personally through faith, we can look back and see that before we loved Him, He loved us in Christ.

Now, that is about all we have time for about baptism. What Paul is saying all this stuff about though? Why is he paralleling circumcision and baptism? Apparently because these people are commending the Jewish ritual of circumcision as necessary for these Gentile believers. And the Apostles says in baptism you have symbolized precisely what is symbolized in circumcision. And in baptism you have set forth the truth that you are united in fellowship to Christ. Notice the closeness of the image. You were buried with Christ. You were raised with Christ. You couldn't be closer to Him than you are. Your baptism reminds you that your life has become intertwined with His life. You have died to sin in Him even as He died for sin. You have been raised to newness of life even as His resurrection was a token of His dominion over sin and death in the forces evil. Your life has become intertwined with Him by the working of God. You have a fellowship with Christ.

Notice in verses 13 and 14, he goes on to say the result of this union, the result of this fellowship which you have in union with Christ, this relationship, this covenantal relationship that you have with Christ, this union with Christ, the result of it is forgiveness of sin and freedom in Christ.

First of all, in verses 13 and 14 Paul speaks of the forgiveness that we have in Christ. "When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."

Paul is saying that because of our sin, we were condemned. We were dead in sin and the moral law condemned us. As we looked at the law, we saw that we did not measure up and, therefore, Paul said we are judged. But Christ has died and so has nailed the certificate of guilt, the certificate of death, the bond which had placed against us because of our sin, He has nailed it to the tree, dying in our stead, and by dying for us, we have been made alive through the forgiveness of sin.

Paul says as you are united with Christ, you are forgiven of your sin because He paid the price so that you would not be called to account at the bar of God's justice.

Verse 15 goes on to say the second results of our union with Christ is freedom. "When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him." Paul is saying these false teachers, they come to you, they tell you we can give you power over these spiritual forces which are arrayed against you. And Paul says that you don't need that because Christ is already exercising dominion over the spiritual forces which are arrayed against God and His people. Because at the cross, He disarmed rulers and authorities, set over against the rule of God. He led them in a triumphant procession.

If you had been in the Roman world in the times that the generals were going out and conquering the far-flung nations, you wouldn't have had CNN to tell you about the great victories that were being won on the frontiers. So the only way a Roman general could show you that he had really won a great battle was to parade all the captives, all the prisoners, in front of your eyes. He would go out to the Rhine frontier. He would defeat the barbarians. He would put them in shackles and march them back into the hometown. The great soldiers would come first, the conquering king would then come, and behind him all of the captives, imprisoned.

Paul is saying that is what Christ has done to the spiritual forces arrayed against you. He has led a triumphant procession in which they are brought along behind Him in the train as slaves. Now Paul says if Christ has done that, what in the world are these teachers doing telling you that they can give you authority over these people? Christ has already exercised this authority over everything that is arrayed against you and your freedom is assured because of His victory. You are not a victim in this world of demonic forces. You are not a victim in this world of the alignment of the stars and planets. You are not a victim in this world of fate and the outrageous claims of fortune, because Christ rules the world for the sake of His people. Because Christ is Lord, you are free. And if He is not Lord, you are not free. Christ and fellowship with Him brings fullness and forgiveness and freedom.

If we will embrace Christ by faith, we will taste all the benefits of union with Him. If we will reject Christ and His Lordship or if we attempt to supplement Him, we do not receive all the benefits which are stored up in Him alone. This day are you guarding Your heart against false teaching which downplays the totality of Christ's victory and are you embracing and appreciating everything that you have in Christ? Everything that you need is there for you in Christ. Come to Him.

Let us pray.

"Our Lord, we praise You for the Christ who has triumphed on our behalf. We praise You for the forgiveness of sin by His blood. We praise You for the freedom that we have because He is Lord. We praise You for the fellowship that we have with Him, that covenantal union that we have. We pray, O Lord, that You would help us to enjoy it and taste it now, in foretaste of the marriage feast with the Lamb. We give You all the praise and all the glory. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen."

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 3

Colossians 3:1-8

Incomparable Christ

Turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians, chapter 3. You remember that all along of our study in this Book, we have said that Paul has focused on the incomparable Christ. He has attempted to teach us that Christ is supreme, in Him is all blessedness, and therefore we are not to seek blessedness outside of Him. He is the all-sufficient Christ. In chapter 1 Paul focuses on the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In chapter 2 we see the apostle Paul deliver five warnings against those who might call in to question the all-sufficiency of the incomparable Christ. We saw him speak against persuasive speech drawing us away from the sufficiency of Jesus Christ in verse 4 of chapter 2. We saw him speak against false speculation leading us away from Christ in verse 8 of chapter 2. We saw him speak against a legalism, a bowing down to man-made rules and rituals leading us away from the all-sufficiency of Christ in verse 16 of chapter 2. We saw Paul speak against angel worship and all forms of false worship in chapter 2.

And again at the very end in verse 20, we saw him speak against the abuse of the body for the supposed sake of spiritual good. Asceticism, it's called. All of these things he warns against in chapter 2. And again he reminds us throughout that chapter that when we are in fellowship with Christ, when we are in relation to Christ, when we are united to Christ from that flows all the fullness that we could ever hope for in the Christian life. We don't find fullness in the Christian life by starting with Christ and then obtaining some second subsequent blessing that really leads us into spiritual fullness, though all fullness is found in Christ. We grow in that fullness, but it is found in Christ, not by searching some place else. Forgiveness is found in Christ. There is no name under heaven whereby we can be saved, whereby we can be forgiven, except His name. And finally, freedom is found in Christ, for it is only in Christ and under His rule that we find freedom. These things Paul has stressed in chapter 1 and chapter 2.

When we come to verse 1 of chapter 3, we come to a turning point in this letter. Paul is moving from setting forth the doctrine of the incomparable Christ, and now he is going to begin to apply that doctrine to Christian living. Let us now hear the word of the living God, inspired, infallible, inerrant.

Colossians 3:1-8

Our Lord and our God, this is Your word, and as such it is meant for our upbuilding, our edification. It is also meant for our reproof and correction. As we come to this word, cause us to come with our hearts in such a posture that we are ready to be changed and corrected by it. This means, oh Lord, that we must come not judging this word, but being judged by this word. But how sweet it is, oh God, to be sought out and judged by You and so corrected and sent down the way of life. Do this for us, we pray, by the work of the Spirit, and cause us to be hearers and doers of the word, all for the glory of Christ we ask it in His name, Amen.

As we turn to chapter 3 in the book of Colossians, Paul is now concerned with the practical effects of his teaching for Christian living. It is not that what he has been saying in the previous two chapters is impractical. Not at all. Far from it. In fact, the apostle Paul would argue if we do not understand the teaching, the doctrine, the theology that he has set forth in the first two chapters, we will not know how to live the Christian life. And I want you to see the apostle Paul move in the first two chapters from a focus on the person of Christ and the work of Christ in chapter 3, verse 1 all the way down to chapter 4, verse 6 to a focus on Christian living. He moves from telling us who Christ is, what He has done, how we are united to Him, how we bind all fullness to Him, to then telling you in light of fact that we have been united to Christ, you ought to live this way. Paul moves from the person of Christ to Christian living. Looked at another way, he moves from giving us doctrine of Christ, doctrine about Christ, theology of Christ, to the topic of godliness or holiness. Why? Because for the apostle Paul, doctrine never has done what it is intended to do until it leads us to godliness, because knowing notions is not God's ultimate goal for us. Conformity to the image of Christ is the ultimate goal. And doctrine is for the purpose of leading us to that godliness and holiness. Another way of looking at it is this way. In the first two chapters Paul shows us who Christ is and who we are in Christ. Theologians say he shows us the indicative - what we are, how we are, how we stand in Christ. What we have been made in Christ. He does that in the first two chapters.

Beginning in chapter 3, verse 1, he tells us what we ought to do because we are in Christ. The indicative theologians say and the imperatives, what we are, our standing in Christ, what we ought to do because we are in Christ. In other words, he puts it this way, to say it in a nutshell. You are in Christ. Now be who you are. You are in Christ. Now act in such a way that it is consistent with what you profess to be and what you have in fact been made in Jesus Christ. You are united to Christ. These truths are true about you. Now live in a way which reflects consistency which flows out of the reality of being united to Christ.

Those factors remind us of at least a couple of things, my friends. The first one is this. We must never underplay the importance of knowing scriptural truth and doctrine. For the apostle Paul you cannot live the Christian life unless you understand Christian truth and that means that every single one of us must be a theologian to some extent. We don't have to teach a Systematic Theology class or an Old Testament theology class, but we all must know the basics of Christian beliefs because without them we can't live the Christian life. It is incumbent upon us to know the truth if we are going to live in a way that honors God. In fact, if we are going to receive the blessing of living in fellowship with God, we must know the truth, because the truth, Paul says, is unto godliness.

There's a flip side of that truth that we must remember as well and it's this. We must never be satisfied with mere intellectual apprehension of doctrine of scriptural truth. We must not be satisfied until that doctrine is working its way out in our life. For Paul, he expected more of Christians than that we know about God. There's a difference between knowing notions and knowing God. We can know a lot of things about God and never be in a fellowship with Him, a saving relationship with Him. Paul expects us to live in such a way that we reflect that our knowledge is not just mental knowledge, it's not just cognitive knowledge, it's not just mental knowledge that we're nodding our heads in agreement. It's something that's working through the whole of our lives. It's showing itself and how we love one another. It's showing itself and how we are loyal to the gospel, loyal to Christ, proclaiming His name, and living as if He is Lord in the world because Paul has told us that He is. We must never be satisfied with mere intellectual apprehension of doctrine. It must work itself out in our lives.

Friends, these two things, these two areas, are things where Christians make grave mistakes today. Have you ever heard someone say that Christianity is a way of life, not a doctrine. Well, you hear many evangelicals say that today. But, did you know, it was the liberals who first said that a century ago? They said it because they wanted Christianity to be a moral system, not rooted in a system of scriptural truth. But you can't have Christianity unless you have Christian truth, because Christian living is based on Christian believing which is based on the realities revealed in the word. So if we're going to grow, we must be people of the Book. If we are not people of the Book our growth will be warped in some way if we grow at all. And therefore it is absolutely essential that we grow in Christ.

Have you heard someone say Christianity is not a way of life? It's a person. Sometimes people say that, and we hear evangelicals say that as well to indicate this. Christianity is all about a relationship with God. It has nothing to do with how you live. It doesn't work itself out necessarily in holiness. Wrong, Paul said that Christianity is about a person. It's based upon a person and His work, and it's about a relationship with that person. But that relationship requires us to know something about Him and to do something in light of that knowledge. And so Christianity is a person, a doctrine and a way of life. All of those things, not just one of them. And these things we learn as we look at Colossians as a whole.

Now Paul sets before us today in these first eight verses teaching about Christian living. If we were to outline chapter 3, verse 1 all the way down to chapter 4, verse 6, we would see the apostle Paul teaching us truths about Christian living calling us to action in Christian living in a variety of fears. In verses 1 through 8 which we're going to look to today, Paul is telling us about our relationship to God, and what must be a part of that relationship.

But if we look on down to verse 9, and then down to verse 17 of chapter 3, we will see Paul giving us instructions as to how we are to relate to one another in the local church, in the congregation, in the assembly of God's people.

Then if we were to look beyond that in verse 18 and all the way down to verse 21, we would see Paul telling us how we are to live in the context of our family, in the context of our home. Family life - Christian living and family life.

And then beginning in verse 22 and down to verse 1 of chapter 4 he tells us how we are to live in relationship to those with whom we work, either those who are employers or our employees.

And finally, from verse 2 down to verse 6 he teaches us about prayer. So he's going to specific spheres of life, and he's saying this is how your union with Christ works out in a practical way in Christian living. This is how the supremacy and the all-sufficiency of Christ works out in your Christian living. Let's look at the four imperatives that the apostle Paul sets forth then in these eight verses. Colossians 3, verses 1 through 8.

I. Christians must set their hearts on things above: "Seek the things above"

First of al, notice that Paul tells us that Christians must set their hearts on things above. In verse 1 he says, "Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God." What is Paul saying? Paul is saying that we are to set our affections on spiritual things. That is where our heart is to be. As one old Puritan said, "Treasures are laid up in heaven only as treasures on earth are laid down. We set our hearts on things above." Notice in this passage that Paul's structure of what we are in Christ, and what we ought to do in Christ is intact.

Notice in verse 1. "If you have been raised up with Christ." The if is not there to raise the question about whether you have or not, the point is because you have. Since you have been raised with Christ, therefore, live this way. Paul is telling you who you are, because you as a Christian have been united to Christ because you have been raised with Christ, therefore, set your affections on the things above. Set your desires, your yearnings, your heart on the spiritual blessings and principles which are found only in Christ. The apostle Paul knows that this is absolutely necessary for Christian growth. And it's absolutely necessary for combating sin. Your heart must be set on God. He must be the one that you're hungering after. The blessings which are found in Him must be those blessings which are your first priority. Samuel Rutherford once said, "Desires or more grace and groanings which cannot be uttered are growing pains and we should wish to feel them more and more."

And friends, if we're not feeling them, it is a sign that God is not working in our hearts, and that we'd better do something about coming to grips with Him, doing business with Him, closing with Christ. Because Christians experience that spiritual hunger for God. Their affections are set on things above. That does not mean that we are unconcerned with temporal things. It doesn't mean that we're bad businessmen, or bad fathers. The apostle Paul is going to talk about how to be a good Christian father and mother and child and businessman, etc. in the next few verses. He's not saying don't be concerned about things, but he's saying where's your allegiance, where are your priorities? What he is saying is very close to what Jesus says when He says, seek first the kingdom of God, and its righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. What do you thank God for most? What do you thank God for first?

We are in the thanksgiving season. And our brother, Jeff Elliott, asked me after the service, "You know a good application of this passage would be just to ask people when you think about thanking God, what are the first things that you thank Him for?" If they are primarily temporal things, temporal blessings, that may be telling something to you about the state of your soul. If you are first thankful for temporal blessings, and not for the things above, that may be telling you something. Or, if you are thankful of the temporal blessings, and not focused on the one who gives the temporal blessings, that may be telling you that something is awry in your priority of life.

Paul says first principle: Set your hearts on things above. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Is He your treasure? Are things above your treasure? This is a good test to see whether we are in Christ or not.

II. Christians must set their minds on things above: "set your mind on things above"

Secondly, the apostle Paul says beginning in verse 2 that Christians must set their minds on things above. Not only should our affections be set on God, our desires be set on God, but our minds ought to be set on God. Paul says, "Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. When Christ, who is our light is revealed, then you also will be revealed in glory." Now that's a difficult passage, but at least it means this.

Again, notice again how Paul tells us who we are and how we should act. "We have died and our life is hidden with Christ." Because of that, Paul said, because of that reality, that's who you are in Christ. You've died, because your life is hidden with Christ in God, therefore, set your thoughts on heavenly matters. Paul wants not only your hearts in glory, he wants your thoughts in glory.

Paul says that our thoughts should be focused on heavenly matters. We should be pondering them. We should be meditating on them. We should be reflecting upon them. We should be thinking about these heavenly matters. Set your mind on things above.

And what does he mean when he says "You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God?" A mysterious phrase, isn't it? But at least it means this. Though who you are is hidden before the eyes of men right now, you are the body of Christ. Though that may be hidden before the eyes of men, and though it may be obscured to your own sight as you see your imperfections, your failings, and the weakness of the church of God, our sinfulness, our foolishness, the tragic way that we fail to bear witness to who God is in this world with our lips and our lives. Though that reality may be obscured in the world, yet your life is hidden with Christ in God. Who you are is absolutely apparent to the heavenly Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Paul goes on to say that one day, just like Christ will be revealed from glory to be not simply the suffering servant, but the Lord of the world so you will be revealed to be the inheritance of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. And in light of that fact you've set your thoughts in heaven. Have you ever stopped to ponder your sins and become so depressed that you could not go on and seeing what you have yet become, in seeing what you do to your brothers and sisters in Christ and to those who love you the most because of your sin, willful and otherwise? And sometimes it's the so-called unwillful sins that are the most bruising and the most brutal.

Have your ever thought and pondered on that, and have you ever juxtaposed that with what Paul says here when he says, you set your thoughts on things above because what you are may not be apparent to the world and it may not even be apparent to you, but what you are will one day be revealed. You will be stood before the Lord spotless. No moral impurity, no imperfection, absolutely complete in Christ and the whole world will know it. Paul says you set your mind on that. Lightfoot said many years ago, "You must not only seek heaven, you must think heaven." Seeking heaven, our affections are put there, thinking heaven our thoughts are focused on the things which are above.

Again, this does not mean that we ignore temporal things. It means that our priorities are set. And as we prosecute our duties as men and women in this life, we do not forget that we are citizens of a city with foundations. And though we are pilgrims here, and though we are to live as obedient Pilgrims here doing the will of God, yet there is another home which awaits us. And there is a reality about us which is going to be revealed, and all the praise and all the glory will not go to us, but to the Lord Himself.

III. Christians must engage in spiritual execution: "Put your sin to death"

Paul goes on to say in this passage, beginning in verse 5, that Christians must engage in spiritual execution. Paul says, put your sin to death. The NIV and the King James catch it better than the New American Standard does; it's not just, consider the members of your earthly body are dead, it is, put to death sin in your earthly body, in the members of your earthly body. Paul is telling us that we are to kill sin. Richard Baxter once said, "Kill sin before it kills you." Kill sin before it kills you. Sin, though it presents itself to you always as something that is good, will ultimately destroy you. And the apostle Paul is saying in the Christian life we must kill sin.

I want you to notice that Paul does not make mortification, the killing of sin, optional. There are some people who speak as if we can be saved by Christ without His Lordship working itself out in our life. The apostle Paul says here the Christian will be killing sin in his or her life. Paul gives a reason for that. He tells us we are to kill sin why? Verse 6. Because of these things, the wrath of God will come. Paul is saying God is going to judge the world by sin, because of sin. And therefore we must kill sin because God is going to judge sin. We cannot be ambivalent about sin. We cannot be apathetic about sin. We must kill it, we must seek to drive it out of our lives.

And notice how close this sin seems to be connected to our living. Paul says it is in the members of our earthly body. Put these things to death. He speaks of sin as if it's a body part. It's become so interwoven into our lives it needs to be ripped out and abstracted from our body, and it needs to be killed. The apostle Paul says we are to put to death sin. And he tells us specifically five things that must be done. I remind you that the city of Colossae and the Lychus Valley was a place like much of the Roman Empire. It was known for sexual immorality. And the apostle Paul zeroes in on sexual sin. To begin with, he says, kill immorality. Immorality in this passage refers to illicit, sexual conduct, illicit sexual sins. He says you kill it. The apostle Paul is speaking to people who have come from that context. He's concerned that they're going to be influenced by the thinking and the mind-set and behaving of their culture, and he says you kill that kind of immorality. You kill it.

But he doesn't stop with the deeds. Notice his next step. He says kill impurity. Not only immorality, but impurity. What's he speaking about? Impurity refers to the uncleanness of our thoughts. Our intentions. What he's trying to get into is our heads? He's trying to get into your thought life. He's saying don't just kill sin in your deeds, your actions; you do it in your thought life as well.

But he doesn't stop there. He moves on. He says kill immorality, impurity and passion or evil desires. What's he getting at that there? He's getting at the will. He's saying if your desires are not changed, then your thought life is going to revert to what it was doing before, and your behavior is going to revert to what it was doing before. You know that when you sin, if you secretly harbor the desire to continue that sin, you will, in fact, at some point give in to the deed itself. But if you nip the desire for the sin in the bud, then you can get it in the behavior, then you can get it in the thought life. The apostle Paul is saying I want your deeds, your thinking and your desires to be freed of sin. I want you to attack them. I want you to kill the sin in you.

And he goes on to say fourthly, that he wants us to kill greed or covetousness. Paul is saying that wanting things or persons that do not belong to us is a root of this type of sinful behavior, and therefore, covetousness is to be put aside. One of the glorious things about covetousness in the Ten Commandments is this. The other nine Commandments you can do externally. You can't covet externally. Nobody can see you covet. Well, all right sometimes people can see you covet. But you have to covet with your heart and so the apostle Paul again is getting at the heart. He's saying I just don't want you to be righteous outwardly, I want your hearts to be righteous. So don't covet because that coveting is going to lead you into an inordinate desire for things that you do not have and which do not belong to you, and that's going to leave your wills to be affected, it's going to leave your thinking to be affected, it's going to leave your behavior to be affected and don't do it.

And then the apostle Paul concludes with a death blow. He says, and by the way, that covetousness is idolatry. And you scratch your head and you say how can covetousness be equal to idolatry. And Paul is standing there waiting for you and he's telling you this way. Covetousness is idolatry because covetousness is worshiping your own will. Covetousness is saying, I am setting my will up as the standard of behavior and therefore you are worshiping your will. And what is idolatry? Worshiping anything else other than God, in any other way than the way that he has commanded. And so when we worship our wills, we become idolaters. It's yet another way that Paul and Jesus tell us that when we commit one sin, we commit them all, because they're interconnected. When you're covetous, you're idolatrous. When you are idolatrous, you are covetous. They are connected. So the apostle Paul says kill these sins.

Now let me hasten to say that we do not mortify sin in order to gain favor with God. God's favor must rest upon us before we are able to mortify sin and that's why Ebenezer Erskine once said, "The Christian mortifies sin because he is at peace with God. The legalist mortifies sin to try to be at peace with God." We mortify sin in our life not to gain favor with God. We mortify sin because the grace of God is present in our lives, and because we desire to be conformed to the image of the one that He has destined us to be conformed to the image of. Paul says mortify sin. No passive approach to sin does he have. We are to kill it. We are to mortify it.

IV. Christians must lay aside the practice of sin: Put aside sin.

And that leads him to his comments in verse 8. Christians must not only set their hearts on things above, they must not only set their minds on things above, they must not only desire to kill sin, but they must lay aside the practice of sin. Paul says put aside sin. In them, in these things, you also once walked when you were living in them. But now you also put them aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from your mouth. Paul says, 'You congregation, you were once captured by this.' This is a very encouraging word as discouraging as it might seem at first. Paul is acknowledging that these people had real struggles with deadly sins which were destroying their lives.

Very often, even though we don't believe in preparationism, we act in the Christian church as if we have to scrub ourselves up in order to come to Christ, because we wouldn't want any unseemly sinners coming to Christ, would we, at First Presbyterian Church. The apostle Paul says this godly church at Colossae was filled with people whose lives had been characterized by anger and malice and rage and all sorts of sexual impurities, but they've been changed in Christ and as a witness to the world. But it reminds us, my friends, that there is hope for us. Because even if the rest of the world doesn't know what's going on in our hearts, we know what's going on in our hearts sometime, and we don't want the rest of the world to know it because we don't think they will accept us. The apostle Paul is saying, I know what you're struggling with. Paul wouldn't be talking to these Colossians about these things if they weren't struggling with them. That would be a waste of his time and theirs. Paul is speaking about these things because these are things we as Christians continue to struggle with, and the quicker we fess up to that, the quicker we can get about the working of continuing Christian repentance and mortification of sin.

And the apostle Paul again says, lay aside this, specifically. He doesn't speak in generalities because you can't fight sin in generalities. You've got to fight it specifically. Why? Because when you repent in generalities, you never own up to the reality of the sin that is destroying you and destroying the fellowship of God. And so Paul goes to specifics. Notice what he says. Anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech. Look at the logic again to this bifold description of sin. Anger refers to that burning hatred for other people. A burning hatred. Wrath in this context refers to those outbursts of passion, that rage that we have, that ungodly rage that we have for others. Malice refers to ill-will towards one's neighbor. Slander refers to railing or defaming another's character, and abusive speech refers to those destructive words that we use to tear people down. The apostle Paul says people who are captured by sin are people who are internally conflicted. They are filled with rage, and that rage pours over in the life of their speech. You want to see a person characterized by ungodliness and by the grip of Satan on them, they are filled with anger, they are bitter inside and it pours over in their speech, either in their general speech or in their abusive speech to other people. And the apostle Paul says to these Colossians, "Don't you live that way because that's not who you are. That's what you were, but that's not what you are now. Be who you are, and therefore kill sin."

Now why is he having to say that? Because when we become Christians, we do not become immediately sinlessly perfected. You can breathe a sigh of relief. You don't have to be perfect yet. One day you will be. Not here, but there. Now, you must grow. Augustine said the church was a hospital where sick sinners get well and that it is. But those sick sinners are not being simply ministered to by the great physician of the soul, they are actively involved in their own treatment. By the Holy Spirit and the work of sanctification, they strive to kill sin. Are you striving to kill sin? It is one of the marks of Christian growth. Are you locating, identifying and then seeking out and destroying sin in your life which is destroying you and destroying your relationships with others? It's a sign that the spirit is at work in you, if you are.

Do you have not a clue how to fight against sin, have you come this morning not believing, not trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, not knowing fellowship with Him, let me say very quickly, you can't fight sin apart from Christ. You are dead in sin and the only way you can fight sin is when by union with Christ you have been made dead to sin. Then you can fight the remnants of sin in your life. And that you can only do by bowing the knee to Christ and receiving Him as the all sufficient Savior who brings fullness and freedom and forgiveness. Let's look to Him in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we bless your Holy Name and ask that You would cause Your word to break forth in light and godliness in our lives, for Christ's sake, Amen.

Colossians 3:5-17

The Incomparable Christ

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians, chapter 3. We'll begin in verse 5. You'll remember that Paul has been stressing throughout this book that believers are complete in Christ. In chapter 1 he focuses on the supremacy and the sufficiency of Christ Himself. And he says if the believer will understand who Christ is and what He has done, much of the Christian life will fall into place. In chapter 2, we saw him give warnings against five different types of false teachings that were being brought into the church at Colossae. And he warns against them as being out of accord with the truth of the supremacy of Christ, the Lordship of Christ and the sufficiency of Christ. The fact is that we have everything that we need as believers in Christ. Beginning in chapter 3, he begins to implement positively, apply positively, the truth of Christ's supremacy and sufficiency. The truth of God's gospel of grace into practical Christian living issues.

Last week in verses 1 through 8, we see the apostle apply that truth to the sphere of our own personal walk of faith. How we are as Christians. How we relate to God, how we relate to others. This week in verses 9 through 17, the apostle is going to apply that truth to our life in the local congregation. Let's begin in verse 5. It will give us context to Paul's words towards the end of the chapter.

Colossians 3:5-17

O Lord, we know that the most indispensable requisite for rightly understanding Your word is an understanding of our own sin. For Your word sheds light on our lives and reveals to us those places which are out of accord with the image of God which are out of accord with Your will for our lives. And it shows us the way of salvation, and it shows us the way of conquest of sin. If we come to the word thinking we don't need forgiveness of sins, we might as well be looking at blank sheets of paper. But when we come by the grace of the Holy Spirit realizing that we are poor sinners and we're in need of forgiveness and of instruction, then we open Your word and we find in it a fount of blessing. So by Your Spirit make this book a blessing and make us all both hearers and doers of the word, and we give You the praise and the glory, for we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

What does it mean to live under the rule of Christ? What does it mean? What does it mean to live under the rule of Christ? What does it mean as a Christian to acknowledge the supremacy and the sufficiency of Christ in our lives? The Colossian false teachers had their own ideas. They said, "Oh, we can offer you a fullness of experience that you have never had before." Those things included mystical experiences, special revelations, certain ritual practices that only a few exclusive people could follow and find fullness in. But the apostle Paul defines what it means to live under the rule of Christ, what it means to have fullness in Christ in a very different way. Throughout this passage before us, he is telling us what it means to live under the rule of Christ. And over and over again in each section, in verses 1 through 8 and 9 through 17, and 18 through 22 and 23 through verse 1 of chapter 4, over and over he stresses two things. To live under the rule of Christ means first to be made a new person in Christ. To be made a new creation by being united to Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit. That's the first thing that it means to live under the rule of Christ. To be united to Him, and hence to have been made a new creation, he stressed in verses 1 through 8. We'll see how he will stress that today.

Secondly, it means to stop our old patterns of living, of thinking and of behaving. Those patterns which were not in accord with Christ, those patterns which were not in accord with the word of God, those patterns, which, in fact, were self-destructive. And it means to put those off, to lay them aside, and to walk in newness of life, to live in a godly way, to put off and put on, as the apostle Paul says. So to live under the rule of Christ means first to be a new creation because we're united to Christ. And secondly, it means putting off sin and putting on righteousness. That's how Paul summarizes what it means to live under the rule of Christ.

Today, we are going to see him apply those two principles to the sphere of our relationships within this congregation. The apostle Paul was writing to a local church in Colossae, and in verses 9 through 17, he is concerned that we live out what it means to be under the rule of Christ in the way we relate to one another. Before we look at that though, let me say that there are two mistakes on the market in contemporary church life in America with regard to what it means to be a Christian and what it means to live under grace, to live under the rule of Christ. On the one hand, there is the mistake of moralism. And it basically mistakes the message of Christianity as being be good, be nice. Or a little bit more forcefully, it says, "If you will be good, God will bless you." Now the problem with that message is, of course, it doesn't tell you how to be good and it mistakes the order of goodness. Because until God works in us, we are incapable of doing good, of doing righteousness, of doing justice and of being loving people. The gospel says the first step in our Christian faith is recognizing that we are incapable of being good on our own. So when people come ministering to us the message that Christianity says be good and they say nothing of the cross, nothing of atonement, nothing of grace, and they do not explain that goodness follows the work of Christ in you, then they've changed the gospel. They have, in fact, forgotten grace. That's what all moralists do.

But there's another mistake on the market, too. And it's a little bit more difficult to term, we might call it libertinism. Libertinism wants to celebrate freedom in Christ but doesn't ever want to talk about duty or obedience. In fact, those two words are bad words to those who were the trumpeters of freedom in Christ. It says I am free in Christ, I have a wonderful relationship with Christ, and that means that I don't have to do anything now except what I want to do. So don't give me a list of 'do's and don'ts,' don't tell me to do this and do that, don't tell me to be obedient, don't tell me to me to do duty, because that's not what Christianity is about.

The first group, the moralists, forget grace. The second group, the libertines, misunderstand it because they think that freedom is freedom from obedience, instead of freedom to obedience. The freedom which Christ brings frees us from condemnation, frees us from the frustration of attempting to obey when we do not have the resources to do it on our own, but it also, the freedom that Christ brings, frees us to be what God intended us to be in the first place and what God intended us to be was his very image in righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. God intended us to reflect who He is. And if we're going to reflect who He is, we must reflect His character. And so we must avoid both of those tendencies in contemporary teaching, the tendency to call Christianity be good, be nice. That's not the gospel. On the other hand, there is the tendency to say that Christianity is not about obedience, about duty, about do's and don'ts. Oh, yes it is. I mean, if that's the case, then we're going to have to rip out a lot of the letters of the apostle Paul because in every letter he writes, in the second half of the letter he spends the whole time telling you what to do and what not to do. Does that undercut his doctrine of grace? Not at all, because if he himself told us in Romans, chapter 5, grace reigns through righteousness, is righteousness constraining our freedom? Absolutely not. Righteousness is the fruit of our freedom. It is the evidence of our freedom, and it is the blessing of our freedom. And that last thing is worth a whole series of sermons, but we don't have time for it today.

Look at what Paul does with his teaching about what it means to be living under the rule of Christ today. Two things. This passage outlines very easily. Verses 9 through 11 constitute one section. That section deals with speech. We could summarize Paul's teaching there into two words. Don't lie. Then verses 12 through 17 give us the second half of the passage. We could summarize that section in two words. Put on. Don't lie, put on. Let's look at the passage together now.

I. A Christian's speech must reflect his profession.

In verse 9 the apostle Paul asserts that believers must make sure that their speech does not undercut church unity. If you notice throughout this passage, from verse 9 to 17, Paul is very concerned that church unity be realized and experienced in the life of this local congregation, and hence in the life of this local congregation. And Paul begins by saying 'do not lie' because he knows that lying, dishonesty, destructive speech will be destructive of the unity of the congregation. A friend of mine once was preaching a sermon series in the highlands of Scotland, and he met an older lady who said to him, "The older I get, the more I love the Lord's people, and the less I trust them." And sadly, many of us know what it is to be hurt by the words of the Lord's people. And the apostle Paul is saying something, it seems so simple, but it's so practical and it's so profound. He's saying, "Don't lie." You will destroy the trust that is necessary for unity of life to be experienced in a local congregation.

But he doesn't just say, "Don't lie." He gives them a basis, he gives them a rationale. He tells them how it is that they are able not to go on following the trends of their culture which did not give a great deal of emphasis on truthfulness of speech. How it was that they could live in a different way. And it's in that little phrase, "Since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self." How is it that our previous conduct can change? How is it that we can move from people who have a difficult time controlling their tongues because of the sinfulness implanted in our hearts because Paul says you have died to the old self, and you have put on the new self. Because of this renovation that has occurred in your life, because you have been united in Christ, because you have been embraced by the grace of Christ, now you are able to speak in such a way that upbuilds the congregation.

Notice again Paul's order. He doesn't say if you will not lie, then you will experience newness of life. He says because you have experienced newness of life, therefore, do not lie. Notice the order. It is not, 'Do and live.' It is, 'Live and do.' It is not do this in order to have a relationship with God, do this in order to live in fellowship with Christ. It is because you are in fellowship with Christ, therefore, do this. Live and do. It's so important that we get that right. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said, "I would rather make bricks without straw than try to obey the Sermon on the Mount in my own strength." Christians are saying that our ability to obedience is based on what God has done in us and not on our own strength. Christianity is not "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" religion. It's a religion which recognizes that in and of ourselves we are weak, and we're incapable of doing what the Lord wants us to do. But by His grace, we will be transformed into what He intended us to be in the first place. And we must strive in that direction. Paul says that the new nature, the new self is being renewed in this passage.

Notice, it's not something that happened in the past and is no longer happening. He recognizes that our renovation in Christ is an on-going work. It's not finished. There's a lot more work to be done in us. That sanctification is a on-going process. And what is its direction? Well, Paul says it's the restoration of the image. Look at his phrase. He says we are being renewed in a true knowledge, according to the image of the one who created him. In the Garden we had been created in the image of God. By Adams's sin that image was defaced, though it was not entirely erased. It was damaged, though it was not completely destroyed. And what is God doing in our salvation? He is recreating us as a new creation, restored to that moral image which he had implanted in us in the first place. And that's one reason why a believer ought to care about holiness, because that image consists in our holiness, in our godliness.

So the apostle reminds us of this transformation that God has done in us. He says, therefore, don't lie, don't destroy the unity of the fellowship by using your tongues in a destructive way. And he reminds them again that it doesn't matter what backgrounds they are from in this congregation. They can be Jews or Greeks. They can be slave or free. They can be barbarians or even Scythians, and Scythians were the lowest of the low. Even the barbarians talked bad about the Scythians. They were considered the outcasts, they were the worst people that you could possibly imagine. And the apostle Paul says, look, if there are Scythians and barbarians in this congregation who are in Christ, then Christ is their Lord and He is indwelling them, and He is recreating them in the image of God as surely as He is that converted Jew, as surely as He is that educated Greek. Paul says every one in this congregation who is in Christ is being upbuilt and is being restored in the image of Christ, and therefore we must treat all with impartiality because God is not treating them with partiality. God is doing the same work in all of them regardless of their educational level, regardless of their ethnic background, regardless of their national credentials, regardless of any other factor in their background. God is doing a work in them, and therefore we are to treat them with our lips in such a way as to build them up and to establish unity in the congregation. Notice, by the way, that Paul squarely puts unity on the back of our personal growth in righteousness. You cannot create unity amongst a people who is not personally renewed in righteousness. How can you create unity amongst people who do not reflect individually the righteous principles implanted by the grace of Christ?

II. Christians must put on the behavior of a new creation.

And that leads Paul to the second section of the passage. In verse 12 where he tells us to "Put on." Here he is instructing these believers to put on the virtues or the characteristics, to put on the behavior of the new creation. Throughout the passage Paul calls the church a new creation, and he uses two images, in fact. He says you are a new Israel, and you're a new creation. And as he calls us to live like the new creation, notice again he doesn't just say do all these things and then list off compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Again, he gives them a basis. He answers the question, "How is it that I can do these things?" Paul says you can do it because of who you are. What does he say? Look at verse 12: "You are chosen, you are holy and you are beloved." He goes back to the electing love of God, and he says, God has set His heart on you. He has chosen you, and because He has chosen you, He has called you to holiness, and He has evidenced His love for you by His choosing of you.

Isn't it interesting that Paul applies to this tiny little congregation in Colossae the same blessings which were given by God to the children of Israel in the Old Testament. They were called God's chosen people, and now Paul is saying to this little rag-tag group of Christians in Colossae, 'You are the chosen people of God. God has chosen you, and He has elected you for holiness of life, for service of His church, and His election of you is proof of your love. And because of who you are, because you are the chosen people, therefore, I want you to put off the old life, and I want you to put on the new life. I want you to put off the old self, lay it aside, and I want you to put on the new self. Dress yourself, clothe yourself, bathe yourself in the reality of what it is to be the new creation,' is what the apostle Paul is saying.

And he speaks of it specifically in verse 12. Five things, he says. Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Notice, friends, that these aren't five separate things. These things flow in and out of one another. They are connected to one another. They are like circles which are interlocked. They are not separate things that have nothing to do with one another, but if you have one principle in you, the others naturally flow. Let's look at them briefly.

Paul says, dress yourself, clothe yourself, put on compassion, a heart of compassion. That compassion refers to that yearning with deep affection which we saw so frequently evidenced in the life of Christ, our Savior. He comes across the sea. He's tired. He's seeking a place to retreat and pray. He has good motives. He desires to pray with the heavenly Father. He is met on the other side of the sea by a great crowd. His disciples want Him to turn them away, but we are told that He felt a compassion for them. And in that context, He denies Himself, and He feeds the five thousand. What would have happened if our Lord had said 'No, I've got to have My quiet time'? The compassion of the Lord, the compassion of the Lord is our model. And Paul says you be that way to one another in the life of the church.

Notice that kindness is connected to this. It flows out of it. Kindness referring to that goodness of heart surely connected with that yearning of affection, that compassion of which He has previously spoken. He says you put on kindness as well. St. Augustine, the great church father, was not always a saint by any stretch. Much of his adult life he spent in behavior which we would hardly condone. And his friends talked him into going to Rome and then on to Milan to hear the greatest orator in the church, a man named Ambrose, who was the Bishop in the city of Milan. When Augustine first went, he said that Ambrose's preaching really didn't impress him that much. In fact, he said if this is the best the church has to offer, the church doesn't have very many good orators. But he also said that Ambrose's kindness to him was such that it overcame his lack of estimation of his preaching ability. And it was Ambrose's kindnesses to Augustine that led Augustine to listen to his preaching, even after his friends had long gotten bored and gone back to Rome. And of course that led to Augustine's conversion to Christ. Kindness, Paul says, is something that you are to put on.

Humility is the third thing. That spirit of lowliness which is based on a proper self-understanding. You put on humility. You are characterized by humility. Cornelius, the Centurion, was a humble man. He said, "O Peter, I'm not even worthy for you to come to my house." The Syrophoenician woman, the Canaanite woman, she was a humble woman. When the Lord said, "It is not appropriate to give the dogs the children's food." She said, "O, but Lord, even the dogs eat the scraps from their master's table." That is humility. The Cornelius type of humility. The Canaanite woman's humility. The Publican's humility when he said, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." That type of humility, Paul says, that ought to characterize our dealings with one another in the life of the congregation.

Gentleness, he says, certainly again connected with our humility is the next thing that we are to put on. We're to have a consideration for others, and a willingness to forgo our own rights. Moses was called the meekest man on earth. How often was his leadership challenged? And never did he defend himself, but he waited for the Lord to defend him. David was a meek man. How often was his position as the chosen instrument of the Lord challenged, and yet he allowed the Lord to defend him. And he forwent his own rights.

Patience, Paul says. Patience. Forbearance with wrongs done to you. That forgiving spirit which reflects God. God Himself is slow to anger, the Scripture says. In other words, He doesn't condemn us when He could condemn us if He wanted to condemn us then. God forbears. He's slow to anger. He gives us time to repent. He doesn't speak a word of rebuke and correction and condemnation every time we sin. Ever wonder how the gospels would have sounded if Jesus had spoken a word of correction every time His disciples sinned? "John, stop that. Peter, that's wrong. Matthew, you're absolutely out of line." See, the whole gospel would be filled with the Lord's rebukes. But the Lord forbore with the disciples. He showed forbearance, and Paul says we are to show forbearance.

We can't look specifically at the other things that Paul says in the passage. But these are such good things for Presbyterians to meditate on. Paul says if you want a life of unity in the congregation, these are the things which are going to have to characterize your dealings with one another. How easy it is to speak of these things in the abstract, but how difficult it is to be compassionate to a person who hasn't shown you compassion. To be forbearing with a person who has not been in the least forbearing or forgiving of your own sins.

And it isn't a mistake, is it, that in verse 13 Paul pulls it together and he specifically says 'forebear and forgive one another.' It's so encouraging to me that Paul doesn't see this local congregation of Colossian Christians as sort of an outpost of heaven on earth where everyone is perfect. He knows that the only way these people will ever get along with one another is that they are forbearing and they are forgiving and they are kind, and they are compassionate, and if they're humble, and if they're meek, and if they're patient, because otherwise they could have killed one another. The apostle Paul knows that these principles must be in place because there are so many sins and faults in each of us. And he calls us to put off the sin and put on the newness of self.

And let me say very quickly that Paul's idea of a new self doesn't mean that your personality is evacuated, and that you become some sort of zombie filled by the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul means that, in fact, your personality and your humanity is heightened as it is restored in the image of God, as you walk in newness of life, as you put off old behavior, old attitudes, old thoughts and as you live in accordance with the principle that God has implanted in you, the principle of grace, the principle of the new creation - that's only found, my friends, by grace. Only when you've met Christ, and you've renounced your own efforts because you see how useless and how sinful they are, and you've trusted on Christ, only then can you experience the type of strength that Paul knows is necessary for a person to live like this.

As we close, let me just say, don't you want elders like this? As you vote today, don't you want elders that have these types of characteristics. Think about it as you write down your election for those who are going to lead us into a new millennium, should the Lord tarry. And let me ask you this: Do you want to be like this? As you look at this glorious vision of what it means to be the new creation, do you want to be like it? Do you recognize, "Well, I'm not this, but I want to be that." Is your heart drawn to it? If it's not today, friends, pray that God would do a work in your heart so that your desires would be to look like what the Lord has said in His word that believers ought to look like. And if you do want to be like this, and yet you sense your weakness, then you're right where God wants you. Because it's only when you're reliant upon the work of the Spirit in your life that you're ready to take the first step down the road in being a person of kindness, compassion, humility, patience, and gentleness. May the Lord bless His word. Let us look to Him in prayer.

Our Lord we recognize our inability to do what is right, apart from the grace of Christ. And so work in us a renewed obedience because of the new creation, because of our union with Christ and we'll give You the praise and the glory, for we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

Colossians 3:18-21

The Incomparable Christ

Please turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter three. We have said throughout our study of His book, that God reveals in His word, through His book, that believers are complete in Christ. In chapter one, the apostle focuses on the person and the work of Christ, and says that if we will remember who He is and what He has done, much of the Christian life will fall into place. In chapter two, he issues warnings against misunderstandings about Christ and how we find fullness in Him, which actually detract from our completeness in Christ, and can lead us astray. In chapter three, we said that Paul begins to make practical application of the principle of the supremacy of Christ, the incomprableness of Christ, the rule of Christ in our lives. We saw, in verses one through eight, the apostle apply the principle of Christ's supremacy to our daily lives. In verses nine through seventeen last week, we saw the apostle apply the principle of the supremacy of Christ, the rule of Christ, to our life within the congregation of the local church. And this week we will see the apostle apply the principle of the rule of Christ to the family life, to the home. Let's listen to the Word of the living God. Hear God's inspired and inerrant word:

(Colossians 3:18-21)

Our heavenly Father, these words are simple but hard. Easy to understand, perhaps, hard to accept for many, and certainly, difficult to obey. We need the grace of the Spirit, not merely to grasp and embrace these principles, but to live them. And so we ask that by the Spirit this day, You would make us hearers and doers of the word, all for Christ's sake, Amen.

We hear much today about a crisis in family values. Here, the apostle gives his own domestic directives on how family life ought to be lived by Christians. I must point out, however, that his directions are less than politically correct. I can imagine in some environments, where a mere reading of these passages would cause audible gasps to be heard in the audience. But these are Paul's words. Paul, through his passage, reminds us that the rule of Christ begins at home. Godliness is best reflected in family life. His was a Puritan principle, not because they thought it up, but because they saw this teaching in Paul's teaching. Holiness is not to be found by withdrawing from our daily responsibilities; holiness is rather found in our daily responsibilities, in our daily duties, in our family life, doing these duties and responsibilities as unto the Lord, so that even our domestic responsibilities become sanctified and used as an instrument in the hands of the Spirit for our further sanctification. Paul, throughout his passage, wants us to recognize that the supremacy of Christ is worked out practically in the lives of Christians at home. And so, he gives four concise directives for the Christian family life.

I. Wives be submissive to your husbands

And he begins with this one in verse 18:"Wives, be subject to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord." Wives, he says, be submissive to your husbands. Now, this, of course, in our own day and age is a controversial command. There are many people there, today, who would like to get rid of this word. But, let me say that Paul's word is based on broad-based biblical teaching. Paul roots his teaching in creation, in the fall (but a direct biblical command) and, also, in the very nature of things. In 1st Timothy 2:13-14, he says that the order of creation, the headship of husbands in the home, is based on the way God created and on the results of the fall. Here, and also in Ephesians chapter 5:23, he gives a direct biblical mandate that wives are to be submissive to their husbands, and that husbands are to be the head of their homes. And in 1 Corinthians 11:14, he says that nature itself teaches that men are to have headship in the home.

That is controversial. It wasn't long ago, when a very prominent national women's organization attacked the Promise Keepers movement because it was fostering the idea of male headship, an idea whose time had gone in the view of this particular women's organization. Paul would not fare much better. But let me say, that Paul's call to submission is not a call to servile or childish submission. In fact, Paul's call to submission entails at least these three things:First of all, Paul calls wives to a practical recognition of the divinely given order of the household. Paul wants wives to know that that is not only how God has made things to be, but He has made things to be that way for their good. His is the divinely given order of the household, and when His order is reversed, when these roles are reversed, just like with Adam and Eve in the fall, it always results not only in the destruction of the man, but in the self-destruction of the wife. And so he calls for a recognition of the divinely given order of the household.

Secondly, in his call for submission, he is asking for practical recognition of the husband's authority under God;A recognition that the man bears certain responsibilities before the living God, for which one day he will give an accounting at the throne of God, and which, if ignored, Peter says, can hinder the man's prayers from being heard. It is an awesome thing to be appointed the head of the household. One's dereliction of duty results, Peter says, in the Lord refusing to hear one's prayers. The wife is to recognize that awesome weight of responsibility that the husband has, and support him in it.

And finally, Paul's call for submission entails the wife's sacrificial self-giving loyalty to her husband. He calls upon her to show that type of sacrificial loyalty which Christ himself shows to His people. This is what is involved in the submission that Paul calls for on the part of wives. Why in the world, if husbands are the head of the house, does Paul begin by speaking to wives first? Well, there may be many reasons for that. Let me suggest just two:First of all, Paul's word to the wife first is designed to protect the order and structure of the home. Even in his society there were waves crashing against the family, and, Paul wants to protect that order in the home. And he begins by speaking to the place where, perhaps, the first reversal may occur. Secondly, Paul mentions this directive to the wife, first, because one might be tempted to draw this conclusion from biblical logic:We are free in Christ, there is neither male nor female in Christ, therefore, as a wife, I no longer have the responsibilities for submission to the head of the household because I am free and equal in Christ. The Apostle Paul does not want our logic to go that way. He wants us to draw this conclusion:Because I have freedom in Christ, I am now free--with the right motives--to follow the biblical principles which have ever stood in this world, divinely given by God for the life of the family. And that includes recognizing the headship of the husband in the home. Paul gives this command to wives in a specific context, he says:"Wives, be submissive as is fitting in the Lord."What Paul says is this: This is what it means for a married woman to express her belief that Christ is Lord. What does it mean for a married woman to live as if Christ is Lord? One thing, Paul is saying, is that that woman is showing a proper relation, a proper submission to her husband. Dick Lucas, the director of St. Helen's, Bishopgate, puts it this way:"According to Paul, there is no possibility of a married woman's surrender to a heavenly Christ which is not made visible and actual by some submission to an earthly husband." His directive is not mine, not the Puritan's, it not even ultimately Paul's. And when it is ignored, it does not make life better for women, it actually makes life worse. And I would argue that many of the stresses and strains on family life today are precisely due to disagreeing or ignoring His particular biblical directive.

II. Husbands love your wives

But Paul gives this directive in the context of verse 19, and that is the second word that he has for us. "Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them." Here, Paul gives a command to Christian husbands to love. Isn't it interesting that the New Testament commands love. We don't think today very often about commanding love. You can't command someone to love, but no one has told the apostle Paul. He turns to husbands and says,'Love your wives. Do it. You must love your wives.It's not an option. It's not something peripheral to your obligations. It is your job. You must love you wives.' He is not hesitant to command husbands to do this.

Notice that the wife's submission and the husband's love form reciprocal duties within the marital relationship. There are mutual obligations and responsibilities beautifully meeting, and interestingly going against our natural tendencies. What may be the natural tendency of a man: to neglect his duty of love. What may the natural tendency of the woman: To be disloyal to her husband, or to undercut his authority. And yet, Paul calls on the two of them, in their mutual relationships to fulfill these reciprocal responsibilities: 'Wives, be loyal,' 'Husbands, love.' Notice again that the apostle calls on men to show not just a romantic love, and not just a familial love to his wife, but to show that agape love, that self-giving love which Christ has shown to the church, that love which looks out for the other's best interest, that love which puts one's own position and one's own resources and one's own privileges at the disposal of the one that you service. That sort of love that desires to up build the person who is being loved. This is the type of love Paul calls on husbands to show their wives. Martin Luther once said,"The Christian is supposed to love his neighbor, and since his wife is his nearest neighbor, she should be his deepest love." This is not something that Paul leaves up in the air, Paul commands this type of love from husbands to wives. How easy it is to follow these directions, relatively, when both partners are expressing and obeying these commands. How easy it is for a loving husband to be given deference by his wife. How easy it is for a woman who knows that a husband loves her, to submit to him, knowing that all his actions are directed for her best interests. How easy it is for a man to love a woman that he knows is loyal to him, who gives deference to him, who submits to him in appropriate circumstances, how easy that is. But how hard these things are when these things are both not true within a relationship ship. And yet the apostle Paul does not give a qualification to these commands. He does not say, 'Wives be loyal if he loves you,' and he doesn't say , 'Husbands, love her if she is loyal.' He simply says, 'Wives be loyal, husbands love.' And that's the real challenge, isn't it?

It's difficult sometimes, in the context of a broken relationship to keep from expressing bitterness, and yet Paul is waiting, waiting for that husband who says, 'But you don't know how unsupportive my wife is.' He is waiting for him at the end of verse 19, when he says, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them." Paul has added a practical test of love. Do you want to see if you are truly loving your wife? Are you embittered to her in your heart.

Does your bitterness flow into your language. Paul is saying, 'Husbands, love your wife in this way, do not be harsh. Love her with your lips and your heart, even if she has broken your heart.' Bitterness easily creeps into human relationships, and then it justifies itself and so it becomes more deeply entrenched. A wife can disappoint a man's hopes and ambitions.

And such feelings of disappointment can quickly find expression in harshness, in bitterness, in hard words. And the apostle Paul says, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them." "The woman takes her being from man," Thomas Adams said, "but man takes his well being from woman." Paul knew that man's love for his own wife was not only a blessing for her, it was a blessing for him. "For he who lives his wife," Paul says, "loves himself." We put it this way:'A happy wife is a happy life.' And it's true. Paul knows that the happiness of one's spouse directly impacts on one's own happiness, and he calls husbands to love their wives.

III. Children obey your parents

The next command we see in this passage is for children: "Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord." Notice Paul's command there,"obey." Children are to obey. Paul, again, is saying 'This is how a Christian child expresses his or her desire to serve the Lord. This is how a Christian child manifests the rule of Christ in his or her life. The child obeys his or her parents.' That's how you see the rule of Christ in someone's life, when a husband loves, when a wife is loyal, and when a child obeys. Children, don't underestimate the importance of this.

Obedience is very important to the Lord. Isn't it interesting, in Romans chapter one, in the midst of all of those horrible sins listed in that degenerate society, right in the middle of it, is disobedience to parents. Turn with me there in Romans chapter one, and we read this beginning with verse 28:"God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things that are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder , strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but give hearty approval to those who practice them." God takes obedience to parents very, very seriously. It is a manifestation of the rule of Christ in our lives. We cannot say Christ is Lord, and live lives of perverse and continual disobedience to our parents. It is part of our Christian life to live in obedience to our parents.

And let me say, in passing, that obedience is absolutely necessary for education itself. Have you ever thought about that? The only way we can ever learn, is to defer to authority. Harry Balymiers, the author of The Christian Mind, says this:"There is a stage of educational development at which perhaps Ian Flemming seems more entertaining than Shakespeare, and Gilbert and Sullivan more tuneful and attractive than Bach. The young pupil grows to maturity of taste insofar as he distrusts his own firsthand judgments in these matters, which would prefer Ian Flemming to Shakespeare and Gilbert and Sullivan to Bach, and gives the benefit of the doubt to traditional literary and musical orthodoxy, patiently, perhaps, in some respects, arduously, training his understanding to the point at which he, too, not only accepts on authority that Shakespeare and Bach are worthy of maximum attention and veneration, but can also personally testify to the validity of the orthodox evaluation." Education is rooted in deference to authority. If we not defer to authority, specifically, the authority of our parents in the home, and the authority to those other people in the world that God has put over us, we ultimately rob ourselves of the ability to grow, because God has made the world in such a way that the only way we grow is improper deference to authority.

The Lord takes these matters seriously. Notice the comprehensiveness of the command in verse 20:"Obey your parents in all things."His is not a blanket command, given so that children will even do things positively against the word of God that their parents tell them to do. His is a blanket command to remind children that God has placed their parents in a unique position of authority. There will be many things in life for which there is no 'Thus saith the Lord,' where there is no explicit biblical word. Your parents will have to make judgment calls in those circumstances, and God is saying to you to defer to their authority in that, follow them, be obedient to them in all things.

Notice, again, the context of his command to children. "Obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord." What's the motivation for obedience to parents? In this passage, Paul says, because "It is pleasing to the Lord." The context of disobedience is the pleasure of the Lord. Have you ever thought about it? The young people in this room, have you ever thought about it? That obeying your parents brings the Lord pleasure, that in heaven the heavenly Father is taking pleasure in the fact that you obey your parents. He derives joy from it. He takes pleasure in it. Many of you saw the movie Chariots of Fire, where Eric Liddel explained to his sister that he ran because God made him to run, and he went on to say that, when he ran he felt God's pleasure, because God had made him to run. He took pleasure and he felt the pleasure of God in doing what God had made him to do. God takes pleasure when you obey your parents, Paul says.

III. Fathers do no provoke your children

Finally, in verse 21, Paul says, Fathers, do not provoke your children: "Do not exasperate your children that they will not lose heart." Paul's command here for fathers, is specifically that they would not dishearten and discourage their children in the context of discipline. We may ask, 'Why not mothers here?' And perhaps the answer is apparent. Perhaps it is that fathers have more of a tendency to be heavy handed in the criticism and discipline than do the mothers. His is a warning against destructive and continual criticism, a warning against over sever punishment that would break the spirit of a child. And Paul is saying, 'Be careful fathers, as you discipline, as you rear your child in the correction of the Lord, do not be destructive and continual in your criticism of them so that they lose heart.'

He gives that rationale:"so that they will not lose heart." In other words, punishment and correction, though it must be done, must be done and balanced with the positive discipline of the Lord, time spent with children in teaching them and encouraging them and instructing them both verbally and by example in the way of the Lord, pointing them positively to Christ, telling them that they have done well, and not only telling them when they have not done well, telling them that they have pleased you and pleased the Lord, and not only when they have displeased the Lord. Paul is calling fathers to rear their children in such a way that they will not feel only the rebuke of God, but they will also feel His approval.

I remember when Gordon Reed's son went before the presbytery for his examination, and he was asked to give his testimony, his Christian experience, and he began by saying "I was raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but mostly the admonition." Many of us feel the same way sometimes. I myself was a poster child for spanking. Spanking worked on me. I understood spanking. I obviously did not understand it that well, because they had to do it a lot, but I did understand what it was designed to evoke. But my younger brother, spanking didn't phase. Children are different. Paul know that. Parents need to be careful. My younger brother, didn't respond at all, and my youngest brother didn't need it at all. He was perfect from the time he was born, which is a pretty discouraging thing for a first-born son, I might add. Paul is saying, 'Don't provoke your children. Be attentive to them instruct them, nurture them and balance your admonition with that Christian nurture.' Oh, what a glorious life Christian life in the home ought to be. But it's not that way all the time is it friends? Paul wouldn't be saying His if everything were always rosy in the Christian home.

There will be many here this morning who are discouraged about their home life, and I trust that God's word for you will spur you on in a desire to emulate Godly home life. J. I Packer tells us about Puritan home life, I share it with you briefly: "The Puritans crusaded for a high view of the family, proclaiming it both as the basic unit of society, and a little church in itself, with the husband as its pastor and the wife as his assistant, subordinate, indeed, in the chain of command, but a key figure in the ongoing pastoral process, nonetheless. As head of the family, the husband must be treated with respect. It was the husband's responsibility to channel the family into religion, to take them to church on the Lord's day, to oversee the sanctifying of that entire day in the home, to catechize the children, to teach them in the faith, to examine the whole family after the sermon, to see how much had been retained and understood, to fill in any gaps in understanding that might remain, to lead the family in worship daily, ideally, twice a day, and to set an example of sober godliness at all times and in all matters. The Puritans accounted religion as an engagement to duty, and that the best Christians should be the best husbands, the best wives, the best children, the best masters, the best servants, the best magistrates, the best subjects, that the doctrine of God might be adorned and not blasphemed by the way we live. And so Puritan teachers thought humane family life in which Christian love and joy would find full and free expression could not be achieved until this ordered pattern of Paul's regular authority, structure and daily routine had been firmly established."Do you desire after a Godly family life? I pray so, for homes are nurseries of religion, and if the true faith is not implanted in the home, it will not be implanted anywhere.

Notice, also, the necessity of graceas we seek to be Christians in the home. We could not do these things were it not for grace. Husbands and wives are sinners. Parents and children are sinners. We need the grace of God to establish this type of a life. This is not something for a human being to attempt on their own. Only the grace of God can help us here. Here, perhaps more then anywhere else, we are shown the depth of our sin. And though that's a discouraging thing, it's the first step towards encouragement, because when we realize that we can't do it on our own we are precisely at the point where God wants us. We can reach out to him and ask him to help us to live the lives He has called us to live in the home.

Perhaps you are an unbeliever today. What does His word have for you? A word solely about instruction for Christian living in the home. Surely there is no word here for you. Ah, but there is. God has a family, and His family is the best taken care of family in the world. And He sent His Son to die that all those who call on His name might no longer be His enemies, but His sons and His daughters. Come to God's family today. You will find him waitingWith arms to embrace you. Let's look to Him in prayer:

Our Lord and our God, we bless Your holy name, we acknowledge that these words are easy but hard, easy to understand but hard to embrace and obey. Help us to obey them by the Spirit and for Your glory. And we will give You all the praise for we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

Colossians 3:22 - 4:1

The Incomparable Christ

Please turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter three, where we continue our study in Paul's great letter. Throughout we have said that believers are complete in Christ, particularly as we look at chapter three, we see Paul applying the principle of the Lordship of Christ, the supremacy of Christ, the rule of Christ in a variety of our relationships: our personal piety and walk with God, our relationship to one another in the congregation, our home and family life. And now today, he applies the principle of the rule of Christ, the Lordship of Christ, the supremacy of Christ to our work relations: how we live and operate in our work relationships. Let's hear the word of the living God beginning in Colossians chapter three verse 22.

(Colossians 3:22 - 4:1)

Our Lord, this is Your word, Your infallible word. It is as such meant for our instruction, our upbuilding. We recognize we need the grace of the Holy Spirit both to understand it and then for our hearts to be made willingly obedient to it. For this we ask in Jesus' name, Amen.

The Apostle Paul, in this passage sets forth principles for the rule of Christ in our work. Have you ever thought of it, Christmas, the Incarnation has implications for how you work? Christ came to redeem our work, too. And so Paul sets forth what it means for Christ to be Lord in the workplace in this passage. This is a very timely thing, because we live in a day and time when people are talking about a loss of work ethic in our community, in our society. We hear the phrase that we have lost the Protestant work ethic and we have lost it so far that we scratch our heads and we wonder just what was the Protestant work ethic? Books are written about this all the time. Perhaps you saw Chuck Colson's book, co-authored with Jack Eckerd (of the drugstore chain) entitled, Why America Doesn't Work, asking the question: "What has happened to the work ethic in America?" Paul is here to address precisely that kind of issue. We see modern views of work everywhere we turn, and we even see those views pervading our own outlook on work. You've seen the bumper sticker I Owe, I Owe, so Off to Work I Go. I don't know how seriously to take that bumper sticker when I see it, but if the people that put in on their cars really mean it, then they are saying that they are only, at least their main reason, for work is to retire their debts. Now to be sure that it is a good thing to do to retire you debts, but is that the only or the main reason that we ought to work? Paul has a different motivation for our work. Or perhaps you have heard friends to express that they can't wait for the weekend. The weekend is looked at as something to relieve them from the drudgery from work, which is viewed as a necessary evil. We work so that we can do what we really want to do on the weekends, is the philosophy of many people in our own day and time, and that's why we hear expressions, somewhat sacrilegious, like T.G.I.F.. We can't wait for the weekends. We can't for Friday to come so that we can get away from this thing which is only a means to help us do what we really want to do, which is escape into some world of recreation. That is not the biblical view of work, but we all have to confess that that sort of viewof work has at least begun to influence some of us. And so Paul sets forth here principles which are applicable to anyone in the work relationship, even thought he is speaking to a community and to a society two millennia ago, set up on a very different economic basis from our own. He has set forth principles which are eternally practical and applicable and I'd like to look at those principles with you today.

Before we do so, however, I think I need to make a brief explanation, for Paul has come under criticism in this passage and others for not condemning the Greco-Roman practice of slavery. So perhaps we need to say a few words about Paul and slavery. Paul begins this passage by saying, "Slaves in all things obey those who are your masters on earth." Those who are proponents of social change and social equality usually rail against Paul for this statement, 'Paul, you are simply reinforcing the evil status-quo. You are actually endorsing a system in society which exploits people. You are acquiescing to the cultural trends. You are simply a voice of cultural evil conservatism. You are simply wanting to maintain the status structure of this society.' Well, I hasten to add that I have never known Paul to acquiesce to anything. Have you? When you look at your Scriptures, do you find him acquiescing to things in his society? Not at all. And he doesn't in this passage either, my friends. For though Paul does not attack the institution of slavery, it is very important that we recognize that Paul is here, in chapter three, and all the way into the beginning part of chapter four, discussing the implications of the rule of Christ and Christian liberty, for our personal relationship with God, our life in the church, our life in home, and our life at work. And Paul is, at the very, very minimum saying the rule of Christ has implications for both those who work and for those who employ. The rule of Christ must be manifested in both sides of that work relationship. Paul does not, to be sure, teach a social gospel here. He is not preoccupied with systematic structural change. He is not asking the Christian Church to become involved in sort of a campaign against this particular form of economic relationship in the Greco-Roman society. But the apostle Paul does approach this particular issue from a God-centered perspective. You see, Paul knows that real change doesn't happen from structures within. It doesn't happen from below up to heaven; real change starts from the inside out, and is brought about by heaven coming down into our experience. And so for the Apostle Paul. all real change begins with a heart change and understanding of our relationship to God, and then of course it necessarily begins heavenward because we must look to God to see real change. Every other kind of change, as far as Paul is concerned, is insignificant. We can change societal structures and create new problems as we have before, even as we try to remedy old problems that we did have. And yet, no ultimate change occurs until there is a change in the heart. And so the Apostle Paul begins there by saying, 'I want you to understand, that even in your work, Jesus Christ is Lord.'

And for Paul in this passage that means at least three things. First of all, Paul asserts the Lordship of Christ in work relations. He says to masters and slaves, 'Christ is Lord over your work and Christ is Lord over your management of those who work for you.' What a radical assertion, to those who lived in a society where slaves had very, very, very few rights, to assert to them, 'I don't care what the society says, Christ is Lord over your work relations.'

Notice also that Paul treats slaves as persons. In Greco-Roman law, slaves would have been cattle, they would have been possessions, things. They would have had no thinking to do. They would have had no rights before the courts. But Paul speaks to them as thinking, feeling, living, breathing Christian human beings here. Christian slaves, he says, 'be obedient to your masters.' And he gives them instructions as persons.

Thirdly, notice that Paul sets forth a principle of reciprocity. He expects masters to reciprocate slaves, and slaves to reciprocate masters. In other words, masters must be concerned about those whom they employ, and those who labor must be concerned about the needs of the masters. Just like he does in family relations, just like he does in church relations, he expects a principle of Christian reciprocity to reign in work relationships. He expects Christians who are employers and employees to take care of one another and to serve well with whom they work. That having been said, let's look at Paul's four great principles for our work relations as they are set forth in this passage.

I. The Christian should do all of his work as if he were doing it for the Lord

First of all, in verse 23, I want you to note that Paul says that the Christian should do all his work as if he were doing it for the Lord. The Christian should do all his work as if he were doing it for the Lord. In verse 23 we read: "Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men." Here Paul brings to bear the great principle of the rule of Christ which brings freedom. And he says Christian freedom leads us to certain things: Christian liberty, for instance, strengthens our motive to work. It doesn't weaken it. You can imagine these slaves coming to Paul. 'We are free in Christ,' they say, 'does that mean that we no longer have to obey these horrible rules from our masters?' And Paul says, 'No, Christian liberty has freed you to work more effectively. It has not lessened your motive for working. It's freed you to give yourself in your labors and to do it as unto the Lord.' Christian liberty strengthens; it doesn't weaken our motive for work. That's why Paul can say in this case, "slaves obey." You are free in Christ, therefore do your work better than anyone else.

Notice also in verse 22 and 23, he tells us that Christian liberty frees us from man pleasing. Christian liberty frees us from eye service. In other words, we see the phrases in verses 22 and 23, obey "not with external service as those who merely please men." And then in verse 23, "as for the Lord," work for the Lord "rather than for men." Paul is concerned that our work not be done simply for the estimation that will be put on it by the one that we work for, by our earthly employer, our earthly master. Paul says, 'No, our work should be done as if it were before the eyes of God. It's not simply to be eye service or man pleasing.' You know, the tendency of a person who is underpaid and underappreciated, is to give a minimalist effort for his employer. As long as the employer is watching that person may try and look like they are working hard, but when the employer is gone, we reduce ourselves to that minimal effort necessary to get by and to please our master. Paul says, 'Don't work that way. Work as if you are constantly aware that the eyes of the Lord are on you.' Work in light of that reality. What would be the natural tendency of the slave? To give the very least amount of effort to get by. What in our day and time is often the natural tendency of the employee? To give the least amount of effort necessary to get by. The least amount of effort necessary to keep from getting in trouble with one's employer. But Paul says here, 'You work, not for eye service, not for man pleasing, but you work as unto the Lord.'

Notice also, that Paul teaches in this passage that Christian liberty frees us to do all our work as to the Lord. We must, he says in verse 22, we must "fear the Lord in our labor." It is to the Lord that we will give an account. We often think of the account that we will give to those to whom we answer on earth. Paul says, remember the one that you are ultimately to give an account to about your work. Could it be that Paul is saying here that God cares about your work? Absolutely. Paul is saying that work is valued in the sight of God, and that means that your work is valuable. Whatever you do, whatever area of legitimate labor you engage in, is valued in the sight of God. It has dignity attached to it as you do it well. And the apostle is saying, do your work for for the Lord rather than men. He is our Master and our employer. All work done for the Master in heaven has dignity. It doesn't matter whether you are a member of a learned profession or do what is in the eyes of some, menial labor. Whether you are a street sweeper, a university professor, a member of one of the professions. No matter what you do, it has dignity in the eyes of the Lord as it is done well.

Here we see a great principle which the Reformers and the Puritans caught on to. We so often make a dichotomy in our view of work today. There are spiritual things like being a missionary, being a minister, being an elder, teaching a Sunday School class; those are spiritual works. And then there are secular works, and in our eyes these are much lower and less important things: things like being doctors and lawyers and engineers and nurses and homemakers and teachers. These things certainly couldn't be as important to God as teaching a Sunday School class or saving people on the mission field. The Apostle Paul is saying, 'Oh, yes they are. Because Christ is Lord of your work, and no matter what you do, He wants you to manifest the Lordship of Christ as you do it.' You have a vocation. You have a calling from God, and it has dignity. And that is why Martin Luther could say, "A dairymaid can milk cows to the glory of God." All work done well has dignity and it is valued in the sight of God. Booker T. Washington said, a long time ago, "That no race can prosper until it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem." We live in a day and age where certain professions are honored above others, and yet if you do what you do for the glory of God, it has eternal value in His sight. He cares how you labor and He cares about the way you treat those with whom, and for whom you labor. And so we see this principle: Christians should do all your work as if we are doing it for the Lord.

II. The Christian should do all his work from the heart

The second principle that Paul sets down is this: Christians should do our work from the heart. The Christian should do all his work from the heart. See verses 22 and 23 where he says, slaves obey with "sincerity of heart," and then he goes on to say, "whatever you do, do your work heartily." There, Paul teaches the principle that Christian liberty frees us to work whole heartedly, with sincerity of heart, to work heartily for those that employ us. Paul is here speaking about that half-hearted work and service which characterizes so much of our community today. Have you ever gone to a service establishment and wondered if perhaps you were bothering the clerks by being there? Their hearts do not appear to be in it we think, sometimes. Paul is saying, 'Don't work that way. Work from the soul. Give yourself in your work. Enjoy your work. Throw yourself into this work that the Lord has given to you.' He is waging war against half-hearted service, and is that not the tendency of those who are either slaves or again underappreciated or underpaid? Isn't it the tendency to become half-hearted? Isn't it the tendency to have a drudging attitude towards the work itself, to not have our hearts in it? I thank God that He has given me a vocation and positions within that vocation consistently that I have loved. I used to say to friends while I was at the seminary, "I hope that the trustees never find out how much I love this work! Because I love it so much I'd do it for free." But I'd still like to get paid. That's how I have always felt about the labors that the Lord has given me. What a privilege it is to serve you. I look forward to serving you in all the aspects and activities. But that's what Paul wants for all laborers, no matter what area of service you are in. If God has called to be a clerk, if God has called to be a teacher, a homemaker, a lawyer, a doctor, or any other thing, God wants you to throw your heart in it, for him to do it as unto the Lord, whole-heartedly and with sincerity.

This, my young friends is why it is so important as you choose your profession, to remember that all work is a result of the Lord's calling, not just the ministry, not just the missionary work, but if God calls you to be a shoe salesman, to be the best shoe salesman that you can be. And if God calls you to be a manufacturer of something or a giver of services, or a professional, that you should seek the Lord's wisdom and guidance so that you can do whatever you do wholeheartedly. How sad it is when I run into friends who hate what they do. How can you possibly do well that which you hate while you're doing it? Paul is looking for whole-souled service in the workplace, and how we need that in our own day and time.

III. The Christian should realize that his work will be rewarded

Paul thirdly tells us that the Christian should realize that his work will be rewarded. Paul is speaking to slaves initially here. In the Roman world, slaves were obviously not rewarded with great remuneration for their labors. They had food and shelter and other basic forms of care, but they were not paid for their labors. And Paul is saying to these slaves, 'you will be rewarded.' But furthermore, he adds this phrase, you will be rewarded "with the inheritance." Now that must have been very special to the ears of those slaves, because under Greco-Roman law no slave could inherit, and Paul is saying, 'You will be rewarded with your inheritance.' Why? Because you serve the Master with a capital M. You serve the Lord who is in heaven, and He will not fail to give you your inheritance, even if men do not.

Every single one of us, at some time or another, must certainly be put in circumstances where we are robbed in labor of that which is due to us. Perhaps it is because of frivolous suits that we are not able to take into the care of our families the money which we have earned. Perhaps it is because we have been defrauded in a business relationship. Perhaps it is because we work for an employer who does not pay us appropriately, or perhaps we are an employer who has employees who steal from us. All of us surely have faced situations where we are defrauded of that which is rightfully ours, and Paul is saying here, no matter how difficult the situation is in which you work, no matter if you are being robbed of that which is rightfully yours in your labor, you will be rewarded.

Paul is setting forth the principle of God's remunerative justice. We often think of God's judging justice, His retributive justice, where He punishes those who are wicked. But the Bible equally teaches the fact that God will reward His children's well-doing. Did you know that? That God cares about your work, and as you do your labors faithfully for Him under the Lordship of Christ, He promises a reward to you? He says, 'You will not fail to receive the inheritance which I am preparing for you.' God rewards His children. What an encouragement.

But then, in verse 25, comes that reciprocal side. He sends out that word of warning, 'wrongdoers will be repaid,' he says. He doesn't say whether he is speaking about masters of slaves there. I think Paul purposely left that ambiguous. I think Paul wanted them to know that slaves, that employees that defraud their employers of the rightful work that they owe them, the Lord will be watching. And those employers who exploit those who serve them, God will be watching, and He will repay every wrongful activity. Isn't it amazing that God cares about your work! He does. And He wants it to be done unto the liberty and the rule of Christ.

IV. The Christian master/employer must treat his workers with justice and fairness

And that leads us to the last point where Paul teaches us, that the Christian master, the Christian employer must treat his workers with justice and fairness. In 4:1, we read, "Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you, too, have a Master in heaven." Masters, Paul says, are to be just and they are to be fair. They are to be equitable in their treatment and their provision for their employees. Paul here, not only lays strictures on Christians servants, but also on Christian masters. There are reciprocal responsibilities. And he says to these masters, in a community where they had absolutely no legal obligations or at least minimal obligations for their slaves, he says, 'I don't care what obligations the law has for you. I've got one for you. Be just and fair with those who are your servants, for you have a Master who is in heaven. Everyone will give an account to Him, especially you masters.' He reminds masters that they have a Master in heaven, they have a Lord in heaven to whom they will give an account. And though it may seem like the slave has no recourse in law or in social justice in his society, Paul says there is One who is watching how you conduct yourself, master, how you conduct yourself, employer. And therefore you treat those who works for you fairly.

Chuck Colson tells the story of Richard Halverson visiting a man who had recently become a Christian in his congregation. And Halverson went to speak with this man, and the man owned a number of car dealerships throughout the city in which he lived. And he was not known for his honest dealings either with customers of with his employees. As an expression of his gratitude to God for the salvation which he had been granted in Christ, he excitedly told Richard Halverson, "You know, I have a new plan. My plan is to hand out a New Testament to every customer who comes into the place and to give one to all my employees as well." Halverson paused and said, "Well, that's a good idea, but you know, an even better idea would be for you to treat your customers fairly and to treat your employees fairly. Because I suspect that if you give out New Testaments and you continue to conduct yourself the way you've been conducting yourself, it's going to be detrimental to the gospel, not helpful." Halverson had hit on a very Pauline principle, that God cares how we conduct ourselves as masters and as employers. He cares that we treat people justly and fairly, and that we, above all people, are seen to be fair and equitable in our practices, both in our business relations and in our treatment of those who work for us. Sinclair Ferguson said, "Man was made to work, because the God who made him was a working God." All work has dignity in the sight of God, and He cares about the work that we do and how we do the work that we do. These principles are set down as gospel principles to direct Christians in the way we go about our vocations, and they are universally applicable whether we worship and work in the church, or whether we are working somewhere outside of the church. The rule of Christ brings freedom, and that freedom that the rule of Christ brings, leads us to greater and deeper and richer obedience, not to less obedience in the realm of our work relations.

The man who was a great testimony to me in Scotland of his faithfulness, was a man who held a position very much like a janitor in America. His name was Mr. Bill Anderson. He was called a 'college officer' at the Free Church College. Mr. Anderson was gracious and wise and intelligent and humble, and he went about his duties with great care. And though his position was not valued in the eyes of the world, yet all those who knew him were blessed by his winsomeness and love and faithfulness. On one occasion. Professor McMillan was ushering an English lady onto the lift to go up to the Thomas Chalmers housing association, to talk with her about a grant for the creation of inner city housing. As she went up the lift, she was asking questions about the building. The building they were in was almost 300 years old. She asked question after question to Professor McMillan. He knew none of the answers. But Mr. Anderson, the college officer, the janitor, knew all the answers. And so he kindly volunteered those answers to her. As they got off the lift on the second floor, she turned to Professor McMillan and said, "What does he teach?" He said to her, "Well, he ought to teach Church History and I ought to be the janitor!" No matter what we do, if we do it well, what we do is valued by the Lord and can be a testimony in our community. May God bless you by grace to do well in your work and so honor the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's look to Him in prayer.

Our Father, we bless your Holy name, that You have given us work to do in this world. We desire to do it well for Your glory. All in Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 4

Colossians 4:7-18

The Incomparable Christ Part 17

Turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians, chapter four. We've come to the final exposition in this book. In verse 7, Paul begins his final words, his epilogue, his selection of greetings, and final directions, and words of appreciation. Throughout our study, we have noted that the great theme of this book is that believers are complete in Christ. It's very interesting that Paul works that theme even into his final words of greetings. And we've probably outlined this book enough together over the last few Sundays that you can probably do it in your sleep. In chapter one, the apostle tells us who Christ is, and what He has done. And he tells us that if we will understand those things, we will understand the supremacy of Christ in His person and work. It will revolutionize the way we approach the Christian life, because if we understand His supremacy, we will understand that He is sufficient for growth in grace, and we'll stop looking for gimmicks. We'll stop looking to works righteousness. We'll stop looking to other sources of spiritual strength, which are not in Him, because in Him is everything that we need for growth in grace and fellowship with the Father.

In chapter two, he defends that idea against five misunderstandings that were being propagated in the church in Colossae, which actually undercut the truth that believers are complete in Christ, and which actually implicitly undercut the supremacy of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And so he gives five separate warnings in chapter two against teaching which is not in accordance with the truth.

Beginning in chapter three, and running down through chapter four, verse six, he applies the truth that believers are complete in Christ and that Christ is supreme, into five areas of day to day existence. Five practical areas of living. We saw them. Beginning in chapter three, he applies them to our hearts, our own personal relationship with god. Then he applies them to the area of the local congregation, how we get along with one another and work with one another. Then he applies those truths to the area of our home and family life. Then he applies them to the area of our work, our vocation. And then finally, last week we saw, he applies them to our attitude and our position in the world. What should our attitude be towards the world?What is our posture to be toward the world?How are we to pray for the world?In each of those areas he shows just how practical his theology is. And let me just say in passing, though for us it's always easier to understand Paul in the second half of his letters when he is applying his truth, if you will get hold of what he says in the first half of those letters, it will revolutionize the way you look at the world, because his theology is tied together with practical issues of Christian living which confront us every day of our existence.

And so we come to his epilogue, his final words. Let's hear the word of the living God, beginning in Colossians, chapter four, verse seven.

(Colossians 4:7-18)

Our Father, we thank You for this word. We thank You for the truth of Your word. And we thank You for the power of Your word and the applicability of Your word. And now, we ask that You would open our eyes that we might behold wonderful things from Your word. And we'll give You all the praise and all the glory. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

This concluding word, this afterword, this epilogue, is among the richest in all the Apostle Paul's letters. Only the book of Romans has a longer list of personal greetings and directions and words of appreciation and encouragement. And in this epilogue, the Apostle Paul reveals something of his own heart, his concern for the church there at Colossae. The personal references tell you that this church is more to Paul than simply someone, or some body of people that he is interested in, in terms of advancing the numbers of his cause. He's concerned about them individually. He speaks of individual people. He gives individual words of encouragement and instruction and admonition. Paul is concerned about the people in this congregation,and there are many themes in this passage which we're not going to be able to explore. You may think that this is one of those passages, when you first look at it, kind of like the genealogies in the Book of Chronicles. How in the world can you learn anything from a passage like this? But the fact of the matter is, that this passage is so rich, there are many themes that we're not going to be able to look at today.

Let me tell you some of the themes that we're not going to be able to look at and explore today. We're not going to be able to explore the implications for the doctrine of the communion of saints, which are found in Paul's wonderful little phrase in verse nine about Onesimus, where he calls him a faithful and beloved brother, and he says that Onesimus is one of them, one of their number. Think of this. Paul is returning this runaway slave, Onesimus, who he's written about in the Book of Philemon. His master was a Christian from the congregation at Colossae, and Tychicus, the man who is returning to Colossae with this letter from the Apostle Paul is being accompanied by this runaway slave, Onesimus. And the Apostle Paul calls this bond slave his 'beloved friend and fellow servant of the Lord.' Think of that, faithful and beloved brother, a runaway slave. And think of how he sends this slave back to the congregation and he says, 'he is one of you.' Think of the prestigious people who were in that congregation, not the least of whom was Philemon, who was wealthy enough to own slaves, and Paul says, 'this slave, he is one of you.' Think of the implications for the communion of saints. We're not going to be able to explore that this morning.

Then we're not going to explore the beautiful prayer of Epaphras that the Apostle Paul records for us in verse twelve. John Calvin says, that this is "a good pastor's prayer." He tells us that Epaphras, who has been ministering to this congregation even though he is now ministering to Paul in his imprisonment, has not forgotten the congregation, in fact, he engages in wrestling with the Lord daily, Paul tells us. And what does he pray?He prays that this people would be perfect in Christ, that they would be complete in Christ, and that they would be assured and fulfilled in the will of God. Why, in Epaphras's little prayer, he sums up the whole Book of Colossians, the whole emphasis of the Book of Colossians, that believers would be complete in Christ and that they would know what it is to be assured of that, and fulfilled in the will of God. And Paul says, 'he's praying that for you daily.'

Oh, that we had time to explore the beauty of that prayer. We're not going to have time to meditate on the fact that in this afterword, the Apostle Paul tells him that among those that are with him in his imprisonment were Mark and Luke. Think about it. Two of the four authors of the Gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ fellowshipping with Paul during his time of imprisonment. Can you imagine what their conversation must have been like, recounting the life and the deeds of our Lord and Savior? Paul, who had been carried up into the heaven of heavens; Mark, who had been with our Lord on the night in which He was betrayed; Luke, who had investigated these things for himself. Can you imagine the exalted prose of their conversation as they meditated together on the life and the history of our Lord and Savior? We're not going to have the time to think about that together today.

And we're not going to have time to think about the sad warning which Paul gives in one word in verse fourteen. The word is a name; the name Demas. Demas is mentioned as being with Luke, Paul's good friend and physician. Demas is mentioned again with Luke in the book of Philemon in verse twenty-four. Demas and Luke are mentioned, in both of those passages, they are mentioned as ongoing, faithful servants of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But I'm sad to tell you, friends, that the last word in the scriptures on Demas is a very sad one, because in the last book that Paul wrote, in Second Timothy, chapter four verse ten, he tells us that Demas fell away from the faith. Could Demas have been one of those Christians who rode the coattails of the more mature Luke, and who depended on him too much for his own spiritual maturity and growth in grace, and then, when the challenge came, he found just how empty his commitment to Christ was, and he fell away? I don't know. But the sad thing is that the very mention of his name reminds us that we must take care to make our calling and election sure. We're not going to have time to talk about those things today.

What I'd like to do is, I'd like to point to what this passage teaches us about the character of the Apostle Paul. Because the characteristics worked in the Apostle Paul, and evident in these passages, are transferable characteristics which God expects of all fulfilled Christians. These are principles and aspects of our character which each of us ought to possess, and which each of us need to cultivate, and we see them very readily in this passage.

We see in this passage that Paul has a great capacity for people. We see in this passage that Paul has a great capacity for shared ministry. We see in this passage that Paul has a great capacity for supporting his co-workers, and we see in this passage that Paul has a great capacity for single-mindedness. Each of those things are things that ought to characterize our lives living in the grace of Christ. And so I'd like to look at those things as they are set forth and evidenced in the epilogue with you this morning.

I. The fulfilled Christian has a genuine concern for people.

And the first principle is this. The fulfilled Christian has a genuine concern for people. Note that Paul not only remembers the names of these folks, he is genuinely concerned with them. He is genuinely concerned about their well being. Now there are many ways that I could demonstrate that to you, just from this passage, but let me just choose one way. Notice why he says he is sending Tychicus and Onesimus. Look with me briefly at verse eight, "For I have sent him to you for this very purpose..." Paul says this is the reason why I am sending these men to you. And he tells us in verse eight that he wants them to tell the people at Colossae about his situation. "I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know about our circumstances." He repeats that idea again in verse nine, where he says when Tychicus and Onesimus arrive, "they will inform you about the whole situation here."

Now Paul is not telling this church about his situation because he wants them to have sympathy for him. He's not desiring to engage in a pity party and have some company in his misery of imprisonment. Paul wants to tell them something about what is going on with him because he knows that they are concerned about him. Paul knows that these people are desperately interested in what his condition is: 'Paul, are you going to be taken to trial? Paul, is there a possibility that you will be released? If you are going to be taken to trial, will this mean the death penalty? And if so, how can we help you?' They have dozens of questions in their minds that they wanted answered about the beloved Apostle Paul whom had brought them the gospel. And Paul, even though in a letter where he is going to minister the majestic truth of our Lord and Savior Christ, he does not omit to deal with the human concerns that they had for him. It was not for a selfish reason that Paul was going to convey to them his situation. It was because he was concerned for them, and he knew that they were concerned about him, and that is why he sends word back giving specific details about himself.

Notice Paul's concern for people there. I was having lunch with a man who faithfully ministered in this congregation, impacted the lives of many, and he was telling me about a young man that he had been meeting on a number of occasions that greatly distressed him. The young man, every time that he got with him, wanted to argue points of theology. This young man thought that he understood theological truths that the entire rest of the world didn't understand, and all he would do, would be to rattle on theologically for two hours. And the brother who I was talking to at lunch said, "I couldn't get him to tell me about how his family life was. I couldn't get him to tell me about how his wife was doing, how his children were doing, or talk about anything 'normal.'All he wanted to do was argue." That was not the spirit of the Apostle Paul. Paul knew how to talk both about the great truths of scripture and those things that concern us as human beings created in the image of God. He had a balance in his conversation, and Paul here shows his interest in people, by conveying to them these life situations in his imprisonment.

Notice also in verse eight that he sends them this servant Tychicus because he wants to comfort and strengthen them. He says, "that he may encourage your hearts." Paul is not only concerned to tell them about his condition, but also to encourage them in their own place. They may have been downcast, thinking that 'if Paul is in prison, surely our imprisonment is coming soon.' And yet, Paul wants to encourage them. Think of this. Paul in his bondage, desiring to encourage those who were free. Paul had a concern for people. It's very evident in this passage before us.

Do we have that same kind of concern for people? Anne and I have experienced your care and concern in prodigious measure over these last weeks and months. I wonder if the whole of this congregation ever experiences that type of outpouring of concern and love? I hope to God that you do. It's a wonderful thing to know that type of love and concern. Is our fellowship characterized by that type of mutual concern for one another, not just for our ministers, but for one another in the congregation? Do we show that type of an outflowing concern for people? If we did, my friends, as we ought, this city would not be able to stop its tongue in speaking of how the love of Christ is manifested at First Presbyterian Church. I know that God will do great things in your hearts as He expands your concern for one another, and in so doing there's a witness to the world for Christ.

II. The fulfilled Christian shares his ministry

Notice, secondly, in this passage, we learn that the fulfilled Christian shares his ministry.

Paul willingly shares his ministry, and he acknowledges those who work with him, notice fellow servants in verse seven, fellow prisoners, verse ten, and fellow workers, verse eleven. The apostle Paul is no lone ranger. Yes, he is gifted by God, above the ordinary, in an extraordinary way, supernaturally by the Holy Spirit, so that he can prophesy and he can speak in tongues, and he brings the very revelation of God. But notice that his ministry, he sees, to be a corporate ministry. He is not off on his own. He is willing to share that ministry, and he is willing to acknowledge that other people play integral roles in the work that he does. Isn't that unlike some people that we know? Do you ever have a tendency to sort of protect your turf in your area of ministry? You've got something that you do well for the Lord and you don't want anybody else in on it. You're going to do it yourself. Not Paul. Paul is always sharing the ministry that he does, and acknowledging those who are involved in the ministry, acknowledging them with the glorious titles of fellow servants and fellow prisoners and fellow workers.

III. The fulfilled Christian appreciates and supports his co-workers

Notice also, that in this passage we learn that the fulfilled Christian appreciates and supports his co-workers. Notice in the passage how Paul is sincere in his compliments to those who are working with him in the gospel. Notice how appropriate he is in those compliments. Look at some of the compliments that he gives. First in verse seven he speaks of Tychicus as his beloved brother, his faithful servant, his fellow slave. What a beautiful ascription to this man, what a beautiful word of appreciation of his character and his service. He's a beloved brother. He's a faithful servant. He's a fellow slave of Christ.

Notice his words about Mark and Jesus Justus, two Jewish Christians who were serving with Paul. Of them, he says, "these were the only fellow workers from the circumcision." In other words, he says, everywhere I've gone, I have upset the Jews. They have gotten upset with the message that I'm preaching, but these Jewish Christians encouraged me and they worked along side me and I'm thankful to God for them.

Notice in verse twelve his words about Epaphras. He says that Epaphras is a bond slave of Christ. On the tombs of the prophets were the words, 'Servant of the Lord.' What better title could one have than to be called a servant of the Lord? And Paul says that Epaphras, you are a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he furthermore says, that this man Epaphras is always faithfully laboring in prayers. He is a man of prayer. Think of being called a faithful servant of the Lord and a man of prayer by Paul. What a compliment. How encouraging, how supportive, how appreciative was Paul as he labored.

Think again in verse fourteen, where Paul's even going to mention his doctor. In his greetings he speaks of his beloved physician. We perhaps don't always think of our physicians in that way, do we? But Paul speaks of his beloved friend and physician, Luke.

And notice his exhortations in verse ten and in verse thirteen. He tells the congregation, 'welcome Mark,' and he tells the congregation, I want you to know about how deeply concerned Epaphras is for you. Can you imagine the pressure of these two young pastors, going into a congregation where Paul had served? Think of the pressure, and Paul says, 'Well I know, but I want you to welcome this young man, Mark, if he comes, and I want you to know what a faithful man and how deeply concerned for you Epaphras is. These are men worthy of your esteem. Paul is encouraging of all those who work with them. What a generous spirit he has. He doesn't have to hoard the glory to himself. He isn't trying to build up his own name. He's desirous of encouraging those who work with him. Do we encourage one another in well doing that way? Are words of appreciation and encouragement frequently on our lips? Do we build up the saints by those types of words of encouragement? Paul did. And so ought we.

IV. The fulfilled Christian is single-minded in his spiritual focus

Finally, we see in this passage that the fulfilled Christian is single-minded in his spiritual focus, and Paul is the great example of this. Note how Paul never lets up on a theme. Paul began this epistle in chapter one, verse two, initiating the theme of loyalty to Christ, faithfulness to Christ, and even in his epilogue, even in his acknowledgments, he's still on the theme of loyalty and faithfulness and Christ. It's the theme of his letter and it continues to be mentioned in his epilogue. For instance, when you see what Paul says he appreciates about these various people in the epilogue, what comes immediately to mind? Faithfulness, commitment, and loyalty. Those are the things that are high on his list.

In verse seven he says what about Tychicus? He is faithful. He is loyal. What does he say about Onesimus? He is a faithful brother in verse nine. What does he say about Mark and Jesus Justus in verse eleven? They have been loyal to him, even though the others of his own race have not. And in verse thirteen, what does he say about Epaphras? He has been loyal to his flock, praying for them fervently, even while he was away, with a deep concern for them. Paul highlights the loyalty of each of these people, and it represents the single-mindedness not only with which he has written the book, but with which he conducted his life. The Apostle Paul always desired to promote loyalty to Christ amongst the congregations that he serves.

And when he compliments these workers, he precisely compliments them for their loyalty to Christ. There are so many applications of the truths found in this passage that we couldn't possibly survey them all, but let me just mention a few, as we conclude today. First of all, after looking at this final word of Paul, in the Book of Colossians, we're reminded again of the truth that all Scripture is given by inspiration. Only God could have written an acknowledgments section so filled with gospel truth and practical, day-to-day guidance.

Have you ever read the acknowledgments section of a book? It's not usually the most scintillating reading. It's usually something you skip over, but this acknowledgment is full of practical teaching. Only God could write acknowledgments as practical as this. "All Scripture is given by inspiration," Paul says, "and profitable for our correction and training in righteousness." And this passage proves it. Notice again Paul's great message to us. We are complete in Christ, and we should not look for fullness in anyone or anything else from him. And it's repeated. That theme is repeated in his recording of Epaphras's prayer in verse twelve. Epaphras has been praying that these believers would know that they are complete in Christ, that they would find their assurance in Him, and they would find the freeing power of the grace of Christ to unleash a holy life. And Paul doesn't want us to forget that message.

Finally, we should close with Paul's own closing words, found in verse eighteen. I direct your attention to them. He says, "remember my imprisonment." Remember, literally, my chains. Remember my bonds. Why would Paul tell these people to remember his chains? Not to gain sympathy. Paul wanted these people to remember why he was in prison: for preaching the message that we are complete in Christ and in Him only. And furthermore, he wanted them to remember who he was imprisoned for, the Master, the Lord and Savior. He was not at last the prisoner of Caesar. He was not the prisoner of Rome. He was the prisoner of Christ. He wanted them to remember the message and the Master who had put him in that prison, because he wanted them to cling to the truth of that message and always to be loyal to the Master who had given them that message.

There is a famous painting of the Apostle Paul in his prison. In that painting, light is falling through the window and falling upon Paul in prayer. There are bars in the window, but the painter does not draw shadows of the bars in the light which is reflecting on Paul, symbolizing that though Paul was imprisoned in his flesh, yet he had been freed by the grace of Christ. And though he was the prisoner of Rome, he was at last the prisoner of no one save Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ had set him free. Remember my bonds. Sweet bonds of Christ, the Puritans used to say. Paul was a man set free, and he desired the Colossians to be free as God desires us to be set free, only in Christ. Let's look to him in prayer.

Our heavenly father, we glory in the teaching of this book. We pray that it would not only be something that our minds and hearts relish to contemplate, but that it would become a practical reality of our living. We desperately need our priorities to be reordered in light of your word. This is Your word. By Your Spirit reorder those priorities and bring a revival born of the Spirit which renovates this congregation and this world. And we'll give You the praise and the glory. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

Table of Contents

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 1

- Colossians 1:1-2

- Colossians 1:3-8

- Colossians 1:9-15

- Colossians 1:13-20

- Colossians 1: 15-20

- Colossians 1:21-23

- Colossians 1:24-28

- Colossians 1:29 to 2:5

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 2

- Colossians 2:6-7

- Colossians 2:8-15

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 3

Colossians 3:1-8

Colossians 3:5-17

Colossians 3:18-21

Colossians 3:22 - 4:1

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 4

Colossians 4:7-18