Colossians 1 13 Colossians 1 13 who have delivered us from the power of darkness and Translated us into the kingdom of his dear son With Delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear son have you ever been told something that has completely changed your point of view and This is momentous news. And upon hearing of momentous news, you immediately think that this changes everything. It changes how you think. It changes how you order your life. That suddenly changes. And then how you plan for tomorrow suddenly changes. Momentous news might include the acceptance into a good school. It might include a promotion at work, or it might include a new career opportunity. Our brother Keith, we're praying for him today for such a thing. He's got momentous news. He's changing direction in careers. And upon a more personal level, Momentous news could be when a young lady accepts an invitation to go out on a date with someone that she admires. And it could be when a man asked a young lady to marry them. That's momentous news. And it could be that when you've heard that you're going to have a baby, that's momentous news. All these things, this is momentous news that changes everything going forward, changes how you think, Changes it changes how you order things in your life, and it changes how you plan for tomorrow Momentous news it's not always good news though and suppose. You've lost your job or Someone you know has been in a terrible accident And you may know someone you love is diagnosed with a serious illness or maybe someone who you love has just passed away. This is momentous news as well. Momentous news may make a change in the decisions that you make today and the plans you make for tomorrow and how you think for the rest of your life. And this gospel is momentous news. It's the good news of Christ. And it has the same effect upon us, upon reading here the Word today. Our brother Ron read the public reading of the Word. You see in these words that the apostle Paul, he shared his testimony of conversion. And this was momentous news to him, that the Lord Jesus met with him on the road to Damascus. And he was intent on causing more trouble in Damascus. until the Lord Jesus met him on this road and changed his direction on this road. You know, a few weeks ago, we studied the power of darkness and the power that it has over us. We've seen that we were born into the kingdom of darkness and we live and we obeyed this ruler of the prince of darkness. And we lived for this darkness that was sin. We lived for it. We lived for it. You know, in this morning, in the, in the class this morning, we went over Nicodemus in John chapter three, where Jesus says, verily, verily, I say unto thee, you must be born again to enter into the kingdom of God. We learned a few weeks ago that we were born into the kingdom of darkness. But now we need to be born again to enter into Christ's kingdom, this kingdom of God. We need born again. Born again. And we'll see this week that we're liberated from that kingdom of darkness. We're set free from it and brought into a new kingdom. This is the kingdom of his dear son just like he told Nicodemus and you come here to this kingdom There's no gates. There's no there's no bars. There's no there's no special secret handshake or pass that'll get you in You have to be born into it born again into it John the Apostle John would say in his first epistle if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness Then we lie and do not the truth You see, you can't live in both kingdoms at the same time. You either live in one or the other. But John would also say, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another in the blood of Jesus Christ. His son cleanseth us from all sin. This is momentous news, life-changing news. This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. He saved us from the bondage of sin, which is darkness. And He's freed us from this state of sin and wickedness that we lived in for years, that we were born into. And here in our text, it says, "...and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son." We are brought into this kingdom. We're translated into it. But Paul would also say in Ephesians 5.8, for you were sometimes darkness, but now ye are the light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. How you were sometimes darkness, but now ye are the light of the Lord. This is a life-changing process here. We've been delivered into a kingdom of light and of purity. This is the kingdom of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's brought us into this new kingdom. It's the gospel state. It's no more the sinful state, and it's no more the state of wickedness, and it's no more the state of hate and fear and despair. It's the kingdom of light. This is a kingdom where darkness is dispelled and light rules. A kingdom where we are made willing and able subjects for Christ's glory. And not only this, but we're made sons and heirs for a new wonderful heavenly kingdom to come. And the light of that kingdom is illuminated by the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter would have put it like this, God who have called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. This is the transformation process. It's so drastic that he describes it as once being in darkness, but now you're in the light. We were slaves of Satan and subjects of Him, but now we're made servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the conversion of a sinner is this translation of a soul from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. Paul would say in Romans, the law of the Spirit of life have set me free, makes me free from the law of sin and death. See here, the old desire of sin is broken. It's not just, these aren't just words he's saying here. This gospel, this momentous news, it sinks into our hearts and it causes a change. The stoned desires are broken and the new desire is given to us to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I stated earlier, with this passage that Brother Ron had read out of Acts 26, this is the account Paul's conversion and actually here before King Agrippa Paul actually goes into a little more detail Here in this passage than he did in Acts chapter 9 at his actual conversion. He actually expounds on it And he expounds on what the Lord Jesus does and has commanded Paul to do and It's through this gospel that is safe pause through this gospel that the Spirit of God enters into soul of men to save them. There's no magic, there's no mysticism here, nor is it some Jedi mind trick. This is the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus coming with force upon our hearts. And like I said a few weeks ago, we saw the effects of the power of darkness upon sinners. And today we'll consider the effects of the power of the gospel upon sinners, upon us. And the first effect that we see here in our passage in Acts chapter Acts 26 and verse 18, the first effect that we see is to open blind eyes. If you read me the verse here, Acts 26, 18, this is the Lord Jesus speaking to the apostle Paul when he is calling him to the ministry. And he says to open their blind eyes and to turn them from darkness to light. and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and the inheritance among them, which are sanctified by faith that is in me. Many of you know the trials and the blessings of teaching children. I know my wife, we homeschooled. So my wife knows all about the trials and the blessings of it. And when you hammer something into their heads, you keep hammering into them the lesson day after day after day. And you think it's all it's you think it's you're wasting your time. And then one day, the light comes on. And you see their faces light up. And you think that day makes it all worth it. And you understand, they understand what you've been trying to teach them. And this reward is priceless. And this is what the Lord Jesus does to us, is He opens blind eyes. With His light, He opens blind eyes. People that dwell in darkness, we must be illuminated. And God's grace is manifested to us. It's given to us. It's made great in us. God's grace gives us the gospel. God's grace keeps hammering His truth into our little heads. We talked about it in Sunday school this morning. We wondered what Nicodemus understood and we pondered that you know, but God's truth keeps Keeps hand God's grace keeps hammering his truth into our heads Just like he did the disciples and you think you think well you look at the site at the disciples that how near they were to the Lord Jesus, but there was a lot of things they didn't understand until his death and resurrection and It's God's Spirit kept blessing them and opening their eyes to these things. God's Holy Spirit is sent to open our eyes so that we might see the truth and to know God and to know His purpose and to know Christ and to know His way. And so God's grace is manifested to us to turn us from darkness to light. The gospel reveals these things of God to us that we don't understand. The gospel is this defined power that makes us understand. And our eyes shall be open, which were shut against them before. Christ opens the heart by opening the eyes. He does not lead us blindfolded, but he makes us see the way. You know, Satan, he rules by the power of darkness. And Satan's tools that he uses are ignorance and indifference. He wants you to be foolish. He doesn't want you to know these truths. He keeps you ignorant of them. And he takes away all desire out of your heart to want to know these things. This is darkness. And I asked a man once to give his opinion on ignorance and indifference, and he told me, I don't know and I don't care. That was a joke. But in all serious, these traits are damning. They're just as damning as fear and hate, ignorance and indifference. There's, you see, there's no excuse for that in scripture. We are to, we are to search things out. We're to search the scriptures. We're to search out the Lord's son himself on ourselves. This is the great design of the gospel to instruct the ignorant and to correct the mistakes of those in error. by shining light to those where there was darkness before. So we see the purpose of this gospel is to open blind eyes, but also look in our text, Acts 26, 18, to open blind eyes and to turn them from darkness to light. This is what the gospel does. It not only opens our eyes, but it turns us. It changes us. And momentous news that hasn't changed you isn't very momentous at all, is it? Not very momentous at all. If a blind person is given sight, but if he just sits there and does nothing, as if he was blind, well, that doesn't help him very much, does it? It's not enough to have our eyes open and to see the light. We must turn. in that direction. We must turn from our path. We see that's what happens when our eyes are open. We see that we're going the wrong way. Have you ever entered into a dark room, and you can't see where you're going? You don't know where to go. Where's the light switch? There's a pull cord up here on this fan somewhere, and I'm searching. It's in our bedroom. And if I go in there at night, and I'm like, where's the cord? I can't find it. But yet, once I find it and pull that cord, well, I know exactly where I'm at. And it guides me. And it guides me. And it's not enough. that we just see the light. It must turn us and guide us. It's not enough to be turned from darkness to light. We must be turned from the power of Satan to God. The gospel turns us from this dominion of Satan and brings us into subjection to God. And then we're conformed to the rules of God's word. And we comply with the Lord Jesus and the directions of the Holy Spirit. God translates us out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of his dear son. And the gospel floods the soul. It's turned from this power of Satan unto God. This is turning. This is the turning from darkness to light. from the ways of darkness to the ways of the light where it shines. See, it's God's Spirit fills us with this power, with resurrection power. You notice here in our reading that when the apostle Paul was on the road to Damascus, and by the way, he thought he was doing the right way. He was on the road to Damascus. He thought he was going in the right direction. And then all of a sudden, light filled the place, and he couldn't see. He was blinded. So much light. He was blinded. This is what happens. This is the change. This is the force that the gospel has upon us. Where we think we're walking in the light of day, we think we're going in the right direction until the gospel light shines upon us. And we find out we're not going in the right direction at all. We're heading in the way of sin and misery. This is the reaction of the soul when it's suddenly, this sudden extraordinary and powerful force that's presented upon us by the gospel. The gospel renews affections. It stirs up desires in those who are illuminated by it. We no more want to follow those old desires. And this gospel, which comes upon us in such a sudden and extraordinary manner, it awakens powerful emotions. And it must have come from God. It must have, because it turns us from these wicked, evil emotions of hate and fear and despair, and it turns us into faith and love and hope. And that's how you can tell. That's how you can tell the wickedness from the world. You can tell if you're following the right way, is if these wonderful fruits of the Spirit are upon you. and faith, love, and hope, as opposed to fear and hate and misery. We have these things from the gospel. You know, Christ can't build his kingdom with half-hearted measures, and he gives us his grace in our hearts so that we might be willing followers of him. And this grace that's shed in our hearts, it leads us to strive for Christ's kingdom. We want to go to Christ's kingdom. We want to follow the way. We need to see more of this force of the gospel in our hearts this day. You know, ignorance and indifference, it robs Christ of his glory and the church of its success. And we see ignorance and indifference in the church today. And even though there are people who say they walk in the light, but yet they still cling to some of their darkness. But it's through this gospel of our Lord Jesus that this forceful conversion of the soul is achieved. So we see that the gospel, it opens blind eyes. We see that it turns us from darkness into the light. But lastly, This gospel, it gives us the blessings of Christ. It gives us the blessings of Christ. Look at Acts 26 verse 18. To open their eyes and to turn them from the darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me, saith the Lord Jesus. You know, for anyone that has ever done anything wrong in their life and has later come to realize it and regret it, there's no greater hope for them than to one day receive forgiveness of sins. That's their greatest hope is to one day receive forgiveness of their sins. You know, there's a man on the radio station in Ohio whose father abandoned him and his mother when he was little. And years later, his father, this is after his son became a success on the radio and made a name for himself. And years later, his father had tried to call him and make amends. Well, this man, he refused to forgive him or to speak to him. And not long after that, his father died of cancer. But now, every year, This radio personality dedicates Father's Day broadcast to make amends with his strange loved ones or their family members because of the regret that he has for not forgiving his father. This forgiveness, this forgiveness, it goes right to the core of us. It goes right to the core of us. Not only do we need to be forgiven for what we've done in the past, Not only do we need, but we need to forgive. But we need to forgive others. This forgiveness is the core of the God. It's right at the core of our hearts and our affections. It's right here at the core. This radio personality, he learned that anyone who isn't willing to forgive others, it harbors bitterness in their hearts. And this bitterness grows. Bitterness grows over time. And even the prophet Jonah, he let bitterness grow in his heart over time. And it even got to the point where bitterness grew so big in his heart that Jonah couldn't even be comforted by the presence of God. Imagine being so bitter and hard that God can't even comfort you anymore. That's awful. But notice here from our text that forgiveness, as wonderful as it is, it's not the end of our redemption in Christ, it's the beginning. It's the beginning of redemption in Christ. Look what it says here, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. Forgiveness starts this it begins and it ends with an inheritance It starts here starts in our hearts, and this is the blessing of the gospel This is the blessing. It starts with forgiveness. Our hearts are healed. And even if, even if the other person, let me, let me say if, if there's, if you're harboring bitterness for someone today, let me just say here at this point that, let me just say that in order for you to heal yourself, you need to forgive them, even if they don't want to be forgiven. But you need to do this yourself just to go on. Because forgiveness is at the very core of our hearts. And once forgiveness begins, then the blessings of Christ flow free in our hearts. The blessings of forgiveness and the blessings to forgive others. There's yet another example of momentous news that will change our lives from this day forward. It's the news that we've received an inheritance. Not just forgiveness, but an inheritance. Now imagine if you've been called up by a man that says, hey, your great uncle, who was a billionaire, died and left the whole thing to you. Well, that would be momentous news, wouldn't it? Well, think of the things you could do with that. Think of what would you do with all that. But yet, think of this. The same thing has happened to every Christian that professes faith in Christ. You have an inheritance. You are rich beyond measure. You have treasure in your heart that cannot be, that has, it's priceless, that cannot be bought. You have this treasure within you. You have this wonderful inheritance and what will you do with it? What will you do with that today? You have this wonderful inheritance. is someone that they've proposed, they've set aside their time and someone else has set aside their life and their whole time and everything at their disposal to take care of you, that you're provided for, and that nothing will ever happen to you. It's way better than having an uncle who is a billionaire. They look after not only you financially, But spiritually, they look after your health. They look after your souls. They look after your heart. I was just sharing with my brother Steve this morning that there was a man years ago that I had trouble with. And I told my brother today, I reached out to him Friday, that I wanted to ask forgiveness if I had offended him years ago. That's what the gospel does. It affects us, and it changes us. This is momentous news. We're turned from the darkness of sin into the light of His holiness. We're turned from slavery to Satan to service of God. We're delivered from the dominion of sin. And we're saved from the wages of sin, which is death. We're received into his kingdom of grace. Amen Amen we receive the comfort of this inheritance which is laid up for us and we receive the peace of our souls that we've been forgiven and It heals our hearts and it gives us And it gives us a heart of flesh as Steve's quoted out of Ezekiel in Sunday school this morning This power of the gospel has delivered us from our troubles And we would have, one would have to steal our salvation to steal our joy today. And that can't be done. Christ has promised that. Christ has promised that. We live and we rejoice in the fullness of Christ. Amen. And we think we'll have Anne and Isaac come to lead us in a closing hymn. As they come. And then we'll have a closing benediction afterwards. Notice here also that we shall be saved in glory and we're sanctified right now. Not only are we saved today, but we're sanctified, we're purified. And none can be happy who are not holy. And there won't be any saint in heaven who's not first a saint on earth. Those who are sanctified shall be glorified. I ask our, we'll have that closing hymn now.