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You may be seated. The scripture lesson for today's
sermon comes from the book or the letter
to the Colossians by Paul, the apostle. And before, I'll just say a little
introduction to this letter. This letter was written by Paul
to the Colossians. The city of Colossi had been
a very prosperous and prominent city at one time in Asia Minor,
which is now in modern day Turkey. But it had fallen on hard times
by the time that Paul came around. It was no longer a major center. The important centers of civilization
had moved on. And yet the people of Colossae
had a sense of their past and their past grandeur. And it's
remarkable that Paul, when he wrote this letter, wrote it to
basically a small town, a backwater, and yet some of the most glorious
scripture passages about Christ are contained in the letter to
the Colossians. We read here about how the fullness,
the entire fullness of the deity was pleased to dwell in Jesus
Christ, the person. And this was a backwater where
he was writing this too. And yet in God's providence,
there are no backwaters. All God's people are important
to him and all have been cleansed by the precious blood of his
son. And so the people of Colossae
were given this great privilege of receiving first the great
Christological statement of the church. And we'll be reading
part of that statement today. I'm reading from Colossians 1
beginning at verse 1 through to verse 23. Paul, an apostle
of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy, our brother,
to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae. Grace
to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you since we
heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you
have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in
heaven. Of this you have heard before
in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you
as indeed in the whole world It is bearing fruit and growing,
as it also does among you since the day you heard of it and understood
the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epiphras,
our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of
Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in
the spirit. And so from the day we heard,
we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled
with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to
Him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge
of God. May you be strengthened with
all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and
patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified
you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has
delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us
to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption,
the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created
in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones
or dominions or rulers or authority. All things were created through
him and for him. And he is above all things, and
in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body,
the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in
him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through
him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in
heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once
were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has
now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to
present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.
if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast,
not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which
has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I,
Paul, became a minister." This is the word of God. May we pray. Gracious Lord, as we ponder your
word, this afternoon and wonder what application it has for our
life, we pray that you would guide our thoughts, our feelings,
and our desires, that our hearts would be pleasing to you, and
that you would show us how we might be pleasing to you in all
our life. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. This afternoon's sermon is called
The Supremacy of Christ Over All Things. The world is being held hostage,
in bondage, the Bible says, and our only hope of rescue is the
Lord Jesus Christ. In today's politically correct
world, such a statement borders on hysteria or hate speech. Nonetheless, it is true. The
Bible pictures the world as enslaved to sin, enslaved to death, and
enslaved to Satan. And our only hope of being rescued
from this captivity, the Bible declares, is through the redemption
that comes through Jesus Christ. Christ is the only one who can
rescue sinners from the dark kingdom and transports them to
God's kingdom, where he transforms them more and more into his image
and his likeness, their savior. In the Old Testament, there are
several famous examples of the Lord rescuing and recovering
his people from captivity. Joseph was rescued from being
killed, then rescued from the pit, and finally rescued from
prison. And each time he recovers by
God's grace until finally he was made vice regent of Egypt. Moses and all of Israel too were
rescued from captivity and recovered in the promised land where they
were slowly transformed into a nation set apart for God. And in today's lesson, Paul pictures
the Colossian Christians as people who were rescued from captivity
to sin and death and who were now recovering, being restored
as they were being transformed by God's grace into people who
live to glorify God and enjoy him forever and love the other
saints. Today's lesson can be organized
under three main headings. First, the transformed, then
the transformer, and finally, the messenger of transformation. First, the transformed. In the
opening verses of today's lesson, Paul thanked God for the transformation
of his friends in the Colossian church. Paul had heard a report
from his coworker Epiphras that saints in the Colossian church
were growing in grace. And Paul wrote, we always thank
God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,
since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love
that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for
you in heaven. Paul knew his friends had once
lived in darkness. He knew that very well, but they'd
been transformed. They had changed. In verse 13,
he describes their transformation this way. He says, he, that is
God, the father has delivered us from the domain of darkness
and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we
have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Here, Paul pictures
the transformation that Christians undergo as their status is changed
from being slaves to being free men. The Bible says, in effect,
that God the Father delivered his people from darkness by sending
in his son. As a result, Christians are people
who have been redeemed from slavery and given a new life, and it's
done by the power of Christ. We might picture it this way,
if we wanted to picture it. A group of soldiers are being
held captive by the enemy. So the army launches a raid to
get them back. The rescue operation storms the
enemy's stronghold, liberates the captives, and brings them
home to recover from their ordeal. It's not a prisoner exchange.
It is a rescue operation. Continuing with the analogy,
the prisoners, although free, are still broken men due to the
weeks, months, or even years, or even decades in some instances,
of captivity. The former prisoners must regain
their health and sanity, but the transformation can be slow.
And the same holds true for Christians, only more so. They've been rescued
from sin, depending on how far along they were in their life
when they become born again, The same holds true for Christians,
only more so. They've been rescued from sin and given a new nature,
but they need to be reminded constantly that now they must
bear fruit in keeping with their new condition. Once, says Paul
in verse 21, you were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil
deeds, but now they were bearing fruit in keeping with their new
life. But Paul has to encourage that
fruit bearing constantly. Christians were once far from
God, hostile to Him, and doing things that were evil in God's
sight. And those of us who were born
again later in life have many more memories of that former
life. After Christ redeems them, Christ begins to restore the
image of God within us, an image that had been damaged and distorted
by sin, but is now being restored and recovered by God's grace.
Part of this restoration process involves effort on our part. We must participate in our sanctification. Yes, it is the Holy Spirit who
does the work, but we must participate in that work. You and I must
throw off our old ways and put on the new self. The Bible pictures
it as a changing of clothes. You must get rid of the filthy
rags that you wore when you were far from God. And even now, as
you are being sanctified, there are slippages. And you must put
on the robe of righteousness that Christ has already given
you. Christ has given us the righteousness, but we must take
it on and put it on. And Paul speaks of it in the
imperative, put on. Have you put on? Have you put
away and end to the things that you once loved? Have you not
only renounced your old self, but thoroughly rejected your
old ideas, your old desires and habits, and ways of doing things? Even now, you may be struggling
with the flesh. How are you at resisting it?
The Puritans spoke of mortifying the flesh, which is a fancy way
of saying to kill the flesh, to kill the sinful nature within
us. How are you doing in that warfare with the flesh? We are
not against the human body which God made, but the sinful nature
which resists the Holy Spirit. The Bible says, Colossians 3,
beginning at verse 5, put to death, therefore, Whatever is
earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and covetousness, which is adultery. On account of these, the wrath
of God is coming. In these, you too once walked. He's speaking to Christians here.
You too once walked when you were living in them, but now
you must put them all away. anger, wrath, malice, slander,
obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing
that you have put off the old self with its practices and have
put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after
the image of its creator." This is an active process, a daily
process, an hourly process. We are to put on the new self. Sometimes, as Reformed people,
we may think that it is all of God, and we know that it is all
of God, but that we still participate in the work of sanctification.
There is a part we play. Men and women who had always
put their faith in themselves or others or riches or some other
idol were now putting their faith in the Son of God. Notorious
sinners who had loved their sin were now showing signs of love
for Christ and for His people. and those who had always feared
the approach of death. And doesn't sinful man do that?
Natural man is fearful of death and what comes after it. Think
of Hamlet who said, you know, to be or not to be, what happens
after that? When I die, what's going to become of me? Natural
man is terrified of death and does everything he can to suppress
the truth that he will someday die. But here, the Christians
in Colossae, who had once feared death, now have a hope in the
future. And it's clear that this hope
for the future is a future that includes the afterlife, because
they knew, somehow, that they would be with Christ. Because
they knew that judgment awaited them, sinful man, they were hopeful. Sorry, the natural man is fearful
of death, because he knows that judgment comes, and he doesn't
have a leg to stand on. But Christians need not fear
judgment because they know that Christ has suffered the penalty
for their sin. And so the Colossian Christians
had great hope in the future. Second, the Transformer. Paul
knew who the change agent was in the transformation of the
Colossians. He had no doubt about it. It
was Jesus, the only Redeemer of God's elect. Near the end
of chapter one of his letters to the Colossians, sorry, near
the end of chapter one of his letter to the Colossians, Paul
made a remarkable statement about Jesus. He wrote, for in him,
that is in Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether
on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. All things were made peace by
the blood of his cross. This is one of the statements
that drives the Jehovah's Witnesses crazy. If you've ever brought
this passage up, this verse up, it drives them crazy. They don't
want to recognize that the fullness of the deity dwells in Jesus,
but it's right there in God's word. It drives the Jehovah's
Witnesses crazy because it affirms the full deity of Jesus Christ.
According to the inspired word of God, Jesus is very God of
very God. He is the one who alone is able
to bridge the fracture between heaven and earth and reconcile
the broken relationship between God and man. And only he can
do it. That was a result, that breach
was a result of Adam's first sin. And Christ is the second
Adam, the better man. According to the Bible, the reconciliation
that Jesus achieves was accomplished on the cross. He makes peace,
says scripture, by the blood of his cross. That is, his death
on the cross was an atoning sacrifice that appeased the wrath of God
against the sin committed by God's people. The Bible teaches,
especially in John's gospel, chapter three, beginning at verse
16, that there are two types of people in this world, and
only two types, those who are redeemed by Christ and those
who aren't. Those who are redeemed stay in
the light, looking to Jesus, and are forgiven and renewed,
and they're sanctified. But those who are lost, are not
in the light. They stay in the darkness, rejecting
Jesus, and they are condemned. Their only hope is to turn to
Christ. We all fall within one or other
of these types. Which one are you? If you're
not looking to Christ, then your situation is dire because you
are not redeemed from sin, and therefore are still a slave to
sin. You are not right in God's sight.
You are not at peace with God. The Holy Spirit does not dwell
within you. You do not have blessed union
with the triune God for all eternity, but are slated at this point
for eternal destruction in the life to come. If this sounds
like you, then may Romans 8, beginning at verse 6, serve as
a warning. For to set the mind on the flesh
is death. But to set the mind on the spirit
is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the
flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who
are in the flesh cannot please God. On the other hand, if you
are looking to Christ, then you have been redeemed from sin.
You have been made right in God's sight, and now have peace with
God. The Holy Spirit dwells within
you, and you can look forward to enjoying blessed union with
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in the
life to come. Unbroken, perfect communion with
God. The Bible, Romans 8, beginning
at verse 1 says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of
life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and
death. For God has done what the law
weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own son in
the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin
in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the
law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the
flesh, but according to the spirit. Christ is the one who has achieved
this for us. If you were looking to Christ
for your salvation, then all the glory goes to God, who gave
you the gift of faith, as Ephesians 2 verse 8 makes clear. It is a gift, God's gift to us. May your assurance of salvation
in Christ increase as you continue to rest in him. And the final
point, the messenger and the message of transformation. First,
who are the messengers the Bible speaks of? The messengers are
men ordained by God to deliver God's message to the world at
large and his church in particular. They are apostles, pastors, and
teachers mentioned in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11. Epiphras
was one such messenger. He was a pastor teacher who preached
the good news to the people in the city of Colossae. It's likely
that Epiphras was a member of that city and knew the people
very well and loved them dearly. And Paul paid the highest compliment
to Epiphras when he described Epiphras as our beloved fellow
servant and a faithful minister of Christ. Paul clearly loved
Epiphras and had a high regard for Epiphras when he thought
of him. This should remind us that Christians
ought to pray for their ministers regularly. We should pray for
our ministers regularly. We should keep them in our prayers
and pray for their families and their children as well. We should be praying for their
gospel ministry. We should be praying for the
way that they handle the Word, and how they exposit the Word,
and how they deliver the Word, and how they apply the Word in
our life. Because the ministers are such
an important, integral, crucial part of God's means of salvation. It is through the proclamation
of the Word that people are saved. And it's through the proclamation
of the Word The saints continue to be sanctified. So it's so
critical that we continue to pray for our ministers locally
and in the denomination as well, that God would use them mightily
and that he would pour grace upon them as they minister to
us. And also, what is the message?
Now, this is something that you have, if you've been in the church
for any length of time, you're very familiar with. But it might
help to have us be reminded of the message of the gospel so
that when we go into the world and we encounter people who have
never heard the gospel or haven't heard it for a long time, we
recall what that message is. What is the good news? In verse
5, the Bible refers to the message as the word of truth, the gospel. That's how Paul describes it.
The gospel is the word of truth. One of the simplest presentations
of the gospel, the word of truth, is found in 2 Corinthians 5,
verse 21, which says, For our sake he made him to be sin, who
knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God. For our sake God made Christ
to be sin. sent him to the cross, who knew
no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. The bad news is we're all sinners. The Bible states, none is righteous,
no not one. No one understands, no one seeks
for God. We are all guilty before the
holy God. None of us are worthy to stand
before him as such. The bad news is we're doomed.
The good news is, however, God the Father made us right by taking
our sins and placing them on Jesus, who then died for our
sins on the cross. Romans 5, verse 8 says, God chose
his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us. This should give us incredible
courage When we go out into the world and we speak to people
who are far from God, who are sinners, because we know that
Christ died for such as them. While they were still sinners,
Christ died for them. Just as when we were still sinners,
Christ died for us and applied his goodness to us while we were
still in rebellion against him. So we can have great confidence
when we meet sinners, notorious sinners as well. realizing that
God has the power to transform anyone, including the most notorious
sinner. And it seems as though God takes
a great delight in converting especially notorious sinners,
because that gives him all the more glory, because those notorious
sinners were so weak in the flesh, and God delights to save those
who are weak. You might not want to tell the
notorious sinner that, that he's a weak person. Although that's
true, notorious sinners are the weakest of people because they
have given in to the temptations and they love their sin. God the Father declares us not
guilty because our sins, which are many, have been placed on
Christ instead. He suffered the punishment that
we deserved. He became the curse instead of
us. Isaiah 53 verse 5 declares, but
he, that is Christ, was pierced For our transgressions, He was
crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement
that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed." This
also should give us great boldness when we go into the world and
speak to notorious sinners, that Christ paid the penalty. Sinners
know their status before God. The problem is that they suppress
the truth in unrighteousness. It's as Van Til said, they know
the reality, they know God. But they push him down the way
that a man or a child in the pool will try to push down that
beach ball. And how successful is that when
you try to push down a beach ball in the water? Does it stay
down? No, it keeps popping up. And their sin and their knowledge
of God keeps popping up too. They know they're sinners. At
night in the quiet when they're driving or when they see the
magnificence of nature around them, they're suddenly humbled.
And they know instinctively that there is someone out there greater
than themselves, and then rushes in that knowledge that they are
sinners before this God, this mighty God, and they suppress
the truth. The world is continually suppressing
the truth about God and about themselves. And so to say that
Christ took their sins upon himself is a message that they desperately
want to hear. It takes God to quicken their
hearts so that they hear it in faith. The good news doesn't
end there. Those who are in Jesus have become
the righteousness of God. They are right in God's sight
because God the Father has counted Jesus Christ's own perfect righteousness
in their favor. He imputed Christ's righteousness
to our account. We are made right in God's sight.
Not only Are we forgiven of our sins through the cross? But we
have been robed in Christ's righteousness. We have a new nature. Moses declared,
the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and
abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast
love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and
sin. This is the glorious God we worship. a God who is gracious and merciful,
who is slow to anger, who's abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Friends, you and I know that
we can't remain in our love and our faithfulness even for one
day. We slip. God is always faithful. God is
always faithful. May God convict our hearts of
our great need of our Savior. Even as saints, we still must
be rooted in Christ and look to Him always. And may He draw
us daily to the spring of living water, where we may be refreshed
by His love and His grace that He provides. May we pray. Lord God Almighty, Heavenly Father,
we thank you for your steadfast love and faithfulness. Father,
we thank you that you are both merciful and gracious, that you
are slow to anger, and it is such good news to hear that.
For even we, your redeemed children, will stumble and fall. Even this
week we've done that. And Heavenly Father, it is good
to know that You see us with eyes of grace and love. You see
us in your beloved son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and you're the
one who picks us up. You're the one who speaks words
of comfort and reassurance to us, but you also tell us to return
to Christ and to look to him. Father, we pray that as we think
on today's passage, and we think of the love, the hope, and the
faith that the Colossians had that we would have the same attributes
within us, manifesting themselves within us, that we would have
faith in Jesus Christ, that we would express love for Christ
in loving our neighbors and our brothers and sisters, and that
we would have tremendous hope in the future that is in store
for us when we see you face to face, when you gather us to yourself,
either because we have died or because your son returns, we
look forward to that great hope when we will have communion with
you forever and ever. And may these truths give us
great confidence as we go into the world, sharing the gospel
with our friends, our family, our neighbors and coworkers,
for we do this for your glory and by your grace. Amen. Thank you. And now may the Lord increase
your faith, your love, and your hope through his grace. Amen.
The Supremacy of Christ in All Things
Series Guest Sermons
| Sermon ID | 625171847121 |
| Duration | 32:25 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Colossians 1:1-23; Psalm 110 |
| Language | English |
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