Have your Bibles turn to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2. I am continuing my series here, and in fact concluding this series on established in the faith. This is the tenth sermon in this series of being established in the faith we've taken this summer. and several of the weeks throughout this summer and looking at some very basic beliefs that all of us as believers ought to be committed to. We talked about the existence of God, first of all. Then we talked about the Word of God. We spent two Sundays on what's called the five fundamentals of the faith. We talked about the church and what the Word of God says about it. We spent a sermon on salvation so that we're all clear on that vital subject. We talked about Baptist distinctives. And we took the acronym of the word Baptist so that we know what we believe and why we use that name and why we were called Baptist. Then we looked at the rapture of the church, that great time that Jesus will come for his children. And some people are not sure about the rapture of the church, but the Word of God is sure about it. And He is coming again. And Jesus said, I will come again and receive you unto Myself that where I am there you may be also. Last week we looked at the great adversary of our soul. And that was Lucifer, the devil, the old dragon, the wicked one. Forty different titles were given in Scripture. And we looked at what the Word of God says about our great adversary. And the good news about that is the Bible tells us that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. Don't be afraid of the devil. Paul says we are not ignorant of his devices. We ought to know how he works. He's not omnipresent. He's not omniscient. He's not God. He's a created being. But he is a being who already has the judgment of defeat and the judgment of hell on his life. He will forever be in the lake of fire and brimstone one day. This morning we're looking a little broader. I'm trying to cover several areas as we finish this series on establishing the faith. I want us to look at some terms. that you and I as believers ought to understand. We're going to begin by reading the text verse for this series in Colossians chapter 2, verses 1 through 7. And if you've found that, could I have you stand for the reading of God's Word as we read this together. And we start in verse 1. Follow along as I read. And the Bible says, For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea, and for all, as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the Spirit, joined and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." And let me ask you to read with me verse 7 as we read together. Here we go. Rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I pray that You'll speak to our hearts. Give us a truth that will Help us as believers. Help us to be rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ and the truth of Your Word. Let us not be men and women who are blown about with every wind of false doctrine, but have sound doctrine based on the solid foundation of the Word of God. Speak to our hearts. Give us truth that will help us. Father, If there's someone here this morning that does not know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, I pray that this morning they could see the simplicity of salvation and the offer made by Jesus Christ our Savior. That if they would come to Him and place their faith in Him, they too might be saved for all eternity. Help us to understand. Help decisions be made that bring glory to our Savior. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. You may be seated. We're looking at the subject this morning of terms to understand. If we're to be rooted and grounded in salvation and rooted and grounded in the Word of God, There are some terms that are used in the realm of Christianity and the realm of theology that sometimes a preacher or a teacher will make reference to and yet often not explain what that means, what that phrase means. And so this morning in particular, I'm looking at five different words that we use quite often in Christianity. And I simply want to define them and give their scriptural source. And that's what the sermon's going to be this morning. But we have to understand this if we're going to be rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ and rooted and grounded in truth. The exciting thing for me is that every one of these terms are going to tell us something about salvation. Every one of these terms are going to give us more confidence in the great salvation that's given us by Jesus Christ. It's a great blessing to know that we're saved by what Christ did, not by what we've done. The first word is the word regeneration. Regeneration. And let me ask you, if you would, to take your bulletin, and on the back there's a place for notes, and just write down these words, if you can. These five words that I'm going to speak on this morning. And if you'll do that, it's going to help you to understand that. Regeneration. It's the new birth by which the Spirit implants the divine nature of God by the Word of God and the will of God and the Spirit of God through simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is when you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior and the Spirit of God comes to live in you and you become born again, that's the process called regeneration. Titus chapter 3 verse 5 says this, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. We know that we're not saved by our efforts. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. John 3, verse 3 says, Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. There's got to be the new birth. And as I mentioned, Two weeks ago, as we talked about the rapture, we were a body and a soul and a dead spirit. We were lost, alienated from God. And yet, the very second we trusted Christ as our Savior, our spirit was reborn. And the Spirit of God took up residence in our lives. The indwelling Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit of God. Third Person of the Trinity. That's the new birth. And now we are a body and a soul and a spirit. We fellowship with the world around us. That's our body. We fellowship with each other. That's our soul. We fellowship with God. That's our spirit. But only until we become born again do we have that capacity to fellowship with God. The Bible is very clear. God is spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And only until a man is born again do they have a spiritual nature that's been reborn by God. It's always interesting to me when young couples get married and then in the process of time, God blesses their home perhaps with a child. They bring that child who's just maybe a week old, sometimes a week or two old, and they bring it to church. And it's interesting how many people look at that little baby and say, he looks like his daddy. And I'm thinking, no child's that ugly. But looks like it's daddy. And every once in a while they say, the child looks like his mama. That's a nice thing to say about a little baby. It looks like his mama. Sweet and kind and loving. But the thing is, when we trust Jesus Christ as our Savior, after we've been saved a while, we ought to look like our Heavenly Father. Because the Spirit and the nature of God came to live inside of us. That's what regeneration, it means literally to be re-gened. To be re-gened. Our common gene and our common nature is our old, fallen, depraved, sinful nature. The old man. And by the way, when you get saved, the old man did not dissolve. He did not go away. But what happened is, now you become a person with two natures. You have the old nature by virtue of our fall, but you also have the new nature, the nature after God, the nature of God, based on your new birth. The fact that you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Now comes a conflict. The old man against the new man. The old nature against the new nature. The depraved nature versus the holy nature. And there's a constant conflict in our lives. But the very fact that the nature of God indwells any human being is because we placed our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the very instant we trusted Christ as our Savior, God put His nature in us. He regened us. And now we have a spiritual DNA that loves God, that wants to please God, that wants to serve God. that wants to read our Bible, wants to pray, wants to go to church. Now, I didn't say we did it all the time. I'm just saying there's a nature that wants to do right. We don't always do right. But we have a nature that wants to always do right. And that's the nature of God. And that's what regeneration is. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 23 says it this way, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." We have a spiritual presence of God's nature that lives inside of us. That's called regeneration. It happens the very instant you place your faith in Christ. When I was a nine-year-old boy and asked Jesus Christ to save me, just like that, the Spirit of God came to live inside me and regeneration took place. And that happened to every one of you that have invited Jesus Christ in your life. Every one of you that trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. You've been regenerated. And now the very nature of God lives in you. The very presence of God dwells within you. Regeneration. It's a wonderful term. Every Christian ought to be aware of it. Every Christian ought to understand it. Regeneration. The second one is this. Justification. Justice. Justification. Now, when I was a child, I learned it this way. Just as if I'd never sinned. Actually, it goes much deeper than that. Much deeper. It is to declare legal righteousness. It is a divine act whereby God declares the sinner to be innocent of his sins. It is not that the sinner is now sinless. See, justification doesn't make you sinless. But here's what it did. The sinner is not made righteousness in that his soul is changed. We still have a depraved nature. But justification is the legal act of imputing the righteousness of God to the believer. So, in other words, Brother Vestal, stand up here a minute. Let me try to illustrate it this way, if I can. Here's Brother Vestal. And, you know, he's a good guy. He beats his wife every once in a while. Not a whole lot. He lies, he steals, he cheats. You know, he's just the average person. He gets drunk on Friday night, sometimes on Saturday, rarely on Sunday, and comes to church whenever he can. Of course, he gets paid to come, so he's glad to show up if he can. But I'm just saying, he's a sinner. Okay? He's a sinner. And aren't you glad I didn't have you stand up here and describe you? Because He's one of the best of us. But that's what we are. We are depraved. We are sinful. The heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? And I'm not even talking about the things we can't see in His life. I'm just telling what we observe. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. This is on the radio. Yeah, it's going to be. So here's Brother Vestal. But one day somebody shares with him Jesus Christ. And one day he comes to that conscious awareness that he's lost without Christ. He is hellbound. And he deserves to be hellbound. Because he's a sinner. And he realizes all that. And so one day by faith, He cries out, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He calls out for mercy. He calls out for forgiveness. He calls out to accept Jesus Christ as his own personal Savior. And that very second that he trusted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, We have this thing of regeneration that took place, and God put His genes in him, the very nature of God. But here's something else. The very second he trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior, God in heaven looked at his heavenly record and stamped on it, justified! And what it meant is, here was his record. Everything I said about him is how God sees him. All the sins of his life is how God sees him. And he knows all of our sins. The sins we think about. The sins of commission that we do. The sins of omission that we should do and don't do. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. We're guilty not just for what we do. We're guilty for what we don't do. We're guilty for what we think. We're just all guilty, amen? But praise God the very second, the very second, ushers, help us get everybody seated, okay? And the very second he trusts that Jesus Christ is his personal Savior. His heavenly record that had all these sins, and by the way, if there was one, he couldn't go to heaven. If there was one, he's hell bound. The wages of sin, singular, is death. Not sins. So that means the best among us is hell-bound. But the very second, that's what his record, but the very second he trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior, God takes the righteousness of Jesus Christ and puts it on his account. Whoo! That's pretty good, isn't it? That's pretty good. The righteousness of Jesus. The sinless Son of God. His record comes on Him. You know how He did that? Because when Jesus was on the cross, His record. Brother Frost, stand up here. You be Jesus Christ. You're on the cross. Hold your arms up. He's on the cross. God took His record. and put it on Him. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Oh man, praise God. Our sinful record went on Jesus and He paid for it on the cross and He cried out, It is finished. He paid for it. And that means that every time any sinner says, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Lord, I trust You as my personal Savior. And the very second, just stay in the back there, if you will. Don't come forward. Just stay in the back. Go all the way back there. Thank you. I want everyone to look at me this morning. Thank you. And that very second, he trusts Jesus Christ as Savior. The righteousness of God is placed on His heavenly account. That's called justification. Christ God! Okay, thank you Jesus. You can be seated here. Let's have you still stand up here. But wait a minute. He's still a sinner. What if he went out and You know, he's been going out every Friday and Saturday, getting drunk on some Sundays, but he trips up and he goes to the bar again. He doesn't beat his wife nearly as often. He doesn't curse-swear nearly like he used to, but every once in a while. See, we got this idea because that person got saved, that he is sinless. No, no. He didn't get saved because he's sinless. He got saved because Jesus is sinless. We are the sinner. We are not the sinless one. God did not change Him in making Him sinless. God took His heavenly record that was up in heaven, opened that up, and put the righteousness of God on it. That took place in heaven. Not on earth. Nobody's going to look at Brother Vestal and say, there's Jesus. Nobody. But if they opened up his record in heaven, this must be Jesus. Because it's sinless. And we know that we're not, but the righteousness of God has been placed to our account. That's justification. Thank you, Brother Vestal. Let me share with you some verses. Romans 3, verse 24, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Every once in a while a Christian says, well, Pastor, I just don't feel worthy to be a Christian. There's a good reason. You're not. And nobody is. And don't be fooled by anyone who pretends they are. There's nobody worthy. But we're saved through what Jesus Christ has done for us. It's all Him. It's not us. All we did was place our faith in Him. And Jesus Christ did the rest. Let me read another verse to you. Boy, I'm working on the second point. This is one of those two-part sermons. Romans 4.25, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. Romans 3.28, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Galatians 2.16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Every Christian struggles with this from time to time. You don't feel saved. And you know the reason you don't feel saved It's because you're not looking at the record. But this is what God looks at. You see, until your heavenly record has the righteousness of Christ, that's what saves you. But the very second you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, the righteousness of Christ becomes applied to your account. By the way, Jesus already died for it. If you are here this morning and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, He already paid your sin debt. You just have not accepted it, and until you accept it, it does not become applied to your account. You have to, by faith, accept it. You have to, by faith, trust Christ as your Savior. Then the righteousness of Christ, it's already paid for. It was paid for 2,000 years ago. But the very second you trust Christ as your Savior, His righteousness gets placed to your heavenly account. But wait a minute, that's not what we look at. We look at the old account. Lying, stealing, bad thoughts, unfaithfulness, didn't keep our promise. and pay all the taxes we should have. You think of all those things and you think, oh man, I'm a lousy Christian. I don't feel like a Christian. If I was a Christian, I should be wanting to read my Bible an hour a day. If I was a Christian, I'd want to pray an hour a day. If I was a Christian, I'd never want to miss church. And sometimes I feel like missing church. And I wouldn't feel that way if I was a Christian. We are not saved by how you feel. We're saved by faith. And keep in mind, it's the cross of Jesus Christ that purchased our salvation. It's not our change. You did not get saved because you changed. You got saved because of His cross. That's what saved you. We're not saved by works. And we better get over this idea, well, I'm not sure they're saved because I don't see a change. First of all, you're not God. And unless you can see His heavenly account, you don't know whether someone's saved or not. They might just be a good actor. Just because you dress right, talk right, walk right, live right, you know, treat other people loving, you can do all those things and be as lost as anyone. We are not saved by the basis of how we show others our lives. God sees our heart. He knows whether we've trusted Him as our Savior or not. It's our heavenly account. Justification. It's a legal term. It's God legally stating that the righteousness of Christ belongs to any believer who trusts Him as their Savior. And we've become believers. It's a legal term. And legally, we are justified in the presence of God because we place faith in Jesus Christ. Oh, I love that word. Here's another one. Sanctification. Sanctification. Sanctification is the progressive work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer that conforms us into the image of our Savior, God's Son. It's two-part. It's a cleansing and it's a conforming or a being set-apart. Literally, to be sanctified means to be set-apart. But it's two-fold. It means to be set-apart from the world, but it means to be set-apart unto God. So it's a two-part thing. to being set apart from the world, that's cleansing. To be set apart unto God, that's separation. Both of those are involved in the process called sanctification. It's God conforming us slowly into the image of our Savior Jesus Christ. Have you ever seen people married so long they look alike? They think alike. One starts a sentence, the other one finishes it. Well, that doesn't start the second you get saved. I mean, it starts the second you get saved, but you don't see it until you've been saved a while, and then you start seeing that there's been a change that's taking place. Our teenagers sing a song and it goes like this, The things I used to do, I don't do them anymore. The things I used to do, I don't do them anymore. The things I used to do, I don't do them anymore. There's been a great change since I've been born again. And the girls will say, The guys I used to date, I don't date them anymore. And the guys will say, and the girls I used to date, I don't date them anymore. There's been a great change since I've been born again. I'm just saying, Christ makes us. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are made new. And you say, well, wait a minute. It's not so obvious. It started in here. And the Holy Spirit works on us to manifest it out here. The change took place in a place you cannot see it. It took place first of all in our heavenly account. That's justification. Then it took place inside of us. That's regeneration, the presence of the Spirit of God. And then it started to manifest itself on the outside. And that's sanctification. People start to see a difference. That's sanctification. That is a gradual process. Justification takes place like that. Regeneration takes place like that. Sanctification takes our lifetime. You ever hear the kids sing this song? He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be. Well, you know, all of us as adults could sing that same thing, right? He's still working on... It doesn't matter how old you get, He's still working on you. That sanctification is the process of the Spirit of God working in our lives. Let me give you some Scripture. 1 Corinthians 6.11, And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. 2 Timothy 2.21, If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meat for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. So God is in the process of helping us be the best we can be because we become like Him. That's sanctification. It's a process. Do we fail? Oh yes, we fail. But any good in us is what God put there. It's what God put there. Here's the fourth word. Redemption. Redemption. Redemption is the fact that we were sold under sin because of the fall. But because of the cross of Jesus Christ, and because of His death, burial, and resurrection, He bought us back to God. And the very second you trusted Christ as your Savior, He redeemed you. He bought you back into the family. Romans 3, verse 24, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 1, verse 7, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin according to the riches of His grace. Galatians 4, verse 4 and 5, But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them who were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. So redemption is we were lost in sin and trespasses, but when Jesus Christ loved us so much that He died for us and we trusted Christ as our Savior, He brought us back. His death, burial, and resurrection bought us back to God. That's why the Bible says that we are not our own. We've been bought with a price. That's redemption. Bought back to God. My pastor, when I was a little boy, used to tell the story of a little boy who was building a ship. And you'll have to understand, those of you who are my age and older, remember that that's what you used to do when you were kids, is you would build little boats and stuff like that, and put a little sail on it or something, and you'd go out to a little stream and you'd let that thing go. Especially in the South, whenever it rained a lot, we'd have these streams and we'd just float those boats. And this little boy did that. But the water was so swift, it got away from him. And he tried to run it down and he couldn't get it. And he spent a lot of hours building that little boat. But it floated away. But one day he was walking by a store in the downtown of the city he lived. And he looked in a window called the Pawn Shop and there was the boat that he made. And so he went in to the owner and said, that's my boat. I made that. And the owner of the store said, well, I'm sorry son, but I have it for sale. You can't have that. I bought that. And the little boy said, well, what do you want? And he told him a price and he went home and he busted his piggy bank. And you have to be old to remember we used to save money. We used to save money. We didn't have plastic little things to borrow money. We saved money. And he busted his piggy bank and he took his coins and he went back And he paid for the boat that he had created. And the owner gave him the boat. And he goes outside the store and he hugs that little boat and he says, little boat, you're twice mine. I made you and I bought you. And we as believers are twice God's. He made us, but he bought us. We're twice God's. All humanity is God's by creation, but it's not enough. Unless you allow God to buy you back out of sin and redeem you, you're still lost in trespasses and sins. But the very second we trust Christ as our Savior and invite Him into our heart, He buys us back and God says, you're twice mine. He made us. He bought us. And then the last word is this, atonement. Atonement. Literally, it can mean at-one-ment. At-one-ment. Theologically, it speaks of God acting in human history to re-establish the original relationship between God and man by dealing with sin. The atonement means to make amends, to repair a wrong, to put us at one again with God. Romans 5, 10 and 11 says, For if, when we were sinners, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through the Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement. Literally, that word atonement is the word to be reconciled. Our sin put us at odds with the Holy God. We can't go to heaven. Our sins are at odds. Not only are we not spiritual, we have to be spiritual to go to heaven because God is Spirit. If a sinner could get to heaven, he'd have no fellowship with God because God is the Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and truth. They wouldn't even know why they're there. When we go to heaven, we know why we're there. We're going to fellowship with our God who saved us, who created us. But we're at odds because He's holy, we're not. Stand up, Brother Vestal. Stand up. Brother Steve. Here's a holy God. He gets to play the good part now. Here's a holy God. Here's the sinful, wretched, wife-beating, cursing, nasty drunk. And here's Jesus Christ who was sent by God to reach sinful man. And this person trusts Jesus Christ as his Savior. Let me just take this down here. He trusts Jesus Christ as his Savior. And the Lord Jesus Christ, through His death on the cross, is able to take a sinful man and bring him back into fellowship with a holy God. There's not a feminine bone in their body. But I'm saying, that's what Jesus Christ did for us. Atonement. Oh, it's a wonderful word. All these words, thank you fellows, all these words speak of salvation. It's not what we've done. It's what He's done. So don't let the devil, who's the accuser of the brother, beat you over the head because you think you're a sorry Christian. If I could be so blunt to say this, all God has is sorry Christians. But we have a wonderful Savior. We have a wonderful Savior. Dr. Bob Jones Sr. used to say it this way, all we are is crooked sticks. But God can hit a pretty straight lick with a mighty crooked stick. But it's God's doing, not ours. So these words ought to, first of all, help you appreciate your salvation. It ought to value the Lord Jesus Christ because it's all of Him. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. It's Jesus, Him alone. The third thing it ought to do, it ought to make your salvation more precious to you. Because all these wonderful relationships we owe with God has nothing to do with us. And when the devil comes to beat you over the head on what a sorry Christian you feel like sometimes, just telling this, oh devil, first of all, I've been justified. But secondly, God's not through with me yet. I know I don't reflect my Savior all that much yet, but God's not through with me yet. Have you ever noticed that the most godly people in your church seem to be the oldest ones? There's a reason for that. Because some of us take a long time before we start radiating the image of our Savior.