WWUTT 048 Fruit Pleasing to God (Colossians 1:9-14)

Galatians 5 .16 says that if we walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

James 4 .8 says draw near to God and He will draw near to us. How is it that we can resist the desires of the flesh?

By drawing near to Christ and being fully satisfied in Him when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand The Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

And don't forget our website, www .utt .com. Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We read yesterday in Romans Chapter 8. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the

Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 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. I was asked by a member of my congregation recently, what comes first, being regenerated in the

Spirit or repenting? Do we repent first and then the Spirit regenerates us, or does the

Spirit regenerate us and then we repent? We read in Titus Chapter 3, beginning in verse 5, that God saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit. For us to be able to repent, we would have to be regenerated first, because repentance would be an act that would be pleasing to God.

If we have minds that are set on the flesh instead of in the Spirit of God, then we would not be able to do anything pleasing to God, including repent.

Regeneration would have to come first. The Holy Spirit regenerates us, and then one of the evidences of being regenerated in the

Spirit is that we would repent of sin. We're going to be talking about fruit today as we look again in Colossians 1, verses 9 -14.

One of the fruits that shows that we've been regenerated, that we are a people of the Spirit of God instead of a people of the flesh, one of the fruits that is going to manifest itself in showing that we are of the

Spirit is going to be that we are repentant. We're repenting of sin and desiring instead the things of God.

Colossians 1, verses 9 -14, again, we're reading this text today. Before we go to it, let's come to the

Lord in prayer. Our wonderful Heavenly Father, we thank you again for this text to give us.

Your Word is such a loving act in itself that you would let us in on the mind and the heart of God.

We desire to know Christ more, to know Him intimately, to know that Jesus is enough.

And how can we know those things except by the Word of God? We have this text that has been given to us so that we might know what it means to be the people of God, how we act as children of God.

So continue to illuminate these things to us as we come to your text according to your Spirit, without the

Spirit. We cannot read this in a way that is pleasing to you. We cannot do it in a way that pleases

God. So Lord, give us your Spirit so that we might understand these things in a way that is pleasing to our

Savior. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Colossians 1, starting in verse 9, and so from the day that 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. What a beautiful section.

You know, honestly, when we started out in this, I was not planning on spending all week in Colossians 1, verses 9 -14.

I thought maybe we could get through the whole chapter, but I can tell you pretty matter -of -factly at this point, we're going to be in verses 9 -14 for the rest of the week.

Taking our time with this, though, is a wonderful thing, and as I said when we started out in our study of the book of Colossians, what we want to draw out of this, what we want to learn, is that Jesus is enough.

In Christ, we have everything that we need for life, everything, being shown the goodness of God and everything that is godly through Jesus Christ our

Lord, so help us to grow more in the knowledge of Christ and knowing that He is sufficient for everything, for our every need as we continue to commit ourselves to this study of the book of Colossians.

So Paul, having heard about the faith, hope, and love that the Colossians display, he has not ceased to pray for them, asking that they may be filled with the knowledge of His will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

We came back again to that yesterday and we talked about what does it mean to have spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Well, you can have wisdom and understanding in this world, okay? I'm sitting across from a computer, and how to operate that computer requires understanding.

It requires knowledge, and it's not necessarily a Christian knowledge that enables me to use this computer.

So it's possible to have understanding and knowledge in this world. It's even possible to exercise that knowledge in such a way that a person might call wise, but to truly have wisdom and understanding in a way that is pleasing to God requires the

Spirit. In order to exercise knowledge, wisdom, understanding in a way that is pleasing to the

Lord requires the Spirit of God, and that's what we talked about yesterday. That enables us to walk in a manner worthy of the

Lord. It is the Spirit working in us that makes us able to walk in a manner that is worthy of God.

We, in and of ourselves, the acts that we do are not enough to please

God. Just doing nice things for another person is not what is inherently pleasing to God.

Tim Chalies wrote an article back in 2003. This was some time ago, but the article was called

The Myth of Mother Teresa, and in that particular article, he talks about how Mother Teresa, of course, the iconic

Roman Catholic figure, is exalted not only among Roman Catholics, but even among Protestants as a person who was so charitable that she is to be epitomized, like we should act like Mother Teresa.

But when you look into her doctrine, you find that she preached a very false gospel. She even outright said that in the charity work that they do for people, they're not trying to convert anybody, not trying to bring anyone to Christ, but as long as they believe hard enough and whatever faith it is that they have, that's what is pleasing to God.

But folks, if we do not have the spirit of God, and if we do not worship God or pray to him in the name of Christ, then nothing that we do can be pleasing to God.

It is not possible to please God. So even an act of service, even a charitable work that Jesus told us to do, care for the poor.

Okay, so then we go care for the poor there. Have I made God happy? No. If you've not been transformed in the spirit of God and have done something to God's glory, which we can only do in the spirit of God, then we have not done anything that is pleasing to God.

So an act in and of itself is not what pleases God. It's that it is done in the spirit and that it is glorifying to God.

That is what is pleasing to the Lord. So it requires the spirit to bring about a wisdom and an understanding that is pleasing to God, to keep us walking in a manner worthy of the

Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

So there should be an expectation that if we are changed, if we're transformed by the spirit, there should be evidence of that.

And the evidence of our transformation is what is referred to in the scriptures as fruit.

OK, and I mentioned this earlier in the week that when the Apostle Paul talks here about bearing fruit, he's actually calling back to the parable of the sower.

We have it in Matthew chapter 13. We have it in Mark chapter four and also in Luke chapter eight.

When I did my mini series on the parable of the sower a few weeks ago, Matthew 13 was the main text that I used.

But Luke chapter eight also recalls the parable of the sower. And basically, the gospel of Luke is the gospel, the way that the

Apostle Paul preached it. So Luke wrote down the gospel as Paul preached it. And that's what we have in the gospel of Luke, essentially.

So when the Apostle Paul is talking about bearing fruit for every good work, he's coming back to the parable of the sower.

But Jesus used this constantly when he was when he was talking about bearing fruit, when he told the disciples to go and bear fruit.

You did not choose me, but I chose you that you would go and bear fruit.

That's John 15, 16. Okay. And that fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give it to you.

You have John the Baptist that spoke actually a very similar way as well. In Matthew chapter three,

John was baptizing in the Jordan River and there were people from Jerusalem and all Judea who would come to him.

And they were baptized in the Jordan, confessing their sins. But when John saw that many of the

Pharisees and Sadducees were coming to his baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

And do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Even now the axes laid at the root of the trees, every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and is thrown into the fire.

So again, that verse there in Matthew 3, 8, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Have you repented of your sin and claim to be a follower of Christ? That in itself is a fruit, but then you should also be showing fruit.

That is an evidence that the repentance that you proclaim was genuine. It wasn't just a one -time thing, but it is something that you continue in.

You're continually repentant, and we need to be that way before the Lord, not just having said a prayer once, but we are continually repentant before God.

As it says in 1 John 1, 9, be faithful to ask forgiveness for your sins.

And God is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So we need to be continually repentant before the

Lord in keeping with the fruit of repentance. So if we're bearing fruit, if we show that we are fruitful, then we will display that our faith is authentic.

It isn't just something that we pay lip service to. It wasn't something that we did at one point in time. It is authentic because we are bearing fruit.

Now one of the root passages when we talk about the fruit of the Spirit comes out of Galatians 5, and I'm sure that you know this.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control against such things.

There is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

And so now we show the fruit of the Spirit. Let me go back to the works of the flesh because that was right before Paul went through the fruits of the

Spirit there in Galatians 5. So in verse 19, the works of the flesh are evident.

Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

So it's not even a fully itemized list.

Paul goes on and says, and other things, right? Other things that fit along in that vein of these works of the flesh, okay?

If you are led in the Spirit, you are not under the law. But if you are led by the flesh, then you are subject to the law, to condemnation by the law.

Verse 19, again, the works of the flesh are these, sexual immorality, okay? That is a work of the flesh.

If we call ourselves Christians but we continue to engage in sexual immorality, if that is a sin that continues to own us, then, you know, like we have no self -control over it.

We are tempted and we give in every time. Then how can we say that we are truly in Christ if we are continuing to be a slave to the flesh?

Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality all kind of fit together. Idolatry, worshiping things instead of God, setting something in the place of God that could be yourself, could even be a spouse.

We can place a spouse, our kids, in the place of God and then think that we need to find fulfillment or satisfaction in those things.

I had a friend of mine who really felt like in order to make the most of his life, he needed to have a son, not just daughters.

He had to have a son, somebody that would carry on his name. I had a conversation about that with him one time and saying, you know, brother,

I understand your desire to want to have a son, but just the way that you talk about it really seems like you think this is your fulfillment in life, is to be able to have a son.

And if you don't have a son, then you won't have lived a fulfilling life. And so there's a chance there that we could even raise up a child or a spouse to the position of God and thinking that it is in that thing that we are fully satisfied.

That would be idolatry, sorcery, sharing the place of God with something else or engaging in any new age sort of spiritualism or any of these other things, thinking that Christ is not enough and we need this other thing, this other spirituality in order to make the most of spiritualness that would qualify as sorcery, reading horoscopes, just put a name on it.

If you read a horoscope, you're participating in sorcery. All right. If you still think those things are legitimate and you need those things in order to feel satisfaction in this world, then you're engaging in sorcery, enmity, all right, division, strife, jealousy, fits of anger.

You don't have control over your anger, but your anger has control over you. Rivalries, dissensions, divisions, some churches that have that sort of problem need to repent of those things and try to repair those broken relationships.

I was in a church when I was a kid that had grudges among its members every single

Sunday, like for years, like 40 or 50 years. This family has had this grudge against this other family and they haven't yet reconciled.

Brothers and sisters, if we are part of the body of Christ, you got to understand the people you're attending church with, you're going to be with for all eternity.

Men, those relationships reconcile to one another. If we have been given the ministry of reconciliation through Christ and we have, then we must be reconciled to one another in the body of Christ as well.

So these things are fleshly and we still cling to things of the flesh. If those things still own us, drunkenness, giving into drunkenness, orgies and things like these.

I warned you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, Paul says in Galatians 5 21.

But the fruit of the spirit, by contrast now, what is the fruit of the spirit? Love.

If we've been transformed by the spirit of God, if we are in Christ, then we will show love to fellow saints, to image bearers of God, like even people that we know are not in the gospel.

We are not to make a mockery of them. We are to, in long suffering, share the gospel with them, desiring that none should perish, but all would come to repentance.

That is the desire of God's heart. So it should be the desire of the heart of the Christian as well, preaching the gospel as we go and doing so is loving.

If we withhold the gospel, the one thing that has the power to save a person from death, we cannot call ourselves loving.

So an evidence of the love that is in the spirit of God will be that we carry the gospel with us and we share it with others and we call people to repentance, that they would not perish, but know eternal life in Christ Jesus, our

Lord, that is loving. And if we're in the spirit, we will display a fruit like that joy.

One of the fruits of the spirit being joy, we find satisfaction in all circumstances, knowing that we are completely satisfied in Christ.

Jesus is our satisfaction for everything. What's really funny is on the night that I am recording this episode,

I just heard a sermon not a few hours ago. That was one of the worst sermons I've ever heard in my life.

And it was one of the contradictions in the sermon was that the pastor closed by saying that Jesus is sufficient.

But this was right after he just gave this very obnoxious visual illustration, as if we would not have understood the gospel without that particular illustration.

That's really the way that it was presented. And so then at the very end of the sermon saying, we just need to remember that Jesus is enough.

Well, if Jesus is enough, just preach the gospel according to what is said in the word, not giving us these silly illustrations.

And the version of the gospel that he gave that went with his illustration was not even doctrinally sound.

So anyway, I'm just saying, how did I pull this out of joy?

I don't know. I guess it's because I felt like that his that the joy that he had in the sufficiency of scripture wasn't enough.

It needed to be spruced up a little bit in order to be sufficient. But we need to find a complete joy in God and knowing that in Christ, all things are that we're completely satisfied in Christ.

OK, peace. We have peace with God. We know that we have peace with God. There is no longer any stress or anxiety and wondering if I'm going to stand before the judgment seat of God and be thrown into hell instead of welcomed into heaven.

No, one of the one of the fruits of the spirit that will display is a peace that we have with God. God's wrath has been satisfied in Christ Jesus.

There is now no more anxiety for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Romans 8 1.

All right, joy. That was where I ended. Peace, patience. We are patient with one another, and this is an instruction that comes up in Colossians, by the way, in Colossians chapter three, where it says that as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, we are to put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.

So that's an instruction that Paul is going to bring back up with the Colossians as well. Patience is a fruit of the spirit.

It's the first quality of love that Paul gives in first Corinthians 13. Love is patient.

Kindness, that's the second qualification that Paul gives of love. Love is kind.

And so we see that also as a fruit of the spirit here in Galatians chapter five. Goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

One of the things that I recently communicated with my congregation is self -control does not just mean being tempted by something and being able to resist that temptation.

Self -controlled means not even putting yourself in the position of being tempted by something so that you don't have to resist that.

Self -control also means staying away from the things that could potentially tempt you.

Don't even try to walk the line. Turn yourself entirely toward Christ and chase after Christ.

And then you're not worried about this tiptoeing the line stuff. Well, how close can I get to this line without stepping over it? Don't even get anywhere near the line.

Be pursuing Christ fully against such things. There is no law.

So if we are in the spirit, this is the fruit of the spirit that we are going to display. We are no longer a people of the flesh.

We are a people of the spirit of God. And if we are in the spirit bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, we are walking in a manner worthy of the

Lord and are fully pleasing to him. Lord, as we wrap up what we have talked about here out of Colossians chapter one,

I pray that we're growing in that knowledge of understanding that you are sufficient for our every need.

It's not just claiming that Jesus is enough, just like I heard a pastor say earlier today,

Jesus is enough. But then throwing all these other things because God's word apparently wasn't enough. It is knowing with certainty that you are enough and being fully satisfied in our

Savior. We labor and want for nothing else except Christ and who is fully sufficient, who provides for our every need.

So thank you, Lord, for the reminders that we have in scripture of what that means and what a fruitful life looks like for a person who is in Christ, a person who has the spirit of God.

Help us to labor in these things with long suffering. But knowing that this is not a heavy burden we bear, it is our delight and it is our joy to be in service to our

Savior. You paid the ultimate price on the cross, having the wrath of God poured out upon you so that we would not have to experience that.

To God be the glory now and forever. And we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. It's said that before the devil was called

Satan, his name was originally Lucifer. But that's actually just a myth. It's true that Satan was an angel of light before he became the prince of darkness and that when he fell from heaven, he took a third of the angels with him as described in Revelation 12 4.

But the Bible doesn't say his name is Lucifer. The name comes from the Latin Vulgate, a fourth century translation of the

Bible. Later English translations made the word Lucifer a proper noun. Its only appearance is in Isaiah 14 12, which reads,

How art thou fallen from heaven? Oh, Lucifer, son of the morning. Isaiah is sarcastically comparing the king of Babylon to a fallen

Satan, giving us a glimpse of who the devil used to be. We also see the prideful king of Tyree compared to Satan in Ezekiel 28, but only

Isaiah contains the name Lucifer. In more modern translations, Lucifer is replaced with Daystar or Morningstar.

That's because Lucifer is Latin for Daystar and Morningstar. Oh, and also the planet Venus. Some Latin hymns will use the word

Lucifer to describe Jesus, not because they're comparing him to the devil, but because Christ is also called the

Morningstar, as in Revelation 22 16. But the light the devil once had before he turned to darkness was given to him by God.

The light of Jesus is self -existent and eternal. I am the light of the world, he says. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

Some critics of the more modern translations of Scripture will question the legitimacy of those translations for even minor things like excluding the true name of the devil.

But the devil's name has never been Lucifer. It's just a word, a little clarification when we understand the text.

Our question comes from Lisa. She sent us an email and said, Dear, what? Most of my Christian friends are highly recommending the movie

War Room. My understanding is that it teaches that Christians have the authority to rebuke Satan, which

I do not find in Scripture. Isn't God the only one that can rebuke Satan? And we should actually flee and not address

Satan or his demons. I'm hoping what we'll do a 90 second video on rebuking Satan. Thank you so much for your podcast,

Lisa. Appreciate your email. I'll tell you that I've not seen the movie War Room. Everything that I've read about it seems like it's okay.

Now, it probably does say something in the film about rebuking Satan. That's a common teaching.

But if we go by what we read in Scripture and you already touched on this, you don't find in Scripture that we have the authority to rebuke

Satan. And indeed, there's no instance of that occurring anywhere that we have the authority to rebuke the devil.

I think this teaching comes from a misunderstanding of Roman 1620, where it says the God of peace will soon crush

Satan under your feet. And because it says that we think that we have the ability to crush

Satan according to the power of God. But when we read in James four, six, it says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Resist is different than rebuke.

It's not the same thing. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. So ultimately, our focus is entirely upon Christ.

Just as I said before, we're not flirting with a line of temptation. We're drawing near to God. And by proxy, we are resisting the devil.

Peter says something very similar. First Peter, chapter five, verse five, where he says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.

Be sober minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

Resist him firm in your faith. So there the instruction is the same. We're humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God, casting all our anxieties on him because he cares for us.

We don't have the ability to address the devil and rebuke him. We probably can't even talk to him at all.

It is God who ultimately has authority over Satan. In Jude 1, 9, when

Michael was contending against the devil, even he did not rebuke Satan. And he's the archangel.

He said, the Lord rebuke you. And in second Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul talks about a circumstance where a messenger of Satan was sent to torment him three times.

He pleaded with God to take it away. But God's answer to him was, my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in your weakness.

And Paul goes on to say, therefore, I'll boast all the more about my weaknesses for where I am weak, there he is strong.

Ultimately, this comes down to focusing ourselves entirely upon Christ and that we are resisting the devil by doing so.

Lisa, thank you so much for your question. If anybody else has a question, send it to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

God bless. We will continue our study of Colossians tomorrow. This has been

When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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