Incarnational Thoughts

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 and 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 authorities.

All things have been created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Thus says the Apostle Paul to the Colossians, the church at Colossae, a church that he himself had not been to, and a church that he himself did not found.

Its founding was through the wisdom granted to him by the Holy Spirit, however. That is, in the ministry that was his in the city of Ephesus, the major city of the

Lycus River Valley, Colossae, upriver from there, and as a natural result of a sound, mature church being founded in Ephesus over time, the church in Colossae is founded as well because the message spread.

And this is what you might call an incarnational devotion this morning, as we start the dividing line, and line up your phone calls at 877 -753 -3341.

I got that nice ring in the ear again. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

Didn't hear anything about the incarnation in that text. You had the prayer of the Apostle Paul that he had prayed for the

Colossians. It does certainly give us an insight into how we should be praying for others. And if I might, just on a personal note, ask for your prayers for an event tomorrow.

I can't go into details right now. I hope that I can in the future. But there's something going on tomorrow, and I know my heart is certainly set upon a certain result, but I want the

Lord's will to be done, so please pray that that will be done tomorrow. If it is, you'll be informed.

And many of you, I think, will be excited about it. But we are told about the content of the

Apostle's prayers by this particular study. He was asking the

Father that the Colossians be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

He did not pray that they would be physically blessed with large houses and pretty straight teeth and pretty hair and one limb the same length as the other limb.

Instead, the prayer of the Apostle for the Church of Colossae was that they be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

And once they would have this knowledge of his will, once they would be filled with it, it wasn't just an external thing.

It wasn't, oh, I attended a Bible study. I got some good ideas. And so whenever I think about that, then

I will think back to what I learned there. No, this knowledge of his will is all -encompassing. It's about all of life.

It's about seeing how God's will for the Christian is a life -encompassing will.

That's what it means to be filled with the knowledge of his will, to have spiritual wisdom and understanding.

He was praying that the Church of Colossae be mature. To not remain in the baby stage, not remain infants in Christ, but that they were to be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to have the ability to walk in a manner worthy of the

Lord. Now, of course, no one would know that you need to walk in a manner worthy of the

Lord if there wasn't something different about your life, if you weren't marked by the name of the Lord.

But clearly, to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord means that you're walking in a manner both toward God as his disciple, toward Christ as his learner, as his follower, and to the outside world as one bearing the name of Christ.

So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, fully pleasing him, pleasing him in all respects, in all ways.

Not just in part of our life, but in all of our life. In the way that we think, the way that we act, the way that we speak, the way that we dress, the way that we respond to adversity and difficulty.

Now notice, this is not some kind of step -by -step, dress like this, wash like this, live according to this specific rule type of a situation that is then enforced on every culture.

These are words for every culture, for all time, and yet the point is that by the application of the

Word of God and through the ministry of the Spirit of God, every generation of believers should know what it is to walk in a manner worthy of the

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

Now that bearing of fruit, we can't allow the world to define for us what that is. Especially as we come to the end of the year, and we look back over the preceding 12 months, one thing that every mature person learns is that the past 12 months went faster than the preceding 12 months.

Now, I realize of course, it didn't go by any faster. Time has been going at the exact same speed.

I live in Arizona. At least we really believe that. We don't play with our clocks. We don't speed it up, slow it down once or twice a week or a year.

You know, I fully know that this past year has been just as long or just as short as preceding one.

But if you're busy in the things of the Lord, it just seems like time passes ever more swiftly.

And as we look back over this year, I think it's good to ask yourself a question. Did I bear fruit in every good work?

Again, don't let the world define that. What does that mean? Was I pleasing to God?

Have I grown in my knowledge of what is pleasing to God? Bearing fruit in every good work and increasing the knowledge of God, do

I know more about Christian truth today than I did at the beginning of 2010?

Or have I slid? Have I forgotten? Have I been so taken up by the things, the world and the pressures, the world that I have not pursued this?

It has to be an object of pursuit. It has to be something that you are seeking.

Or you will not grow in that knowledge. Increasing in the knowledge of God.

Is that a goal? It has to be for the believer. This is, this is not

Gnosticism. There are people who, you know, throw the term Gnosticism out at everything without even knowing what the

Gnostics were actually about. But increasing the knowledge of God. That is a worthy goal.

Most of you know, I did not have this goal at the beginning of 2010, but most of you know, I don't look like I did this time a year ago.

And I'm glad for that. I'm very glad for that. Health has now become something important to me and, and I work hard toward it.

But you know, bodily exercise is a little profit in comparison to godliness.

Sometimes that's abused. I know that I feel much better.

I know that I, I live life with more energy when

I am taking care of the body that God has given me. I don't worship this body. It's, it's falling apart. It's, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're closing in on the big five -oh here.

Some people have already gotten there. Oh, turn up your hearing aid.

I said some of you, yeah, some have already gotten there, but I, I'm not there yet, but I'm, I'm working on it.

And yeah, you didn't even, you didn't even get a chance to open your microphone. I took you out. That's, that was pretty good. That was, that was a preemptive strike.

That was pretty good. But, uh, it's amazing how we can be disciplined in that area.

And right now I really am disciplined in that area. I'm, I'm doing a week here. My, my birthday is coming up on Friday and I'm, I'm doing a week here.

Right now my goal is, and I'm on track, my goal is to climb 16 ,000 feet.

Uh, this week I went like 16 ,000 feet. That is, uh, about 3000 more than I've ever done before.

And that's how I'm going to celebrate my birthday. I am disciplined and, uh, my, my diet is disciplined and I'm disciplined in these things because I can see the benefits as Christians, as Christians.

Do we even know what our goals are supposed to be? I mean, physically you, you want, you want a heart health and you want a, you know, you don't want to be encased in a, in a, in 300 pounds of fat and you don't want your heart working that hard and you, you don't want to be playing with cancer and all the rest of that type of stuff.

We ever, we know, we know what health is. Do we even know what health is in the Christian life? Do we consider pleasing

God and increasing the knowledge of God as a sign of spiritual health? And if we do, what are we doing to pursue it?

Or is it just sort of, you know, I, hey, you know, I showed up Sunday morning at church all year. Well, that's good.

But did you show up at church expecting something from God? Did you prepare yourself, prepare your heart, prepare your mind?

Did you follow up on what you learned? There are parallels between the experience that is ours physically and spiritually.

Paul continues on, may you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, all endurance, steadfastness with joy, giving thanks to the father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

Now, I don't know that anyone in this life could ever fully plumb the depths of what it means to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

But I can tell you one thing that sounds awful glorious to me. You know,

I think we try to sometimes, you know, picture what heaven's going to be like and what, what glory is going to be like.

And mind has, it has not entered into the heart of mind, of man, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, entered into the heart of man, those things which

God has prepared for us. And this inheritance of the saints in light, I don't know what that is.

I don't know what it's going to look like. I don't, I'm, I'm almost afraid to even try to describe it because I don't think our language really is up to it personally.

But note that those who will share in the inheritance of the saints in light, they are thankful first and foremost, not to themselves, not to an organization, to no earthly powers, giving thanks to the father who did not simply make it possible for you to qualify yourself.

That's not what it says. It says giving thanks to the father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

It's all of God. That's why we give thanks just as in first Corinthians, it is by God that you are in Christ Jesus, by his work that you are in Christ Jesus.

And we give thanks to the father who has qualified you to share the inheritance of the saints in light.

We didn't qualify ourselves. He didn't look down the corridors of time and say, oh, there's someone who qualified themselves.

I will now select them. No, the sovereignty of God, divine monarchism is the foundation of the saints giving thanks to the father.

We give thanks to the father because he has delivered us, not we deliver ourselves, not he made it possible for us to deliver ourselves.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness. See the saints in light, the domain of darkness.

And notice his deliverance was twofold. He took us out of the domain of darkness.

Now, those who are in the domain of darkness love darkness. They, they, they love, they, they flee from the light.

They scurry away from it. I think one of the more modern examples of this, for those of you who watch such things, but I saw, uh,

I am legend. And if you've seen, I am legend because of some stupidity that man did.

Uh, there was a virus that mutated and destroyed the vast majority of mankind, except for a very small number, but didn't destroy them.

It didn't kill them. It altered them horribly and made them so they could not stand sunlight.

And one of the scariest parts of the movie was where he goes into this dark building to find his dog, because you know, they're in there, but they can't stand light.

They have to stay out of the sunlight. It drives it. It just, you know, it's the old vampire and light type idea.

And it seems to go way back in human history that those who are evil do their deeds in the darkness.

And that's a biblical theme as well. The natural man loves the darkness because he thinks it hides his sin because there's that conscience thing going on.

Those who are saints have the share and the inheritance of the saints in light.

Come to light, but see, that's not natural. That is not natural. And anybody who thinks that it's natural, you know,

I'm just a morally neutral person and, uh, I'll just sort of, uh, I'm going to just naturally come to light.

No, that's not the nature of the unbeliever. So he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us.

It wouldn't be enough just to deliver us from the domain of darkness. Just put us back in a morally neutral spot.

That's what some people think. Prevenient graces. There is no such thing. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us.

So he delivered and transferred us. It wouldn't be a complete salvation if he didn't do both things.

It'd only be a half of a work, but you see, he took us out of the domain of darkness and he transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son.

Wow. I just, something just struck me. Um, no, it's not revelation. Let's not, let's not to get confused here.

You know, I'm not on TBM. Um, I'm not going to pull the, um, Oh, the

Lord just spoke to me thing that you see on a TBM all the time and blah, blah, blah. Well, I actually mentioned,

I'm sorry. The challenge between 20 and 22, we need to be politically correct. At least Aaron Phoenix. Okay.

He transferred us to the kingdom. You cannot be in a kingdom if you do not have a, what a king.

And he is king of Kings and Lord of Lords. Is there not a very popular heresy in so many evangelical churches today that you can be a follower of Jesus, but not submitted to his

Lordship? The anti Lordship movement, the cheap grace movement, the, uh,

Bob Wilkins heresy movement, but you see, if you have been delivered from the domain of darkness, then you have been transferred to the kingdom of his beloved son.

You are in a kingdom. You have a king. You are under his authority. The idea that you can just tip your hat toward Jesus Christ.

And say, Oh, I believe you died and rose again. That's it. No repentance, no

Lordship. No, you see, as long as you realize the work of salvation is divine work.

God delivers from the domain of darkness and he transfers to the kingdom of his beloved son.

And that's all. There is no other way. There's no other purpose.

If you're going to be pleasing to God, that's the way it is. The kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

In whom? See, to be in his kingdom has to be personal because it's in him, in Christ, we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Now the parallel passage in Ephesians 1 .7 says through his blood, but all of the early manuscripts, all the way through,

I believe to the ninth century at Colossians 1 .14 say in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, and it's only later that a parallel corruption takes place and through his blood is inserted.

Even the majority text agrees with that. Just for those of you who might be looking at that. If you are in the kingdom of his beloved son, you have redemption, you have the forgiveness of sins.

I remember a conference, a little talk that we gave in our old offices long, long ago, and a current

Roman Catholic apologist, I believe his father -in -law was with him in attendance and had the strange belief that redemption and forgiveness of sins were two different things.

And he just, he just kept mocking that. He called it Mickey Mouse. And I remember taking him back to this text in Colossians 1 .14.

Look right here. In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And I explained the construction and how the forgiveness of sins is renaming redemption, how this is, and oh no, just wouldn't have it, would not have it.

Not a person under the authority of the word of God. That is for certain. Well, all of that,

I really wasn't planning on talking much about because the incarnational thought is found in the description of Christ.

Having been told that we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins in him, we are in the kingdom of his beloved son, he is described as the icon, the icon of the invisible

God, the Prototokos, the firstborn of all creation.

Not the first created, the firstborn, the one who has preeminence over all of creation.

He is the image of the invisible God. He is the one who reveals to us. Hebrews 1 says that he is the exact representation of his being.

The character, the imprint, the stamp that is left by the, by the ring.

And it's a perfect stamp. It's a perfect representation. No mere creature could say that. For by him all things were created in heavens and on earth, visible and invisible to the thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together. I have often commented on the fact that this is such an incredible section describing

Jesus Christ, the creator of all things. Paul exhausts the Greek language. He exhausts the, the prepositions that you can use.

We have en alto, by him were all things created. And then we have de alto, through him.

Ice out on, for him, pra, pontoon, before all things, and then en alto.

It's, it's, it's, it like wraps it up. He uses all of the prepositions that would be relevant here to explain to us that this one is not part of the creation.

He is the origin of the creation. He's the purpose of the creation. He's the means by which the creation came into existence.

This is the creator. And when we take all the New Testament together, we see that creation is the work of the triune

God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But I said that this was a incarnational devotion.

As I was thinking about this this morning, how I wanted to start the program today. Everyone's thinking about the holiday season.

I suppose there's one or two crusty Puritans, doing everything they can to not think about the holiday season right now.

But the reality is that for the vast majority of us, and even for the crusty

Puritans, it is always appropriate, even when you recognize the violation of divine truth that is so much a part of our society.

Abuses of celebrations and things like that. It is always appropriate to think about the incredible miracle of the incarnation.

I think in some ways, there is some truth to the assertion that Western Christianity, whatever that is, but Western Christianity is not as centrally aware of this divine truth as it should be.

And given that we live in a land where naturalistic materialism and secularism is now the religion of our fellow citizens, and it is.

It's the religion of our fellow citizens. We need to realize this belief in incarnation is grossly offensive to them.

It's grossly offensive because what are we saying when we talk about the incarnation?

What are we saying? We are actually making the assertion that the creator himself, and that's unpopular enough as it is, but they know the creator's there.

They're investing a lot of effort in suppressing the knowledge of the creator. The creator himself has invaded his own creation.

And if he has invaded his own creation, then they know there is absolutely positively no way they can get around dealing with this creator.

He's personal. He's, the incarnation is in your face

Christianity. It's in your face because he's in your world.

He took on flesh. He didn't stay safely at a, he didn't stay at a safe distance.

You know how you're following those emergency vehicles down the road and it tells you how many feet you're supposed to stay behind?

Supposed to stay at a safe distance. God didn't stay at a safe distance. He invaded.

And the reality is that the message that we proclaim is a radical, radical message.

It's a message the world mocks. The world thinks we are absolutely, completely disconnected from reality if we are honestly telling people that our

God entered into his own creation. The Muslims find it impossible to believe.

The Jews reject it. The secularists reject it. The cults reject it.

See, this is what makes Christianity radical. This is what makes it different. This is what makes it unique.

This is its heart. That's why Nicaea was so important. Not because something was revealed there, but because something had already been revealed, was defended there.

Its necessary implications and conclusions were seen there.

They'd always been there. They'd always been understood. But against the greatest attack upon them, it withstood, not necessarily in 325, but over the next number of decades.

When that affirmation that it was God in human flesh, not a God, not a

God like one, not a secondary deity, but truly

God, Emmanuel with us. Not Emmanuel with us, but Emmanuel with us.

It's always been what the scriptures had taught, but that is the very essence of the faith. And we cannot be ashamed of that.

We cannot draw back and become comfortable with a Jesus in a manger. See, it's one thing to say that God's far away and we'll leave him out there.

It's another thing, well, you know, little babies. That little baby grew up and drove the money changers out of the temple.

And he said a lot of very uncomfortable things, certainly about religious hypocrites.

But he also talked about being the soon incoming king and a kingdom of heaven.

And the only way into that kingdom of heaven is through him and no one else. And the world doesn't like that, and the world wants to reject that, and the world is embarrassed.

And they will try to make you embarrassed to believe it. But you can't be embarrassed to believe it.

That is the very essence of the Christian faith. Beautiful text, not normally a incarnational text.

But you see, this one who made all things in heaven and earth, this creator of all things, is said in the very next chapter, to dwell in bodily form, bodily form,

Colossians 2 .9. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

The incarnation was real. And that's a thought