WWUTT 057 Now Reconciled (Colossians 1:21-23)

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We cannot boast among other believers of having done greater work than they have done and therefore have received greater favor from God Likewise, we can't even go among the lost, those who do not have saving faith yet, and say to them that we've done something better than they have done
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Because we once were just like them, and that reminder should cause us to want to take the gospel to them all the more when we understand the text
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You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty
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Find videos and more at our website www .wutt .com Now here's our host,
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Pastor Gabe Hughes Thank you, Becky. My voice is doing a little bit better today, as maybe you are able to tell
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If you listened to yesterday's program and now you're listening to today's, you might be going, Okay, Gabe sounds a little bit better.
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Yeah, I'm on the upswing here. My worst days are definitely behind me My youngest daughter, who turns a year old on Wednesday, tomorrow, wow, where has the time gone?
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Anyway, she's had it the worst of all of us in the family. She's got stuff coming out of every orifice in her face That might be
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TMI, but anyway, so pray for her health, that she does better And time for her one -year birthday
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Yesterday we were looking at Colossians 1, verses 21 -23
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And we're going to come back to that text again today If you're going to open up your Bible and join with me there If you're listening to me read to you the scriptures,
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I still want to encourage you, at some point in your day Come back to the Bible and open up the text and look at it for yourself
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We are studying the book of Colossians so that we might know Christ as preeminent
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Above all things That word preeminent is a word that Paul uses in this letter, but none of his other letters
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It's the Greek word proto -euon, it's from that word that we get the prefix proto - from Which means first, one of a kind, top, above everything else
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And that's the way that Paul uses that word here to describe Christ He is number one We are fully satisfied in our
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Savior and we need nothing else but Christ And continue to understand these things as we come to this word
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So let's go to the Lord in prayer and then we'll open up our text for today Our wonderful Father, our great
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God, who loves us and provides for us And calls us Your own, so much so that You have given us
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Your word We pray that You would also give us Your spirit that we might understand Your word
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We know that the natural man cannot understand spiritual things So if we are going to discern that which was given to us by the
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Spirit of God Writing through Your prophets and apostles We need the Spirit of God in order to understand it
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So give us Your spirit and help us to be able to take the things that we're going to read today
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And apply them to our lives It's more than just studying theology here But it should be changing everything about us
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The ways that we interact with one another The ways that we share the Gospel The ways that we praise our
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God And we want to become better worshippers of God As we commit ourselves to this study
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So please give us Your spirit that we may understand The treasures of wisdom and knowledge bound up in Christ And we pray this in His name
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Amen Colossians chapter 1 starting in verse 21 And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind
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Doing evil deeds He, God, our Lord Christ has now reconciled
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In His body of flesh by His death In order to present you as holy and blameless
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And above reproach before Him If indeed you continue in the faith stable and steadfast
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Not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you heard Which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven
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And of which I, Paul, became a minister So what we looked at yesterday
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We really didn't get much farther than Colossians 1 .21 You who were once alienated and hostile in mind
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Doing evil deeds That describes every single one of us Before we were set free in Christ Before we were transformed by the
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Spirit Before we went from lost to found Before we went from a slave to sin to set free in Christ We were all alienated, hostile in mind
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Doing evil deeds When we were alienated As we're described as alienated We were separated from God And we were separated from one another
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Not just God's people We were separated from every other person as well
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Sin does not just separate us from God And separate us from His people Although it does do that It also separates us from one another
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It is not possible for a person to sin as an island You can't sin in such a way that does not affect anyone else
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And we hear that in our culture today Well, I can do whatever I want to do And I'm not hurting anybody else with this
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Yes, you are You are hurting yourself And you are hurting others All sin is selfish
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It is self -glorifying It is placing ourselves in the place of God Or, in a sense, saying to God You don't have enough for me to feel completely satisfied
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I need this thing in order to find my satisfaction When as Paul is directing the
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Colossians here To know that in Christ we have our full satisfaction He is preeminent above all things
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And we need nothing else But when we sin We are claiming that we need something that God cannot give
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Or that we can do something for ourselves That God cannot provide for us It is exalting ourselves to the place of God So it alienates us from God From his people
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And from one another As we read yesterday in Titus 3 .3 That before Christ's mercy appeared in our lives
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We were hated by others And hating one another The lost are not a unified group
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It's not the lost over here And they're all unified And the found And those who are believers in Christ And have faith in Christ They're all unified over here
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Those who are lost are separated even from one another So what happens to a person who does not ever repent
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And they die They face the judgment of God And they are confined to hell Then the fact that they were dead in their spirit
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They were spiritually dead when they were alive And separated from one another While they were physically alive
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Now that they have been consigned to hell They are separated from one another for all eternity
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And from God for all eternity So that physical reality has become a spiritual reality
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I hope this is making sense to you here Because there's not a big party going on down in hell
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There's not people getting together and just sinning for all eternity There is no interaction happening there whatsoever
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So that which was present in the unbeliever When they were alive on this earth
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Has now become the spiritual reality for all eternity Those who are lost are not unified
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They're hostile toward one another They're separated from one another And so it was the mercy of Christ that came in And made us his people
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Where we were previously not a people Now we are God's people And that's given to us in 1
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Peter 2 Starting in verse 9 But you are a chosen race A royal priesthood
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A holy nation A people for his own possession That you may proclaim the excellencies
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Of him who called you out of darkness Into his marvelous light
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Once you were not a people But now you are God's people Once you had not received mercy
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But now you have received mercy So it is because of the mercy of God That we are now the people of God One of the things that this should encourage you toward even
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Is why church attendance is so important We are meant to be together
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With the body of Christ We are meant to be with the saints Glorifying God because previously
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Before we came to Christ We were isolated from God From his people and from one another
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But now being reconciled in Christ In his body of flesh by his death
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Which we go on to read in Colossians 1 .22 We have been reconciled to God And to his people and so we should behave
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As the people of God Being together with the saints Desiring to get together as the church
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Praising God Singing psalms and hymns And spiritual songs with thankfulness
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In our hearts to God Teaching and admonishing one another In all wisdom These are instructions that are going to come up later on In Colossians chapter 3
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So once we were not a people Now we're God's people We are a holy nation No one worships as an island
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We were meant to worship together As a nation of people
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The people of God Now one of the things that we need to be reminded of I mentioned yesterday as we were looking at Colossians 1 .21
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Paul is presenting the gospel To the Colossians And then reminding them of who they once were
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Before they came to Christ You who were once alienated And hostile in mind doing evil deeds
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He is now reconciled in his body of flesh By his death One of the important things of being reminded
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As to who we once were Is understanding That it was by no work
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That transformed us No work that we did That changed us from that place of being alienated
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Hostile in mind and evil No work that we did changed us from that Into being a holy people
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It was the work of God that did that Not any work that we did Ephesians 2 .8 -9 It is by grace you have been saved through faith
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And this is not your own doing It is the gift of God Not of works
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So that no one may boast I think sometimes we look at that passage And we think that not of works so no one may boast
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So that we can't boast among one another And say well my works are better than your works And so therefore
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God Has more favor upon me It's not only that we can't boast among one another We can't even boast among the lost
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As to how much better we are Than them We can't go to the lost and say You're still lost
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You're still following the prince of the power of the air Who is described also in Ephesians chapter 2 You're still enslaved
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To your passions beyond your control Which we read in Titus chapter 3 Me, I've made the right decision
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And so I'm much better than you are I have a spiritual mind You have a natural mind So I'm smarter than you
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Nobody can do that Even among the lost We cannot boast and lord ourselves among those
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Who have not yet Heard the gospel Or responded to the gospel
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And believed with faith in Jesus Christ Because all of us were once this
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All of us were once Alienated Hostile in mind doing evil deeds
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And it was the mercy of God that changed us We were saved according to his mercy
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Not by any work of our own And so we have an obligation to go out With the gospel and preach it to the lost
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And be faithful to those words And we don't Save anybody
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It is the work of God that saves Our faithfulness needs to be to the scriptures Knowing what they say
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And preaching them accurately So that a person has an opportunity to hear it The work of the spirit in their lives
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Changes and transforms them And they become a follower of Christ Because of the gospel
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Not because anything that we did There was a guy that came up to me after church one time And he showed me his bible
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And he had these tabs in the top of his bible He said you see all these tabs These are people that I saved this week
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He was really put off when I Responded to him and said you didn't save anybody And he was really upset
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By that but I had to get him To understand and I don't really think That he agreed with me on this point but I tried to get him to understand you need to be
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Faithful to the scriptures And preach the scriptures accurately It is God that does the
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Saving work all that we Can do is remain faithful to what he has given us And knowing that he is using us
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As it says in As Paul said to Timothy That the church is a pillar and a buttress of the truth
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That's in first Timothy chapter three So he is using the church as his Instruments to proclaim his gospel
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So we need to be faithful to the gospel But it is not us who saves Anybody it is the work of God That saves a person
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We just need to be faithful to the calling that God Has placed upon each and every one of us So it is
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By faith that we are Justified we read in Romans 10 17 a verse
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I quoted to you Yesterday that faith comes From hearing and hearing through the word of Christ We did not even come to saving faith
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In Christ until somebody Had preached to us the gospel As a faithful instrument of God To preach his gospel they shared that message
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With us we heard it the spirit of God upon us caused us To receive it and repent from our
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Sin and then we have become followers of Christ So we were once alienated Hostile in mind doing evil deeds
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And it is because of the work of God that we have been reconciled In his body of flesh
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By his death in Order to present you Holy and blameless and above Reproach before Him now these words that are being
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Used here it's Old Testament language It is the language that has been Used to describe how a
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Sacrifice needed to be blemish Less when it was brought to the priest And and that Sacrifice was spilled on the blood was
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Spilled on the altar to Pay for sins So that language that was
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Used to describe those sacrifices in the Old Testament is now being used to describe the sacrifice Of Christ and how
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Jesus fulfilled these Things by what he did Christ has reconciled
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In his body of flesh by his Death he's reconciled us Remember what we talked about related
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To reconciliation to be reconciled Means to accept that which was not Previously desired before We came to Christ we did not desire
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God and he did not desire us in That state remember we were hostile in mind Okay and it says in Romans 8 7 that we were hostile toward God So when we were in Our sin and doing those evil deeds we didn't
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Even desire God we were not even seeking After God no one seeks for God as it says in Romans 3
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And so and God Of course did not desire us in that state because We were enemies of God as described in Romans 5 it was
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Christ that Transformed us and it was his all His holiness his righteousness That was imputed to us so now
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When God looks at us when God the Father Looks at us he sees not our sin But his son and now
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God desires us because of what the son Has done and we desire God because of the transformation that Has occurred in the spirit in our lives
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So because of the work of Christ On the cross we have been Reconciled in his body of flesh
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By his death fulfilling The sacrificial system that Was shown to us as a precursor
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To Christ in the Old Testament okay In his body of flesh by his death In order to present you
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Holy and blameless And above reproach before him Above reproach was also
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A language that was Used to talk about those Sacrifices that were being made on The altar of God So in Christ we've been presented holy and Blameless and above reproach
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Before him very similar to a Passage that we read in Jude 1 24 Now to him who is able to keep you from Stumbling and to present you
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Blameless before the presence Of his glory with great joy when we Talked about this reading through Philippians I mentioned that it is
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God Who saves us and it is God who keeps Us saved it is the work of God That is doing that sanctification
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In our lives as well And we see furthermore the fulfillment of these Old Testament passages in Hebrews 10 10
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Where it says by the will of God We have been sanctified Through the offering
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Of the body of Jesus Christ Once for all So this Old Testament language being
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Fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ by his Body of flesh in his death
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He is presenting us holy and Blameless and above reproach before him Paul goes on Verse 23 if indeed
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You continue in the faith Stable and steadfast not Shifting from the hope of the gospel that you
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Heard which has been proclaimed in all creation Under heaven okay Paul is not Doubting the salvation
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Of the Colossians nor is he Saying to them but you better hold fast to it Because you could potentially lose it
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All right that's not what he's saying there Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew chapter 10 and in chapter
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And in chapter 24 it is those who Endure to the end who Will be saved so Paul is saying here that he
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Knows that in the Holy Spirit They have been sealed Ephesians 1 13 Where it talks about us being sealed
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By the Spirit for the day Of glory if you continue In the faith stable and Steadfast not
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Shifting from the hope of the gospel that you Heard you will be saved And knowing that the
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Spirit is upon Them and has sealed them For that day Paul is not
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Doubting the salvation of the Colossians He is confident that they will remain Steadfast in the faith
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Not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that they heard which has been proclaimed In all creation under heaven
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And of which I Paul became a Minister now this is not necessarily meaning That the gospel has
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Been spoken in all of The reaches of the earth but really Among all of the known people
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In the Roman Empire Paul who is in Rome he's under House arrest in Rome But this letter would have preceded
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Philippians so Paul would have written the letter to the Colossians before he wrote his letter to the Philippians Even though in canon
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Colossians Comes after Philippians In the timeline order Paul Wrote Colossians before he
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Wrote Philippians but anyway so he's under House arrest Epaphras from Colossae And another thing about Epaphras I didn't mention this early on when
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We did our introduction to Colossians But Epaphras came from Colossae To bring a word to Paul about some things that were
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Going on in Colossae Epaphroditus brought an Offering to Paul from the
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Philippians the names Epaphroditus and Epaphras Are actually the same name
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Epaphras is a nickname Of Epaphroditus essentially so I appreciate
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That that name is used instead of Epaphroditus because otherwise that would get really confusing We would be left thinking okay so the
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Epaphroditus mentioned in Philippians is the same Epaphroditus in Colossians no it's two different Guys from two different areas but Epaphras has come to Paul Epaphras has come from Colossae To Rome Talking to Paul about some of the things that have been going on In Colossae and then
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Paul is writing back To the Colossians to instruct them In these things because of the Testimony of Epaphras about The gospel that was received in Colossae Paul Knows that they are solid
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Christians Having displayed faith hope and love The essential Christian virtues And so he is addressing them as Christians so when he says
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In verse 21 that you were Once alienated and hostile in mind Doing evil deeds he is saying to them
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I know that You were once this because we all were once this Before we came to Christ No one can boast no one can pop their collars
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No one can thump their chest and say that I'm better than you Are but rather knowing that we Once were this and then we were
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Transformed by the gospel that should encourage us All the more to take the gospel out to the Lost so that they also might be saved
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From their alienation Their hostility Their evil deeds that they were doing
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Apart from Christ so Paul encourages Them in that way and knowing that they Have been sealed for the day of glory
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In Christ his statement in verse 23 Is not doubting their salvation or warning Them that they could lose their salvation
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Knowing that they have been sealed In Christ by the hope of the gospel That you heard which has been proclaimed in all creation
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Under heaven in which I Paul became A minister so Paul is saying I know That I've been saved by the gospel so I have become a minister of the gospel
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And here I am in Rome the capital City of the world so that all The gospel can go out under All creation
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Throughout all creation under heaven But this also being an encouragement To the Colossians that the same would be
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True among them as well Wherever you are planted wherever You attend church
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Your church has a responsibility as An outpost of the kingdom of God to Spread the gospel in the community where you
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Have been planted so Do so take the gospel Knowing that not that you're
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Smarter than everybody else because it Wasn't by your work that you were saved it was The work of God so because of God's mercy
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Upon you show mercy to Others by delivering to them the gospel Of Jesus Christ visit with People in your church and come up with ways
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That you can go out with the gospel more And more and make sure that it is Heard you need to have a stable system in Your church of people praying for one another and Encouraging one another because as you
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Go out with the gospel in the world you are gonna Get beat up You need that constant system of support
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That is encouraging you and Lifting you up in The name of Jesus so that we
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Would be encouraged all the more to preach The gospel to the lost And see the lost get saved by The work of God our
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Heavenly Father As we come to a conclusion here on What it is that we have read today Continue to grow us
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In our knowledge of these things we Submit ourselves to you our Lord and our Savior thank you
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For your patience with us not Leaving us alienated and Hostile in our thinking but delivering us
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From evil into your Glorious kingdom forever keep Us steadfast until the end and We pray this in Jesus name amen
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On the night that he Was arrested Jesus and his disciples were in The garden of Gethsemane when Judas showed up With a crowd armed with swords and clubs
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Peter wanted to defend Jesus so he drew A sword and lopped off the ear of the servant Of the high priest Jesus said to Peter Put your sword back to its place for All who take the sword will perish
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By the sword now often these words Are used to mean that if you devote yourself to weapons And violence eventually violence is going to come back
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On you but that's not actually what Jesus was saying he wasn't being Philosophical he was paraphrasing the words of Genesis 9 6 where the
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Lord said Whoever sheds the blood of man by man Shall his blood be shed for God Made man in his own image
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Deuteronomy 19 expounds on this edict Saying that such punishment must only be carried Out by those to whom authority is given
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Specifically the judges and men of High office the context here Is capital punishment when
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Jesus said whoever lives by the sword dies By the sword he was telling Peter that if he had Killed the servant Peter would have been executed
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For murder and it would have been within The God -given authority of the government To carry that out Romans 13
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Says whoever resists the authorities Resists what God has appointed in Verse 4 it says if you do wrong be
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Afraid for he does not bear the sword in Vain for he is the servant of God An avenger who carries out
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God's Wrath on the wrongdoer Peter learned his lesson as he wrote in 1 Peter 4 That if we are to suffer for the name of Christ It shouldn't be as a murderer or an evil
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Doer he wrote that we must be subject For the Lord's sake to every human Institution for this is the will of God when we understand the text
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Mark from Virginia writes In and says dear what in John 18 when Jesus is arrested
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Peter draws his sword And cuts off Malchus's ear Jesus tells him to put his sword
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In his sheath and says shall I not Drink the cup that the father has given Me but in Matthew 26
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After Peter draws his sword Jesus Tells him to put it away and says For all who take the sword
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Will perish by the sword Why the two different statements Well appreciate your question mark
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When you look at question mark Sorry anyway When you look at the two accounts
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In Matthew and in John You'll actually see that they line up rather well When Jesus was praying
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In Gethsemane according to Matthew's Account in Matthew 26 Jesus was praying and he said
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My father if it be possible Let this cup pass from me Nevertheless not as I Will but as you will and the cup
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That Jesus is referring to Is the cup of God's wrath Because we know that when Jesus went to the cross
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And died God poured his wrath Out on Christ there on the cross So that Jesus would
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Absorb God's wrath that he would become The propitiation for our sins Satisfying the wrath of God and Therefore all who are in Christ do not
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Have to experience the wrath Of God we have been We've been paid for the price has been paid
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For us all who are in Christ And this is you know Isaiah 53 Verse 10 where it says that it was pleasing
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To the Lord to crush him so this is the Wrath of God being referred to By the cup in both
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Matthew 26 And in John chapter 18 so then when
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Jesus is arrested And Peter draws his sword of course He's he's trying to show his loyalty
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To Christ in the way that he knows how he's really Just entertaining his own flesh he's not Following the words that Christ had
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Told him so he pulls his sword Out and he thinks he's going to go to death with Christ but Jesus says to him
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Put your sword back in its place for all who take The sword will perish by the sword Do not think
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Or do you think that I cannot appeal to my father And he will at once send me more than Twelve legions of angels
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But how then should the scriptures Be fulfilled that it must Be so so in both accounts
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In Matthew and in John It's the cup of Wrath is referred to and the
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Fulfillment of the scriptures Matthew And John may just recall them a little Bit different or maybe
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John Is singling out words in a Different way than Matthew does like Maybe Jesus did in fact say the
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Same thing to Peter in both Matthew's account and John's account but it's just that Matthew and John are singling out different words
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They don't contradict one another And in fact are both saying The same thing when you're seeing the full
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Narrative in scope so I Hope that makes sense to you mark and I hope that That was the answer that you were looking for Lord as we come to your
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Scriptures I pray that you show us What it is that we are Supposed to see what it is
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That we're supposed to know according to your Spirit help us to understand the scriptures Rightly and study these things
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In context thank you for Giving us your word so that We might know the mind of God And the promises that have been given to us in Christ Jesus our
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Lord in whose name we pray Amen Thank you for listening to when we understand the text
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Pastor Gabe is the author of the book 40 of the most popular bible verses And what they really mean available
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In paperback or for your kindle He's also authored a bible study Through the book of 1st Corinthians Both books can be found at our website at www .tt