"Fully Pleasing Him"

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Colossians 1:3-14

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So, we're back. Back on the stage, which is a little bit different.
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Back with a microphone that I find very irritating. More ways than one will look forward to being home, but it's certainly been nice to be here together, and I think what will now be a feature every time,
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Lord willing, we're able to get away as a retreat, is having an opportunity to take a break from our normal passage back home, working our way through Exodus, and focusing on the very passage that we all learned together over the course of this weekend.
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And so this morning, we're closing out our church retreat, and we're going to spend some time reflecting on Colossians 1, 3 -14.
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Now, Colossians 1, 3 -14 is broken, really, into two verses. It's essentially two sentences.
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Paul, for modern American grammar, would get a lot of red marks on his writings. Americans are averse to run -on sentences, but the ancients loved them.
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And even earlier English writers tend to love run -on sentences as well. But we don't think in long thoughts anymore.
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We can't keep the main subject and all of the corresponding structure in view, so we need kind of short, curt, to -the -point sentences.
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So, really, verses 3 -8 are one sentence in Greek, verses 9 -14 are another sentence in Greek.
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So, two sentences in Greek that occupy verses 3 -14. However, we're going to divide it into three sections, mainly because I want to have three focuses, or three moving parts to the message this morning.
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Now, as I say that, you'll know and you'll see, and I'm sure you can sympathize, I will hardly do justice to this passage.
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I would need five, maybe ten sermons just to try to do justice to this passage.
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There is so much theological depth packed into the phrases, the key words, the way that there's a correlation between the first and the second half, and then all of the reference points we have, not only in Colossians, but the
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Gospel writings as a whole. So, I simply want to engage, almost in passing, some of the central features of this passage that I found particularly striking and important, based on our focus over the weekend.
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And I'm going to draw that all to a singular application in two parts. A single application, the main application, that I would like to put before us, maybe challenge us to consider, and hopefully take with us when we leave this place.
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So, the first thing we'll do is look at verses 3 -8. We particularly want to see three key words for Paul, faith, hope, and love.
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Then we'll look at verses 9 -11 and get into the real focus of R .C.
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Sproul's sessions, which were pleasing God. And we'll talk about verse 10 in particular, fully pleasing
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Him. And then in verses 12 -14, we'll consider the truth of the Gospel. So, beginning in verses 3 -8.
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We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of your love for all the saints, because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.
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Paul begins in his letters, he often begins this way, with a presentation of his thankfulness.
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When Paul sits down at his desk, or takes the yellow legal pad on his lap, and begins to draft his letter to a church, he must have taken a moment to say,
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What am I thankful for about these believers? What ought I be thankful for in regard to these believers?
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He always begins letters with a note of thankfulness. That's meant to come across as an encouragement to them.
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I'm thankful for you. And that's something that I think we can learn from, as he encourages them to do in the second half, in the second sentence.
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Give thanks, give thanks to the Father. Consider and reflect on all His benefits. Be thankful for them.
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So before we even press into the content of his thanksgiving, we should just appreciate the fact that Paul offers thanksgiving.
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I say that because we live in an age of instant gratification. And with instant gratification comes thanklessness.
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You want everything? You want everything now. I lived in the days when you had dial -up internet.
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Some of you even lived before those days. Now we have everything in microseconds.
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And if it takes longer than a microsecond, we get frustrated. I remember having to wait 20 minutes to have some access to America online.
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We live in the age of instant gratification. And with that, we find more and more to complain about, less and less to be thankful about.
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We, in fact, don't even have enough time to consider the things we should be thankful for. Thanksgiving, in other words, does not come naturally to us.
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But what Paul shows us is that thanksgiving is one of the chief graces of a mature Christian.
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A mature Christian is a thankful Christian. A mature Christian is someone who can find thankfulness even in the trials and difficulties of their life.
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Not just a naive optimism or a glass -half -full outlook. The world has those as well.
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But one who is genuinely and sincerely thankful for God. Thankful for what
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God is doing. Thankful for what God has done. Thankful for who God has put them with.
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And that we see in Colossians 1 verse 3. The thing that's striking, as Paul says, he's been thankful as soon as he heard.
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Now there's details from chapter 2, details from chapter 4, details from the book of Acts that would imply
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Paul never met these particular believers. Most likely he knew
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Epaphras when he was in his long stay in Ephesus. It's more than likely that he was actually discipling
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Epaphras there. But we know from Acts 19 that Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go into the province of Asia.
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And here we have Herapolis, Laodicea, and Colossae. So we don't, at this stage, perhaps early 60s, this is one of the prison epistles, we don't have evidence that Paul had ever met these.
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So he's heard them. He speaks of those who had not seen his face. But he says,
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I'm so thankful for you. I've heard about you and I'm so thankful to know about you.
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So thankful to hear the report of you. So thankful for what God is doing in you and through you.
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He had just heard about this body and he's thankful for them and he's committed to pray for them.
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I wonder, as a church, in our little neighborhood in Barrie, if we were to hear about a church plant the town over, some brand new church plant, and there was all this buzz and people were coming through the common, maybe even stopping in, did you hear about the church plant in Phillipston?
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Oh, it's amazing what the Lord is doing there. What would our response be? What do you think? I'm almost embarrassed to say what my response would be.
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Well, I don't know, we'll see. We'll see what the Lord's doing over there. I don't know that my first instinct would be thankfulness.
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It might be, oh, well, I hope they don't take anyone from us. Maybe, in fact, we'll take some from them, yeah?
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Maybe it will fail and we will increase. No, no, I don't actually think that way. But that doesn't mean
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I would be genuinely thankful. Would I say I'm so thankful God's doing a work in the next town?
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I've never met any of these people. I'm going to pray. I'm going to pray with thankfulness and joy.
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The Lord is doing something, even in a place that I have not been, people that I have not met.
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The Lord is at work. That's something to rejoice about, something to be thankful for. And then notice the particulars of Paul's thanksgiving.
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He's thankful and is prayerful since he heard of your faith, he says, in Christ Jesus, your love for all of the saints because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.
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These three words are central to Paul's theology. We see them in 1 Corinthians 13, verse 12, the famous triad.
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Now these three remain, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest is love.
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Paul returns to love when he affirms with these believers that Epaphras had declared to him their love in the
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Spirit. So he has a natural love for them as other believers. They have a natural love for all of the saints.
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Epaphras has said so. So all around you see this mutual love, even though these brothers and sisters had not met.
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There's a comprehensive love for what God is doing, a love that has come from God and is for God's people.
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That will be alongside the main point at the end. They have faith.
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You could translate that trust, and here we see Paul reverse the word order from Jesus Christ to Christ Jesus.
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That's just a reminder that that word Christ is not a proper name, but rather a title, even in office.
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It's Messiah. You put your faith in the Messiah, and with all that comes with the
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Messiah, you trusted in the one who had been promised to Israel's race, the
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Savior that though they rejected, he has become the chief cornerstone. And that faith in Messiah has corresponded to a love for all of the saints, all those who have been saved by that same blood, governed by that same spirit.
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They have been made one, and that is in accordance with, that even in fact grows out of a hope that is laid up for them.
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That seems to correspond to his description of the inheritance that they partake of, something that's reserved for them, as 1
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Peter would say. So Paul has heard of these believers, and then he goes on to say that they are also ones who have heard.
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I heard about you and what the gospel has done in your life, and I'm thankful and prayerful as a result of the things that I have heard, but you know what?
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That all began when you heard. When you first heard the word of the truth of the gospel.
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And then Paul says, and by the way, here's something to be joyful, here's something to be thankful, here's something to be prayerful about.
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The same thing you heard, that's gone out all over the world. And wherever it's gone, just as it has in your life, it's bringing forth fruit.
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So as you have this love for all the saints, think about all these little groupings of the saints all over the world that even this very morning are gathering to worship the
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Lord who has saved them. Paul is thankful for that. Paul rejoices in praise for that.
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He seeks that it might increase, but he certainly appreciates that it is. We have a number of synonymous terms here.
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Word of the truth, the gospel, since you heard the grace of God in truth.
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So look at these phrases. The word of the truth, the gospel, and the grace of God in truth.
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These are all the same thing. These are all different ways of understanding the word, the message, the gospel, the grace of God that has come to them, the message that is bearing fruit.
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He puts it in these different ways to show them different angles of the same saving message that they had received.
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The word of the truth, the gospel, which was to them the grace of God in truth.
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And this is not a passive reception. It does not have a static outcome. This is not merely a social club that has gathered in Colossae nor here in Jaffray.
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It's not an outward adherence to some new understanding as many Stoics and religious devotees did in the ancient world.
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No, no, Paul says the gospel has come and it is fruitful.
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It is bearing fruit in you. It is bearing fruit through you. It is bearing fruit all around you.
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Wherever the seed has been cast, there is fruitfulness found. The word of God does not return to him empty nor void of the purpose for which he sent it.
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So Paul is essentially encouraging these believers if faith has begun by hearing and hope is the basis and the fixation of that faith and it's working out in love as faith must always work itself out in love.
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And Paul says you have every evidence of the Spirit of God working in and through you.
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You have the saving presence of His grace in your life. You've got the real McCoy, the real thing.
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And that's shown by your love for all of the saints. You have faith, hope, and love. And if you look to Christ and you look to the brethren of Christ and you have a hope for glory, this is the sign that fruitfulness is working.
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Fruitfulness is abounding. That's something to be thankful for, Paul says. And then he moves on secondly to verses 9 through 11, fully pleasing him.
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For this reason, we also since the day we heard it. Don't you love that image of the day?
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It's like as soon as the report came, he just bowed his head and began to spontaneously pray with thanksgiving to God.
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Since the day we heard it, we have prayed and we have not stopped praying for you.
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And then he gives us the content of that prayer, that petition, that they would be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
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Ligon Duncan, in his exposition, makes a really important point about prayer. And honestly, you'd have a whole message about prayer, more than a message on prayer.
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We're not going to spend too much time on prayer, but I at least want to say this. Paul turned to prayer when he saw
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God was at work rather than turning to prayer because he did not see
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God at work. That's a very good catch. Paul became increasingly prayerful as he saw movement and activity and blessing from God.
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That for him was the trigger, the impetus to begin praying more and more zealously, more and more faithfully, more and more incessantly.
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Because God is at work, because God is doing something, because fruit is abounding, he's going to put his shoulder into prayer.
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I think, and I think what Ligon's getting at here, I think we tend to pray when we don't see
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God working, when we enter into trial or letdown or discouragement, and we say, oh, it's time to take the safety hammer and break the glass case of prayer.
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We've tried everything we could in the flesh, and now we're going to have to finally come to the end of ourselves and resort to praying for God to fix these things.
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Well, Paul doesn't have that logic at all. When he sees God working, he prays incessantly that God would continue to work, that there would be more fruit, that there would be an increased activity of the
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Spirit among the people of God. We are tempted to think, well, if God's taking the initiative and he's already working, that's great.
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The prayer has been answered. We can kind of rest and put in cruise control our prayer lives.
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We'll only have to resurrect prayer when that begins to falter. But notice what Paul says.
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Since the day we've heard it, we do not cease to pray. You are fruitful, you are increasing, you have every evidence of God's presence and vitality among you, and that's a reason to pray without ceasing.
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We do not cease to pray, asking that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will.
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In all wisdom and spiritual understanding, you read the letter and you observe that Paul's going to have a lot to say about wisdom and understanding.
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To these Colossian believers that were on the verge of being blown about by every wind of false doctrine, empty philosophy that would cheat them, heresies and false teachers that were coming through and seeking to lead them astray.
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And so Paul is praying, even as you heard the truth, I pray that you would be filled with wisdom to know that truth and act accordingly.
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With spiritual understanding to catch the deceptions and the strain, to see the lion who's prowling around you, seeking whom he may devour.
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I love that he says that they would be filled, not just have, but be filled. Essentially, they already have the knowledge of God.
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Essentially, they already have the fruitfulness that belongs to knowing God, knowing something of what
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God is seeking to do in and through them. He said, I'm glad you have it. I give thanks for that. I pray for that all the time with thanksgiving.
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And yet, I'm still praying that you would be filled, that you would come to maximum capacity of understanding
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God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Right now, perhaps you feel that you have everything you need to know in the
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Christian life, but Colossian believers, you must be filled even more. You must have more knowledge of his will, more wisdom, more spiritual understanding.
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So notice that he's not just praying for the ability, but he's asking really for the aim.
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Not just the ability to have the knowledge of God's will, but the aim of God's will, to walk in wisdom and understanding.
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He wants them to make it their aim to fully please him. And part of making it your aim, as Paul would say of himself, to fully please the
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Lord, is to actually discern through spiritual understanding and wisdom the fullness of his counsel, to actually comprehend the knowledge of his will and walk accordingly.
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That's the aim of the Christian. We are satisfied often with far less.
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Give me my vitamin for the day, Lord. Give me one thing to chew on, one thing to work on.
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We don't actually pray, Lord, fill me from head to toe, not leaving an ounce of room.
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I want to fully comprehend all of your will and all that it requires of me accordingly.
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I want to know everything in every aspect of my life that can be pleasing to you.
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I want to know every way that my life can be laid down as a living sacrifice on the altar.
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Don't just consecrate the top of my head, Lord. Consecrate me fully into your service.
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That's essentially what Paul is saying. Be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
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This is what will bring fruitfulness. This is what is fully pleasing.
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A walk that is worthy of the calling of the Lord. And again, the gospel is the basis, but also the means of walking worthy, pleasing and being fruitful in the
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Lord. They'd already heard, already received, already trusted the word of the truth of the gospel.
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But now, by believing and owning and reflecting and cherishing the word of the truth of the gospel, they will be filled with knowledge.
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They will have lives that are filled with fruitfulness. This is what it will look like to walk in a pleasing way.
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Walking is a metaphor. Of course, that is often used in the Hebrew scriptures. And Paul picks that up.
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We have it in other places in his letters, Galatians 5 .16. I say then, walk in the spirit.
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You will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. 1 Thessalonians 4 .12. You may walk properly toward those who are outside, lacking nothing.
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Romans 13 .13. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness, not in lust, not in strife, nor envy.
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Believers are to walk in a proper, in a fitting, in a worthy manner.
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This, Paul says, is pleasing to God. Walking worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing
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Him. Now that word, pleasing, in Greek is a very interesting word.
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In secular Greek, so outside of New Testament Greek, just other references we have from the time, the word would have signified, the best way
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I can put this is a sort of teacher's pet mentality. A goody two -shoes, we might say.
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You know the type. I wonder, some of you are teacher's pets. I think I might have been a few years.
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I lost a lot of friends for like two years. I think I'm like the teacher's pet. I'm fully pleasing, in a sense.
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A more proper word. This is the perfect word for it, though it's a rare word. Obsequiousness.
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That would be exactly what fully pleasing here means. It's every attempt to try to gain favor.
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Like a teacher's pet, if you know what that means. You know, I organize your desk for you.
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Oh, and here's an apple. Oh, and can I wet the eraser and sort of clean the chalkboard for you? Oh, by the way,
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I actually did next week's homework ahead of time. It's like every little thing I could possibly conceive of that would give me favor, that would be pleasing to you.
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And Paul is saying, let us walk in a way that we have that desire. We're looking, thinking, reflecting, searching for anything, everything that would be pleasing to God.
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It's our delight to find His favor. Literally, we could render this.
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We say fully pleasing Him, fully. It's hard to translate. An equally valid translation that may be more helpful would be pleasing
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Him in every way or pleasing Him in all respects.
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That's what it means to fully please God. I don't have a balancing scale of things that I know are pleasing to God because I know
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His will about these things. And things that I know probably aren't really pleasing to Him, but hopefully the things that are pleasing to Him are making up for the things that are not.
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I know that this part of my life, this part of my relationship, this part of my home is not really pleasing to God, but that's okay.
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Look at what I've got going for me compared to many others. Look at this part of my devotional life.
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Look at this aspect of my walk. Look at my personality in this respect compared to others. Surely that's pleasing enough to the
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Lord. Well, Paul's not talking about that mentality here. Fully pleasing
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Him, fully pleasing Him. That's what it means to walk worthy of the
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Lord. That's what you need to be fruitful in every good work.
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What prevents us from being fruitful in every good work? Sometimes the things that are fully pleasing to God are quite difficult and awkward, and frankly, we just have no interest, no desire.
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In fact, we have contempt to do the things that are pleasing to God in certain situations. So rather than doing more in that pleasing way, we do less.
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We do enough, but not more. Spurgeon, he did a string of sermons through Colossians 1, and I was reading one this week, and he had this wonderful story from the
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American Revolution. It's funny that it was a positive example, though he was British, but he appreciated, apparently, our general at the time,
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George Washington. He shared this story of a time where Washington was sort of riding along inspecting his troops, and he noticed that there was a group of men, and they were laboring.
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They sort of had come down to sort of shirtless, exasperated ends, and they're all trying to carry timber off to the side of the road.
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And he noticed them struggling, slipping in the mud, and he noticed that sitting next to them on horseback was their superior.
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Sitting there, waiting patiently, watching them struggle and fail to get all of the timber off of the path.
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So Washington rode up and sort of asked, or maybe even put a little gentle pressure on this man, why are you not helping these soldiers?
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He said, well, oh, sir, he thought he was mistaken. I'm a corporal. In other words, this is beneath me.
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You probably thought I was just like them. No, no, I'm not taking a break. I'm actually a corporal. This work is beneath me. And so Washington got off his horse and went over, took off his coat, quite an expensive coat,
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I'm sure, got into the mud with these men and hauled timber, put the corporal to shame.
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Went up to the corporal after, and just to turn the knife handle a bit, said, if these men ever need help again, you come find
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General Washington. Spurgeon says,
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I love that this is his application. He says, dear brother, as soon as he finished his story, he says, dear brother,
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I know you are far too experienced. In fact, you're just too old.
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You have too much learning to help teach the youth. Oh, and I know you are far too respectable, and you have too much dignity in your place of work to hand out a tract.
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Spurgeon says, brothers, pray. Don't have such an ignorant way of thinking.
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You ought to ask to be useful in every possible way. Have you done a little? Ask that you could do more.
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Have you done a lot? Ask that you could do even much more. And if you've done even much more, ask for grace to proceed to the highest possible degree of usefulness for the
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Lord. Even if it means as the general, the very top of the continental army, you're in the mud hauling wood off the path.
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That's what it means to fully please the Lord. Paul, in other words, not only understands, but he expects the
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Christian life comes with great effort. You don't come into Christianity through the great trials and tribulations of being lost and being in bondage, and then you're freed and liberated to now live a life of ease and be fanned by ostrich feathers and pluck grapes from golden platters.
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No, that is not the Christian life, and I trust most of you already know that that's the case. It's a life of purpose that involves all sorts of exertion, all sorts of suffering.
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We must suffer many things to enter into the kingdom. And so there's grace because of that struggle.
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There's grace because it requires so much of our bodily life and activity, as Christian Stetler pointed out.
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For Paul, sanctification is not a concept of virtue. Sanctification is not some bonus for people who are living the higher life.
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We're all Christians, and one of the things we're trying to do is be a little more sanctified, like a nice little virtue, some little bonus that not everyone has access to.
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No, it expresses, this is Stetler, it expresses in bodily life actions that please
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God. That's a very good insight, and he's going to round it out even more. Sanctification is not a virtue.
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Rather, it is an expression in bodily life of actions that please
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God. Although the process of sanctification takes place at a distance from the world, we don't go in the same course or manner of the world.
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Nonetheless, we don't renounce the world. We live rather in such a way that we're present in the world, and that's what makes sanctification so incredibly difficult.
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And so we prove the worthiness of our calling rather than becoming monks and moving into the monastery.
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We are present in the world. We don't become scribes and Pharisees. Remember Sproul's second session on that.
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Rather, we make it our aim, through acts of sacrifice and struggle, to be fully pleasing to God.
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It would be easier if we all moved into a monastery. It would be easy if we just had to live here on a camp for the next 30 years, together in fellowship.
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We didn't have to go about the world and all that comes with the world and counteract and interact and be present in the world and trying to be consecrated to God's service.
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That's the rub. And that shows us why we need the Lord in order to please the
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Lord. We'll never be fully pleasing to the Lord if the Lord is not present in our lives.
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We will not walk in a manner worthy of the Lord if the Lord does not make us worthy of His grace, worthy of His mercy, if He doesn't strengthen us by His Spirit.
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And that's what Paul says next. Strengthened with all might according to His glorious power.
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And if you have some connotation of being empowered and having all might and you think, yes, I will never struggle again.
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If I were to be strengthened with all the might of God's glorious power, I would just roll over every trial and tribulation.
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I wouldn't flinch. I wouldn't sweat. I would never feel dejected. I would never be discouraged.
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I would go from strength to strength and you would be puffed up like the
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Hindenburg and you would burn up like the Hindenburg as well. That's why Paul says that strengthening, that might that's according to His glorious, comprehensive power is for patience and long -suffering.
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How does might and the glorious power of God, the Creator, correspond to the need for patience and long -suffering in the
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Christian's life? Is that what you thought the power of God was going to produce in you?
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You're struggling to be patient, but you're patient. You're struggling to persevere, but by the fewness of your faith according to God's grace, you're persevering.
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And you probably think something like, if only I had God's power. If only
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I had the strength of the Lord in my life, I wouldn't be struggling in this way. I wouldn't be feeling so burnt out and trying to persevere in the walk.
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Oh, brother, sister, listen. The fact that you're persevering is proof positive that you are receiving the strengthening of God.
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The fact that you are enduring, though it's a struggle to endure, is proof positive that you are given a might according to His glorious power.
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You have patience. You have long -suffering. And though it's not always constant, you even find times of joy, that you may have all patience and long -suffering, not without, but even with joy.
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That is what the strength of God looks like in a Christian's life. It doesn't mean we don't go through life with gritted teeth from time to time.
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We certainly don't live the Christian life without feeling. If you open up the book of the Psalms, you see that shining through the pages.
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So many of the Psalms correspond exactly to what Paul's describing here. God's spirit present, blessing coming, but that strength, that presence of God, not corresponding to some mighty advance like a conqueror, but rather simply to clinging by faith, to enduring and suffering and even finding joy in the midst of it, as the psalmist almost always can find a verse or two to slip in some joy.
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So Paul says, brethren, I want you to have that endurance. I want you to be able to have all patience and joy as you endure in the
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Christian life. This, too, is pleasing to God. This, too, is pleasing to God.
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And where we feel dejected, where we're struck down and struggling, Paul reminds us again, give thanks.
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As he moves out of long suffering, he then, verses 12 through 14, says, give thanks, don't forget the gospel.
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And he speaks again to the truth of the gospel. As you're enduring, as you're struggling, as you're being strengthened by the spirit, which doesn't always feel like strength, sort of an invisible gentle strength, a firmness of conviction, a planting of our feet that never feels sure, though it is eternally sure.
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His manner is that of the dove, as we see throughout biblical revelation. But then
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Paul reminds them of the gospel, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
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He has delivered us from the power of darkness, conveyed us into the kingdom of the
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Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
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Look at these key words. I was talking with someone, I think it was Hogan last night. We were talking about how difficult it is to not speak
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Christianese to your young ones. We absorb Christianese, and we all use these little phrases in key terms, and because you're a
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Christian and you've heard these things as stock phrases for years, maybe decades, you just assume we all know what they mean.
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A point was made by Tony yesterday. How do you hide the word in your heart?
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Well, we all use that phrase, right? You're like, you know, it's great that you can hide the word in your heart. Amen, brother. Yeah, just keep hiding that word in your heart.
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And then a six -year -old goes, what are you even talking about? What does that mean? And then all of a sudden you're like, what does that mean?
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Why do we speak of that like we know what it means? And we have these key words. Paul's developing a
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Christian theological vocabulary of the redemptive experience. He's articulating the gospel by using these words, these angles on the saving activity of God in the person and work of Christ Jesus.
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Notice what the Father has done. He's qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance.
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That's a ton of specialized vocabulary that draws on all of the Old Testament revelation.
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The Father has qualified us so we were disqualified. Why? Why were we disqualified?
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What are we now qualified to? To be partakers of an inheritance. Whose inheritance? What is the inheritance?
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Well, it's the inheritance of the saints. What do you mean the saints? Who are these saints? Well, the saints in the light.
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What are you talking about? Almost every part of these two verses is completely new articulation of the gospel.
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He's delivered us. Deliverance. That would be something entirely unknown apart from this depiction of sin and bondage.
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The very things we're seeing in the story of Exodus. God delivering His people out of bondage and slavery.
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God delivering His people out of the clutch and the condemnation of Pharaoh through the wrath of the sea as it were.
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Deliverance. And what was that deliverance ultimately of? Even in Exodus? The power of darkness.
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So now we have the contrast between light and darkness. You've been brought out of darkness into light.
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And what is that light that you've been brought to? Where is the inheritance of the saints found?
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Well, that's the kingdom. It's the kingdom of the Son. And all of that corresponds to God's love for it's out of love that the
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Son was sent to bring forth the kingdom in all of its fullness. The kingdom of the
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Son of His love. We keep going further. That Son is the one in whom we have redemption.
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Now we have slave market language. Again, notice Exodus impregnated within these verses.
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Redemption. Release. Freedom from servitude. Freedom from a yoke that we could not escape.
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Freedom from that yoking unto death and the misery of the curse. We've been redeemed.
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And that redemption came at a great cost through His blood which is the forgiveness of sins.
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So look at these key words. And more importantly, look at our role in these key words.
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Look at where we are the subject and the ones that are doing these key words, right? You see it, don't you?
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Oh no, you don't see it anywhere, do you? We have nothing to do with any of this, do we?
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The only subject of all of these verbs is God the Father in the person of His Son.
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That is the gospel. Giving thanks is the only thing that the
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Christians do. Here's what you do. Give thanks. Here's what
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God did. Qualified. Gave you an inheritance. Brought you into the light. Delivered you.
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Out of darkness. Conveyed you into a kingdom. Redeemed you through His blood. Forgave all of your sins.
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Paul says, so what are you going to do? Be thankful. Live worthy of that.
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Do you remember that great scene in Saving Private Ryan when the character played by Tom Hanks at the very end is sort of defeated and dying and he's completed his mission.
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He has saved Private Ryan. The Allies are zooming overhead. The Germans are being pushed out of the city square.
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He knows that this man is going to return safely home as he was under orders to do so.
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And as he's looking at the character played by Matt Damon, Tom Hanks says, earn this.
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In other words, this whole mission, now that has cost me everything. Saving you.
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Giving my life for you. He essentially says, for the rest of your life, live worthy of this.
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Earn it. Notice the interesting insight there is there's nothing to earn.
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He's already been saved. There's no worthiness required for the act of salvation.
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He's been saved. The life has been spent and now he can return safely.
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But there's another profound sense, which there must be a worthiness. There must be an earning.
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Not in terms of merit, but in terms of gratitude. And that is, of course, the difference between so many of our
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Catholic friends and why we're Protestants. It's that pivotal, crucial distinction of what makes the gospel the gospel.
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That we do not live a life fully pleasing to him. Understanding and seeking to know his will fully.
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Trying to be fruitful in every good work so that we can merit a worthiness.
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Merit a salvation. But no, having received this salvation fully and freely, we seek to be fruitful.
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We seek to please him in every respect. Why? Out of gratitude. And Paul says, give thanks to the
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Father who had this saving design upon you, even in eternity past.
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He has delivered you from the power of darkness. He has brought you into the light, into the kingdom of the son of his love.
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And when I see that little phrase, the kingdom of the son of his love, it just reminds me of, in the gospels, how often the father did speak of the son whom he loved.
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Perhaps Paul is conscious of that and trying to tie that into this verse.
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For often we see declarations, whether at Jesus' baptism or at Jesus' transfiguration, of the love of the father toward his son.
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This is my son, whom I'm well pleased. This is the one who has fully pleased me in every respect, in every nanosecond of his earthly life.
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He has well pleased his father in heaven. Jesus says as much in John 8, 29.
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He who sent me is with me. The father has not left me alone. Why? Jesus says,
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I always do the things that please him. The father has not left me alone because I'm always fully pleasing to him.
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It's a mystery that we, who could not do anything that would fully please
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God, though we had a million lifetimes to do so, learning and trying to improve each one after the next, we could never even come close to pleasing
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God, having indwelling sin and adding on to that indwelling sin, hour by hour, day by day.
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We could not be the ones who please God. The mystery of the gospel is that he nevertheless is pleased to save us.
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I was reading 1 Corinthians 1, 21. It's so easy to read past.
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Of course, it's not the emphasis, but it's still there. Paul says, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know
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God. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
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What's the point there around that section of 1 Corinthians 1? You want me to come in lofty wisdom and speech?
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No, no, no. That's not how God came. He gave a foolish message that caused Greeks to doubt and Jews to stumble.
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I'm going to come with that same foolish message because this is how God is pleased to communicate his salvation.
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But notice, just take out through the foolishness of the message, which is the point there, I grant it.
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In the wisdom of God, though the world did not know God, it pleased God to save those who believe.
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Just marvel at the fact that it pleases God to save us who cannot please
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God. We offer nothing that is pleasing to God, and yet God is fully pleased to save us?
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And we know that's because we're united by faith to the one who said, the
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Father has not left me alone because I always do what pleases him.
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Now, if we press into that a little further, we even get closer to the gospel. You see my point. We can actually understand the gospel completely in terms of fully pleasing
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God. That's been the focus of our weekend, fully pleasing God. You can understand exactly the message of the gospel just with that phrase, fully pleasing
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God. God is fully pleased to save us who believe, even though we could never do anything that was fully pleasing to God.
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That's because we're united by faith to the one who did everything that pleased God. And for that reason, the
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Father never left the Son. But how did the Father who was always pleased with his beloved and fully pleasing
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Son show forth his great pleasure in saving us? Isaiah 53 says,
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For the transgressions of my people he was stricken, and they made his grave with the wicked.
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But with the rich at his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth, yet it pleased the
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Lord to crush him. It pleased the
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Lord to crush him. The one who fully pleased him in every respect.
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I always do what pleases my Father. Therefore, he's never left me alone.
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And as soon as he entered into our place on that tree, and entered into our constitution as ones who could never please
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God. Now, for the first time, no longer being able to please the
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Father. For the first time, the Father was pleased and leave him utterly alone.
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It pleased him to crush that That is how the
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Father has delivered us from the power of darkness. It's through his blood that we have been redeemed.
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And so we now, in the same way that Jesus became the one who could never please
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God and was utterly abandoned by God and felt the pleasure of God in receiving and embracing the fully pleasing
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Son turned to wrath. And now the pleasure was in judging and bringing wrath upon the
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Son. Now, through that blood that has redeemed us, united by faith to that Son, we become the ones who are fully pleasing to God.
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We, enrobed in his righteousness, receive that same pronouncement. These are my people whom
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I love. And I am well pleased with them. Why? Because we've been redeemed through the blood.
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That's the forgiveness of our sins. The barrier has been removed.
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How far has that distance, that barrier, that separation from God been removed?
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So far that God's just not near us. God's just not around us occasionally.
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So far has that redemptive blood removed the separation and alienation and utter aloneness we had from God that now, just like Christ, God is within us.
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Those who are in the flesh, Paul says, cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh.
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You are in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.
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How would an Israelite know where the presence of God was to be found? Maybe you felt like this from time to time, right?
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You wrestle with these thoughts. I'm persevering. To be honest,
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I'm dry. I'm just wanting to find the presence of the Lord. For the most part, the average
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Israelite you asked would not be able to understand what you were possibly talking about.
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They would say, oh, you don't know where the presence of the Lord is? Oh, come with me. Let's go to Jerusalem. It's right in the temple.
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That's where God's presence has always been. You see, you thought that God was present in some other place.
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No, no, no. We have the temple of His presence. In fact, He dwells in the Holy of Holies.
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So if you're looking for God's presence, you just have to come to the temple. Now, don't go in there. It will not go well.
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But that's where His presence can be found. That's what the blood of bulls and goats will get you.
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Presence near, but not close. But what does the blood of His Son get you?
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The Spirit of God dwelling within you. So now you are the temple of God.
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We can therefore draw near. There's still a sense of finding the sensible presence of God.
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There's still a sense of drawing near to God and cleansing our hands and our hearts, as James admonishes us.
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The fact is, we're either in the flesh or in the spirit. And those who are in the flesh are none of Christ's.
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And those who are in the spirit are indwelt by the Spirit of God. Let us, the writer of Hebrews says, draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, our bodies washed with pure water.
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How does this ending of verse 14 correspond to fully pleasing
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God? Well, it's the beating heart of it all. We've been redeemed through His blood.
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Our sins have been forgiven. Therefore, we draw confidently with a true heart into the very presence of God. How do we draw near to Him?
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By the Spirit of God residing in us. His presence now among us. And that's why, as the writer of Hebrews goes on to say, it's the
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God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant that will make you complete in every good work.
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Do you see that same logic? It's through the blood that you are fruitful in every good work, working in you what is well -pleasing in His sight.
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It's through the blood that you are walking in a worthy manner, fully pleasing Him. When we talk about this
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Spirit of God residing in us, it draws us back to the triad that I spoke of earlier, faith, hope, and love.
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And what does Paul say? The greatest is love. So let's come to the main application now, and I'm going to do it in two parts, but the main application is a single sentence.
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And I think this, to me, is the most important takeaway from perhaps this weekend, why we do this retreat year after year, what we want this retreat to foster and cultivate among us.
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I think it's also a very fitting capstone to the significance of love in Paul's theology and even here in Colossians 1.
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So here's the main application. Love received from God corresponds to love for the people of God.
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Love received from God corresponds to love for the people of God.
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If I see anything in Colossians 1, I see that sentence emblazoned across verses 3 through 14.
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In all sorts of ways, Paul is describing the love that we receive from God.
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And in all sorts of ways, Paul is not only describing, but actually demonstrating how that corresponds to love for the people of God.
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Not only all the saints, but particularly the local expression of his body, the local church.
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So let's start with love received from God. See that love behind every aspect of what
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Paul is describing. Not just that he has conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, but that in eternity past, this whole purpose of redemption all corresponds to the fact that God is love.
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The most easily misunderstood, misused, misapplied, and perverted verse out of 1
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John. And if we can be aware of that without letting it spoil the depth and profundity of what is perhaps the greatest theological statement in 1
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John. God is love. Isaiah 53 tells us as much.
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What does Paul say? If you're doubting the love of God, look to the one who did not spare his own son.
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What manner of love is that? He loved us.
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Freely given, freely received, wholly undeserved, he loved us.
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And the first question in all of these descriptions of the love that we receive from God, do we actually pause to reflect and appreciate upon the wonder of that love?
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We should not easily move past descriptions or reflections upon the love of God.
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There was a period of my life when I first came into Reformed theology. And this is not a problem with Reformed theology, this is a problem with prideful flesh approaching the deep truths of Reformed theology.
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I was so seasick with the sentimentalism of most shallow presentations and understandings of salvation so that when things became just sappy appeals to love, it felt like meaningless fluff, like pools of jello.
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It had no glory in it, no depth, no wonder. And so I would often plug up my ears at any presentations of the love of God.
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If I were to go visit a relative's church, maybe a charismatic church, and the whole thing was some 20 -minute soppy message on love,
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I'd just be rolling my eyes and harrumphing. Can't we have something from Romans 9? Something about God's sovereignty?
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That's where the glory is. And the more years that have gone by in my life, the more
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I realize that the most profound examination we could possibly undertake in the Scripture is the love of God in Christ Jesus.
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There is nothing deeper than that. Paul, in all sorts of ways, whether he uses the word love or not, is articulating what the love of God in Christ looks like for us.
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Do you wonder at that? Do you marvel at that? Do you know something of that? I was talking with Shelly a few nights ago, and the conclusion was if you can't tear up at some point in describing salvation, conversion,
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Jesus, something is wrong. We were both about to cry like schoolgirls, me even more than her.
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You can't talk about these things for long, for a long swath of time.
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We may struggle. You can't talk about these things long with dry eyes. That is the presence of the
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Spirit of God communicating the love of God to your soul. But it's not something you hear with the ear.
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It's something that reverberates in the fibers of your being. You know that you are loved, and you know something of your beloved.
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And though there's a great distance, the Shulamite knows who she loves, and she longs to be with Him.
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And so it is with the Church of God. We ought to wonder and marvel at that love. There was an artist, and I won't give his name because his work is not worth looking into, nor is his life, but he said something in an interview that I thought was very profound.
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One of the ways that he began taking greater strides in his sort of career as a painter, which was up for grabs.
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He wasn't sure if he was going to do it. He had a friend who actually really liked his art, though I think at the time, and maybe even still, there's really not much to like about it.
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But his friend said, you know, I sort of do this non -profit work where we do these fundraisers, and we'll have these big banquets.
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And, you know, you're such a great artist, and you do really good portraits in your own sort of unique way. Why don't you just come and paint?
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And he said, well, what is this? What's this organization? What's the fundraiser for? Well, it's mostly victims that have been trafficked, sex trafficking, drug trafficking, and they've kind of been rescued, and we basically have this kind of halfway house where we're trying to restore them and help them enter back into society in a very different life.
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So he said, you know, they're probably not going to want to sit in front of you. They'll be very shy, and so on. And you just have to remember, these people have been abused and treated like dirt for years.
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And I really think that if you were to make a portrait of them, it would be a wonderful way to raise funds and show your art.
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And so he agreed. And he said it was one of the most, one of the most striking encounters that he had ever had, was he sat, the very first woman that sat across from him, she'd been sort of a drug mule, prostitute coming out of Mexico, and I think it was in Arizona at the time, for years.
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And he said he sat there, and she was just asking polite questions about his work and how he does things, and so on.
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And as he began to draw, and of course he's still looking past his easel, and he's just constantly, as an artist must do, noticing the contours, the light, the proportion.
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And he's spending all this time, 15, 20, 30 minutes, articulating every little aspect of what makes her face her face.
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And all of a sudden, she burst out into tears. And he was very concerned. Did he do something to offend her?
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She's crying now. She hasn't even seen what I painted. Wait till she sees it. And she said,
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I'm sorry, no one's really looked at me like that before. And in recounting this in the interview, he said,
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I realize this might have been the first time she was not treated as an object, but a subject of admiration, a subject of love.
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Not something to be used and tossed aside, but every eyelash known, appreciated, replicated, as something to cherish and admire and praise through painting.
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And when I heard that story, I thought, that's exactly how a
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Christian ought to feel when they've been delivered out of the power of darkness and brought into light.
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And they realize the only reason that has taken place is because God has made them the subject of his love.
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And he admires and appreciates and cares about every detail of their being.
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Every molecule that he has sewn together will receive something of that endless, depthless fountain of his love, which is filled with the blood of his son.
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Do you know something of that love? If you have dry eyes and a cold heart and a listless spirit in response to the saving message of the gospel, you have not heard the saving message of the gospel.
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We have received love from God. And that love must then correspond to love for the people of God.
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I can only imagine, I don't know, but I can only imagine all of these poor, trafficked people embracing their portrait like the most prized possession on the earth and so excitedly sharing it to others who had their portrait too, which is very much like Christians sharing their testimony.
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You too? You too have received this love? And it corresponds to this love for all of the people of God.
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And so that's the second point, a love for the people of God. And I want you to notice how thoughtful Paul is to make sure that these
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Colossians never individualize the saving event of God. He speaks to them as a corporate body and he wants to make sure they're thinking of themselves in that way as well.
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He doesn't say, here's my letter, Epaphras. Make 60 copies and make sure they all go home with it to read it.
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It's just written to an individual. No, it's written to the church. Notice, he's delivered us from the power of darkness.
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He's conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love in whom we have redemption.
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These are all plural terms. Paul understands there's a corporate dimension of God's redemption.
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It's not meant to be rested away into some private corner. It's meant to be lived out and fully appreciated, fully expressed in fellowship, in a body, in a local church.
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Do you know something of Psalm 16? Verse 2 and 3. Oh my soul, you have said to the
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Lord, you are my Lord, my goodness is nothing apart from you. And as for the saints, what does the
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Psalm say? You are my Lord, I'm nothing apart from you. And as for the saints, I love seeing them once a week.
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And most of them are pretty good. A few of them, eh. Is that what the Psalm says? They are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.
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The magnitude of the love that I have received by the Spirit of God, through the work of Christ, by the will of the
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Father, is so powerful in my life that if there's anyone who's received anything even close to that,
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I love them. They're excellent. I delight in them. And the more we can spend time together reflecting and living out and wondering at this work of God and the will of God, the more and more
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I delight. The more and more I see even wider contours of God's love for me.
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Why? Because love received from God always corresponds to love for God's people.
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How are we viewing the presence of God's Spirit among us? How are we viewing the truth of the saving message of the
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Gospel? What does the love of God shed abroad in our hearts mean in terms of our church?
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Why do we do things like this? Why come and suffer defeat at the hands of Dan in the
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Gaga Pit if it weren't for the fellowship and the growth and the interweaving of lives that have been saved by the grace of God so that the full expression of the gifts and graces of the body can be perceived and admired and appreciated and effective in the work that God will do in and through us in His world?
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The church has been built. The church has been built. Our church has been built.
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But are we being built? Ephesians 2. No longer strangers and foreigners,
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Paul says. Fellow citizens, with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
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Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the
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Lord in whom you, by the way, that's a plural you, you all are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the
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Spirit. So the church has been built. But in another sense, the church is being built together.
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There is no other foundation other than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus, our Lord. That foundation has been laid.
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The church has been built. But in another profound way, the church is being built. And so the question before us, the question to leave with this weekend is how are we being built together?
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How are we being built together for a dwelling place of God in the
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Spirit? Just in Purdue, I'm going to close with this insight that I came across.
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Now he uses these two terms, pietism versus confessionalism. I don't know that those are the most helpful terms, but here's kind of what he's getting at.
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Pietism would be a sort of privatized way of approaching the Christian life. Not necessarily forsaking the assembly, but the
01:07:21
Christian life is about me, my solitary journey as a pilgrim through this world into heaven's gate.
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It's pietistic in the sense that it's primarily focused on the individual. It appreciates the role of the church, but really at the end of the day it's my soul, my faith.
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I have to give an account before my judge. It's my sanctification, my spirituality. It's all about kind of me.
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And the church is nice that it can fit in with that. And then he talks about confessionalism again. Probably not the most helpful term, but he's saying a very different view that says actually the corporate dimensions of Christianity are the most important dimensions, not the private.
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Listen to what, this is technical. I'm going to explain it in layman terms. This is Justin Perdue. He says in pietism, so this individual private approach to living the
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Christian life, the emphasis is almost exclusively on spiritual disciplines as the means of spiritual growth.
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None of this is bad. It's all about proportion and priority, okay? But listen again.
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Proportion and priority. In pietism the emphasis is almost exclusively on personal spiritual disciplines as the means of spiritual growth.
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Ordinary means of grace, which are predominantly corporate realities, we'll come back to that, are not considered much, if at all.
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And when they are, they are seen as supplements to the really important stuff which always happens in private.
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In confessionalism, so the opposite of this view, the emphasis is not on exercises of personal discipline, personal means of growth, but the emphasis is on the ordinary means of grace, which means the word of God, baptism, the
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Lord's Supper, the church body fellowshipping, praying together, and praising together, song.
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These means show up in a unique way when the church, and only when the church, is gathered.
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Certainly personal time in the word and prayer, amongst other things, are wonderful, even necessary. But these things are viewed as a supplement to the believer's participation in the corporate life of the body.
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Let me boil that all down for you. One view says, your participation in the church is a supplement to your private devotional life.
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That's the most important thing. Come to church, benefit as you can, be a good consumer.
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As you participate, it will help you in the most important thing, which is your private, personal, devotional life.
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That's the main thing. The other view says, your private devotional life, your time in the word, your time in prayer, those disciplines of grace, all of that is a supplement so that you can enter and gather and come in to participate with the church.
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Now, you have read and you have known Colossians 1, 3 through 14, just as I have. Which of those two alternatives do you think
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Paul would support? Which one is closer to Paul's heart and Paul's view and what
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Paul wants to put before the believers in Colossae? If we're approaching our church as a supplement, as a bonus, as something we can throw in the trunk of the most important thing, my private, personal, devotional life, we have misunderstood everything that we memorized over the past three days.
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But if we recognize that our private devotional life and all those means of grace that occupy it and every spiritual discipline that we use to beat our bodies into submission is actually meant to supplement our participation in usefulness and integration into the church, then we will walk worthy of the
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Lord in a manner fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work.
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So I pose that as a challenge to all of us. Which one of these two views, which one is the supplement?
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Is it your personal life or the church? How else will you be fruitful in every good work?
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Love received from God corresponds to love for the people of God.
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Let's pray. Father, thank
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You for Your Word. Thank You for Your love. Thank You for the grace that You've shown us in Your Son.
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Thank You, Lord, that we have no claim, no merit, no worthiness of our own, but You have made us worthy in the Beloved.
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That You are more pleased with us than we could possibly imagine or hope because we've been redeemed through His blood.
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And so we magnify Him and we thank You for Him and we pray for the love that He has given us, the love that He has shown us, the love that we're called to show, that would be magnified and amplified by Your Spirit.
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That we would leave this place having the right priority, fully pleasing You, being made fruitful in every good work, not on our own, apart from one another, but more and more integrated together, walking in this worthiness together, being built together as a dwelling place for Your Spirit.