Intro to Colossians

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Father God, I thank you for this time to study.
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I thank you for so many gathered in this room.
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And I pray that you would bless this study time.
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First, Lord, to your glory, that it would be for your sake, glorifying to your name, that you would keep me from error.
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And as the spokesman of the group, Lord, and hopefully a spokesman for you, that your Holy Spirit would speak through me and keep me from error.
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And I pray for every listener.
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I pray that they would hear the word and understand it.
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And I pray ultimately, Lord, that they would be drawn to a deeper and wider understanding of what your word tells us, particularly about your son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.
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Amen.
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Well, this morning was supposed to be the first in a series for our Sunday school class.
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Our Sunday school class had been studying Greek, and we are still studying Greek, but we are going to be doing so in conjunction with studying a book of the New Testament.
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We're going to be going through the book of Colossians.
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And the way that we're going to do it is we're going to be studying Colossians in English, because that's what we all speak and read.
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But we're also going to be looking at the Greek language coinciding with what the English is saying.
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So learning how to do word studies and how to follow the Greek along as we're studying through the English.
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But because we're not doing that this morning, because most of you haven't been in the Greek class this morning, we're just going to take an introduction to the book of Colossians.
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So if you would turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1, and you'll notice if your Bible is like mine and has relatively small print, Colossians only takes up two pages, because it's very short.
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Maybe you have a large print edition, and maybe it takes up two, three, four pages.
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But it's a very short book.
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And yet in this short book is a very high Christology.
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And I know that's a term maybe not everybody's familiar with, but it is sort of the background and the heart of the book, so I want to start with this word.
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In the subject of theology, we have underlying subheadings of theological principles.
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The primary subject that we study is theology, and then off of theology we have subsections, the first one being what's called theology proper.
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Theology proper is the study of God the Father, it's the study of the Trinity, it's the study of the nature of God, the attributes of God.
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We talk about God being omniscient, omnipotent, you know, those things.
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That's all part of theology proper.
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Off of this, though, there are other subheadings, and usually right after theology proper you have something called Christology.
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And I imagine you can, by the simple extrapolation of the name, you know what it is.
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Adding ology to something simply means to study it, so what is Christology? It's the study of Jesus Christ, that's right.
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And in the book of Colossians, and by the way, going down, you'd have pneumatology, which is the study of the Holy Spirit, and then so on down in our study of systematic theology.
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But in the book of Colossians, we have a very high Christology.
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Now what do we mean by high Christology? Well, the book of Colossians sets forth Jesus Christ, not just as man, but as the God-man.
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It explains to us both his humanity and his divinity, and puts forward both of those ideas as both equally true and necessary for the Christian life.
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Friday of last week, Brother Mike Collier and I went downtown, and we stood outside the arena there downtown, and we preached to thousands of Jehovah Witnesses.
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Now, they weren't excited to see us.
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They didn't come to hear us.
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But as I always say when I'm preaching to them, we love you, we're here because we love you, and we love the truth, and you come to our house, but we don't know where you live, so we come here to preach to you.
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As a little just sort of joke.
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But yeah, we don't know where these people live, but we know that twice a year they gather in Jacksonville, and they gather in the thousands.
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But what's one of the high teachings, or one of the most primary teachings of Jehovah Witness theology? Anyone know? No, that's Mormonism.
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Anyone else? Yes.
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The key behind and underlying Jehovah Witness theology is that Jesus Christ is not divine.
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He is a created being, and that they believe that He is the first and the greatest created being, but that He is created.
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And that is a huge centerpiece to their theology.
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In fact, Jehovah Witnesses believe that Jesus is actually Michael the archangel.
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So if you study the Old Testament, the book of Daniel and other places, you'll see references to the archangel Michael.
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Well, the Jehovah Witnesses believe that God created Michael the archangel as the first of His creation, that that angel created everything else.
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And this is why they say, yes, we believe Jesus created everything else.
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And they use the word else.
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Or they say He created all other things.
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In fact, in their Bibles, they have a translation which has been corrupted, and I can say that it has been corrupted, because they've added things to it.
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One of the things they've added is the word other.
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Because the Bible says all things were created by Christ.
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But in their Bible it says all other things.
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Were created, and they add the word other.
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That word other indicates what? There's one thing that wasn't created by Christ, and that's Himself.
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He was created by God.
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And then He created everything else.
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So the Jehovah Witnesses see Jesus as being exalted.
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They see Him as being powerful.
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They see Him as having a creative ability.
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They see Him as being worthy of veneration.
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Not worship.
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There's a distinction to be made.
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But this Jesus is not God.
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He is not Jehovah God.
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And so to them, Jesus Christ is lowered.
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They don't even have a low Christology, they have an incorrect Christology.
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Because they deny the very nature of who Jesus is.
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And so we begin today by saying, what is the heart of Colossians? The heart of Colossians, as we're going to see, as we're going to read the whole chapter, the whole first chapter, is a very high perspective, a very high view, of who Jesus Christ is.
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And that's the point, the point of the Apostle Paul in this book, is that the church at Colossae, which was not founded by Paul, it's an interesting point, we know the church of Galatia was founded by Paul, the church of Ephesus was founded by Paul, Corinth, Philippi, these are places that he visited.
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Paul didn't visit Colossae.
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Paul preached the gospel to a man named Epaphras.
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Epaphras took the gospel to Colossae, and he planted a church.
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He planted a church on what he'd been taught by Paul.
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And in planting that church, the church grew.
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And now they need teaching, apostolic authority, to correct errors that are trying to make their way into the church.
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So Paul writes this letter to ensure any errors would be corrected.
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So let's read the first chapter.
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We're not going to exposit all of this, because we don't have the time, of course.
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It says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you, and peace from God our Father.
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We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.
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Of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing, as it also does among you since the day you heard it, and understood the grace of God and truth.
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Just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
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And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
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May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
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He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
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Now here, beginning at verse 15, we have a poem.
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It's not a poem like you would think, maybe as a poem, something like roses are red, violets are blue, but it's a poem as in the idea that he's going to express the nature of Christ poetically.
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And he begins in verse 15 and takes it down to verse 20.
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Speaking of Christ, he says, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.
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And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
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And he is the head of the body, the church.
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He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
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For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
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That is a hugely important passage.
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Verse 19, I like the way that the King James renders that.
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It says, For in him...
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I don't have it in front of me and I just lost it.
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May I have a King James Bible? What does it say in the New King James? Yes, and the word in the King James, I believe, is the Godhead.
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The old King James.
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Is that what you have, Ms.
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Karen? Do you have King James? You have New King James, okay.
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It talks about the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily.
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And the idea there is deity.
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All of the deity of God.
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All of the fullness of who God is dwelt in Christ.
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And that is a hugely important passage there at verse 19.
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And through him, verse 20, to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
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And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.
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If indeed you continue in faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
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Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints.
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To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
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Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ, for this I toil, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me.
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And so ends the first chapter of the book of Colossians.
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So we see there, as I was mentioning before about the high Christology, the apostle Paul is saying to the Colossian church, here is this Jesus and here is this man who through him the entire world was created.
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He is the very image of God himself and this man has created the way for you to be reconciled with God.
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So if we take the whole first chapter and sort of condense it, Paul is saying to the Colossian church, here is the presentation that you need to understand.
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We are believers in Jesus and we need to believe rightly about him.
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If you were to talk to a Mormon and you say to them, you should believe on Jesus and you will be saved.
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Mormons would say, I believe in Jesus.
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I have had them tell me this.
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I have the two young guys in the nice outfits and they are the ones who believe, as Rosanne was mentioning earlier, they are the ones who believe that you can become God.
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They believe our God was once a man on another planet, that he because of his fidelity to Mormon teachings became a God.
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His name was Elohim.
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He lived on a planet that surrounded a star called Kolob.
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And through his obedience to Mormon teachings, he became the God that now rules our universe.
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And that if we are obedient to Mormon teachings, we too can become gods and through celestial marriage give birth to our own universes and go on to create our own established worlds wherein we would be gods.
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Yeah, that is a false theology.
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But if you were simply to ask them, do you believe in Jesus? They would say, yes.
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And they would say so with great affirmation.
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I believe in Jesus.
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Same thing if you go to a Jehovah Witness and say, do you believe in Jesus? Yes, I believe in Jesus.
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Do you believe that he is necessary to be saved? Yes, I believe he is necessary to be saved.
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And so we look at them and we say, wow, why do we have an issue with them? Why do we have an issue with what they teach? I mean, don't they simply, doesn't the Bible just say, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved? They believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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They're saved like we're saved.
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Everybody's saved the same way.
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Let me ask you a question.
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Hi.
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Let me ask you a question.
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Can you believe wrongly about Jesus and still be saved? Well, let me ask it a different way.
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Do you have to believe perfectly about Jesus to be saved? No, because no one does.
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I want to clarify that.
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First of all, you, you don't, you don't believe perfectly about Jesus and neither do I.
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Because I have something called a sinful brain.
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And my sinful brain makes it impossible for me to believe perfectly or to think perfectly about anything.
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There's something called the noetic effect of sin.
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You know what the noetic effect of sin is? That our mind has been corrupted by sin.
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The Apostle Paul talks about that.
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He says that, that we, our very, our very thoughts are corrupted by sin.
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And it comes out in our speech.
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You know, what comes out of the mouth is what's in the heart.
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Our hearts are corrupted.
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Our minds are corrupted.
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So, do you have to believe perfectly about Jesus to be saved? If so, no one would be saved.
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But, and this is the other side, are there things that you must affirm about Jesus to be saved? Yes.
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Well, yes, that's true.
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But even before that, what did Peter say to Jesus when they said, who do they say I am? No, but what did he say first? Jesus said, who do you say that I am? And Peter said, well, some think that you're John the Baptist, reincarnated.
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Some think that you're Elijah, come back down from heaven.
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Remember, he was carried into heaven.
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They think he just came back down.
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You're Elijah the prophet.
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Some think you're one of the other prophets.
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And Jesus said, but who do you say that I am? And he says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
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Now, so in that, there is a statement of faith, a proclamation about who Jesus is.
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And Jesus is saying, I'm not those other things.
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If you believe I'm John the Baptist, you're wrong.
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If you believe I'm Elijah, you're wrong.
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If you believe that I'm one of the prophets, come back down from heaven, or reincarnated, you're wrong.
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So there is a sense in which a person has to believe rightly about Jesus to say that they have Jesus.
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So what must we affirm about Jesus? What does the Bible teach us about Jesus that we must affirm? Well, I would say first and foremost, that he is the Christ, the son of the living God.
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What does Christ mean? Talk about Christology, what does the word Christ mean? Anyone want to take a stab at it? The anointed one.
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Yes, the word Christ means anointed one.
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And the word Christ is the Greek translation of the word Messiah.
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So when we say Jesus is the Christ, we are saying also that Jesus is the Messiah.
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And Christ...
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Hey, brother, you come on in, do what you want to do.
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If you want to go look in there.
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Yeah, you can go right through that back door there.
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Jason and Jim, I don't know where they are.
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They're in there? Okay, they're in there.
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Yes, sir.
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No worries.
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So we talk about Christ as the anointed one, and we know that's a bare minimum.
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And we got to go, I know Jack needs me to finish early, so I want to get through this quickly.
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We know the bare minimum that someone has to believe about Jesus is that he's the Christ, the anointed one.
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But what comes with being Christ? The Trinity.
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Well, before we even get to the Trinity, and you're all correct, I'm not saying anybody's wrong, but before we even get to the Trinity, there is a prophethood, a priesthood, and a kingship that all relate to him being the Christ.
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He is prophet, he is priest, he is king.
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In the book of Revelations, Jesus identifies himself as what? The Alpha and Omega.
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My Greek students, what is that? It's the first letter of the Greek alphabet, it's the last letter of the Greek alphabet.
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So when Jesus identifies himself as the Alpha and the Omega, he's saying, I am the first and I am the last.
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He identifies himself as prophet, priest, and king, but also as the judge and the creator.
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Because he says, I'm the first, that's the creator, and I'm the last, I'm the judge.
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So not only do we have to identify the Christ as prophet, priest, and king, but we identify the Christ as both creator and judge.
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This is sounding more and more like God all the time.
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And that's why I want to point to the fact that when someone says, well, I don't believe Jesus is God, but you believe all these other things about him.
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Do you believe anyone other than God can forgive sins? The Bible says no one except God can forgive sins, and yet Jesus went about forgiving sins.
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The Bible says God is creator, and yet the Bible says Jesus created everything.
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The Bible says God judges, and the Bible says Jesus will be judging.
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So you see how once you begin to really understand who Jesus is, to deny his divinity is to deny who he is.
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Because no mere man could take these.
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No mere man can be judge, creator, prophet, priest, king of the whole world.
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And so Jesus' divinity is the hallmark of who he is.
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And Pat, you mentioned Trinity, right? That's how we understand how he's divine, and that's true.
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Understanding the Trinity is an essential aspect of the Christian religion.
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It's an essential aspect of our faith.
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But before we even get to the Trinity, we say, who is Jesus? The Bible declares Jesus as God and man at the same time.
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So we deal first with the nature of Christ, and then we say, well, how does that fit within the nature of God? God is described to us as one.
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Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one, Lord.
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And yet he is described as three persons.
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The Father is called God all throughout the Bible.
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Jesus is called God throughout the New Testament.
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And the Holy Spirit is called God in the Old and New Testament.
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Three persons are called God, but we're told we only have one God.
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And therein lies the mystery of the Trinity, that there is one God who exists in three persons.
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So to deny that is not simply to deny what I perceive in the Bible, but it's to deny what the Bible itself clearly teaches.
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So those who deny the divinity of Christ, those who have a low or incorrect Christology, have a false faith.
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And that's who Paul is addressing in the book of Colossians.
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I'm going to draw to an end.
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The people Paul is addressing in Colossians are the people who have a wrong view of Jesus and a wrong view of what he came to do.
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And we're going to talk in the weeks ahead, those who are in my class, we're going to talk in the weeks ahead more about who it is he's addressing.
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Because we don't know specifically who he's addressing.
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It could be the Gnostics, it could be Jewish Judaizers, it could be several groups that would fit into this category.
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But the key that we know is this, whoever he's addressing has a wrong view of Jesus and a wrong view of salvation.
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And beloved, today that is still our issue.
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Because today when we address people who are outside of the faith, they either have a wrong view of Jesus or a wrong view of salvation or both.
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That's the heart of the cults, that's the heart of the false teachers, that's the heart of all that we contend with.
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A false view of Jesus or a false view of how he saves.
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So the goal of our study is to understand both a right view of Jesus and a right view of what he's done.
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Alright, let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for this time.
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Though it be short, I pray it has been helpful and encouraging to your people.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.