The Supremacy Of Jesus - [Colossians 1]

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Pastor Mike preaches The Supremacy Of Jesus - [Colossians 1]

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Are you a thankful person?
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What's your gratitude meter at? I believe the Scriptures teach that we are to be thankful for all things, yes?
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It's kind of an odd question in light of that. Are you thankful for false teaching?
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Are you thankful for false teachers? Are you thankful for people that go around saying, Jesus isn't
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God, He's not eternal, didn't even really redeem anyone.
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Are you thankful for those kind of people? I said, that's kind of an odd question, Pastor. Of course, I hate false teaching.
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I love sound doctrine. I love to know truth. Well, you know,
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God is so great that He can even take false teaching and make something good out of it.
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You know, God is so sovereign that He can take heretical errors about the
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Lord Jesus and make something good come out of it. Similar to Genesis chapter 50, verse 20,
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Joseph said, as for you, brothers, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for what? Good.
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Did you know, we're going to look at a passage today, and it was written because of false teachers.
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False teachers were saying all kinds of things about the Lord Jesus. So Paul writes this letter about the truth.
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And on one hand, if it wasn't for the false teachers, we'd never have such a great book that we're going to look at today. Matter of fact, that was true for many
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Christian creeds and confessions. They were spawned, they were birthed out of dealing with error and heretics.
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And now, because of our dealing with them, we have the truth, the precise truth that Jesus is the
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Savior. I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to the book of Colossians. Colossians chapter 1. This book was written to counteract false teachings about Jesus.
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And I'm glad we have this book now in our hands. I'm not thankful for false teaching, but I'm thankful that the Lord can even use false teaching so that the
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Spirit of God has Paul write something that's such a doxological praise about the Lord Jesus.
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This is one of those chapters and you just think, could there be any better chapter in all the Bible extolling
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Jesus, the risen Savior? This is one of those go -to chapters. If you ever get asked to preach someplace or teach the
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Bible study or maybe teach the ladies study, you think, what should I teach? This could be possibly that go -to passage for you.
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What I love about this book, it was written into a tiny little church. There's a big problem.
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Jesus isn't God, some people said. Jesus isn't eternal, some people said. Jesus doesn't have the essence of the
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Father, some people said. There's a very big problem. It's in a little tiny church.
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It's just a side note, but I think it's interesting that God cares for people at tiny little churches, so much so that he has
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Paul write a letter inspired by the Spirit of God to say Jesus is in fact God.
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This could be the smallest, tiniest little church just outside of probably 100 miles from Ephesus and Paul writes this book.
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Here's the summary of Colossians. Jesus is supreme. Jesus is all you need.
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Jesus is sufficient. And in a world where people are saying, Jesus was just a man.
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Jesus was not a historical person. Jesus, you need something more. Jesus is fine, but you need a little bit more.
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Maybe you need a little bit less of Jesus. Paul writes, and I proclaim to you that Jesus is everything you need.
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Not just for salvation initially, not just for sanctification progressively, but also for glorification.
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Every heresy that's ever taught about Jesus seems like it can be exposed in this passage in Colossians chapter 1.
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And if you're saying to yourself, here's another passage about Jesus. Is there anything practical here?
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You're going to see, yes, in later chapters, very, very practical information. But did you know your view of Jesus Christ affects everything in your life?
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Just the doctrine about knowing who Jesus is, is very, very practical.
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I mean, if I were to say to you, this book is about people who are in Christ. Well, Jesus died.
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You know what that implies for us then? We die to sin too. We die to sin with Christ Jesus, and we keep wanting to kill sin and die to sin even as Christians.
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Jesus was raised from the dead. We with Christ were raised from the dead, and we ought to want to live a newness of life even now as Christians.
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I love the book of Colossians, and here's what's going to happen. In a few weeks,
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I'll head off with some of you to Israel, and I will then upon my return start the book of Luke, the
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Gospel of Jesus according to Luke. But I have four Sundays between now and the trip. I thought
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I'm going to preach four chapters of the Bible that extol Jesus. Now, it could have been in Judges, it could have been somewhere else, but we're going to do
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Colossians. So, Colossians 1 today, Colossians 2 next week, Colossians 3 the next week, and let's pray that the
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Lord returns after that, Colossians 4 the week after. Just kidding. So, Colossians. What we're doing here at the church is big picture.
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Expository preaching shows the congregation, exposes them to the meaning of the text. And there's nothing wrong with preaching only two verses about the sealing ministry of the
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Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1 verses 13 and 14, and there's nothing wrong with large sweeping passages like this.
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So today, Colossians 1, 1 to 29, and it's super simple.
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Colossians is about Jesus is all you need, and we're going to look at prayer, preeminence, and a proclamation.
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If you say, I'd like to just go to Colossians 1, what's it about? It's about a prayer that Paul has that I hope you learn from, so you pray like Paul.
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It's about the preeminence of Jesus, so that while you Christian realize Jesus is preeminent, that you keep believing that he's preeminent, in spite of all the false teaching, and that he is so great and preeminent that we want to proclaim him.
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There's a prayer, there's a preeminent one, and there is a proclamation.
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Some of you are into music, and maybe I could summarize the book of Colossians with the
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Charles Wesley hymn entitled, Jesus, lover of my soul. That's what Colossians is about.
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There are a lot of bad people teaching things at Colossae. We don't know exactly what kind of false teachers they were.
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They're both Jews and Gentiles there, so it could be this Judaistic works righteousness. Jesus is fine, but you need to do good things too.
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It could be paganism, where they're thinking, you know, stars affect us, angels are out there that are somehow great.
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It could be Greek, it could be Jewish, it could be all kinds of, almost like an initial
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Gnosticism. Gnosticism comes to full bloom in the centuries to come, but Gnosticism is basically, we have the inside knowledge, you don't.
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You Christians say you have Jesus, but there's something more. We've got the insider stuff. We go behind the veil over here, and we get the inside scoop.
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And so Paul writes, and he says, you know what, Jesus is all you need.
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By the way, where is Paul in the middle of all this? You've got a church, a church that's healthy and growing and learning, but they're small, they're insignificant.
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Where do you think Paul is? And in the sovereignty of God, Paul is in prison, so he writes a letter.
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Even there, the sovereignty of God, Paul could have been out preaching to all kinds of other places, and if he was out from prison, he would be preaching, but now
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God confines him to the cell, and he writes a letter. There's a famous scholar named D. Edmund Hebert, and he was a
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Mennonite scholar, and he was in Fresno, California, and I remember writing a letter to him, and three days later,
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I received the typed letter back with kind of like the little O type set too high, and the exclamation not too dark.
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He didn't hit the typewriter key. You know what a typewriter is? Typewriter key, hard enough. And D.
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Edmund Hebert became deaf when he was younger, and he said, you know,
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I praise God for me losing my hearing, because I love to write, and I would probably spend too much time on the telephone if I could hear, and so now
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I'm devoting myself to writing. And instead of Paul out preaching, which he would have been preaching Christ, now he's writing to a church, and we have that letter.
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And if you need to be reminded, dear Christian, like I need to be reminded that Jesus is preeminent, this is a good book for you.
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If you need to be reminded that Jesus secured your redemption to the full, this is for you. If you need to be reminded that in fact
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Jesus fulfills all the Old Testament, this book is for you. And if you need to be reminded that we ought to grow in grace and maturity in light of what
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God has done for us, this book is for you. Let's take a look at the intro first, and then we'll get into the prayer, the preeminence, and the proclamation.
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Paul, this is a typical greeting back in those days to write a letter. We say, dear so -and -so, here we know who it is up front,
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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
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Father. Paul is writing to both Jews and Gentiles, and he gives that kind of greeting.
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Do you see it? Grace to you, unmerited favor, demerited favor, the thing that we all need the most is the grace of God.
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God's stooping low in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, gracing us, and then he gives the
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Jewish greeting, peace. Now they might be in Colossae, but they're also in Christ.
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You might be in a cesspool of a town, but you're in Christ. Guy King tells of a story of a man who wanted to send a note, although he was shipwrecked on the island, and if you just write a note on a piece of paper and throw it into the sea, nothing happens, except it gets deteriorated.
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But what if you took that little note and put it into a bottle, and capped the bottle? Guy King writes, so his
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S .O .S. reached home and led to his rescue, because though it was in the sea, it was in the bottle. Yes, although these
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Christians were in that Colossian sea of iniquity, but they were kept safe, because they were in Christ.
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We might be in West Boylston, we might be in Massachusetts, we might be in the United States, we might be in the
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American continent, but we're in Christ Jesus.
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The best of all blessings, grace and peace. Let's go to the prayer. We're going to look at Paul's prayer, and I want you to think this way.
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This is probably a good way to pray. Do I pray this way? Lord, help me to pray this way.
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Why to pray? How to pray? He starts off with thanksgiving. We always thank
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God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, when we pray for you. That's wonderful.
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And what does he thank God for when he has heard from Epaphras all these things about the church?
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Faith, love and hope, that's what. Paul knows about their faith in Jesus, their love for other brethren and their anticipation of the
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Lord's return. Does he not say that? Since we heard of your faith, Paul's never been there, he's got the message though, and I heard about your faith in Christ Jesus.
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Not faith in faith, not faith about faith, but faith in the object, Jesus Christ, and the love that you have for all the saints.
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I've heard about how you trust in the Lord, that's at the top of the list, and flowing from that root of faith you have the fruit of love, agape love, at your own expense you're serving other people.
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I've heard about that, thank God for that. Maybe when you think about people here at the church, that might be a good thanksgiving prayer to offer to the
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Lord, would it not be? Wonderful, Lord, so and so serves in the music ministry, they serve in the nursery, they serve outside and helping with the building, or whatever they do, and I know they have faith and I know they have love, and God, thank you for that.
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Because of course, left to ourselves, there's nothing worthy in ourselves, God has done this work, he's thanking God for what he's done in the lives of these people, faith, love, and hope.
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And I think really the faith and the love is spurred on by that hope that Jesus is going to return, that our citizenship is in heaven,
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Paul writes to the Philippians. We await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.
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And by the way this is all truthful, of this verse 5 you have heard before in the word of truth.
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There's faith, there's love, there's hope, and it's based on the truth. Here's the backdrop, get the backdrop, there's a bunch of liars on this, in this city, they're saying the wrong things, they're deceiving, they're not telling people the truth, they're saying
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Jesus isn't God, and in the midst of liar island, it's not an island though, it's not like Crete, the liar city, there's truth, there's truth of the gospel, which is indeed, verse 6, come to you as indeed in the whole world it's bearing fruit and increasing.
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By the way, false teaching never matures anybody, there's no bearing fruit with false teaching, only the
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Spirit of God indwelling Christians can have real fruit, or you might be able to have some, you know, your life might change a little bit externally if you're in some kind of cold, but deep fruit from the heart, you can see
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Paul is attacking these false teachers, because in Christians there's fruit bearing, and increasing, it just keeps serving more and more and more.
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False teaching doesn't transform lives. One reason we want to keep running back to who
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Jesus is, because only the power of God in Christ will transform our lives. So we say no to sin, yes to righteousness, so we keep believing, so we suffer persecution.
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Also as it does among you, Paul says in verse 6, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.
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There's that dig again against these false teachers. Just as you learned it from Epaphras, Epaphras got saved under Paul's ministry and went to his hometown and began to preach the gospel, now there's a church, our beloved fellow servant, he's a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and has made known to us your love and the
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Spirit. Paul's in jail, Paul doesn't know what's going on, Epaphras comes to visit him, gives the report,
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Paul writes the letter. By the way, he is a faithful minister of Christ.
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That should be the desire of every person who serves the Lord, shouldn't it not be? He's just thanking
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God. He moves the prayer into not just thanking God, but he has some supplication.
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We have that ACTS acronym we talk about a lot, adoration, confession. He's done the thanksgiving part in these early verses, now he moves to supplication, asking
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God for things. So we would be wise if we saw Paul's prayer of thanksgiving, and we'd be thankful people.
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Not just for things, but God's work in the lives of other Christians. Now he has some supplications.
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Verse 9, and so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you. What do you pray for?
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Asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
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Oh, if you listen to me, I'm a special false teacher, I'll give you the secrets about Jesus. It's not found in the
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Old Testament or anything, I know the secrets, you listen to me, I'll give you wisdom, I'll give you secrets,
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I'll give you knowledge, I've got the special knowledge, come and follow me. And Paul writes against that kind of heretical teaching.
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The false teacher is going to fill you with a lot, but it's not going to be knowledge, it's going to be false knowledge. And how does
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Paul pray? Directly and to the point. That's how our prayer should be, direct and to the point.
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As Lewis Johnson said, Paul did not pray around the world before coming to the point.
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There's a music antidote Lewis writes about Billy Nicholson, the famous Irish evangelist. In a large meeting he called on a brother to pray, who is noted for mentioning all the missionaries he knew in every one of his public prayers.
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Brother, said Billy, would you please lead us in prayer, but keep it in the county. Specific, precise, needs at hand,
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Paul prays. You don't need to be filled with fake knowledge, real knowledge about God, true knowledge about God.
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The antidote for every single heresy in this world is the right knowledge of Jesus and it fleshes itself out in the way we live.
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Here's how we pray for people, here's how you should pray for yourself, here's how Paul prayed for them, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the
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Lord, fully pleasing to Him. You think that'd be a good prayer to pray for yourself, for your family, for the church.
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Lord, I'd like to walk in a manner worthy, Paul says in Ephesians, of your calling. I'm not trying to keep my salvation,
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I'm not trying to earn it, but since you've so graced me, I'd like to have conduct befitting an officer.
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I'd like to live like a Christian, to honor you, and what's it say at the end there? Fully pleasing to Him.
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That's how I'd like to walk, and he describes what this lifestyle or this walk is. Remember, he's not saying,
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I want to walk in a certain way, literal walking, it's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle, not of the rich and famous, but of those at Colossae, godly people in West Boylston.
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What's a walk that pleases the Lord? He tells us, a bearing fruit walk.
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Do you see it right there in your text? So as a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, bearing fruit in every good work.
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What's walking worthily look like? Bearing fruit. He just got done talking about that earlier.
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Present tense means we continue to bear fruit, that God would use us, that God would help us.
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Not because God needs anything, but our neighbors do, the church does. What's a worthy walk look like?
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Increasing in the knowledge of God. He says it right there. Bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
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Oh, there's more to the Christian faith than knowledge, but there's never less. Don't ever be the kind of person that said,
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I'm just going to get all this head knowledge, and it's not going to do me any good. No, we need head knowledge about God, so we think about Him properly, and then that turns into something else, because the walking in a manner worthy of the calling is not just increasing in the knowledge of God, but bearing fruit.
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Well, what else does walking worthily look like? We're weak people. We're frail people.
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The enemy's strong. The world is corrupt. We need strength. Want to know what a walk worthy of the gospel is?
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You want to know what pleases the Lord? To be strengthened with all power. Not doing it on our own. Not trying to come up with our own solutions.
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Being strengthened with all power. Look at those words about power and might. According to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.
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We need this. We have to withstand the assaults of Satan and the false teachers. How are we going to bear this?
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How are we going to endure this? How are we going to patiently hear Jesus attacked, attacked, attacked, attacked?
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The latest thing I just even, I mean, I see on TV. You're probably too godly to watch TV, but the whole
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Jesus gets us attacked. That's not the right Jesus. Bombarding, bombarding, bombarding, bombarding.
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What do I need? I need strength. I need to have patience. I need to have endurance.
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Why do some people get up and say, here's a manner worthy of the calling. I'm going to pray this for the Christians, Paul said.
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I'm going to pray that you make a lot of money. That you're always healthy. And that when the church is big and everybody's healthy, then people will come along and say,
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I'd like to be a part of that big healthy fancy church where everybody's rich and everybody is healthy.
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Think that's what he prays for? Of course not. A manner worthy of the calling, fruitful, increasing in knowledge, relying on God's power and also giving thanks.
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Verse 12, giving thanks to the Father who's qualified you in the inheritance of the saints in light.
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It's not just thank you God for nothing. Thank you God for everything. Thank you God for some amorphous things.
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Thank you God that you've qualified me to share in the inheritance, the saints of light. Think about inheritance.
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Wasn't that just for the Jews? Wasn't it just the land for the Jews? No, no. Now Jew and Gentile, there's a greater inheritance.
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And Paul says, I thank God for that. I go on to thank God. Verse 13, he's delivered us from the domain of darkness.
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You dear Christian should be very, very thankful along with me that we were in darkness, surrounded by darkness, blinded, and all of a sudden
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God has rescued you. You love watching shows about rescue, don't you?
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So and so's been kidnapped. So and so's taken hostage. So and so's got to get their daughter back.
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And they rescue them and you think, yes! This is the ultimate rescue.
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The power of darkness is real. Satan is real. And in the middle of all the darkness, we need some kind of pillar of cloud, don't we?
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A pillar of light. We're delivered from the domain of darkness. Did you know
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Christian that before you were saved, your father was Satan? That was your dad,
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Satan. Like father, like son, we would do exactly what our father would do. We would lie, cheat, steal, and everything else.
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But your father's not the domain of darkness leader now. No. It's the Lord Jesus.
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I think if there's anything to thank God for, that's a good thing to thank Him for. And by the way, He didn't just deliver you,
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He transferred. Paul just keeps thanking God. More reasons to thank. And He transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved
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Son. It's one thing to take Israel out of Egypt. It's another thing to plunk her down in the land of milk and honey.
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In the land of Canaan. In whom we have redemption.
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The forgiveness of sins. Sounds like some good reasons to thank God. Left to ourselves, my
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German background, if it wasn't for the Gospel intercepting me and my kind of people, I would be worshipping trees in the forest.
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I would be worshipping my ancestors. I would be worshipping me. I would be worshipping money.
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I would be worshipping along with you whatever else is there. I mean, how many times can a pastor get up and read
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Hosea 4 and say, Hortum. But that's the truth. And yet we've been rescued and transferred.
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Aren't you glad? I'm glad. And even if you're not glad, it might dawn on you this afternoon,
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I'm glad for that. And okay, let's be honest. Maybe you're thinking as a
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Christian, I'm going through a lot of troubles and trials and I did stay up all last night and I didn't sleep like you and everything else and I'm going through issues.
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That's true. And you might not feel like it, but I'm trying to inform your mind, the Spirit of God, through preaching so that you start thinking, yes, in spite of all these things,
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I need to walk by faith and I need to be reminded about what God has done for me. Because he didn't have to do anything.
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The chapter starts off with grace. We sang about that today. Why did God save you and not somebody else?
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In Him we have redemption. Christian, you are redeemed. You never have to pay for one of your sins.
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And all because of the Lord Jesus. Think that's a good prayer?
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I think it's a wonderful prayer. It starts off with thanksgiving and moves to supplication. Well, Paul continues, and now let's look at the preeminence of Jesus.
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Prayer, now preeminence. I know what you're thinking, is this guy ever going to do the whole chapter?
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Yes, we're going to do it. I always have a rule. Here's the rule. I normally get four hours of sleep on Saturday night, and if I get eight,
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I preach double the length. I hope you read
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Colossians this week. I hope you pray like Paul prays. I hope you think Jesus is preeminent, like Paul does.
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We move from prayer now to the preeminence of Christ. Some think this was a hymn.
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You could call this praise if you'd like, if you want to keep the alliteration from prayer to praise.
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When you look in your English Bible, you don't really see any indentations kind of denoting a different kind of genre like you would in the
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Psalms. A lot of white space in the Psalms because they're poetry. But if you look at the Greek text, you'll see the people compiling the
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Greek text of the New Testament have a lot of indentations. What does that mean? They think it's a hymn.
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They think it's a song because it's all about who Jesus is. And Paul says that false teachers are saying all kinds of things about Jesus that aren't true.
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Let me tell you what's true about the Lord Jesus. And by the way, it takes grace to recognize this.
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Because before Paul got saved, think Damascus Road. Think persecution of the church.
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What can take one of the leaders in Judaism who persecutes the church, who kills people, who splits up families, who imprisons them?
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What can take a person like that and turn him into this apostle? It's only the grace of God.
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It's only Jesus. It's like Paul is going to tell you who he met on the Damascus Road.
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And you think of bright lights. You think of glory. You think about Paul on his face. This is the picture he paints.
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It's as if Paul said, let me tell you about who intercepted me. And it wasn't an angel.
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It wasn't some weird false teacher. It wasn't some Gnostic person that said they have the insights.
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It's the God -man Jesus himself. He can't be just a man.
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Oh, is he a man? Yes. But more than a man. This is the God that Paul paints the picture of, who also is in the boat with the disciples when they're getting swamped in a lashing storm.
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And they said, teacher, do you not care we're perishing? And Jesus said to the wind and to the sea, what?
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Shh. And it's calm. Christology is a word about Christ, a doctrine about Christ.
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We come to the great Christology. Everything's about the Lordship of Jesus. It starts off with Lord over creation.
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It moves to Lord of redemption. Look at Lord of creation. He is the image of the invisible
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God. This is the God who redeems. This is who Jesus is, dear Christian. And even if you're not a
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Christian, this is Jesus. Is there anything in Jesus that's lacking?
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Is there anything about God that's lacking in Jesus? Philip said to Jesus, Lord, show us the
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Father and it's enough for us. Have I been so long with you, Philip, and yet you have not come to know me?
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He who has seen me has seen the Father. One man wrote,
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God is Christ -like. Can we say anything more? Lord Byron, no great theologian, got this right.
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If God is not like Jesus Christ, then God ought to be like Jesus Christ. Calvin Wright, the term image is not made in use of reference to essence, but a reference to us.
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That he makes God in a manner visible to us. God in himself, in his naked majesty, is invisible.
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And that not to the eyes of the body merely, but the understanding of men. And that he is revealed to us in Christ alone that we may behold him as a mirror.
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Not only that, he's what? Firstborn of all creation. Hi, we're here from the
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Watchtower Society, and we'd like to come and talk to you about Colossians chapter 1. Jesus is a created being, he's not eternally
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God. Go right to this passage. First of all, you want to see the entire section.
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Second of all, instead of initially thinking, oh, hey kids, come to the front door, it's another classic
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Aryan heresy here, let's watch daddy do this. Actually, I was at the house Friday night and I hear the door, and the ring thing goes on, and I'm like, who's at the door now?
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I'm going to relax. I'm going to just kind of be nice, and here comes the JWs to the door, and it's like, okay.
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I feel myself starting to sweat already. I can hear my wife just saying, be sweet, honey.
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I'm a man, I talk like a man. You can't speak the truth in love, that's certainly true.
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Firstborn. Firstborn, if you take just literally the
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Greek word prototikos, just firstborn, okay, fine. Think like a Jewish person, think like a person like Paul.
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How about Psalm 89 27? I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.
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Who gets all the privileges of sonship? Who gets all the sovereignty of sonship? The secondborn son?
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The thirdborn son? The fourthborn son? In the Jewish culture, who gets it all?
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Answer, the firstborn son. To say that he's a part of creation is denied by all of the
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Bible and the later few verses. He is the creator, Jesus is the creator,
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Jesus is the eternal son. But if you want to know who's sovereign, who rules, who has the rights of the firstborn, because he's firstborn, who has privileges because he's firstborn, because he's the son of the monarch, it's
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Jesus. Just because we think firstborn is first in time, doesn't mean that the
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Greeks didn't think it's firstborn also in preeminence, and that's what Paul is after. It can't be
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Jesus is born first, that he didn't exist, just because we're going to see just in a few minutes the other verses, like this one verse 16, for by him all things were created.
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I guess he created himself according to the Arians. In heaven and on earth, visible and invisible thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, all things were created through him, and by the way, for him.
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The eternal plans of God in him. There was never a time the
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Son did not exist. There was never a time the Son did not exist. Jesus is the eternal
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Son, the eternal begotten Son, not made. Arius, who is a modern day
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Jehovah's Witness, battled with a man named Athanasius. Athanasius said this, if all the creatures were created in him, as it said in verse 16, he is no one of the creatures, because if all the creatures were created by him, he's not one of them, he's not a creature, he's the creator of the creatures.
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And he not only creates, he sustains, verse 17, the poem goes on, the song goes on, the praise goes on, the preeminence continues.
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And he is before all things. Why would you go to a false teacher who said they had the inside scoop?
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He is before all things and in him all things are held together. By the way, if you look at the language, it's an intensive pronoun, he himself, nobody else,
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Jesus alone. Jesus is preexistent and he is sovereign and he keeps the universe together.
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One man said every twinkling of the eye, every beat of the heart is dependent upon his sovereign goodness.
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His arm upholds the universe and his power, if it were to be withdrawn, would make everything fade into non -existence.
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No wonder this Jesus says to the disciples, why are you still afraid? Have you no faith?
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Paul is talking about the one that Isaiah described as the one who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens by a span and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales.
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He's before all things and he's made everything and he keeps everything together. He creates, he sustains, what else does he do?
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He's the Lord of redemption, verses 18 and following. This is Paul just trying to say whatever the false teaching is, the answer is found in the
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Lord Jesus and he is the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
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This is the Lord Jesus' church, the elders serve unto him, the pastors serve unto him, he builds the church and here
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Jesus is the supreme one. He's the head, he's not separated from the church, he's the head of the church, we're the body, we are in Christ.
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It's interesting, what does it say? Firstborn from the dead. You see that there in verse 18?
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He's firstborn from the dead. Now let's just try to say that firstborn means first in time, not first in preeminence, first in ranking, first in order, first in greatness.
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Firstborn from the dead. Was there anybody before Jesus' resurrection that was raised from the dead?
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Who was the first person raised from the dead? Well you can go to the Old Testament to find the first person raised from the dead.
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He's obviously not talking about that. Remember when Elisha went to the widow's house and her son was dead?
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That was a lot earlier than when Jesus was raised from the dead. Firstborn means what?
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Preeminent. Verse 19, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
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The focus here is on redemption, do you see? Verse 20 ties it in with the word and there, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
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I mean in the old days it was the temple that was filled with the glory of God. The glory of God filling the temple.
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Everything that's God is in Jesus. But I think here the context isn't essence, isn't who
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God is by nature. This is talking about salvation, this is redemptive. Verses 19 and 20 go together.
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The fullness of God was pleased to dwell. This certainly can't mean the Father said, by the way, I'll allow my essence to dwell in you and I'm pleased with that because the
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Son's never less than the Father in eternity past. That would be a heresy, that would be an error.
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I'm not following, Pastor, what's going on. The context is Jesus has already been talked about as Lord of creation,
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Lord of the sovereign providential sustainer, now Lord of the church, and Lord of redemption.
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How is he Lord of redemption? Because all the fullness of God dwells in him in bodily form?
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What does the text actually say? He's head of the body, beginning, firstborn of the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things.
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As Wishtjohnson said, it's the fullness of saving grace and power that God has in mind, it's the fullness that belongs to one constituted as a savior.
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And that's exactly what God did, he saved. Verse 20, and through him to reconcile to himself all things.
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What do you mean all things? That means everybody goes to heaven? That means Judas is in heaven? That means
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Goliath's in heaven? I think maybe this helps when you think of the reconciliation of all things.
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For creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For creation was subjected to fertility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from the bondage of corruption, and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
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The reconciliation of people who are at war with God, that's us, that's true, the church now, but also the world is going to be reconciled.
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Creation will be not just fallen, but also restored. He says in verse 21 and following, and you were just reminded about who we were before Christ, why reconciliation is so wonderful, we're alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, but now he's reconciled,
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God is a reconciler, he's the one actively reconciling, 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, and the Greek would be this, and I know you're going to continue, I know you're going to continue in the faith, stable, steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which
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I, Paul, became a minister. Yes, continue in the faith, yes, keep walking in the faith, but Paul writes in such a
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Greek style that he expects them to continue. First class conditional, I know you will, so keep going.
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Paul says in verse 24, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh
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I'm filling up what's lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of the body, that is, the church. Jesus suffered,
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I suffer. This has nothing to do with Jesus' death wasn't efficient enough, and you had to suffer more atonement through Paul, that's not what he's saying at all.
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The word afflictions never used of Jesus' suffering. This is just Paul and Jesus are close, like Paul is in Christ, and by the way, when they want to persecute
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Jesus but he's in heaven, they persecute Paul. Of which
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I became a minister, verse 25, according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known.
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That's what the pastor does, that's what the preacher does. They're stewards, they make the word fully known.
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And by the way, there's some inside scoop that we didn't know about until God revealed it. And the mystery, verse 26, that's not mysterious, that's not, ooh, kind of ghost music.
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You know, Casper was a friendly ghost. This is a mystery. The mystery in the
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New Testament is essentially this. There was truth, we didn't know it. God says, I'm going to tell you.
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What's that mystery? That for generations are now being revealed to the saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the
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Gentiles, wow, are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
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Paul prays for them. Paul tells them with praise about the preeminence of Jesus. And if he is that great, what should we do?
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Hide it under a bushel? No. Verses 28 and 29, the proclamation. There's all kinds of false teaching out there.
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What do we do? One of the best ways that you can attack false teaching is to tell the truth.
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You tell the truth. And when you teach the Bible, you're inevitably going to talk about the Lord Jesus. And you're going to proclaim
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Him. Verses 28 and 29, the proclamation. We've seen the prayer, then the preeminence, now the proclamation.
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Him we proclaim. Warning everyone, teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
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For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. What's the goal of Bethlehem Bible Church?
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I mean, it's as simple as ABC. Attendance, buildings, and cash. What you're running.
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I could ask another question. Who decides what the goal of Bethlehem Bible Church is?
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Of course, that's the Lord Jesus. The proclamation of Christ has a goal.
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Do you see it in verse 28? That we may present every person, every man, literally, complete in Christ.
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Every person, every Christian, all kinds of people, Gentiles and Jews, male and female, old and young.
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He says it three times in this passage. To present them mature. Maybe your text says perfect. Here's the idea of Old Testament maturation.
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That your mind is wholly trusting God. That's a mature person in the Old Testament. That you've bound yourself fully to the
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Savior by faith. That's a mature person. I'm not satisfied with anything less than the
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Lord Jesus. That's a mature person. What's the goal of raising children?
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To keep them children, of course. Peter Pan. Of course not.
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The goal of children is maturation and training. And when they hit seventeen and a half, to boot them out of the house, of course.
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If they're men, if they're women, they stay at dad's pleasure. Okay, eighteen.
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Maturation. And Paul wants the same thing. Whether they're new
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Christian or older Christian, what we're after is maturation. And how do you get maturation? That's a good question.
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When you think about Ephesians 4, to a mature man we attain the unity of faith through the measure of the statue of the fullness that belongs to Christ.
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How do we get you to be mature? The great God of entertainment? Consumeristic kind of viewpoints?
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I remember Spurgeon used to say, we're not here to entertain goats, we're here to feed sheep. But that's right.
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If the goal is maturation, your goal should not be, I'm going to go to church because that's where I feel good.
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I'm going to go to church because that's where I'm getting all my needs met. I'm going to go to church because what can the church do for me? There are side benefits that the church can do for you, obviously.
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But I'm going to go to hear the proclamation of Jesus because I'd like to grow. I'd like to say no to sin more, yes to righteousness more.
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I'd like to be fully trusting on the Lord Jesus. And the answer is, it's found in Him, right there,
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Him we proclaim. Who's the we? Paul and Timothy most certainly, not the false teachers.
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They think the way to get people to conform, they think the way to get people to do things for them is to teach something else.
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Teach morality, teach about false teachers, talk about Jesus, yeah he's great but he's not the eternal God. Paul said no, we proclaim
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Him, I will proclaim Him as a mediator, as Messiah, as advocate. Preaching Christ, I announce
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Christ. Luther said we always preach Him. Remember what David Donald Gray Barnhouse said?
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What would West Boilston look like if Satan took over?
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Some of you think, well maybe there'll be two Gary Queens instead of one. Barnhouse.
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If Satan were to take over a city, the following would happen. The bars would close, no alcohol would be sold, there would be happy marriages, well -behaved children, no crime, and everyone would be in church on Sunday where Jesus isn't preached.
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And as we're preaching Christ, do you see what Paul says? We warn people, you can hear him say in 2
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Timothy 4, reprove, rebuke, exhort, we teach people, we do it with wisdom, and we do it with sweat and toil.
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Ministry will cost you sweat. Verse 29, for this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
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Yes, it's the Lord, but it's through us. Do you like Colossians 1?
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I think you'll find in Colossians 1 a prayer that can help you pray for people at this church, and yourself.
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I think you can find the antidote to every heresy right here about the Lord Jesus. And I think you can find a good exhortation that whether you teach
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Sunday school, home group, men's Bible verses, women's Bible studies, that if you want people to come because you want a large group, you say, nope,
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I want people to mature. That is our goal. If you're not a Christian, we want you to believe. And once you're a
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Christian, we want you to keep believing, and you keep believing, and you mature in Christ. And we want to warn you, we want to teach you with all wisdom, and we want to work hard at it.
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Right? Right. In one way, I'm very, very thankful for false teachers.
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Are you? Father in heaven, thank you for your word today. Colossians 1, may