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Bro. Otis Fisher
Have me fixed up where I can hear you. The book of Colossians, the second chapter, beginning with the second verse. Paul had just made a statement about the church of Laodicea and for all of those that have not seen him, which includes us.
Beginning with the second verse, that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of Christ.
We have the word knit in that verse and we get our word glued or glue from the same root word in the Greek. Two hearts that think the same brings peace, happiness, comfort. It is my belief that there is nothing better than the full rich understanding of the word shared with others.
You know our Bible was written to us, the Christians, but Richard it was not written to us to just read it and keep all of the information to ourself. We are to share the word with others. The fellowship that we have even here this morning is a time of sharing the knowledge of the truth.
Then he makes a statement that unto all riches of the full assurance. Now as strange as it may seem, Paul used a lot of nautical terms in his writings as well as terms pertaining to the Olympic Games.
This full assurance is a nautical term and it means under full sail. Christians should be moving along under full sail. What does it mean, do you suppose Richard, to be under full sail in this context?
Well let's just think about full sail. Okay, your goal is to get to a certain place or a certain point or something and to get there as quickly as possible, safely as possible, so you wouldn't just put out one sail or half of one sail.
Tom, you would go under full sail. Well that's what we're to do in the study of the word. We are to press forward. In June it comes down to this. We should thank Jesus Christ. We should talk Jesus Christ.
We should eat Jesus Christ. We should sleep Jesus Christ. We should correlate everything in our life to Jesus Christ. We should look for him in everything. I want you to come to the place where in your life you don't have to stop and think about, now how can I get a lesson out of this?
It just comes. You just see it. That comes from daily study, meditation, continually pressing on under full sail. So he wants these people and he wants us to come to a complete understanding of the acknowledgement of the mystery of God.
Well let's go back and define mystery of God. In the scripture, as we said last week, a mystery in the Word of God is something that has always been, but he has just now revealing it to you. And he reveals not all of the facts, Jesse, but just enough to take care of the immediate situation in your life.
And then you continue studying, meditating, thinking, and more revelation comes. Now please understand there are no new revelations from God. He's said everything to us he's going to say until he returns and that's printed in this book.
But we get personally a revelation of a truth. And maybe, well let me ask you, why is it? Dennis, why is it that you can study the Bible forever, for that matter of fact, and you've read the same passage over and over and over throughout your life many times.
Today you pick it up and read it and you see something brand new. What makes that happen? If the Word never changes, Brother David, it has been the same from the time it was written, then what is it that changes when we see something new outside of what Dennis said?
Well that's true, but there's something else that changes. That's all true, but there's something else. Say that again. That's right. Our circumstances change. Did you ever notice when you, cars all I can think of, when you purchase a new automobile, how immediately you see the same car, the same color on the highway that you've just bought?
Has that ever happened to you? Why? Why do you notice it?
Yes, yes it does. Well your mind is thinking about those things, even.
Unknown to you. Remember your mind has a mind of its own, and we're to control it. But it does cause you to see things that you've never seen before or paid any attention to. All right, to come to a full understanding in the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of Christ, the words and of the Father are not in the original soul.
This full assurance now, growth, spiritual growth I'm talking about, is not possible unless you share it. Do you understand that? You will not grow spiritually if you study on your own and never talk to anybody about it.
Everything's given to us to share, and the more we share it, the more we understand. The visible church cannot be in union with God unless it is in union with itself. Were you ever in a church where there was discord, arguments?
I knew of a church once that split because they couldn't decide whether to put the piano up on the rostrum or down on the floor. That's about as much sense as any disagreement makes. We must be in unity with each other, and without one ingredient, it is impossible to be in unity with each other or with God.
What is that one ingredient? Starts with L. Without love in our heart, you cannot be in union with God. You cannot be in union with man if you're not in union with God. You cannot be in union with God unless you're in union with man, so it works as a triangle.
The visible church must have love for unity. Now, the earthly church cannot be united by money. Can you think of anything else that will not unite the church here on earth that a lot of churches think that it will?
Big numbers, all right. What? Programs. Individuals. Christmas productions. Legalism. That'll drive it apart. Easter pageants. Sunrise breakfasts. Clean buildings. As much as I love a clean building, that's not what unites the church.
And we could go on and on. The church is united in love, period. If love is here, and it is, then so many problems just disappear. I don't know if I'm ever going to get used to that or not, but I'll keep trying.
All right. Paul wants all of us to be glued together in love, union with God. In whom, verse 3. By the way, I left you with a statement last week that you were to... Give me a little bit more. You were to find scripture to support it.
Do you even remember the statement? Someone read it or repeated,.
And you did. All right. What is it? All right. That's pretty good. Someone else?
Anyone? All right, David. All right. Now, you may... You'll learn different, but you may, in the beginning of my teaching, think that all of the questions I ask are sometimes frivolous, sometimes really nothing behind them.
But even this question has a teaching point to it. What I want you to know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that our salvation, our eternal life, is not something that Christ gives us. He doesn't hand it to you like I would hand you a book.
He is eternal life. He is salvation. It is He himself. You understand what I'm trying to say? That we have eternal life, but that life is Jesus Christ. So we have Jesus Christ. So I ask you to help me, because I'm subject to all past teachings also, but our eternal life, our salvation, our position, is Jesus Christ.
It's not something he gives us outside of himself. It is he himself. Did I make that clear enough? You understand? It is Christ. All right. And he's talking about Christ in the third verse. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
The whom refers to who? Jesus Christ. So in Christ are hid. Carol, what does hid mean? It can't be seen. All right. You can't see it. You can't understand it. You don't know it exists. And he's talking about treasures.
Please notice it's plural, plural, not singular. Plural. In whom are hid, meaning in Christ, are all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom has its own storehouse full of knowledge. Everything we will ever need is in Christ.
Everything that exists came out of God. He was alone. He was by himself. There was no other. And out of him came all of the creation. Now, my mind cannot comprehend that, but I know it's true. Everything we will ever need is in Christ.
Then, Tom, why is it that so many of us, including myself sometimes, look to some other source for what we need? Yes. Yes. But I want us to know. I want you to know. Just like Paul used the term one time, fully persuaded.
Jesse, to be fully persuaded means that if you're walking in the park and there's a park bench and it has a sign on it that says fresh paint, you don't have to go over and touch it to see if it's fresh.
Did you ever touch fresh paint to see if it's fresh? Fully persuaded means that you know it is. You don't have to check it out. Everything we will ever need is in Christ. Remember your choice from last week?
That little chart I handed out? Richard wasn't here. Is anybody here this morning? Do you remember that? Do you remember how we were drawn to pick out one of the signs? And if we'd have picked the bucket at the bottom, we'd have had all the signs.
That's Jesus Christ. He is the reservoir of knowledge and wisdom. It is from him that it all comes. In his wisdom, he gives to each one of us that which we need when we need it. He enlightens our mind as we study.
He points out things to us that we should know because we're going to need them and we can share them with other people. It's called spiritual growth. Let me talk for just a little bit about blessings.
This has been on my mind this week again. I grew up in a wonderful home, but all of my life until 30 years ago, I guess, I considered anything that I really liked to be a blessing. Good grade, new suit, good meal, good visit, good show.
Anything I really liked, I thought that was a wonderful blessing. Well, it isn't. I know we still use the term, the new job is such a blessing to me. Well, I beseech you, as Paul would say, don't stop short.
The job is not the blessing. It is what did the job or the house or the new car or a good meal, what did it do in the way of drawing you closer to the Lord spiritually? The blessing is the spiritual end of material things.
He has promised us, and I think it's in 1 Peter, that we shall have everything we need for living. Now, Carol, that's God that said that, not man. He said, I'll see to it that you have everything you need.
Now, sometimes we think we need a whole lot more than God knows, so we set about trying to acquire it, but we can acquire nothing unless He sends it. So, the blessings, and I want you again to help me because I slip and think that material thing is a wonderful blessing.
It is in a way, don't misunderstand me, but that's not the ultimate. That's not the end of it. Don't stop there. Keep looking and see how did this item that God sent to me that I so wonderfully accepted, how does it draw me closer to Him?
And it should. If it doesn't, then you've misused it. All blessings are spiritual. I know I'm straying away from our lesson, but another thing I want you to be sure to understand, and I feel like most of you do, I'm finding that the people in this church are a little bit different than any other church I've ever been in.
Brother David, they're about at a nine where everybody else been around two or three. No place in the Bible will you find that we are to accept Jesus Christ as Savior. What do we do, David? Just receive Him.
Beg your pardon? What's the difference between accepting and receiving? Right. To accept something demands a decision on your part, and we don't do that. Now, we may think we do, but we don't. We just receive Christ.
When He tells you you're His, you have received Him. All right, come back to the lesson now. These treasures. Each bit of wisdom has its own treasure storehouse, and it is full of knowledge. Wisdom is a one-time operation, as I said last week.
Wisdom comes directly from God. It enables you to accomplish the feat in the very best possible way, just as though Christ were here doing it Himself. That's wisdom. Once you have used it, it becomes knowledge, and you can fall back on it then.
You cannot learn wisdom. You can learn knowledge. Knowledge is learning, but you cannot study and become wise. That comes from God. Now, you may appear wise because you know so much about so many subjects.
Therefore, people call you a very wise person. That's wrong. Now, He's going to shift in His thinking a little bit. We begin with verse 4. And this I say, I've told you all of this, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.
Folks, the airways are full of enticing words today. The radio stations and TV channels are crowded with people trying to beguile you. That's an old word in English that means what? Deceive, to trick you, to cause you to do something or think something that's not true.
So, Paul says, I'm giving you all of this information, meaning that we must study it and understand, so that no one can trick you, beguile you, with such smooth, slick talking. It just sounds so right and so good.
And how could that not be of God? Look at the benefits from it. That's looking forward. When you go through it and look back, you'll wonder, why in the world did I get caught in that? Depend upon the Holy Spirit.
Follow your good intuition. For though I be absent in flesh, yet am I with you in spirit. Join and behold in your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. It is such a joy to know that there are people that are so founded in the Word, Jesse, that they cannot be shaken loose.
They know what they believe. They're eagerly learning more. It doesn't mean they know it all, but that that they do know, they know that they know it. Richard, there's lots of people don't know they don't know it.
And those that don't know they don't know it are not interested in finding out. If you find anybody that's not interested in learning, forget them. Move on. Any preacher in the world's full of them that think they know all and they don't have to learn anything else.
That's laziness. They don't want to study. It takes work. As you know. Paul says, even though I'm not there looking at you or you looking at me, I want you to know that I am just enjoying every moment that I think about each one of you individually.
And you're such a joy to my heart and how steadfast you are in Christ. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk ye in him. Now I'd like for Jesse to go to Ephesians 4 .1. Richard go to 1st John 1 .7.
And we've already read the other one. So let's look at these two. As you have received, past tense, it's done. It'll never be done again. You're his. You belong to him. He's not going to take it away.
And you know it. You have received Christ. Now becomes the responsibility of walking. Obedience unto him. Jesse read us Ephesians 4 .1. Worthy of the vocation in which you are called. What's vocation mean?
Your job. Did you know that you were put into that position by God? Walk worthy of it. I've had a few jobs I didn't like. But I didn't get out of them until the right time. But even those that we don't like, we are to walk worthy.
That is, act like a Christian. Be a Christian. You know, we are sowing the seed of witness every day, all of the time, wherever we go. You do not go purposefully to witness for God. Oh, we do. We say that we're going to go witness.
But the most powerful witness you have for the Lord is your life. Every day. If you travel across the country, and Richard, I'm going to use you because you're on a rig once in a while so far removed from me that I can't imagine.
But I no longer, and I've known you, I would 100 percent, I started to make a reservation, but I can't. That when you're on that job, you act just like you do when you're here. You act like a Christian.
We should, we must, if we're going to bring honor to God. And that's all of the time. Every place. If you're on your way to church, you're running late, everybody's waiting on you because you have the keys to get in and it's snowing.
You come across some little old woman that has a flat tire. What are you supposed to do? Say, well, I'll call somebody on the cell phone, but I've got to be at church. Well, you might. But know this, God exposes you to nothing to ignore it.
You can't just turn your back. If you see it, then handle it. That may mean you know somebody else that you can get to handle it, but don't just ignore it. A very, very dear friend of mine in Bible study, in fact, he's the first person in Corsicana that come to the Bible study.
He's still there. And every time we talk about something like this, he has to kind of, he gets a little red in the face and he has to bring up the idea that years ago in South Texas, it was raining so hard, and there was somebody on the side of the road with a truck that had broken down.
And he said, it just rained so hard, I didn't stop. He says, you know, I've never forgotten that. I've never gotten over it. I know I should have stopped and I didn't do it. So just remember, he gives us nothing to ignore.
Walk ye in him. If you're going to walk in Christ, you have to be in Christ. A non-Christian cannot walk in Christ. A non-Christian cannot experience fellowship. A non-Christian cannot give to the church, cannot enjoy spiritual blessings.
Rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Rooted. Brother Barney used to give us a sermon every once in a while on the olive tree Christian.
And I wish I had a copy of it. But some of the things I would remember that he said was that the olive trees that were in the Garden of Gethsemane are still there. Because the olive tree never dies, just like Christian.
The olive tree has the deepest root of any tree known, just like a Christian. It goes down and down and down until it finds a source of water. And just like so many Christians, the olive tree is twisted by the elements of this world, the wind.
And like so many of us, it's not very beautiful. But it endures forever. Its leaf is always green. We're always representing the living God. It always brings forth its fruit. He's told us that we shall do that too in season.
See, we're not the one that produces the fruit. It just hung on us. The olive tree always produces fruit, sometimes more than others. So there's lots of comparisons in the olive tree. Rooted, built up in him, established.
We're going to stop with verse 7, but I want to talk about this word established. Now on first reading, if you didn't know better, you'd think that that was just an old English word or that it was a misprint for the word established.
But that's not true. The word establish. And it means this. You have been taken by a third party and you have been placed in a certain position, facing a certain way, and you cannot change. So when he says, as you have rooted and built up and established in faith, the third party is Christ our Lord, through the Holy Spirit, placed us into Christ, established us in Christ at his death on the cross.
We cannot change that. We're facing one direction, and that's toward the Heavenly Father. We can never turn around. We cannot go sideways. We're always facing him. Therefore, we must always confess when we think evil.
Establish, a very, very potent word, means we have been acted upon by some other force, and that force was the Holy Spirit, placing us in Christ, established us in Christ. As you have been taught, you need to remember all of these things, abounding therein, with thanksgiving.
Give thanks while in everything. Not always just for things, but while you're in it. I wish, and I'm working on it, that when I'm in a situation, Jesse, that I really don't like and I'd rather be out of it, it's hard and very seldom comes to mind to thank God for the fact that I'm in it, because I want to get out of it.
But he says to thank him while we're in it, because even he has put us in it, and it's for our spiritual growth. We're going to stop with seven, but I've done too much talking this morning. I want to hear from some of you.
I have about five minutes. Yes. We didn't read the first John. Okay, read it. I'm sorry.
But if we want Jesus Christ, his son.
I like that word, fellowship. Someone explain to me the meaning of fellowship.
To be together, talking about one subject. That's right, absolutely.
I've heard so many times, and you have too, that come fellowship with us at breakfast tomorrow morning at church. We have a wonderful fellowship. You get there, everybody is slapping each other on the back, talking about everything.
Ball games, wheat crops, cotton, oil. That's not fellowship. Fellowship is discussing a common subject, actually is discussing a spiritual common subject. Fellowship belongs to us, the term, not to the world.
So Richard, you're exactly right. And since we belong to him, not if you belong to him, but since we do, then we are to walk pleasing unto him. Don't think it's impossible. He wouldn't have told us to do it.
That's good, anything else? While all of you mark the 7th verse, I tend to forget where we stop. We'll start with verse 8. Yes, the word, one starts with thee and one starts with this.
Yes. That wisdom from God. I think that's a very important concept for us to have both of us. We're not wise at anything. That's right. And I feel that that's important for us to know. We can get knowledge, but wisdom to understand it.
In my mind, that elevates this thing, wisdom. It's not of man. It's of God and of God only. Wisdom's doing it like he would if he were here.
That's right. No. Tom? That's right. Tom? I was thinking about established and established. If we think about established, usually you hear this company's been established for 40 years in the business and that's looking backwards at companies that have been put together.
Established, at least in our lives, is a thing looking forward to guarantee that we will see and be with our Lord and King forever. That's good. I like that.
Brother Otis? Yes. There was one thing that I found interesting in like verse 3, it says in whom are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. For hid, it's not hid from us, but it's hid for us. For Rebecca, he came up to get to it.
I never made it clear, but what I'm trying to say is that it's set aside for us. The wisdom and knowledge is there for us as Christians. Not just open for the world to use. That's right.
Going along with what you're saying, it's hidden for us, means we have to work at it. He doesn't say, now if you'll open this door, you'll find what I have reserved for you. We have to dig it out because we're supposed to.
That's the only way we're going to learn is over and over. Brother Barney used to, and I'm not going to apologize for mentioning him so much because I'll tell you, but he used to go over and over and over one point.
Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. Now I don't know if anybody ever complained to him or not. I didn't know if they did, but he felt like maybe they were getting a little tired of hearing the same thing, but he said, that doesn't make any difference to me.
He said, I'm going to go over it until you get so tired of it that you're going to begin to like it. And you know, I have found out since he's dead now that the things that I can recall to my mind the easiest are those that he went over and over.
So I'm going to do the same thing because I won't be here forever. And I'm very, very jealous of you all. I want you to learn the truth and only the truth. Dennis dismisses please.