Col No.8 Stablity

The Apostle Paul, halfway through this chapter, is extolling the Lord Jesus Christ, recognizing that He is God's only Beloved Son, whose twin objective in coming to this world was to fulfill the Father's purposes and therefore give His life a ransom on the cross of Calvary for all who would trust in Him, thus making redemption possible. Now this is what the Apostle is referring to in the 13th and 14th verses and onwards. So we'll take up our reading from verse 13, and would you come in on the even-numbered verses, please.

Colossians 1, verse 13. Who, that is the Lord Jesus, hath delivered us from the power of darkness, hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.

For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell, and you that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled. If ye can continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister. Amen.

Now I'd like you to turn in the Word of God to the passage we read from earlier in Colossians 1. If you don't have a New Testament, then look alongside at the person next to you who probably has a Bible with them. Or if you particularly want to check the verse that we are going to focus our attention upon, then it's written out in the notes and news sheet, the bulletin which was handed to you as you came in the church. And that verse, as you'll discover again in a moment or so, is Colossians 1.23. But let me read to you the three previous verses and go down to that one also.

Colossians 1.20. And Jesus Christ, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him I say, whether they be things in heaven, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight, if ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister. I am particularly burdened this morning that all shall understand the gist of our meditation from the Word of God. The preacher is dependent, obviously, upon the Holy Spirit.

He's also dependent upon the willingness of his congregation to concentrate as certain things are brought to their attention. And this morning, with clarity as my objective, I tell you that if you will give an ounce of energy in studying the principles of these verses, then this Word shall be very relevant to your situation and you will understand it fully. Last week, we were looking at those first three verses under the general heading of redemption, accomplished and applied.

And you recall how I mentioned that the the sole objective of the Lord Jesus in coming into this world was to fulfill the wish of His Father. And incredible though it seems, the wish of Almighty God for the Son was that He was to go to the cross of Calvary and offer His life as an atonement for the sins of believing mankind. That was the accomplishment of His life's work.

And He did this with perfection so that He looks down from that Roman gibbet across the 32 or 33 years of His sojourn on this earth and He says, It is finished. It is perfect. That which you gave Me to do, I have done.

Not many people completely perform the whole of a life's ministry to perfection, but Jesus did. Now there were certain benefits which followed through from the offering of the Lord Jesus on the cross of Calvary. Redemption was accomplished, yes, but redemption is also applied.

Who benefits from the offering of the Lord Jesus? Well, stay with the 21st and the 22nd verses, will you, for a moment. You, you Colossian people, you folks in the worthing tabernacle, you who were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight. Jesus didn't die for nothing.

It wasn't just a sterling example of courage, though that came into it. There were tremendous benefits that are in view as a result of the, of the offering of Jesus on the cross, and the beneficiaries are those who have confessed who He is and what He has done, what He has done. And the one word I say which seems to summarize the three verses that we have just read is the word reconciliation.

This is what Jesus came into, into the world to do. There'd been a divorce between man and God, but Jesus has reconciled. Jesus has brought the offending party back into relationship with Almighty God, and this has come about through the offering of His body, says the apostle, the body of Jesus on the cross of Calvary.

And as a result, some remarkable things take place in the heart of those who have benefited by the life and death of Jesus. You who were unholy, verse 22, have been presented before God and will be presented before God holy, separate people cut out for the Lord. You who were sparted with every stain of sin are now spartalist because of Jesus, unblameable.

You who were under condemnation have now had your guilt removed, and there is therefore now no condemnation. As far as sinners who've confessed Jesus are concerned as they stand in the sight of God, they are unreprovable. Redemption accomplished, praise God for that, but redemption applied, redemption that benefits me and you, that reconciles me to a God who had been offended as a result of my sin.

All right, bear that in mind and come to the 23rd verse, and it's important that we spent a moment or so in reviewing the previous three verses. For what reason? Well, for this reason, the 23rd verse puts up certain qualifications and also offers certain stimuli. That word, if, is paramount for you to focus your attention upon if you're going to understand what is to follow.

All these things belong to you, being holy in the sight of God, unblameable and unreprovable if, one, you continue in the faith, two, you're grounded and settled in Jesus, three, you're not moved away from the hope of the gospel. And to stimulate you to achieve these conditions, Paul reminds us that that gospel we heard some of us years ago, that gospel has had a universal effect wherever it has been proclaimed, and that gospel is the one that transforms such a person as Paul and made him an ambassador of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. So this verse breaks up, you see, into two parts.

Here are conditions, and here are inducements to fulfill the conditions. Here is an examination, and here also are stimuli to enable us to rise to the fulfillment of the qualifications that are necessary for us to benefit from the death of Jesus. Now, why is this necessary for me to point this out? Why is it necessary for the Apostle Paul? Well, for this reason, my friend, Christianity is not just the waving of a magic wand upon somebody's mind, someone's intellectual processes.

It goes far beyond that. It's more than just a change of thinking. It's a change of lifestyle.

That is what the philosophers would call a pragmatic approach to the gospel, which here the Apostle is making and developing. He's saying, yes, it is a question of justification by faith only, but that faith has certain practical consequences in your life. How do I know I'm holy? How do I know I am unblameable? How do I know I'm unreprovable in the sight of God? Well, says the Apostle, you know it if these things follow.

And if they don't, then your faith is defective, and the very fact of your salvation comes up for attention. There's always been this clash in Reformed theology between what God has done and what we ourselves have to contribute. But the contention and the argument and the debate really is a lot of hot air, inasmuch as Scripture sees no lack of logic in saying that salvation is all of God, but the very salvation which is given prompts activity on the part of the recipient.

You say you haven't followed me. All right, come down to verse 29. Here's the Apostle.

He's a mighty ambassador for the Lord God, who's responsible for his success. Well, the Lord God is, but also he combines with the activity of the Holy Spirit, bringing his ministry through to success. Wherefore, says the Apostle, I also labor, striving according to his working, the work of the Spirit which worketh in me mightily.

I strive alongside with God's Spirit, and the result is success in my ministry. Well then, we'll come to that in a few weeks' time, but back to verse 23. Here I say our examinations, conditions which we are to put up to test ourselves as to whether we are really, wholly, unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.

Whether in that day which Jude predicts, when the Lord Jesus presents his church faultless before Almighty God, that day that is yet to be, that future return of the Lord Jesus Christ, that bringing in of the new heavens and the new earth, which will be first of all marked by the presentation of a faultless humanity. Am I going to be there? If I am, and these three adjectives in the 22nd verse describe me, then the conditions of the 23rd verse will be seen in my life. If ye continue in the faith, if ye exercise faith in practice in your life, see faith is not just a passive thing, not just something that you receive in your mind, it's something that dominates the whole of your life.

You're always testing your faith as a Christian, not on a Sunday, but on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, not just Sunday alone you see. Faith must be tested. Here's Gideon, he's got a fleece.

That fleece will never become wet unless he exposes it to the atmosphere outside, and you remember the moisture of the dew, it wetted the fleece. So it is with your faith and my faith. Day by day, whether I'm a housewife, whether I'm an accountant, whether I run a shop, whatever I'm doing, I should be in such a relationship with the Lord that his presence influences my life, and he enables me to live correctly for him.

It was said of the Lord Jesus in one part where he ministered, there he could do no mighty works because of the unbelief. The measure in which we trust Jesus is the measure in which he helps us. Here is the Apostle Paul, he's in prison at Rome, not at the time of writing this letter, but later on when he writes to Timothy and he says, do you know Timothy, something terrible has happened.

Here I am incarcerated in this smelly Roman dungeon. Everybody's left me. A man rang me up in the early hours of this morning and he said, you know something, I'm so lonely.

He rang me from London, he wanted to thank us for the recent edition of the church magazine which was taken up with the theme of loneliness. He said that spoke to my heart, I feel so lonely. Here is Paul, lonely, isolated, in prison.

Now here is an area in which he can continue to exercise his faith and prove that God is God when he's on his own, and that is what Paul is doing you see. The genuineness of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is indicated in the way that you live out your life despite the circumstances and the conditions. If you continue in the faith, it's a present faith my friend.

Too many of us are looking back to our conversion experiences and only drawing nourishment from that. I thank God that as a child I gave my life to Jesus Christ, but the most important thing at the moment for me is my communion with the Lord Jesus at this very moment and my practical knowledge that he is with me. If you continue in the faith, then you know that the Spirit of God has indeed moved upon you in salvation.

But if I'm going to continue in the faith, then there must be something external to myself in which I can base my faith and around which I can develop my life. And this is what the Apostle has to say as his second test, continue to exercise faith, a faith that is what? That is grounded and settled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Spiritual stability requiring something outside of myself.

You remember Jesus one day comes along to the fishermen and poor old Peter is an oscillating sort of fellow. He's impetuous and shifting in his opinion and you would have thought that if anyone was going to build an organization on anything, then Peter would be the wrong man. And you'd be right, Peter wasn't the right man for the church to be built upon.

Thou art Peter, shifting Peter, just like a little pebble. Nothing that is solid enough to bear the superstructure of the church. But I, the son of the living God, the revelation of God to this world, I am a foundation upon which this church can be built.

Thou art Peter, but on this rock myself, I will build my church. And Peter, if you're ever going to know stability in your discipleship as you follow me, then you will have to anchor yourself in me and in my gospel. And the Christian, my friend, is a person who is exercising faith day by day, but that faith is grounded, it is founded in Jesus Christ.

Verse seven of the second chapter, people who belong to Jesus Christ are rooted and built up in him and established, stabilized in the faith. The church of Jesus is not built on a pontiff. It's not built on any ecclesiastical structure.

It's not built on any one person apart from the Son of God. Well, what does it mean for me to have my faith grounded and settled, grounded and founded in Jesus? All the outworking of this is that I immerse my mind in the teachings of Scripture. The Lord Jesus Christ becomes the central point of my emotion around which I spin all my affection and my love.

The Lord Jesus Christ is one whose company I will seek at every moment. And if you're doing this, if you're grounded and settled in him, then it's pretty obvious that the benefits of the gospel of salvation have been accorded to you. Grounded and settled, the word there really is steadfast.

In olden days, when the sea was really like some seething cauldron, they would strap a sailor to the wheel of the ship. They would lash him there so that the ship would remain steadfast and he would be steadfast, wrapped around the wheels, so to speak. And that's like the Christian.

The everlasting cords of love of the Lord Jesus Christ bind the Christian to the steering wheel of their salvation, even the Savior himself. And this is indicating even more the genuineness of their conversion. So the apostle puts up two qualifications they're both positive, and then he puts up a negative one.

If these things which I've described really are attributed to you, if you're holy and unblameable and reprovable in the sight of God, then you'll continue in this faith. It'll be a present experience. You'll be grounded and settled in Jesus.

But thirdly, negatively, you will not be moved away from the hope of the gospel. There's no shifting from these foundations. The person who is truly a Christian, who has been reconciled with the Father, will not be deflected, will not be dislodged from the very mooring, the very anchorage of their salvation.

Now that doesn't mean to say there aren't attempts made to dislodge the Christian. He is trying to cope with this all his life. The devil comes along and he allows those those seas to be whipped up on the waves, come and try to dash against the boat and to sink the man down into despair and unbelief.

But no, the Christian is one who, despite all the problems, is not moved away from the hope of the gospel. I say there are many attempts being made to dislodge us as Christian people in these days. The attempts of worldliness, to be the same as other people are, to make mammon our God, to live our lives around just acquiring things, possessing things, getting further and further promotion in our jobs.

These in themselves are not necessarily wrong things, apart from them becoming or dislodging the central point of our life, which is the Lord Jesus from the prior position which he holds. And when we're moved away from the hope of the gospel, it's an it is indicative that our salvation was never genuine in the first place. What about the cults? So many who have come along in these days and they endeavour to entice Christian people who believe in the orthodox gospel, the historic gospel of Christianity, and they come along and they say, you know, this man here, he's got a new revelation.

We've heard of this man, this man from North Korea. He's the second Messiah. He's written another book.

It doesn't quite confirm what the Bible has to say. In fact, it's an extension and a manipulation of biblical truth. But here he is, let's come, let's worship him.

So many ways in which the Christian is being induced to defect from the gospel. And when a person defects, then it's indicative that they were never reconciled to God in the first place. The one who has trust of the Lord Jesus Christ in time and will serve him throughout eternity will not be moved away from the hope of the gospel.

He'll recognize that there are all these pressures and all these problems, but he'll so immerse his mind in the word of God. He will have such a close relationship with the Lord Jesus, not based upon a past experience, but a present experience. And that will keep him through every test, whether it's the test of materialism, the test of a false gospel, whether it's domestic circumstances that go awry, whether it's a body ailment which possesses his mortal being and saps him of all strength, he'll be able to cope with everything, come wind, come weather.

Why? Because he has an anchorage which is in Jesus Christ. He's continuing in the faith. He's grounded in Christ.

He's not moved away from the hope of the gospel. Well, this is what the apostle spells out as being conditions which demonstrate the genuineness of faith. And we should always be examining ourselves, dear friends, in this particular area.

But the second part of my text deals with the stimulation or, if you like, the inducements to the Christian which will help him to maintain faith, maintain obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the apostle here reminds the Christians in Colossae of the first time that they heard the gospel. Here is an appeal to past experience.

You remember that young man Epaphroditus had come along, not Paul, and he proclaimed the gospel to these people in Colossae. There they were in the sewage of heathenism with the morality of the gutter that had broken loose in Colossae. And yet Epaphroditus came and he preached of Jesus and his death on the cross and the enormity of man's sin and how man without Jesus Christ is utterly lost and undone.

And these dear Colossians, many of them, they responded. And they said, yes, Epaphroditus, we believe your gospel. We need to be cleansed from our sins.

And they knelt and acknowledged that Jesus was the Savior, that gospel which you had heard. Do you remember it, says the apostle? Do you remember what it did for you? Do you remember that feeling of elation when you knew that your sins had been absolutely cleansed, annulled by the death of Jesus on the cross? Do you remember that relationship which you enjoyed with God your Father? Now here you are. The years have gone by and the cultist has come along, these Gnostics, these people who are greater revelation of the gospel than Epaphroditus had, than I had.

They come along and they tell you that your gospel is not sophisticated enough, that they have had a mental illumination that is superior to the majority of Christian people. Now why are you going to capitulate? Because this was a problem. You see at Colossae there were these false teachers, these people who were peddling their own cultic beliefs.

And there was a dread possibility that some of the Colossians might move from the historic gospel that they had heard into the ranks of the cultists. So the apostle says no. You remember past experience.

Remember what Jesus did for you. And my friend, the same obtains today. You may not be able to answer all the questions that people put up to you concerning the Bible.

You may not be able to resolve all the philosophical difficulties that there are in the 20th century and that there have always been. But take your lead from the man who was healed from his condition of blindness, who was accosted by the Savior. You remember the story in John's gospel.

And then the man later on was interrogated by the Pharisees and they said, how can it be that you've received your sight from this man who was a sinner? And the healed person said, well, be he a sinner or not, I don't know. That's part of your own problem theologically, philosophically. Work it out for yourself.

This one thing I know. Once I was blind, but now I can see. You can't take that experience away from me.

There's no other rationale. There's no other explanation whatsoever. I heard Jesus Christ speak to me and He caused power to come into my body, which brought sight back to my eyes.

And it's reasonable for you and for me today to be stimulated to live lives for Jesus, to continue in the faith grounded and settled, not being moved away by any other pressure because of our past understanding of what Jesus has done for us and realizing a present experience of Him as a result. Well, says the apostle, He induces them to continue in the faith by this appeal to past experience. But then, and this is very, very important, I want you to follow me carefully here.

There is an appeal to universal application. Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven. Now, that's rather a gigantic statement that the apostle is here making.

In one sense, there's a bit of hyperbole here. But nonetheless, the apostle could demonstrate the gist of the truthfulness of his claim. The gospel has been preached in the Roman Empire, and from the militia have come men who have acknowledged Jesus as Savior.

The gospel has been preached within Judaism and from the priestly aristocracy that have come through those who have acknowledged that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Says the apostle, wherever I go around this world in the Roman Empire, as the message is proclaimed, not only by my lip, but by the lips of other Christian colleagues too, there are those who respond. And that should stimulate you to hold on, to continue in the faith, grounded and settled.

Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. In the 20th century, do you know one of the things that marks those who are advocating gospels which are not biblical? It's the particular class of people or nationality that respond. We shall be looking this next week, this next Thursday, at the Christian science movement, sometimes known as the religion of the female aristocracy of the United States of America, because the majority of people who are Christian scientists are in America themselves.

The majority of people, the vast majority, are womenfolk. I was looking through their own publication of their various societies and churches around the globe. Only a few days ago, I could find hardly anything in Africa at all.

Dominant American cult. But you see, and I'm not just quoting from the Christian science and attributing this to our American friends, praise God for the gospel, the orthodox gospel of God that's preached in America, and for the way in which the American churches get behind missionary enterprise. But as far as the sects are concerned, you see, they're always particular.

They're always narrow. Take the children of God movement. It's just appealing to a certain class of people, but not the universal gospel of the blessed God.

The Chinese are in on it. Oh yes, it's a communist state in the Republic of China, but God still has his church there. The Russians are in on it.

A communist state, but the church there is greater in number and probably in quality than in the United Kingdom. The Africans are in on it. The Latin Americans are in on it.

Wherever the gospel has been preached, there has been no particularistic response. It's been a response that has been international, universal. And this is the thing that the apostle Paul brings out here about the good news of the gospel.

Wherever it's preached, to every creature which is under heaven, there is a response. How do you argue against this? Well, says the apostle, you can't. The only reason for this is that it's the gospel that is the antidote for the sins of the world, be he a black man or a white man.

There's no distinction. Some of the cultists will tell you that there is a distinction, or some will have argued historically that there has been a distinction. No, says the apostle Paul.

The Jew and the Gentile, they're all sinners in the sight of God. There's only one gospel that can meet their need. It's an international gospel applicable to men and women everywhere.

And says the apostle, hold on to your faith. You people in Colossae, don't let these Gnostics, don't let these cultists move you one little bit from your gospel. Appeal back to your own experience right at the beginning.

See the repercussions of this gospel internationally in the Roman world, and realize that this is nothing more than the outworking of the purposes of God in your century, in your generation. And so it is today. But the third and final thing the apostle has to appeal to here is a personal reminder of what happened to him.

Says Paul, this gospel is one whereof I, Paul, am made a minister. Now this isn't just an emotional argument. Paul isn't saying, well you know me fellows, you can trust me, you've known me for some while.

I personally would not have ruled out that argument. I feel that a man who is known and trusted and whose ministry has been attended over a long period of time is someone who speaks with credibility and with authority. But the apostle is not really referring to this.

He's mentioning the miraculous way in which he, Paul, who was a persecutor of the church of Jesus Christ, has now become an advocate of the gospel. The way in which he was stopped on the Damascus road, and Paul, the bigoted Pharisee, becomes Paul, the potential missionary evangelist extraordinary. So here is a stimuli, you see, to these people.

They're under pressure, yes, but we're all under pressure. They have to test themselves whether they are members of the family of the redeemed, whether they are wholly unblameable and unreprovable in the sight of God. They do so by asking if they're continuing in the faith, if they're grounded in their settled, if they're settled, if they've not been moved away from the hope of the gospel.

And to encourage them to fulfill those conditions, the apostle induces them. He stimulates them. He says this gospel is one that you heard years ago and it can continue to have tremendous benefit in your life.

This is the gospel which is setting into movement a tremendous organism, a tremendous organization, for throughout the world there are men and women who are responding to it. This is the gospel which picked me out of the mire of Phariseeism and lifted me into heavenly places with Christ Jesus. Tell me something, friend.

How do you know that you're reconciled to God? I know I'm reconciled because the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, has cleansed me from all sin, yes. That is a demonstration of it verbally, but practically how do you know? I know that I'm reconciled to God because I'm exercising faith in the Lord Jesus day by day. I'm a better mother because I belong to Jesus.

I'm a better businessman because I belong to Jesus. The whole of my life is steered by Him. My mind absorbs His work.

I'm prompt to attend the means of grace, the breaking of bread, the drinking of wine. I come around His Word each Sunday and during the week I take parcels of it and store it up in my mind. I know that I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ because I'm not deflected by any of the pressures of contemporary society and I'm stimulated to go on because I know past experience tells me that there is even greater things in the future for me.

I'm stimulated to go on because I recognize that there are millions and millions of my brothers and sisters around the globe who are confessing Jesus at this very moment. The greatest advance in Christianity is being witnessed in Latin America throughout the whole of history. Did you know that at this very time I'm stimulated to go on because I can see my brothers and sisters who I knew were deep-dyed sinners and God has lifted them up and He's made them to be new creatures in Himself.

Thank God for the blessed gospel which stabilizes us, which goes beyond the intellect to the practical demonstration of the outworking of the gospel in the way that we live our lives. Yes, be reconciled to God my friend through Jesus Christ and know the stability that that reconciliation brings as God through His Spirit empowers you to work with Him to achieve His purposes in your life. Amen.

Now Father again we thank you for the blessed gospel of our Savior and we ask that we may remain faithful to that gospel not only in the confession that we make with our lips but in the way in which we conduct our lives. May we demonstrate that we have been reconciled to God through the stability in our personality and our discipleship for Jesus' sake. Amen.