Introduction and Greetings

Okay, well today we're starting Colossians, and actually if you're of a mind, I found this little neat graphics on the internet, and you get a notebook too, you put your handouts in that. If you want, you don't have to, they're up here if you want to. Some people like to do it, some people have their own, and some people don't. You know, we toss them away eventually. That's not a sin. You put them in the recyclables, you haven't sinned. So anyway, but we have a cool.

This is a great book. Just so much to learn and so much. Such a really fantastic thing. So without further ado, let's just we'll start into this. Actually, if you notice, I've kind of chopped it up into really small little sections. And that was kind of intentional because there's so much. It's almost a word by word in some parts, some by some parts. Every word is significant. So we kind of chopped it up. And actually, we're going to have four teachers in the class. just to keep you on your toes. Actually, Bob's going to teach.

I have him signed up for a bunch. Every time he's in town, I signed him up just about, except for today. And then actually, we're going to have Andrew Malloy. He's going to come from Telluride. I assume he's going to stay with his mom overnight, because I wouldn't want to come from Telluride Sunday morning here. And then actually, Josiah Matthews is going to teach a few classes, too.

So that's kind of the plan. And so it should be fun. OK, so let's kind of get into this. So I decided a map is always a good idea. And actually, this is a blowup. I think this is what we call modern-day Turkey, probably. And this is kind of zoomed in. So Colossi is right here. OK, right there.

And there's Laodicea. And there's Hierapolis. And Philadelphia. All these names are scriptural names. You'll recognize them. Then here's Ephesus. It's down the river a bit. Right there. So we just finished up Ephesians and there's a lot of crossover, but there's a lot of huge differences. We're going to see that our Savior, the Lord Jesus, is magnified and his attributes and who we are in relation to him is just really brought out in a really fantastic way. So it's really, really neat. OK. So introduction.

When I did, actually this comes, if you look at your handout, it'll look up here. I got these, I decided that I could try to paraphrase some of these, but I decided, well, why not use the author's original. So this is from Weiss, McCauley, and Constable. And if you want to know which one is which, I can tell you. But I decided after a while, I thought I'd just put them all down.

So the city of Colossae lay in that valley we saw there, the Lycus Valley, about 100 miles from Ephesus. Its inhabitants were Greek colonists and some I don't know if I can pronounce it, Phrygians maybe? Phrygians, there we go, thanks. And also there were some Jews living in the area as well.

And actually what's interesting is this was not a big, you know, Ephesus was more close to the sea, so there was a lot of travel there. This was called one of the least important, but we're going to see it has one of the most magnificent messages. Wow!

So actually another thing is that Paul, as far as we know, He never visited this particular church, the Body of Believers. I think I read some place that this probably was a house church maybe. I didn't find that statement, but somehow I think that. I don't know where I heard that. There's a couple of verses that kind of bring out this fact that it's a small church.

Could someone read Colossians 1.4? Since we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints. Okay, so basically we're going to see that Paul said we've heard of your faith in our Savior, we've heard about this, we've heard about that. Colossians 2.

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at lay to see it, and for all those who have not personally seen my face. So the last part kind of picks up, they have not personally seen his face. Now you could argue maybe there were some that had personally seen his face. But anyway, that's a statement that seems like it backs up the fact that he didn't know these people face to face. Maybe there were some that he knew, but in general not anyone there it seems like.

And then actually, as I mentioned before, Ephesians and Colossians are the so-called prison epistles. He wrote them while he was in prison, his first imprisonment in Rome. And remember, his imprisonments weren't quite like we imagine. If I understand, he was chained to a guard. But he could move around and have access. People could visit him. So it wasn't quite what we envisioned. But it wasn't, let's say, It was unpleasant, but tolerable.

In Colossians we find the person of our Lord Jesus Christ more clearly presented than in any other of Paul's letters. He's going to talk about the attributes of our Savior, things that we don't learn anyplace else. The primary purpose of the letter seems to be to combat false teaching. Two main problems it seems like in Colossae, the doctrines about Christ, who He is, that He is really God, He is really the God-Man, and how that doctrine affects the Christian living. We are going to see just some wonderful things about our relationship to our Savior, some just really astounding things that also were brought out in Ephesians, but probably even more clearly here. Paul's great purpose was to set forth the absolute supremacy and sole sufficiency of Christ. Christ alone. Christ plus nothing.

And a couple of verses I didn't put down. You know what I mean? I did. Yes, I did. So could someone read Colossians 2. I have D. The very last phrase there which has Christ himself. Could someone read Christ himself and in whom, and read the rest of that into 3 there. Colossians 2, D through 3.

In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Okay, great. So here's one of the many passages that talks about something that Christ has. It says they're hidden. Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge.

I was kind of thinking, man is always seeking for wisdom. A bright person, a person in our society, a person that is a bright person, who has many degrees, is put up on a pedestal. Well, Scripture says that the real source of wisdom and knowledge is found in Christ himself. So, hence, would it behoove us to study about the person who has the wisdom and knowledge? Wouldn't that make sense? And for believers, that's probably not a huge leap. For some, that's an impossible leap. They have all kinds of things that they want to bring in the way of that.

And then in Colossians 2.9, can someone read that?

For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead Father. Right. Okay, so all the fullness. Actually, we're going to get to kind of, as we walk down the path through Colossians, the idea of fullness, we'll get to explore what that means. So pretty amazing stuff.

So now, so I borrowed the title, what I did is I went through and I looked at, I really like Macaulay, Chester Macaulay. You can listen to him on the internet if you go out and search for him out there. And his organization is just, so I took his titles for different sections and I tried to put it in verses I thought kind of fit a key verse in those sections.

So we're going to study the first two verses in detail, so we'll defer to that for a second. So in verses 3-8 we see that Paul talks about thanksgiving for the Colossians. We give thanks to God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, praying for you always. And then he expands that prayer in verses 9-14.

And when he starts talking about that, and this is where I would kind of talk about this. He says, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we talked about that a little bit, the spiritual wisdom and understanding. So I was trying to think about it. Can someone think of an example of, and I underline here, he's talking about spiritual wisdom. And so maybe that should have been a caveat earlier on. He's talking about spiritualism. Can you think of a scripture passage that gives us some insight into the spiritual wisdom and understanding about our Savior?

1 Corinthians 1. Okay. Well, of course I found one in this past that says I've been looking at it. Not fair, right? Not fair. That's good. I like that. Do you want to read that or quote that? I'm very excited with my Bible. Okay, go ahead. 1 Corinthians? I didn't mean to put you in the spot either, I'm sorry. So 30, but by his doing you are in Christ Jesus who became the wisdom from God. So that one. Okay, I really like that part, it's by his doing. That's always just, I think, wow, this is by my doing? No, it's by his doing, which is really cool.

Can someone read, I think a really cool spot that talks about The wisdom and understanding about our Savior and our relationship to Him is in Colossians verses 1-4. We'll get to that, but can someone read that for right now? Because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and all of the love you have for all the saints, the faith and love that's for you in heaven and that you have already heard about the word of truth and the gospel that has come to you all the world all over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace and all truth okay that's a good that's a good first one but i was i mean i didn't say it clear enough it's it's colossians Chapter three versus one through four. You can say.

OK, well, that's that's totally understandable. You have to read it. Now, what chapter was he talking about? Chapter 10. I thought I heard one. OK, well, good. OK, well, OK. So I'm going to go ahead and read it, since I didn't say it very clearly. OK. All right. OK.

So in Chapter three, verses one through four, if if then you have been raised up and the if is assumed to be true. If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory." There is a ton of spiritual wisdom and understanding in those four verses because it talks about that you're seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

It talks about a whole mindset of what's going on. I think that's where the Lord wants us to be. He wants us to be spiritually wise and that creates spiritual understanding. He wants us to be wise about what we believe and what we trust in. He doesn't want us to be haphazard, if you will.

So that's up through verse 14. And now we get into these two sections, the person and the work of our Savior. His person, many of the statements in Colossians, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. There are just so many wonderful nuggets here. What does God look like? Well, He is the God-man. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. And then His work, speaking about His work on the cross, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of the cross. Like I said, every verse has so many important words and important thoughts to go through. Then we see, as we get into this part, there is going to be a threat. The Colossians had issues. And the issues where people came along and they had...

Actually, this is, I understand, this is the only time, I didn't actually double check the word philosophy, this is the only time it's used in scripture. It talks about, through these philosophies and empty deceptions. It says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophies or empty deceptions, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. That's as apropos for today as it was back in the time that Paul wrote this.

There are plenty of things out there, plenty of philosophies that sound sort of good, and deceptions just abound out there. Hence, it's even more important that we stay close to Scripture, stay close to our Savior. We get to the next section, the glory of our relationship to Christ. For in him all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form. Boy, just another outstanding. Bob, go ahead. Well, you know, you stopped at verse 5. I know, I probably stopped.

But I mean, the concept came up in Colossians 3 too, and I think it's an important one, because the identification we study in Ephesians really is. Verse 6, As you have therefore received Christ Jesus, so walk ye in unrooted and build up. And then in Colossians 3, the passage 1-4, You know it says when Christ our life shall appear. It's not like when he appears our life will be in him. He's our life now and when he appears then we're with him in glory.

I mean this whole identification theme doesn't quit in Colossians. Oh it doesn't, it does not quit. The Ephesians message continues to be pervasive in the book of Colossians. I think you're doing wonderful. I just think we can't miss that episode. I agree. What I found is every time I put a verse in, there was another verse right behind it that was just as important or more important. I gotta stop somewhere. You're planning on finishing the book today, right? How long do you have? Do you plan to watch the Super Bowl?

You have been made complete in Him. There's another tremendous statement. What is it made to be complete in Him? That's just incredible statements about our Savior, and even more incredible statements about us. And then our relationship to Christ. I quoted the one I just read earlier. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things which are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

This is one that contradicts an old saying. When I first became a believer, there was a saying that says, if you're too heavenly minded, you're no earthly good. Well, I found that's totally wrong. According to this verse, that's totally wrong. We want to be totally heavenly minded. And then we'll be really of earthly value. Just the flip side of that. Our inward life. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which you have been called in one body and be thankful. It's amazing.

Then this part right here very much parallels what we studied in Ephesians, very much parallels that. It starts off, or shortly after that, husbands love your wives and do not be embittered against them. We saw a very similar discussion about that. We're going to see that it's going to talk about the husband and wife and the children and slaves and masters.

And there's actually two sections that kind of close up the book. One talks about his parting words. Devote yourself to prayer, keeping alert with an attitude of thanksgiving. And then there's a long section about Paul's friends and personal acquaintances. He spends a long time talking about these people.

So we'll see how it goes. I haven't actually mapped out the very last part. We'll see how much we divide it up or whatever. Last time I had Bob just covering a teensy-weensy part. He did a great job. He pulled out some really gems out of Almost nothing. That's supposed to be a joke. That was three verses. Three verses right now. He gives me short sections for good reason. It took him all day Saturday to find those short sections. That's good, that's good.

Alright, so now we've probably done the bird's eye view, so now let's look at the first two verses. And what you see in these first two verses, if you were to look at, flip back to Ephesians, you see a very similar first two verses. Very similar. So what I did, there were some really cool gems I found when I studied Ephesians, the first two verses. So I pulled some of those over into that, because we have the same words.

So anyway, it's pretty cool. But there's some differences, too. So this is pretty neat. So the first part is Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. So this kind of thought was a pattern that you kind of see. And apparently it was a pattern in the culture. We do it to Bob Eccle from Roger Henderson subject teaching Colossians class. But they would do it. Author, title, authority. So Paul, his title is an apostle of Christ Jesus. His authority is by the will of God. You'll see that repeated in many of his epistles. And actually, I'm not sure, in other books too, possibly.

There's some there in Ephesians 1.1, in Colossians. If you read those, you'll see. And sometimes you'll see that he'll have, like here he has Timothy, our brother. In the Corinthians passage, he has Sol Shoneskin. And then he has Timothy again in the Corinthians, second Corinthians passage. So Paul means small, whereas Saul in the Hebrew means ask for or prayer. I didn't try to trace out some things, more things, I just kind of took it for what it was. Apostle is literally one cent forth, and it comes from the Greek apo, from, and stelo, to send. To send forth, one cent forth.

And so actually I had like four places, four aspects if you will, The bottom three, let's just talk about this first and we'll go back to the Lord Jesus. Obviously we think of the apostles, and we see that listed in Luke chapter 6 and also in chapter 9. And then we see it of Paul, we're just talking about it here, he's an apostle. Then we see it of his companions, Barnabas, Silas, and Timothy. But the one I think that's kind of neat to look at is thinking about our Savior. We don't often think of our Savior as being an apostle. But literally, since it means one sent forth, he was sent forth. So let's look at those two passages.

Can someone read Hebrews 3.1? Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly colonies, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. Thank you.

There is an interesting one in John 17.3.

This is eternal life, that you may know that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Right, and so that word sent is actually this word apostello, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. So he is a sent one, he is an apostle in that sense. So that kind of covers the his title. So if you look carefully here, you'll see that the noun apostle is strengthened by two phrases.

The first phrase is of Jesus Christ, showing who he represents. And then secondly, by the will of God, the authority for being an apostle. So by the will of God, in the Greek it's dia, by or because of. And the following, I made a list of things that are by the will of God. We see certainly apostleship, being sent is by his will.

And then Paul talks about in Romans, coming to you was by his will. And then we see in Thessalonians, your sanctification, your being set apart. But the last one, I thought we'd just stop for a second here. This one may be a tougher one. He says, those who suffer are by the will of God. Which I think is good to know.

Could someone read 1 Peter 4.19? Let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him, and while doing, as unto a faithful creator. Mine has, according to the will of God, entrust their souls to a faithful creator in doing what is right.

So, interesting that he talks about, you know, in scripture we see that the suffering of the believer is not something that's kind of helter-skelter, it's not by chance. It's actually, you know, it's more in line with his will, or it is in line with his will, by his declaration.

And he talks about the suffering of believers are very special to him. And we see Paul, Paul is as opposed to a child suffering. I mean you start counting up his sufferings and you think that the Lord backed off a little bit. I mean there's so many different just really incredible things that he suffered. So I think settling down with the fact that suffering is a part of the Christian life and that's helpful and I'm there too. Sometimes suffering, I don't really want it. I had a different idea for my day, or for my year, or for my whatever.

Many times it's not welcomed, but the Lord tells us that's His plan, and it would do us well to accept that. He hasn't accepted it by faith many times, so we don't really see that maybe it's getting better or changing, but we trust Him that it's His will and it's His plan. do ourselves in too.

If we do something wrong, if I speed down Holley here at 100 miles an hour and I get stopped, I can't say, well, that was by the will of God. I can say that. But the consequences are definitely going to be by the will of God. I will suffer the consequences of going 100 miles an hour down Holley. And that's the thing. We do suffer the consequences here, earthly consequences, all the time.

Right. Thanks. That's good. So you see Timothy, his name appears quite a bit. So was he a co-author? What do you think? OK, good. I like the heads shaking in that direction. And they're shaking. So I think actually this verse kind of helps, especially in Colossians here. Paul says, Paul writes this greeting to you by my own hand. Remember my imprisonment. Grace be with you.

So Paul will mention many of his companions in his books, but it doesn't mean they were authoring it with him. It just means they were there. It might be that you can imagine if you're writing a letter, we don't write letters, we write emails today or text messages, but you might say, I'm hanging out here at whatever and Joe's with me or whatever. You might mention somebody else is hanging out with you, but it doesn't mean that they wrote the text message or they wrote the email.

You know, when he was in prison, it was important that these other believers be around because they had to bring him food. The Romans, he wasn't fed. He didn't get water. He didn't get any of that. If these people weren't there, with him and I think those young believers traded out time that they spent with Paul there in Rome.

I think there is some place in here we will see, actually at the very end he talks about a believer that is with him in prison. In fact was that in that little quote there? Yeah, actually, he said in verse 410, Colossians 410, it says, Erastarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings.

So I guess that means he was with him in prison. There was somebody else in that prison with him being held there. Or maybe he was visiting and taking care of him, bringing him food. I don't know. Not a lot of room in that prison. I don't know. If he's chained to somebody, I can't believe this is a little spacious accommodation, so I don't know. Anyway. Okay, so let's move on to verse 2. Okay, so now we get to the 2 part. We have the 2 part at the beginning, they have the 2 part at this point.

So this is going to be, the next part is, to the recipients. And it's to the saints and faithful brethren. What two aspects, I'm going to answer this question, but what two aspects of the recipients are stated? This is not, I mean it's pretty easy, it says it right here. Okay, that's one, what's the other one? Good, okay.

Okay, so two aspects there of saints, and actually we're going to see, it's interesting, and actually it's been picked up, I mean, I didn't notice it initially, but after kind of studying it, This phrase, faithful brethren, is interesting. So we'll see if we can investigate that a little bit. So first of all, saints. And that's a positional statement we're going to see here. And here's something to kind of pick up on.

It's hagios, which is a word we use holy. It's translated holy sometimes. That's a word for holy. But in the plural, it's used to believers. It designates all believers, basically, and it's not applied merely to the person of exceptional holiness. I think that's something we need to get in our minds. This is talking about something that every single believer, whether he's a strong believer or a weak believer, if there is such a thing, or a trusting believer or a non-trusting believer, whatever, that's a designation that Scripture gives to believers. And I apologize for maybe overusing Macaulay, but this is an outstanding section, I thought. So bear with me here.

There are four things that may be said about the word saints. First of all, being a saint is a result of being in Christ. And we're going to see the phrase, as we saw in Ephesians, the phrase, in Christ. And there's actually derivatives of that. Other, in him, with him. in you and the other variations of that. Being a saint is, you can't say a believer, if he's not in Christ, he's not a saint. Taking out the word in Christ the word saint also must be removed. That's what qualifies him to be a saint.

And we see that it's nothing to do, and this is what's cool is, it's nothing to do with me being especially holy. Well, isn't Roger holy because he does this or that, he shakes people's hands, or he walks old ladies across the street, or whatever he is. Isn't he holy? It has nothing in the world to do about that. It's totally because he's in Christ.

And so that hints of positional truth, right? So let's keep going here. Number two, as we say many times, in fact most people here, if I ask the Holly Hills, they'll say, what does saint mean? To be set apart. Perfect. And it's the most common designation of Christians in the New Testament. Today you can verify all these statements, right? I didn't do my search, I didn't search saints, I didn't verify this statement, but I assumed it to be true. And this is what I've been saying all along. The word saint refers to their spiritual position, not their spiritual condition or their conduct.

So we're going to see here that we have two things he's saying. To the saints, speaking about their spiritual position, being in Christ, he's going to talk about that. And then he's going to say, and the faithful brethren. So we're going to say, what in the world do you mean by faithful brethren? Actually, I didn't get my verse here. Actually, this is kind of cool. In 1 Corinthians, it talks about, and this kind of points out the fact that saints validates the fact that you're in Christ. To those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling. So that's a name we call people who are in Christ.

But there's still a hangover, if you will. A hangover of this holiness. holding this thing running around in our heads and it's really not the way to look at it. We're saints only because we're in Christ. when you say they're not their spiritual condition or their conduct. Once you're a saint, you're a saint. It doesn't matter if you walk away. If you don't act like a saint. It has nothing to do with that. Once you've given your life to Christ, you're in Christ, officially, forever. Can you imagine telling this to a good part of the world out there? Christendom, they would... No, even Christendom doesn't. They think you can lose your salvation if you're a bad person. But biblically, that's not what the Bible says.

And that's one of the wonderful blessings we're going to see in Colossians. He's going to come back to that again and again and again. You're in Christ, and because you're in Christ, this is a blessing that you have. This is what you enjoy. in that position. Well, it's who you are. It's who you are, right. Bob?

I wake up to the radio in the morning, and this morning on the radio was someone asking us how we're doing following Christ. And I just kind of say, it's time to get up. They're going to come to Sunday school with me this morning. It's awesome to be teaching about a different truth. What would Jesus do? But I think it's important as you transition from saints to faithful brethren because I think it's going to be interesting to get the detail on that.

So this is position. Now we're going to go to condition. And I think you can come to an early conclusion. Maybe some would argue about this. The second aspect I believe is going to be a conditional statement. Faithful brethren describe the conditional aspect of the believers who are in Christ. in the passive, you could replace that, rather than saying faithful, you could say reliable, trusted, faithful. We all would admit that we know many believers, here at Holly Hills, outside of Holly Hills, and we would have to say, I'll tread carefully here, some are faithful, and some may not be. and what the Lord would have us do. He doesn't want us to beat up on all the ones that we believe aren't trustworthy and faithful, because we may not see their whole life. They may be super in one area, maybe with their grandkids, or maybe with their children, or whatever, but we don't see their whole life, and He's the one that judges that. But Paul, he uses that phraseology here, which is really, really interesting. So there, I don't know, Bob, do you want to? Well, you know, it's, but the interesting thing, the way you, this is least here, right? Yes. Okay, so, In Christ is passive. We have nothing to do with that, right?

But being faithful is our responsibility. To be faithful requires some action on our part. Believing what he's revealed. Exactly. Acting in accordance with that. So even though positionally where it's passive. And I struggle a little bit with it. He said passive. And I said, what does he mean by that? I'm not sure I'm totally happy with what he said. What does he mean by in the passive? I think that's positional.

We get saved by faith. That's a whole topic. What brings a man or a woman to come to Christ? I think that's a whole discussion. But once you're there, we're in Christ. That's not our responsibility any longer. We're placed in Christ. We need to respond by faith. That's our responsibility. That doesn't mean we're measuring one another in terms of being faithful. But the idea is that How are we faithful?

By looking at His Word and allowing the Spirit to lead us in this new passive position we are in Christ. That would be walking in the Spirit. That's good, very good. So here's a definition that may have come from Is that Macaulay? Well, no. I'm not sure. I can find out if you want me to find out.

So actually, Weiss says, this unusual edition, faithful brethren, is full of meaning. Some members of the Colossian churches were shaken in their allegiance. And what he's referring to is this admonition Paul is going to say, don't be drawn away by these philosophies. Don't be taken in by that. And we see it today in Christendom.

I have relations that are believers, I know, but they're taken up by different aspects of Christianity, and they think that's just wonderful. They think speaking in tongues is what they should be doing. I've talked with them, but they still believe that. I know the believers, but I have to disagree with them.

But you know, sometimes the Lord is the only one who can reveal those things to these people. Because they are so set, whatever it is, on that, that it doesn't matter. It's sort of like trying to talk politics with somebody who's on a different page than you are. You're not going to change their mind. No, they're not.

Very true. Okay, so it seems like here he's addressing the saints. That's their position. You can see the faithful brethren want to hear this message. The ones who are not faithful got issues with it and won't probably even listen to it. That's what we find today in our world. Okay, so now I just want to focus in on in Christ. To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ.

So what does this prepositional phrase mean? N or EN in the Greek is a prepositional phrase denoting a fixed position in place, time, or state. And Macaulay says, grammatically, the designation of Christ is in the locative case. It would therefore be correct to say, in union with Christ.

And I really like that. In fact, I like it even, I have one more word I want to add to that. And that's going to be the next chart. I think it's even better, if it's much even better, in a living union with Christ. Because we serve a risen Savior, right? He's living. And our relationship with Him is living, too. So we're not just in Christ, not in union with Christ, we're in a living union with Christ. I think that brings out the full impact of that little phrase, in Christ. In a living union with Christ. We're interacting with our Savior, 24-7.

And here's a little picture, not a great artistic thing, I've seen it before. It might help to look in light of living position, living union, at the word brethren and what it means, because it signifies that we're part of his family. that we are in union with him in a family relationship. Okay, okay. Well, and I think about it too, how we've talked about, we're not robots. Right. That's right. Right, exactly, exactly. That's good.

And when we see that it says, when we're looking at Galatians, we're going to see Christ is our life. So it makes a statement, if he is your life, then the living union makes total sense, because he is your life, and it's something that's just not static, it's active.

So Roger, I once looked at the preposition that precedes Christ or him, H-I-M, and looked for Christ, in Christ, and for Christ was in single digits, like four or five times in scripture, mostly in the gospel account. In him or in Christ, I don't recall the number exactly, like it's 155. It's a lot of times. So as you point out, Paul liked this phrase. That was one of his favorites.

The first phrase, in Christ, is the most fundamental expression in the New Testament of what it means to be a Christian. And you know what we did before, we linked it back to the word saints. So at the core of what a Christian is, is being in Christ, in this living relationship, in this living union. That's the core of what a Christian is.

How much different that is than what we hear so many times and make it, you know, you have all these more friendly terms, well he's going to walk beside me, I'm going to follow him, I'm going to do what he does, all these things, they just don't, they don't, they miss the mark, they miss this incredible statement, I mean, how can I be in a living union with God?

I mean, it just seems amazing. The other thing to think about is, if you have that view of your, quote, Christian life, there's no rest there, is there? If you're the person that's maintaining it, definitely not. There's no rest. And as Regan said, we're not robots. We respond by faith. And that's our responsibility, to respond by faith in our position. But you know what's happened?

We have too many people in the room. It's too hot. It's too hot in the room. I need to tell Bill. So we're going to have to go with the handout. Hopefully you guys have your handout. Maybe that's hot air. Hopefully it's good hot air. If you look on page 16, chart 16, the next part of that says, this is a favorite of Paul. And actually, I counted up a brief count in Colossians. I got about 18 times. But let me just tell you the variations I found. I didn't put it on the chart.

We have in Christ was about, 6 or 7 times, in him 6 or 7 times, in Christ about 4 or 5 times, hidden with Christ, that's another variation of that, that's just one verse only, in you, meaning in Christ, with him, with Christ, so there's a bunch of variations of that. If you're going to truly count up the times when you express this living union, you have to count all those variations, if you will.

So at the bottom of chart 16 it says, these in Christ statements about believers are called positional truths. I actually have only two charts to go, so we're in luck here. The next one is just really a cool chart. At the very bottom I have Macaulay's definition of positional truth. I actually have not seen that before. I discovered it in Ephesians and I decided to repeat it again. The other five statements on top are just ones that we've kind of learned here at Holly Hills, if you will.

Positional truths. Positional truths are described. This is the top of 17. Positional truths describe our living union with Christ. Positional truths describe our new history in Christ. Positional truth is never changed nor is ever lost. Positional truth is discovered only in the word of God. Positional truth is independent of our feelings and emotions. Boy, all those are pondering statements. Very important. I love McCauley. His definition is the body of truth that tells us of the facts and significance of our union with Christ.

I don't think you can overstate that too many times because there are so many statements that would have you think to the contrary. I think you can't repeat that too many times. Anything else you want to add? I'm going to go down the last chart, which is 18. And that's just the very last statement.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father. And if you notice, you'll find that Paul in all his epistles, he'll use grace and peace to you. He uses that in all 13 of his epistles. And it's always grace first and then peace. So I kind of summarize that once we come to understand God's grace, we can be at peace about our relationship with him. So I think that's what it's all about. But think about that. How long is it going to take us to understand his grace?

So in some ways You know, to be honest with ourselves, we should be, but we're not always at peace. We should be, but we're not. And that's just the way we are. We're not the glory yet. Grace is something that the world, and really most of Christendom, has no clue about what God's grace really is. Absolutely. Because it was totally unmerited. I mean, we, by His grace, are saved. And through nothing we did. Absolutely. And that's a hard thing for the world. It is. Because man wants to say, I did something here, didn't I? I participated. I participated.

This is Paul's favorite phrase. In Christ's statement about the believers are called positional truth. describes our living union with Christ, describes our new history, never changes nor is lost, is discovered only in the word of God, is independent of our feelings and emotions. And then lastly, a body of truth that tells us about the facts and significance of our union. I could add it to our living union with Christ. I have my little part in that. And then the last part.

Always grace first and peace. So as we come to understand grace, we can be at peace in our relationship with him. It's in all 13 of his epistles. So it's going to be a neat, I think it's going to take us, it depends upon how many How many snowstorms and how many breaks we have in here. We tend to take breaks for different reasons. I think it's probably the rest of the year. Other thoughts or comments? Randy? I verified that Cagios is used most.

Good. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Actually, isn't it amazing today? I'm always challenged many times. Author make a statement and you say, you know, you most how you trust these authors. But it's good to verify it. You know, I verified that. So that's that's cool. That's OK. Let's close in.

Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have, Father. We thank you for our time in Ephesians, Lord. We pray as the class goes forward, we learn the marvelous truths about our Savior and about our wonderful living union with Him, Father. Thank you for this time.