Colossians - Review
Colossians · Roger Henderson · Oct 20, 2019
Colossians (2019), No. 34
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926191637111

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Next week we're going to start on the 27th down through the 15th. We're going to look at Dr. Chaffers, Lewis Barry Chaffers, from his Systematic Theology. There's a wonderful section in there that talks about the riches of God's grace. I'm going to do an intro on that. It's amazing. He put together these. We refer to him here a lot. We have several classes that we've taught in the past.

He enumerates the things that are true of every believer, that we've been redeemed of God, out of all condemnation, related to God through propitiation, and so on, born again. And he came up with 33, but if you look at his list, it actually is probably greater than 33, and people have, you know, conjectured there's more than that. But he lists 33. There's at least 33.

So we're going to look at some of those. I just chose some that looked, you know, All of us are going to teach, Bob and Andrew and myself are all going to teach through the rest of the year. Then we will have a couple of weeks off. We are talking about, Bob suggested 1st Peter, 1st and 2nd Peter for next year. If you guys have some thoughts, that is our first meeting. thing we're thinking about.

It isn't cast in stone, but that's what we're thinking about. So the riches of God's grace finishes on the 13th? Correct. That will be the last topic. There's actually 33 of them, and we're only going to cover, what, 8 of them or something like that. If I could count there. So that's the plan. Okay, so we're just going to kind of go through.

So I'm going to use Macaulay's, one of the three M's. I talk about the three M's, Macaulay, Malloy, and Merriman. And we use those a lot at Holly Hills. Anyway, Macaulay is really great. I think his outlines of Bible books are just incredible, so I like to use them. We're going to go through.

He actually has this book divided into 12 sections. The first is a greeting. verses 1 through 2 in chapter 1. Then Thanksgiving for the Colossians 3 through 8. Prayer for the Colossians 9 through 14. As you know, you start digging into these sections and there's wonderful truths about the Christian life. Wonderful truths about every believer in the Lord Jesus. These are titles and they don't convey the full depth. We're going to dive into those.

The person of Jesus Christ. and then the work of Jesus Christ. Remember I talked about before you can look through scripture and you can see that the person of Christ is described that he's truly God and his attributes and then we see his work and that work is related to his death on the cross that's what's called the and actually when a person comes to faith we often say that he needs to believe in the person who Christ is and his work We're going to cover parts of those in the questions here.

Then he has his threat to our relationship to Christ, 4-8. The glory of our relationship to Christ. Then he has our relationship to Christ. Our outward life. Our family life. That's where we talk about husbands, wives, children and so on. Master, slave. and then Paul's parting words in two sections. We spent quite a bit of time, more so than most books, looking through Paul's personal friends.

Actually, I have a question. Think about, as we get going here, at the very end, if we don't make it there, try to count up how many people he gives a shout-out to. I'll give a shout-out to Joe. Actually, it's quite a few. I think it's more than any other book. I haven't actually counted every other book, but it looks like to me, there's actually quite a few. Someone read just the introduction.

This is verse 2? 1 and 2? 1 and 2 will be fine, sure. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you from God our Father. Okay. So actually, I taught this section, verses 1 and 2, back in February. And actually, I spent quite a bit of time on the second verse, especially the phrase, the faithful in Christ. And if you've been around Holly Hills for a while, you know that we pay particular attention to that preposition with, in front of Christ, in Christ. And so I have some questions that relate to that.

First one, what does it mean to be in Christ? What I did, when I put the questions together, I just sat down, I wrote the questions down, not even knowing the answer necessarily. I didn't try to, well I'm going to think up the answer, I just tried to think, well, what's a question I might have? What does it mean to be in Christ? What does that mean?

In the body. Okay. Or in the union. Okay. Faith in Christ, being crucified and buried. Okay, okay. Alright. Well, basically, we're in this... Christ is living, right? So it's a living union. I like to say that we have a... People talk about interactive, that's kind of a big deal. I have interactive access to whatever, the stock market. Well, we have interactive access to the God of the universe, because we have His Word and we have the Holy Spirit.

So, this being in Christ means that we're in this living relationship with Him, in this living union with Him. And the Bible describes that in various ways. And that's my next question. What are some similar prepositions and nouns that go together that mean the same thing? And this isn't hard. This thing is called pronouns. So can you think of a pronoun with the same idea? Tom? We are His. With Him? Okay, how about in Him? There's a pronoun, right?

So there's actually a bunch. There's in Him, with Him, in you, sometimes it says. Catholic of the Context, with Him, with Christ. So there's just a whole bunch. And Paul uses a lot of them in Colossians and a lot of them in his writings. And it's kind of good to kind of look for those and you say, oh, he's talking about my living union with the Savior. He is talking about what I have in the Savior. So if you are looking for that combination in Christ, in Him, and so on, it helps you to understand the passage many times.

This is all basic stuff. Holly Hill's 101, I'm going to call it. What kind of truth do we say this is about being in Christ and so on? Positional. Okay, you guys see? Boy, you got three easy ones. You got three points already and we're, you know, we just... Okay, good deal.

Can we become out of Christ as a believer? No. Okay. And why is that so? Well, I think that John 17, We are in Christ as He is in the Father. Can He ever be out of the Father? Right. Excellent. I like that. Can you think of a situation where the Father and the Son are going to get separated? That's an impossibility. Go ahead. I think of John 10. No man can pluck us out of the Father's hands.

Okay. That's great. That's great. Good. Okay. OK, and then I said, this is kind of late, can you define a positional truth? Actually, McCauley actually takes a stab at that. He actually, if you listen to his tape, I have it written down, I wrote it down in the notes in the first class. And just give me your working definition.

Go for it, Tom. Each one of us, day to day, is in touch with Christ, whether just saying grace before meals or just abiding in Him moment by moment. So that's true along because He is with us, though maybe out of fellowship at certain moments and then we have to reconcile, but that's part of the basic truth. Okay, okay. Other thoughts?

Going back to the previous point, Romans 8.28, nothing can separate us. Excellent, excellent.

This is a test, you realize, and you get to keep score and write down on your paper, if you have a handout, you get a point for every question you answer right. And you get to decide if he answered it right. Could you contrast positional truth with the other kind of truth, which we call conditional truth? What's the difference between positional truth and conditional truth? Maybe that's a better way to get a good definition.

It's conditional, but it's permanent. Good. Excellent. Someone else? Positional truth is something that we didn't do. It's something that Christ did for us. Excellent. Excellent. Those are all, you know, you could build up a massive thing. Keep going. Other aspects of this? In conditional truth you can fall out of grace, but you cannot in positional. Right. Okay. Fall out of fellowship. Okay. Others? I'll give you Macaulay. I have Macaulay's written. Macaulay actually has a definition. We like his definitions for different things. It's actually in the very first class. It's in the notes for the very first class. And I can get that for you if you want. I'll read it here in just a second.

Other things to add to positional truth? Go ahead, Roy. Going in that same direction you just went, position versus position. position is God's view of us, and condition is our view of us. Good. Excellent. You know, most of the time we should look at it from God's perspective. Right. No, that's true. Actually, I think that's where we kind of go down the wrong path. Sometimes we start looking at ourselves too much, and we forget. We're studying on Tuesday Genesis, and we're reading about Abraham. This is the one where Abraham passes his wife off as his sister. Just before that, God has made a covenant with Abraham. Abraham has built several altars to the Lord. And just right after that, boom! Well, we've got to go down to Egypt. We're starving.

I'm not saying that wasn't maybe a good idea. It's unclear why in the world he would ever want to pass his wife off as his sister. Some have said that there was a cultural thing there. I don't know. A sister-wife thing. I don't know. I had to explain that.

But I was just thinking, isn't it just like, man, we have promises from God and then things come up and we get so engrossed in that. you know, we go off the other direction. I also think about how my condition is that I'm stuck with my sin nature. Okay. And so it's like until I leave this earth, I will always have this, it's almost like a medical condition.

I hear what you're saying. Obviously, God has told us, He's given us some remedies for that. Absolutely. You know a lot of those already. Sometimes when I'm on the highway, I'm really cursing at someone. Why am I doing this? I often thought that. Why am I doing this? Anyway, it kind of feels good at the moment. Go ahead.

I think the missional truth is all that's true of us of being in Christ. Excellent. Okay, and with that note, you and Macaulay are on the same line here. Macaulay says it's a body of truth that tells us of the facts and significance of our union with Christ. I'll read it again. The body of truth that tells us of the facts and significance of our union with Christ. That was a pretty cool quote.

Go ahead. According to Genesis, my student. Yeah. Also cross-referencing with Chad. Any time the covenant was given, there were difficult times after that year. I hadn't actually looked at that. That's a good point. Joseph. I mean, yeah. He had all these things that he had to experience. He was on track. had a lot of native things all the way up until chapter 40 when things started to turn around for him. But just because we are in God's will doesn't mean everything is a bed of roses. That's true. And he said, don't be surprised when all kinds of trials and tribulations...

And there will be. And there are. Okay. Alright, great. Well, this rate will never finish, Cecil. OK. Which is OK. All right. So let's go pulse. Some of these here. I just decided this section three through eight. There's some there's some cool things in there, but I decided just in the interest of time.

He gives thanks. We give thanks to God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ. Praying for your all. If you read the rest of it, it says, Since we heard of your faith. Remember, Paul is not present with the Colossians. He has the men he sent out to the Colossians. So he's hearing this from those men. And he's thanking God for their faith that he hears about them. Then he has a prayer for the Colossians in 9-14.

So I just kind of chose this part of the verse, 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. Okay, so now it's going to make you work a little bit. What purpose does Paul give for his prayer in verse 10? So you have to look in your Bibles. And then tell me what purpose you see for his prayer.

To grow in the knowledge of the Lord. I found there's actually four things in verse 10. Anybody see four things in there? Can they talk about the four things you see in verse 10? So, living a worthy life. Now this is verse 10. So it's in your Bible, not on this overhead. So we see that you may walk in a manner worthy, please Him right, bearing fruit, and increasing in the knowledge of God. So four things kind of show up in verse 10 there.

Alright. So let's go on to verse 13. Can somebody read verse 13 for me? who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. I'm sorry, and fourteen, excuse me. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Right, okay. Okay, so this is an easy one. What were we rescued from and transferred to? It's right in the verse, right? Rescued from darkness, transferred to the kingdom of his beloved son. What things do we have in him?

This is looking more at verse 14. And this is an interesting one. Actually, I didn't teach this one, and I'd actually forgotten some of the things that were said. So what thing does this verse 14 talk about? Or what thing does it talk about? Forgiveness. Okay.

Isn't it interesting how it says it kind of links redemption and forgiveness? That's kind of interesting. Redemption, if you look at all the words, it's the idea that if you redeem something, if you go like a pawnbroker and you pawn something and you buy it back, That's the idea. Redemption is used a lot with that picture of the slave market. We've been bought out of the slave market. But he kind of connects it here.

We have redemption, the forgiveness of sin. It's kind of neat that God redeemed us. He redeemed us for a purpose. Our forgiveness of sins is based upon our redemption. Let me flip it around the other way. He didn't just say, your sins are forgiven. He bought us out. He paid the price for us. And then he could say, the forgiveness of sins. I thought that was kind of neat. Okay. This is a cool one. This is really neat. So I'm going to read 15 through 18.

And he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself might come to have first place in everything. Yeah, great.

This is the most compact description of our Savior. Who He is and what He is like. So the first question sounds kind of funny. What does the invisible God look like? Amen. But actually, you know, you say, wait a minute, he just said I'm invisible, but then in other scriptures it says, if you see me, you see the Father. Well, yeah, I guess, you know, we can see him, you know, Christ was visible.

Cool, okay. What does the firstborn of all creation mean? And some of these can be kind of tough and you have to spend some time. Well because he was crucified not just for us but for the universe that God created but most importantly for us of course. And so that's one connection. Go ahead. Okay, alright. Any other thoughts?

He always was. If man was created in His image, He must have existed before man. How about this deduction? Since Christ always has been, this must have a different meaning than birth and time, right? Because He didn't have a birth and time. He always was. If you look at it that way, you say this must be referring to something else. It can't mean that He was the first He didn't have a birth. I'm the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He always will and always has been. So it has a different meaning. So what are your thoughts on what meaning... What's trying to be conveyed here? He's first of the new creation. Okay, that's very true. That's very true. Very true. He's preeminent. Right, okay. That's very good.

Actually, we're going to see that show up a little bit later. There's a verse in Psalms that talks about about firstborn and talks about the highest of the kings of the earth. Sometimes you'll say it's first in rank. Since he'll be the first of the new kind of man, he's the firstborn of all creation.

There's actually more I could probably do with that. Other thoughts that you might have? And all creation, does that mean the new creation? Well, that's a good question. That's a good question. You're focused on all. Yeah, all means all. But I was thinking of creation, too. I get it. Yeah. And we're going to see that idea of the fact that he comes up here in just a minute. Okay. Tom? When you said that, it reminded me of a J. Vernon McGee pet phrase. All means all. All, all, it. Okay. Well, if I remember correctly, that word is PAS, P-A-S in the Greek, and it means there's no exceptions. It's totally inclusive. All means all. It's everything. Okay, so here I kind of use a different word here.

If you look carefully, so what are all the realms of creation here? I'm looking at verse 16. I'm calling them realms, but I'm not sure that's the best word. So what do you see in 16? Keep going. Thrones, Dominions, Rulers, Authorities. So basically, this talks about the magnitude. By Him, all things were created. This whole, everything we see. He delineates it, right? Heavens, Earth, visible, invisible, thrones or dominions, rulers and authorities. Pretty amazing.

So in King James they put a colon after creature on 15 which makes it look like the definition of that is 16. Interesting, first one of all creation. which would mean that that's being defined by what follows. So rather than a period, you have a colon. Well, if you go back to the first in rank, he is a preeminent one. And this defines what he did. And that's not bad. That's good. OK. Just what you already said. All right. Good. I got two for one here.

How and why were all things created? I tried to make the answer be in the verse. So it should tell us the answer, right? How and why were all things created? Perfect. A lot of prepositions. We spent some time with this, I think. Some of those are They can be translated differently a little bit, but I'm just going to stick with what's out there. So we have by him, through him, for him. I mean he is the total, it was his total work.

What does it mean that he is before all things? And this is very similar to the firstborn thing, I believe. So what does that mean? Because before even atomic beings existed, he created that. Right. If he is before time, man in our time we have here, he is before all things. What about the angels? Come here, I'm going to create stuff. Stuff? What's stuff? I watch and see. He did read the Angels too. Yes, he did read the Angels too. Okay, alright.

Well, I think we all heard jokes where somebody says, you know, like, I don't know. talking about, you know, God creates, you know, out of nothing. He starts with nothing and he speaks it. So, man has to have, you know, give me some raw materials. Well, if you're going to have a fair deal with God, you got to start from nothing. Try that sometime, you know. Have no raw materials and create something. Go ahead. Well, I heard somebody say in a cartoon or something where they were saying there was going to be a contest between God and all of what man has come up with. God says, OK, we can create. We can create. And so I said, fine.

So they go over and grab some soil. I said, no. Go get your own soil. Yes, I know. I know. I think that's what I heard, too. And actually, it's good. It's a reality. It is. It's good to think about that. It's mind-boggling. Well, first it's mind-boggling that eternity is mind-boggling. That He always existed. It just seems like, well, there's got to be... No, God has always existed. And that's just...

Actually, what I like, Chafer, maybe I'll print this out, but in the Riches of God's Grace, he starts off in that first beginning section. He goes through and he lists all the things that are obvious about God. God never forgets. God's never sorry. We do things, God doesn't have those. He doesn't have any of those.

How are all things held together? He holds them together, right? Sorry, go ahead. Just a thought, this is in the context of principalities and powers. So not only the material, but also the organization of the created beings is held together by him. I know, interesting. You know, when he died on the cross, there was that moment of separation.

The earth shook. Can you imagine why? I don't think it was just an earthquake. It was everything. Being together was impacted by it. And that presents kind of a dilemma, right? First of all, how can God die? There's just so many things your mind just goes... But he had to die as a God-man. He had to die. So there's all kinds of things that are just so hard to get your hands around.

The last couple ones are pretty good. Who's the head of the church? Christ is the head of the church. And then the last one. Yeah, and this is the one we just talked about. What does it mean to be first born from the dead? And this is talking about the new creation. He's the first kind of this new man. He has a body. He was given a resurrected body as we'll be given. Okay, the work of Christ. Could someone read these verses here? 19 and 20?

For it was God's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross. Through him I save whether things on earth or things in heaven. Good, thank you. What does it mean to have all the fullness dwell in him? Do you mean His deity? Well, that's kind of the direction I went. It shows that He is God. There's nothing lacking in Christ that God didn't have. They have different functions, if you will. The Father sent the Son, and so on. And then the Son sent the Spirit. Or when the Spirit left. I mean, when the Son left, the Spirit came. Yeah, that's what I think.

How did the blood of the cross make peace? Some of these are pretty... The penalty of sin is death. And the life of the flesh is the blood. When He poured out His blood, He poured out His life. That's good. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. It's just a lot of verses One only his blood would give.

Right, exactly. And then also that he was satisfied with it. Appreciation. So it was completed. Big suitcase words. What's that? Big suitcase words. Yes, right. Okay, alright. Okay, here's the next little section. A couple verses here. That their hearts may be encouraged having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. This is a really neat verse. Remind me, I haven't actually spent enough time on it.

What does a full assurance of understanding mean? It says here that we have attained to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding. It's going to take eternity to get that full assurance of understanding because God is infinite. Does it also indicate the completion we have to the word full assurance that it's everything you need is there in the word or is that a little bit.

Let's look at the second question here before we answer this one. OK. It's coming down here to talk about the fact that first of all it points out that attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery that is Christ himself. So the full assurance says that we shouldn't go looking for knowledge outside of Christ, I mean about God. He is the ultimate of understanding and assurance that if we know Christ we can be assured that we are heading the right path. Then it talks about the fact that in whom in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. to counteract the night it was.

It was. And I haven't really actually Andrew and Bob probably did more than on that line. And also to me a point, which is in the beginning, God comes in the earth. That's not debatable. I mean, you either believe or you don't. Right. Right. And so it's it's there. Yeah, go ahead Wayne. Could you say the full assurance is the Holy Spirit? The place of the Holy Spirit for that? Did you jump to chapter 2? Yes, you did.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Actually, I should have been reading that. I apologize. Sorry, Roy. I know, I know, I know. The problem is here, it was too much to put every verse. So I just kind of, I picked out sections I thought were really cool. And so this is an amazing section and I feel like I it deserves a lot more study.

We went through it before and I just... Let's just look at for a second the wisdom and knowledge thing. I had some notes here that wisdom is called genuine truth and knowledge is called genuine understanding. I don't know, that didn't help me a lot. I look up the words and you know... But I feel like you can know something But it's not really applicable. But then when you have wisdom, it's okay, now you know this thing in and out. You're living your life through that knowledge. Right. Well, genuine truth is a tool kit. Genuine understanding is putting the tools to work and taking it in. Right.

Well, it seems like knowledge follows wisdom. If you're wise, then you'll use that wisdom that will affect your knowledge. Peter says to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour. So he uses the word knowledge there. And I think that leads towards wisdom. There's a phrase back here that says it, knowledge then wisdom.

Colossians is actually a pretty amazing book and we've been through it, we've spent all this time and we've been through these verses and I come back and look again and say, did we really understand these verses? And I don't know, there's a lot more to understand certainly. Yeah, go ahead, Roy.

One of the best definitions I've heard for wisdom is, it isn't just the knowledge that we have, but it's the correct application or use of that knowledge. We can know an awful lot of things, but how to use it is wisdom. In the Greek, knowledge is gnosis, and the other can't be gnosis, which is kind of a Greek.

Knowledge applied, right. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Could I also say, go back to verse 9 of chapter 1. is like a parallel to what we just looked at. Knowledge is based on a spiritual perspective. It isn't just based on a human, physical perspective. True, okay. Yeah, that's good. Okay, well. We have that all cleared up.

Okay, so we're in chapter two now, four through eight. There's actually too many good sections in this book. Okay, and this is one of my favorites, this first part of this. Okay, could someone read six through, I actually didn't do all six through eight.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world, rather than on Christ. Great, great, fantastic.

I know, I was thinking about fake news. I know, that's all we hear. And we see. Okay, first question. What's that? Right, okay. Okay, how did you receive Christ? This is easy. One word answer. And the answer to the next one is a one word answer too. I like the thing in Sunday school, you ever talk to Sunday school kids? They say, well, how was Sunday school? Talk to them about that.

Well, I just said Jesus for every question, and that was the right answer. Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. So we received Him by faith, we are to walk by faith. But now he is going to give us some details here about our faith and understanding. He says, having been firmly rooted, can the rooting be changed? Obviously no. Okay, this gets a little stickier. Which one is position? Which one is condition?

Who is doing the building up in him? And actually, what I don't have here is what we'd have if I was teaching that. I'd find out the verb tenses and we could say, oh, we have some more information. We're just doing it from, and actually I didn't look it up. Who's doing the building up? What does it appear from this? Who's doing the building up? Just from how it reads. I guess the proper word, mortar to the bridge. Right.

Well, kind of following the flow of this verse, if you look at this, it says, and now being built up in him. So it seems like being is something that's, you know, that's happening to you. And the fact that we saw that it took faith to receive Christ, to walk with Christ, your part in building up is to exercise faith in Him. And the building up will happen as a result of your faith and walking with Him. Just as you were instructed. Right, exactly. Thank you. We're going to get there.

So then it says, after being built up in Him, established in your faith. I put being in there, and it just has established in your faith. So you think that's, is that established in your faith something that happens once you believe? Or is that something that, I have it like it's being, you're being acted upon and you're becoming established as you trust Him and walk with Him. You've taken it to be passive. Is that what you're saying?

Well, that's why I wrote the question, but looking at it, it says, and establishing your faith. It says, and now being built up, and establishing your faith. You might say strengthened. Right, yeah, actually the word established, I was going to say that word is actually strengthened or fixed or stable.

And it would seem to me that you can't We can't make ourselves stable. I'm going to be stable. That's a fruitless effort. But we can trust the one who is stable, who is unchanging, and as he lives through us, we can be established or stable. So I would take it that we're being built up, we're being stabilized, if you will.

Well, if you think about it in the context of traditions of men and of the world, and here you are by yourself. I think about when I was in New York by myself, like I'm a Christian, I'm living there by myself, and I'm doing my best, but you're more firmly rooted and stronger when you're in your community.

Right, right. Because the world, you know, when you're by yourself, it's hard. It is. It is. Very true. And if they're dealing with, in their city, Gnosticism. Right. Things that people are telling them, right. Yeah. But that's a place where you can grow also. Absolutely. And you can often grow more there. Well, and I think it's sort of pointing to that, isn't it? Yep. And actually, I think part of this will be answered by the next little phrase.

What is our response to be to all these things? So if you read seven, and having been firmly rooted, now being built up in Him, established or strengthened in your faith, and then as Roy pointed out, as you were instructed, so we have God's Word which instructs us, our response then is the last part, overflowing with gratitude, right?

Because we see that God is at work. We see that He is working on our behalf. And we can be at rest about that. Even though there are difficulties, we can be at rest. God is working. He is working through these difficulties to show Christ. And you have to be an active participant and not being held captive. Right. And I think it starts off at the beginning. He is trying to show a train here.

You came into the Christian life by faith, you walk by faith, and then he's going to continue that. Your contribution to this is faith. You're not, I'm strong in myself, you're not instructing yourself, just as you were instructed. Your part is to be thankful, to be overflowing with gratitude.

I've got King James. Probably totally different, right? Because the part in the faith, it says in the faith. So isn't that, there's two different things. There's your personal faith and there's the faith, the faith, the faith. Right, yes, the body of truth about, yes. So where does yours have, oh it says, oh in your, it doesn't have your in there, it just says in faith? In the faith, like the article. Mine says in the faith too.

Which would mean everything that is true. It would be the total body. But I do think it's different because it's not just your faith and we have faith, that's true, but there is a faith that is more than you. In this case, it personalizes. In the King James, it has a body of truth about our Savior. I can make an argument for either one.

I like the flow of that and how it gets down to the bottom line and your contribution is faith plus thankfulness. I mean, that's it. That's a beautiful flow. It's just so beautiful. Well, let's just do the last part and we'll call it quits here. Anyway, so the last part is pretty apropos of today. Boy, it's just in today's world.

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophies and empty deceptions. Okay, and two things are stated about it. according to the traditions of men, to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. So, what two things, look up, it says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophies as one and empty deception. So, there are plenty of philosophies out there, and there are plenty of empty deceptions out there.

Even in the church! Amen! So, they abound. But the cool part I like here is that there is a contrast here. It says, the bottom line is, you want to be according to Christ. But it has according to two other things. According to the traditions of men, or, and, according to the elementary principles of the world. So you have what man is saying, and then the principles of the world. I would say it's probably the world system.

And this fits very well with the Colossians issue with the people, the Gnostics they were encountering. And it fits very well with today. There's plenty of philosophies, plenty of empty deceptions. Things that look good, but are empty. There's nothing behind them. Traditions of men. This is just so beautiful. For in Him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And in Him you have been made complete.

He is head over all rule and authority, and in Him you were also circumcised, the circumcision made without hands, and the removal of the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Have you been buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead? When you were dead in the transgressions and on the circumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him. having forgiven us all our transgressions.

Just one thing, as you go through here, the thing about circumcision comes up. The way I like to look at it is that in this case it's talking about being freed from our sin nature, being cut loose from our sin nature. That's how circumcision, in this case, you also circumcise With a circumcision made without hands, you were separated from your sin. The removal of the body of flesh, the sin nature, it's not removed, but you're cut loose from it. And it talks about being buried with Him and being raised up with Him. When Christ was buried, we were buried. When Christ was raised, we were raised.

So you get to grade yourself. You all did great. You really did great. That was really good. So let's close. We thank you so much, Father. We thank you for this day, Lord. Thank you for the marvelous Book of Colossians, Father. There's just so much there. Some things that we go over and then we come back. It's hard to remember exactly all the details. We know that as we look to You, Father, we walk by faith. We look to Your Word. The Holy Spirit shows us the things of Christ. We thank You so much for that. We ask it in His name. Amen.