The Grace of God in Truth | Part 2
Download MP3If you would open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2. And we'll begin reading in verse 6. Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in Thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.
Joel Brooks:For in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is ahead of all rule and authority. In him also, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith and the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Joel Brooks:He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them and him. Pray with me. Lord, these are very dense words and phrases we have just read. They are packed full of meaning. And Lord, we don't have the ability on our own to comprehend these things.
Joel Brooks:And so we ask that your spirit, he would come and he would open up our hearts and he would open up our minds to receive this. Lord, I pray that you would give me great clarity and conviction. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they hit their mark. And we pray this in a strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. We're taking just a few weeks before Easter, to take a brief look at Paul's letter to the Colossians. We are not doing a, a verse by verse study through the whole book. I reserve that privilege for later. We're, we're just going to take a look at a couple of chapters in particular concerning the death and the resurrection of Jesus as we lead up to Easter.
Joel Brooks:And the passage that we looked at tonight has a special significance for me. I've shared this story before and I'll just share it briefly. Kind of a defining moment for me came from this passage we just read. And it was when I was in college, I was a senior, I was at a retreat, for for college ministries, and a lady got up and she preached just total, I don't feel bad about saying heresy. It was just horrible.
Joel Brooks:She kept preaching there were many, many ways to God. That Buddha was a way, that Confucius was a way, that Hinduism was a way, that that Jesus is just one of the many ways in which we can, we can get to heaven. And and I remember just sitting there and just just going crazy. So, I I just couldn't take this anymore and and so as she was beginning to to wrap things up, I almost had an out of body experience except I was in the body and I had gotten up and I'd walking down, walked down the aisle and I got up on stage and I stood next to her, to which she said, would would you like to say anything? And I said, yeah.
Joel Brooks:Yes, I would. And I hadn't thought it through. And so I'm there, and all of a sudden I have this this really large audience, and I hadn't thought it through. And I just opened my Bible and God led me to Colossians chapter 2 verses 6 through 16. It's what I read.
Joel Brooks:And it could not have been more perfect to remember last week as as Jeff talked about chapter 1, he talked about when the controversies that was hitting the church and how they were beginning to think that Jesus was just one way, that he was just a possible mediator, but that there were others, there were other spiritual beings, there were other angelic powers that you can also seek if you wanted to reach God. And Paul says, not at all. And he says, don't be deceived. Don't be kidnapped is the word he uses. Don't be kidnapped by those hollow words.
Joel Brooks:And so I read this and if you notice it talks about the centrality of Christ and everything. It's in him and him and him and him over and over and over that Christ is absolutely central. To everything. And Jeff preached out last week that from Jesus and through Jesus and to Jesus are all things. And now I want us to just kind of take time and to slowly unpack these 11 verses.
Joel Brooks:Let's look at verse 6. It says, therefore as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. This, this one verse is packed. Every single word is of huge importance here. When you read Christ Jesus the Lord, first off, I want you to understand that that phrase is not found anywhere else in the Bible.
Joel Brooks:Not in that order. Christ Jesus, the Lord. You're not going to find that sequence. And actually, it is the Christ Jesus, the Lord. And he uses it for a reason.
Joel Brooks:If you, if you want to understand why Paul uses this particular phrase, you're not to go back 2000 years. Imagine yourself in a 1st century church. They're not meeting in a beautiful auditorium like this. They're likely either meeting in homes or possibly the catacombs. Many Christians would have to to meet in secret, scared of persecution.
Joel Brooks:And so imagine yourself there, and and you're surrounded, look around, and there's there's Jews, and there's Gentiles, there's rich, and there's poor. There's men, and there's women. There's all these different classes of society there. And it's a beautiful thing. You're not going to find a group like that anywhere else.
Joel Brooks:And they're all there united under the banner of Christ Jesus the Lord. And if you want to join this group, if you want to become part of the church, if you want to become a Christian, you would get up in front of everyone and you would say these words, and only these words, Christ Jesus is Lord. Christ Jesus is Lord. You would profess that. And the moment you profess that, you put your life in immediate danger.
Joel Brooks:Because if you're living in the Roman Empire, there can be only one Lord, and that is Caesar. And you just said, no, Caesar is not Lord. Natural forces are not Lord. I'm acknowledging that King Jesus Christ Jesus is Lord. And in a way you've kind of committed treason.
Joel Brooks:You're pledging your allegiance to another, and so immediately you are in danger. And so this would not be a decision that you would make on a whim. Yeah. I think I'll do that. You know, this wasn't a, hey, let's just kind of walk down the aisle because it feels good.
Joel Brooks:Gonna do that. This is this is not a, you know, every every head bow, you know, and will every every eye close, and you just you just got to lift a finger. Just lift a finger. Nobody's got to see it. Christ Jesus is Lord.
Joel Brooks:And if you cannot say it publicly there, you're not gonna say it publicly elsewhere. It was a proclamation. It was it was a life altering moment when people acknowledge Jesus as lord, when they made this confession. And I want you to notice a couple of things here. If you were to make that confession, Christ Jesus is Lord, understand that you are not making him Lord.
Joel Brooks:You're, you're not making him Lord. You are simply acknowledging Jesus as lordship. We don't make Jesus anything. And I know that we can use that language that we make him our Lord and understand that. I think at times it can be misleading though, when we, when we say we have made him our Lord.
Joel Brooks:You know, I've heard the question a number of times. Have, have you, have you made Jesus your Lord? As if he's some kind of politician, you know, who's who's seeking an office and he's he's out campaigning for votes and it's only after he has received enough votes, only after enough people have have checked him off, then he is he is made your president, or he has made your mayor. And so the gospels in danger of doing that. Or people who proclaim the gospel.
Joel Brooks:I found when I listen to a lot of modern preaching, it's not so much proclaiming, a lot of it is campaigning. It's what it is. There's no longer this proclamation, Jesus is Lord. It is, hey, let let me try to win your vote. Okay?
Joel Brooks:Jesus can give you peace. Jesus can give you forgiveness. Jesus, he can heal you. Let's make some more campaign promises here. And come on, join on.
Joel Brooks:Join the bandwagon. And it's not that those things are wrong. There's Jesus can hear me. Jesus can heal your heart. Jesus can give you joy.
Joel Brooks:Jesus can bring you forgiveness. He can do those things. But you have to understand that he's Lord regardless of whether you vote for him. Whether you accept him or not, he is King over every King. He is Lord over every nation.
Joel Brooks:He's the center of the universe. He upholds all things together apart from your decision. Saying that we, we make Jesus Lord is kind of like saying we make gravity by saying it's gravity. You don't make something gravity. You can acknowledge gravity and you can yield to gravity, but you don't vote for gravity.
Joel Brooks:How many people here would like gravity? You know, it's gravity is a fact yield to it. And it's only in an age that so, praises individualism and personal freedom will, will something like that ever even percolate up? I mean, I mean, gosh, now you, you know, your vote, I'm just realizing you watch any TV now and everybody wants you to vote. Everybody wants your opinion, you know, next American Idol, you know, text it in.
Joel Brooks:You know, you're, you're even watching the news and there's things scrolling. You know, do you think president, President Obama should be president? You know, just, do you, everybody gotta vote in. Tell if, if you think it's true or not. And so we're, we're kind of used to this and it's translated over into how we think of the Lordship of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Modern Christianity, I'd say it's even put a divide between Jesus as savior and Jesus as Lord. Somehow, somehow we've made this divide into where you can have these 2 different things. And so it's not uncommon to hear someone say, you know, I, I accepted Jesus as my savior when I was 7, and I made him my Lord when I was 17. Or perhaps one might say, you know, I know, I know you accepted Jesus as savior, but have you ever made him Lord of your life? If, if Paul were to hear a question like that, I'm not sure there would be a place in his brain that he could even file that, that it could even register.
Joel Brooks:But you'd be like, what do you mean? Make savior, but not make Lord? I mean, it just, he, there was not a place to file that for him. So, so hear me. Jesus cannot be your savior.
Joel Brooks:He cannot save you unless He is Lord. Unless he is Lord. Unless he has the power to conquer sin and death, He can't save you. This this morning, I was struggling as I was, working through this, trying to put this on paper. And, and so I decided to just abandon Colossians and read through the book of Mark.
Joel Brooks:That was my preparation. I read through the book of Mark, takes about 2 hours. So I'm gonna find a way to work Mark in here into this message. But, if if you read through Mark, you can so clearly see everything yielding to Jesus' power into his lordship. I mean, right off the bat, you, you have human will yielding to him.
Joel Brooks:He just goes to people and says, you, come follow me. He doesn't ask. He says, you come follow me. They get up, follow you, come follow me. They get up, they follow him.
Joel Brooks:He tells evil spirits to leave. They leave. He tells sickness to be gone, it's gone. He tells lepers to be cleansed, they're cleansed. He tells paralyzed people, get up, walk.
Joel Brooks:They walk. He tells a hurricane, be quiet, stay quiet. It's quiet. He tells 5,000 people, be fed. They're fed.
Joel Brooks:He's got absolute authority. He's exercising his lordship over everything, over the traditions of men, over nature, even over death itself. And you walk away from this, you're like, all powers yield to Jesus. He's Lord. There's no other conclusion when you read through that.
Joel Brooks:And so when we say we receive Christ Jesus the Lord, what we're doing is we're recognizing this this marvelous truth that there is Jesus, and he has the power to redeem the world of all of its evil misery. And we submit to his lordship, and we trust him for personal deliverance. That's our only worthy response. So Paul here, he reminds us of the absolute authority of Jesus over everything that we acknowledged at our conversion. This is the Jesus we receive.
Joel Brooks:Alright. So here in verse 6, right. We, we actually have another first. We have another only besides just the particular order of Christ Jesus, the Lord. By the way, I realized like we've probably gone, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes, Well in verse 6 there's another word, receive.
Joel Brooks:Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him. This is the only time Paul ever uses the word receive in regards to a personal object. Normally, Paul would talk about receive the gospel, receive this instruction, you know, receive this letter. But here he says, receive a person. We receive a person.
Joel Brooks:And so what he's saying is here at our conversion, when we acknowledge this, that Christ Jesus is Lord, we're not just receiving new knowledge. At this point, we didn't just gain new facts. And somehow these new facts have changed our life. Now what's what's happening is we are receiving a person at our conversion when we confess these things. We're entering into a relationship.
Joel Brooks:A personal relationship with the Lord of the universe happens at our conversion. And when this happens, our response is just, it's loving service. That's what we do. That's what we devote our lives to. And, let me, let me just divert and state the obvious.
Joel Brooks:I think this is obvious. It should be obvious. But it's often overlooked when you're reading Paul. And he's saying things like this. When, when, when Paul is talking about how great God is, how powerful Jesus is, and he's using all this kind of really fancy language, you know, Colossians 1 was that he's the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation for by him.
Joel Brooks:All things were created in heaven on earth. And he goes on and on. I just want don't don't forget why Paul's doing this. He's doing it because he is absolutely in love with a person. Okay?
Joel Brooks:He's not doing it so he can lecture. He doesn't like just hearing himself talk in these flowery language. He's not just giving information. He is trying to communicate about the God he loves. He absolutely loves and who is so beautiful, he's struggling with words to describe the beauty.
Joel Brooks:He's being driven by love. And don't ever forget about this when you read Paul. And we too have been drawn into this same kind of love relationship and that drives us into obedience. Being a Christian is more than just believing facts. It's not less than believing facts.
Joel Brooks:We do believe in the life, death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but it is more than facts. We receive a person. And then Paul goes on to tell us the type of person we receive. The verse 9 says for in him and Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. This is one of the clearest statements we have in all of the Bible of the deity of Jesus says, you know, the whole fullness, not just the fullness, but the whole fullness of deity dwells in Christ's bodily.
Joel Brooks:So when we receive Jesus, we receive God him self. And then we come to verse 10 and your, your only, your only kind of response you should have is to fall out of your chair with, with gaping mouth, maybe crying glory before you hit the ground. When you read verse 10, that's your only response. I'll be so disappointed if it doesn't happen and you have been filled in him who's the head of all rule and authority. Anybody?
Joel Brooks:I was hopeful. Once again, backtrack verse 9. For in him, in Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells in him, bodily. And now you have been filled in him, who's the head of role. Go go to Ephesians 3.
Joel Brooks:Back. Go back two letters, 2 books, letters to Ephesians chapter 3, and Paul expounds on this idea in a little more detail. When, people, occasionally somebody will ask me, like, hey, what what what can I memorize? Always the first thing I tell him is Ephesians chapter 3. 14 through 21, memorize it.
Joel Brooks:I read through Ephesians chapter 3 every day for a month. It's it's transforming. But before we even read through this, pray with me once again, Lord Jesus, as we come to your word, Holy Spirit, open this up for us. We've got familiarize on familiar pages that might miss some of the most important truths. And so we need you to seize us and to captivate us, and we need you to open up your word to us.
Joel Brooks:Amen. For this reason, I bow my knees before the father, from whom every family in heaven on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. So so just stop right there. Paul is this is a huge prayer. I mean, he's he's bowing down on his knees before his father, and he is he's saying, this is what I pray for, is that you all be strengthened.
Joel Brooks:You need to be strengthened. The Holy Spirit, he needs to come inside of you, and he needs to strengthen you. So that, alright, for this reason, Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Right. So Christ just can't come into your hearts and dwell through faith, unless you're strengthened first.
Joel Brooks:So the Holy Spirit has got to come. He's got to strengthen you to enable you to receive Christ as he comes in to dwell. That you being rooted and grounded in love, it's the same language used in Ephesians 2, may have strength. Once again, he's praying for strength. Now you gotta you gotta get strength again, more strength this time.
Joel Brooks:So so backtrack again. Alright? He's praying that you receive strength just so Christ could come and dwell in your heart by faith, and so begin to grow. But that's not enough. Now he's praying, but we need even more strength.
Joel Brooks:We need even more strength for this. The ability to comprehend with all the saints. I love it. And Paul just goes off. What is the breadth, and the length, and the height, and the depth?
Joel Brooks:And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. So the reason you have to be doubly strengthened is because Paul is asking you to know something you can't know. You're to know a knowledge that surpasses knowledge. So you have to be doubly strengthened. That you may be, so all of this, 14 through here, that you may be, final clause here, Filled with all the fullness of God.
Joel Brooks:Filled with all the fullness of God. You've gotta be converted. You've gotta be strengthened. Christ has gotta come and dwell in you. You've gotta be strengthened again.
Joel Brooks:Why? Because something's coming your way. It's so wonderful you you you can't even comprehend it. Your body would just disintegrate. You've got to be supernaturally held together so you don't just have some breakdown, because the joy that's going to flow in you is going to blow you away.
Joel Brooks:That So God's going to hold you together in order that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. That's what he's talking about in Colossians 2. Colossians 2, when he says we are to be filled. And when you are filled like that, you're not going to go over what is it. You're not gonna try to fill yourself with philosophy, or what is it?
Joel Brooks:Empty deceit, vain deceit, or hollow things? When you're filled with that, you're not gonna be filled with those things. Let's look at how this is possible. How is this relationship? How is this feeling even possible?
Joel Brooks:How can you be filled with such joy as this? Let's look at verse 13, and you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him. Having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside nailing it to the cross. Paul says, we have to look at the cross.
Joel Brooks:You want to, you want to be filled like this. You want to understand this. You'd look at the cross. It's kind of his answer to everything. If I keep looking at the cross, you have to go to the cross.
Joel Brooks:And he talks about this record of debt here. What what is this, you know, verse 14, my canceling, something had to be canceled. This record of debt had to be canceled. And, this record of debt, the best way you could think of it is it's an IOU that we have written to God. Okay.
Joel Brooks:We've written God in IOU. Adam was the first person to write God in IOU. He was supposed to, you know, to do certain things, and and he he fell fell and he sinned, and the result of his sin was all creation came under a curse. Thorns, thistles grow up, work became hard, childbearing became hard, all of this. And and Adam's like, sorry about that.
Joel Brooks:I, I owe you, I owe you, redeemed earth. This it's, I'm good for it God. You know, he gives God an IOU. It's this, it's this record of his debt. And since that's happened, all of us have our own record of debt.
Joel Brooks:We all have given God's I IOUs saying, oh, sorry about that. Sorry about that. Yep. Yep. My bad.
Joel Brooks:My bad. And so he's got a record of this. And since God is our creator and God is our Lord, we owe him perfect obedience. We owe him a righteous life. We don't do these things, and so we just keep getting farther and farther in debt, writing more and more IOUs.
Joel Brooks:So he's got this IOU. And instead of it being paid off, like a little bit paid off this day, you know, we can't ever do that. It's just more and more debt, more and more sin. And so so so my list is like, you know, Joel, once again, you know, today he he wasn't obedient. Joel lied.
Joel Brooks:Joel coveted. Joel lusted. Joel had pride. All these things, and they just keep adding on. That's that's my that's my list there.
Joel Brooks:And Paul says that Jesus takes this list of this IOU, which we haven't paid off in this record of all of our debts. Just think. Take a moment to think of all of our debts. And then Jesus does this with it. He gets it, and he does the exact opposite of what every one of you would do with it.
Joel Brooks:You know what we do with it? We shove it in our face. Those of you who are married know exactly what I'm talking about. You know, next time you get in an argument, you know, it's gonna be a small argument, and you're like, so glad you brought that up, dear. Because I've got a few grievances against you.
Joel Brooks:You did this, you did this, you did this, and you just put it in their face. That's the person we love and are in a covenant relationship with. That's what we would do with such a list. But God doesn't do that. Jesus, he takes this list and he holds his hands out and he has nails driven through it.
Joel Brooks:It's It's nailed to the cross. He doesn't hold it in our face. He puts it on the cross. Yeah, I mean, I love the hymn. I love the hymn, it is well.
Joel Brooks:My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross. And I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. Powerful words right here in Colossians 2.
Joel Brooks:Paul never stops delighting in the cross. It's there our IOU is pain in full. It's there that we begin to receive this fullness of God. He sees the cross as a great triumph and not a failure. Look at verse 15.
Joel Brooks:We are going to make it. We've had to skip a few things, but we're going to make it. He disarmed the rulers and the authorities and he put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. The, the imagery here is out of a victory parade. When a general would go and conquer a city, after he conquered the city, he'd bring back all the spoils to his hometown, bringing it back to Rome.
Joel Brooks:We'll just say brings it back into Rome. And there would be this, this procession, this parade, and the city gates would open up to welcome the general as he came in on his stallion. Everybody rejoicing, singing his praises, and behind him his army would come. And behind this victorious army would come the defeated army in chains. And then after the defeated army came, last of all would be the King of the people they had conquered And he would be beaten down.
Joel Brooks:He would be chained. And as he's walking into the city gates, people would mock him and he would walk up to his public execution. And it was the final humiliation, and that's what Paul is alluding to here. But but he gives it a twist. He says that's what everybody thinks happened to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:You have the greatest power, Rome. The greatest politicians of the day, they they say they parade Jesus forward. They humiliate him. They strip him down and they crucify him. You have the greatest religious powers of the day mocking him.
Joel Brooks:And so all of the powers at be are mocking, and they're crucifying Jesus, and it looks like he is the person at the end. And Paul says, oh no, no, no. He's not. That wasn't his defeat, that was his victory. That the cross the cross was where he defeated sin, and he defeated death.
Joel Brooks:And when people thought they were doing their worst to him, he was bringing about defeat to all those forces. No, no, no, no. Jesus wasn't at the end there. You wanna understand who Jesus is? You you wanna understand what he's talking about here, you go to Psalm 24.
Joel Brooks:The death of Jesus was simply a door he walked through necessary before he ascended into glory. And when he ascended, when he ascended and that he is going into the holy city, this is what he hears. Lift up your heads, oh gates, and be lifted up, oh ancient doors, That the king of glory may come in. Who is this king of glory? He's the Lord, strong and mighty.
Joel Brooks:The Lord, mighty in battle. This is the one who's defeated death, who's defeated sin. This is Christ Jesus, the Lord. Lift up your heads, oh gates, and lift them up, oh ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory?
Joel Brooks:He's the Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. Christ Jesus, the Lord. Pray with me. Lord, I do feel the strong need to pray for your spirit to hold us together.
Joel Brooks:What we have heard from what we have seen in your word, there's our our our our puny little minds can't can't wrap wrap around it. We, we can't understand this and our, and our stone cold hearts are resistant to receive it. And so we need you to come. We need you to open up our minds and our hearts, and we need you to strengthen us so that we might receive the fullness of God in Christ Jesus. I pray you would do that now.
Joel Brooks:And I pray right now that for those of us who have filled ourselves up with hollow things, we would be struck with the horror of what we have done and how we have wasted our lives. And I pray we would acknowledge you as Lord. We'd submit our lives in loving obedience. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
