Colossians 1:1-14 The Sufficiency and Preeminence of Christ

Jack Terry is introducing the topic of the book of Colossians and discussing the importance of understanding the city of Colossae and its people. The apostle Paul never visited Colossae, but he wrote a letter to the church there. The church was facing a problem caused by a heresy that questioned the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. The heresy combined elements of Gnosticism and Jewish legalism. The city of Colossae was an important commercial center with a river that facilitated trade. The speaker also mentions other cities in the region, including Laodicea and Hierapolis. The Roman Empire built new roads that bypassed Colossae, contributing to its decline. Good morning. How you all doing? Good. Thank you all for being here this morning. We're starting a new book today and my task to begin with is to kind of get you today introduced to Colossae and to kind of understand a little bit about Colossae and where is Colossae and why are we studying Colossae and what are the people of Colossae whom we call the Colossians, why are they so important to the kingdom of God and why is it that the Apostle Paul never ever saw these people that we know of. As far as we know he was never in the church of Colossae. Paul planted a lot of churches but there were two churches that he did not plant to whom he wrote not having been there and of course the first one you know well the church at Rome Paul wrote to them never having been there later on of course spent nearly two and a half years in house arrest in Rome so he had an opportunity to meet the people who were in the church in Rome but Colossae was another place that Paul had never been as far as the church is related. He did at one time go through the city of Colossae on a missionary trip but he didn't stop there and the church was not planted there and the Apostle did not plant the church in Colossae. It's apparent from scripture that Epaphras is one of the converts that Paul had led to the Lord probably in Rome or in Asia Minor in Pergia probably Epaphras who was one of the who lived in Colossae was a was a was a actually uh that was his hometown and probably Epaphras was the one who was converted along with some others we'll name them Eciphapus and also Apia and some others who were in the church of Colossae as well as a man by the name of Philemon and later on before we close out the prison epistles we will also look at the book to the man who lived in Colossae Philemon who was one of the elders in the church also one of the deacons and who was a great member in the church and a great supporter of the church so this church is a church to whom Paul is writing he has had a lot of information from about them from Epaphras and from Eciphas and from Apia and from others who were members of the church but as far as ever having seen these people face to face Paul had never seen them however there was a major problem going on in the church about which we will talk in a few moments and there was a major problem that had a two-headed monster that was eating in the church and if left alone would probably destroy the church and it was a two-headed heresy that we'll talk about that was going on in the church evidently had been reported to the apostle Paul by Epaphras that this particular heresy was going on and it is to that double-headed heresy that the apostle Paul writes this letter and he writes to these people because he wants to be sure that these people understand one thing and one thing only there's only one thing anyone needs in the entire world and that is the redemption of Jesus Christ period and so what he's going to do in this letter he's going to talk about two major important components of Jesus Christ his sufficiency and his preeminence in fact Dr. Jim and I were talking this book is probably the most heavily involved epistle that the apostle Paul wrote about theological matters and this is a very strong book in theology and he is going to share with us the theology of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ I'm going to share a song with you and you'll understand what I'm talking about what can wash away my sins what can make me whole again for my pardon this I plead for my cleansing this I see so what is sufficient for redemption the blood of Jesus Christ what else oh oh yeah you've got to have faith but there's not you can't add anything to it there is nothing we can add to the redemptive process the only thing we can do is receive it and it is a gift and that's the problem that's going on here because the two headed heresy that was in the church had to do with the sufficiency of Jesus Christ is Christ sufficient well evidently there are a lot of denominations and there are a lot of religious groups and there are a lot of ungodly groups that believe that you can have Jesus but you've got to have something else you've got to be baptized you've got to take the Lord's Supper you've got to speak in the tongues you've got to walk in the spirit you've got to do all these additional fleshly things in order to have the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and that's what the Apostle Paul is coming to tell these people in Colossae that Christ is sufficient he is pre-eminent he is above all things he is before all things he is in all things and all things are in him and in him do all things exist amen and so what he's going to try to help this church understand is that this double-headed doctrine that's come into their church namely Gnosticism is the heresy that came in along with the actual activity of the Jewish people which we call legalism so the two-headed monster that had come into the church that was eating up the theological context of the church was first of all Gnosticism and secondly the Jewish legalism now let me tell you about this city and take a few minutes to tell you where it is the city of Colossae is in the middle of Asia minor actually during the time of Xerxes king of Persia going all the way back into 485 and 465 before the common era or BC before before C going back into that area going into the Persian empire into Xerxes Xerxes the king of the Persian empire mentions the city of Colossae in some of his papers so the city of Colossae is not a new city it was a city that had been there for many many many years even back to the time of the period of the Persian empire Colossae was a major city because of commerce and the commerce in Colossae was because of the river that ran down through the valley called the river was called the river Lycus and the valley was called the valley of Lycus and this river ran through the valley and it ran all the way to the all the way to the Aegean Sea and Colossae at one time during the ancient days was the center or the capital of Pergia during that particular time the major road from Galatia Iconium Lystra and Derby where Paul took the gospel in the first missionary journey coming all the way across if you can think about coming all the way across Asia Minor coming all the way to the coast where Ephesus is on the western coast of Asia Minor come all the way across that particular area called Asia Minor now it's Turkey so if you can think of it in modern terms of Turkey going all the way across there to Ephesus Ephesus Kshatosi is now in Turkey so if you can think of the Turkey area in the modern sense you can think of the Persia area in the biblical sense during the time of the biblical sense Persia was one of the major centers of Asia Minor because of the commercialism now who do you know well that had a business in Asia Minor that did dyeing of cloth in purple okay her business was in Thyatira now Thyatira is one of the seven churches of the apocalypse Colossae is not however just a little bit north of Colossae during the period of the ancient times there was another city that had been developed that was named Laodicea now you understand and know Laodicea well and I'll tell you why you know Laodicea and you don't know Colossae and there's a reason why you know that and just north of Laodicea is another city called Hierapolis and it too is a tri-city as was the tri-cities over in Galatia now for some reason during these ancient times these people built kind of triangular cities they build two cities very close to each other and then another one kind of on a triangle let me give you an idea when Paul went to Galatia on the first missionary journey with Barnabas he went to three cities Iconium Lystra and Derbe Iconium Lystra were like Mediapolis St. Paul like Dallas Fort Worth they were twin cities and that was the way these people built cities they built the twin cities then they built another little city kind of off on the side and the little city on the side or in Galatia was Iconium Lystra and the little city of Derbe well you get over to Pergia where this city Colossae is located and they built three cities they built the city of Colossae they built the city of Laodicea and they built the city of Hierapolis and these three cities were in the valley of the Lycus River now the Lycus River had a tributary that came into it and that tributary had in it a deposit of some kind of chalk substance and what they discovered was that chalk substance was what was perfectly and importantly necessary watch this to dye clothes to take material and cause it to be dyed different colors now do you know why Lydia was at Thyatira now do you know why this was such an important commercial business it had one of the largest most important commercial dyeing industry dyeing d-y-i-n-g not d-i-n-g okay dyeing industries in the entire world because of the of the chalk that came down the river they used it to dye material it was a major commercial center and it's into that commercial center that in 190 a.d. in one in 190 a.d. the roman empire i mean 190 bc the roman empire decided that they were going to build new roads all across the roman empire and you and i know that the romans were the most important and notable people for building roads in fact it was only in 1990 that the road surface in the united states extended further than the road service of the roman empire when we opened up our last interstate and the american usa off then exceeded the the linear road of the roman empire they built roads all over and when they built their new road they decided not to go through colossi as the other road went through colossi they decided to go through laodicea which was about eight or ten kilometers north of colossi it was that triangular city between hierarchical and revised laodicea and and colossi and so they decided the roman empire decided that they were going to go through laodicea and that they were going to make the capital now of pergia no longer colossi but now it was going to be laodicea well barber lives in a little town down in east texas called taro there was a major highway that came through taro we drove it many many times you've driven it many many times it was highway id 80 from the east coast to the west coast how many of you have driven 80 all the way across the united states many of you have we have now some years ago president eisenhower when he introduced to us the interstate system which he put the circles around all the cities that also made all the interstate highways he decided to bypass taro and if you go down i-20 i-20 goes about five or six miles south of taro now because of that taro that had been experiencing great enterprise with 80 coming right through her now all of the enterprise was thrown to the south and taro barber will tell you begin to decline when these major highways are taken out of the city the city begins to decline and so the roman empire took this major interface from all from galatia all the way to ephesus out of the city of colossi put it in laodicea made laodicea the capital and now colossi begins to decline that's why you haven't heard a lot of colossi that's why it was not included in the seven churches of the apocalypse that's why you didn't hear about colossi as one of the seven churches because it was not a very important city now you heard of laodicea in the apocalypse but you didn't hear you didn't hear of colossi and so what i'm wanting you to understand is that this was once a great city in fact herodotus who was one of the great greek philosophers wrote colossi is one of the greatest cities of pergia and so this was at one time a magnificent city because of a road that was put to the north in the midst of a triangle of colossi laodicea and hieropolis now colossi begins to decline and in this city there was a church a church that paul had never ever seen a group of christian people with whom paul had never had a face-to-face encounter but it was a group of people that five men whom paul himself along with timothy and the and the missionary party brought to christ from the city of colossi and these five men epaphras being the number one person and by the way he calls in in this in this epistle paul calls epaphras my prisoner in bonds now was paul talking about a physical incarceration of of this man epaphras or was he talking about the same kind of incarceration he talked about over in the book of philippians when he said i have not yet uh got that for which i have been gotten you remember when he said i have not yet attained that for which i was attained and so is he talking about a physical incorporation incarceration of this man by the name of epaphras or is he talking about a spiritual in court we don't know but he calls epaphras my fellow prisoner in the word so epaphras along with these other men akipia and also apia were men of colossi grew up in colossi evidently it must have been epaphras who planted this church and helped the church begin to grow and became its pastor and was working in the church in colossi now during this time something is happening in rome the apostle paul has been in house arrest for almost three years two and a half years to be exact and it seems that it's time that he is to be let go and the apostle paul and silas and the missionary party probably timothy and dr luke left rome sometime around 62 or 63 a.d uh sometime in that period of time they left rome and the last chapter of the book of romans talks about a missionary journey to spain now we have no information about that missionary journey other than the fact that the apostle paul mentions it in his book to the romans and we do know that when paul was released in about 62 63 he went on a missionary journey with silas and with timothy and many many scriptures many many scholars believe that he went to spain with the gospel in the meantime nero fell on hard times in rome and because he had fallen on hard times he had to find somebody to blame isn't it interesting how when politicians fall on hard times they look for someone to blame i can't understand that do you suppose that is a new activity that's been going on so nero decided he needed to blame somebody for what was happening so he set rome on fire they had a great fire in 64 a.d in fact there were 14 districts in the city of rome and in the fire 10 of those 14 districts were burned to the ground and when it was over guess who nero blamed the jews and the christians and by the way it's kind of interesting what was burned was also some of these these shacks in which the jews and the christians lived he burned down a lot of their shacks and then he blamed them on burning down their own houses and he started persecuting them in the meantime it's apparent that the apostle paul and his party come back from the missionary journey if they went to spain came back to rome when they got back to rome nero arrested paul and this time in 60 after 65 city of rome burned in 64 in fact i can tell you it burned on july the 18th uh 64 a.d and it burned in 64 and 65 paul came back nero put him in the dungeon kept him there for about 18 months and in either 67 the winter of 67 or the spring of 68 nero had paul beheaded on the road to uh to rome and so that's kind of the story of what's going on here in the meantime this little church at colossi is receiving a letter from paul and the letter is talking to them about a major problem that has come come into their church and that major problem let me explain it to you take a few minutes to help you understand first of all was gnosticism now the word gnosis in greek means knowledge not information not wisdom knowledge and the greek people were puffed up with their knowledge in fact if you talk with greek people they were more insidious about their ability to be knowing and to have great knowledge and they were knowledgeable they were in the gnosis and by the way just in case you're wondering that's why you say oh yeah we're in the know have you ever said that and if you've ever said that you're simply saying we're in the knowledge we're in the gnosis we're in the know oh we're in the know and you're out because we say we're in the know we're in the gnosis okay we're in the knowledge okay now these these greek people love knowledge they love gnosis now they built a magnificent kind of superstructure on this thing called gnosticism and i don't have time to tell you about it in fact we won't have time to tell you about it during the study of this book it would take us at least five weeks to tell you about the study of gnosticism but it had a magnificent structure of which there were many many kinds of structures all the way up through a 14 level structure now gnosis means to be in the know and being in the know was to be in the flesh see where it's going and the more you know the more you can operate in the flesh oh by the way there was a there was a verse over in the book of philippians three something that said have no confidence in the flesh now the greek people were putting all their confidence in the flesh they had built this confidence of gnosis they built this confidence of knowledge they had all of these levels oh by the way every one of these levels had an angel hello i wish you could study the thing of gnosticism every one of these levels had an angel and guess what one of the angels names was jesus they had incorporated jesus name into one of these and he was up at the uppermost top level of all these 14 oh it was it was some kind of structure with all of it oh and by the way in the next chapter the apostle paul is going to say people are only saved through the ministry of jesus and not the ministry of angels see what he's getting at and he's getting ready to start talking about this gnosticism this angelology that they had based in this tremendous structure all built on the flesh and it said as we look at the flesh all we see is devastation therefore if all that's around us is devastation evidently if we're going to live in this devastation we've got to get out of the world out of the world and we've got to get into the know and getting into the know that we can go inside ourselves and inside ourselves is where we will live let the rest of the world go we will live in ourselves 100% gnosticism in the flesh going on at the same time was jewish legalism circumcision celebrations days foods and gnosticism by the way in these levels even incorporate hello circumcision it's kind of interesting how this thing comes about now what the apostle paul here is getting ready to do he's getting ready to tell these people i want you to understand one thing the gospel of jesus christ needs what to help it say the word nothing the gospel of jesus christ needs what to help it render itself unto god nothing that's why i use this all what can wash away my sins nothing but the blood of jesus now if you believe that you need something other than the blood of jesus for the redemption of your eternal soul you have a problem and that problem is the problem that they're not that the colossians had because they were being told by two different heresies that just being in christ was not sufficient that you had to have something other added to it and if you study the denominations of well all of the denominations of the world that are out there now you will discover how many of those denominations have added to jesus plus it's not just jesus it's jesus plus and they've added this gnosticism to it they've added this you need something else jesus in his own right is not sufficient well i've got to get on now so that you now you kind of understand where colossus and you understand these people were greek and they were jewish and these greek people were gnostic and these jewish people were legalists and that's where the church sat so you had these two heresies on both sides of the church and the apostle paul now comes to talk to them here's what he says paul an apostle of jesus christ by the will of god and timothy our brother why does he mention timothy here well in the in the second mission in the first missionary journey when they went to galatia they met a family that had a son in the city of iconium whose name was timothy a handsome good-looking young man who during the first missionary journey in galatia was saved and he was saved beautifully to such an extent that the apostle paul knew that in this young man timothy there was a great soldier of jesus christ so on the second missionary journey when paul joined in with silas and let barnabas take his nephew and go his way they went back to galatia and while in galatia in iconium they picked up timothy and timothy became a part of the missionary party got it and timothy was with paul when they went through colossi if paul ever saw the city of colossi it was with timothy probably never saw it they went through pergia they went north of pergia and they went up to the coast near the coast of europe and that's when they crossed over from the coast of asia minor over to europe and they went to philippi down below them was pergia and down below them was colossi and down below them was this church that was being that was not yet established because it was paul who probably in the city of rome led a papyrus to the lord sent him back to his city of colossi and there they built the church so now he's talking about that he said i want to tell you i'm sending this letter to the saints and the faithful brethren in christ who are in colossi and now paul's favorite salutation grace and peace be to you from god our father and from the lord jesus christ paul always talked about grace and then peace without grace there is no peace you cannot have peace without the grace of god so the apostle paul's salutation was always grace and peace be unto you now the next few verses in fact verse three through verse nine the apostle paul says i want you to understand where i'm coming from so in these verses he's going to help these people try to get a picture of what he's getting ready to do he said i want you to know we give thanks to god our father the lord jesus christ praying always for you watch since we have heard of your faith in she in christ jesus and your love for all the saints wonder who he heard it from epaphras and the others who were in in the in the city with him he had heard it from epaphras and philemon and then archipelagos and epiphia and these four men were in the in the church in colossi in fact it's on the bottom of your second page if you want their names and their names are epaphras philemon akipias and apia and these four men evidently were men in the church in colossi and evidently these four men were led to the lord by paul by the apostle paul while in rome he led philemon to the lord we know that because later on he says to philemon in his book you treat onesimus just like you would treat me a brother in christ and so it's evident that he led philemon to the lord he had never seen the church he'd never seen the people he had met one of their elders he had led him to the lord he had led epaphras to the lord epaphras then probably planted the church and now you have apia and also akipias and these are all men of the church and he says i want you to know our prayer and love goes to all of the saints because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven of which you heard before in the word of truth of the gospel which has come to you as it also has come to the entire world as we are bringing forth fruit as it also among you since the day you heard and knew of the grace of god now watch what paul's saying to them i have heard that you have heard what does that tell you immediately that paul has never done never seen them now i'm working he's saying to them on hearsay i'm working on hearsay i'm working on the fact that i have heard from these five men in your church epaphras in particular i have heard several things about you i have heard that there are things laid up for you in heaven of which you heard before in the word of truth now what paul is speaking of in verse five is these men were led to the lord probably by epaphras and they heard the word of truth philemon was led to the lord by the apostle paul he heard the word of truth and the apostle paul is saying to them all of you saints who are in colossi were have come into the kingdom the same way and all of you saints and i have come into the kingdom the same way we have come into the kingdom because we heard the word of the lord we heard the truth of the lord jesus christ and he is sufficient for all redemption amen and so he's talking now he says but i want you to know something else since you all have come into the lord he says in verse six since you have come uh it has also spread to the world now paul is talking about the gospel now the gospel has come to rome the gospel has come to ephesus the gospel has come to uh has come to carl the gospel has come to europe the gospel has come to asia minor the gospel has come to the to the kingdom the imperial kingdom of rome the gospel is even getting ready to go to go to spain and he's saying i want you to know since you all have come to faith in the lord jesus christ by the leadership of these men that i've sent you i have heard that you are doing well and also that the entire world is bringing forth fruit as it is also bringing forth fruit among you now ladies and gentlemen this verse the apostle paul commends this church for bringing forth fruit he says i have heard about you i've heard since the day you heard and knew the grace of god in truth i have heard as also learned from epaphras our jill fellow servant a faithful minister of christ on your behalf now the apostle paul is saying here is the hearsay that i have heard and i have heard from a quality reputable source i have heard from epaphras you know epaphras he is one of you he has come from your city he is one of your church he probably planted the church and he's saying i want you to know i am speaking the truth to you of what i have heard because i have heard it from a quality source i have heard it from epaphras who has declared it to me who is a faithful minister of christ on your behalf who also declared to us your love now watch what paul is getting ready to do here he's getting ready to talk about three of his favorite words and he uses those favorite words in 1313 of the book of first corinthians for now there about us faith hope and love but the greatest of these now now watch what he's getting ready to do here you see when you read paul you've got to watch his little words he's going all the way back to corinth and he's going all the way back to corinth and talking about faith hope and love and look what he says he's already talked to them about truth he's already talked to them about love in verse eight and now he's talking to them about about hope and he knows that they came to this position through faith so faith hope and love are a counterpoint of three activities that are going on and paul says epaphras has told me that these three activities are very active and rational and working in your church and so he says for this reason we also since the day we heard it again saying i've never seen you do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you might now here he goes that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will pause what did this reason for to be filled with gnosis i mean paul hit them right where they hurt paul says you want to know about knowledge you want to know about real knowledge you want to know about knowledge gnosis you want to want to know about knowledge outside the human body outside the flesh you want to know about knowledge let me tell you about knowledge he says because i want you to be filled with the knowledge of his will now ladies and gentlemen these people were filled with the knowledge of the world they were filled with the knowledge of the flesh they were filled with the fact that the flesh is miserable so let's get out of the flesh go inside into ourselves and just become introverts and just forget the rest of the world and just live like we want to live and just have a big time because the end is the end and that's all he says but i want you to know i don't want you to be filled with gnosis i don't want you to be filled with knowledge and i want you to be filled with the knowledge of his will now watch this next word which is wisdom sometime when you have the time take a few minutes to see the difference between the word knowledge and wisdom there's a great deal of difference there are a lot of people who have a lot of knowledge but don't have a lot of wisdom and there are a bunch of people who have a lot of wisdom who need a lot of knowledge so you need the both and the apostle paul is saying i'm wanting you not to stay in gnosticism i don't want you to stay in the gnosis i want you to move into the knowledge of the will of god because the knowledge of the will of god leads you to wisdom and wisdom is far more superior than to knowledge so he says leads you to all wisdom and spiritual understanding so he says if you will allow the spirit to take you from the knowledge of the will of god into all wisdom that wisdom then will lead you into the spiritual understanding that you may be able to live worthy of the lord fully pleasing him being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the gnosis of god isn't it interesting how paul uses what they do to bring in the kingdom of god do you really want to know knowledge let me get god who can bring into you the knowledge of his will which is wisdom which will lead you to all spiritual understanding which will then make you pleasing to the lord when we work in the pleasure of his will and we work pleasing him by all of what we do then we pleasure him and that's what we need to be doing in the will of god paul says that you may be fully pleasing him you need to learn about the knowledge of his will so that you can fully please him being fruitful in every good work increasing in the knowledge of god now then right at this point the apostle paul is getting ready to say to these christians something that god is going to do for them and at the same time the epistle is talking to us about what god is getting ready to do with us you see paul has already said i want god to take you into the knowledge of his will in order that you might have his understanding wisdom in order that you might have spiritual understanding it's a three-pronged movement the pleasure of knowing his will into the understanding of his wisdom in order that we might have spiritual understanding and the apostle is saying this is what you're trying to do with narcissism and you can't do it but let me tell you why you can do it with eternal god and beginning in verse 14 which are is our lesson for next sunday he is going to begin a discussion with these people a theological discussion which is christ-centered it is called christo-centricism it's going to put christ in the middle of everything and in verse 14 and following in the end of chapter 1 he is going to tell us about how christ is not only sufficient for all of our needs but he is also preeminent above all our needs he's not only sufficient he's also preeminent now watch what he says that he may strengthen you with all might that he might make you strong that he might put in you dunamis that he might put in you his power that you might be strengthened in the might according to his glorious dunamis according to his glorious power god not only wants you to be knowledgeable of him god not only wants you to be in wisdom with him god not only wants you to have an everlasting kind of of this kind of understanding with him but god wants to put in you the dynamite of god so that you will be able to have all patience and long suffering with joy he's saying god will do this for you but understand he has to do it in whom he has to do it in and through whom jesus christ you can't do it through narcissism you can't do it through legalism you see what paul's talking about if you are really going to have understanding if you are really going to have strength in faith if you're really going to have the glorious dynamite of god in your life if you're really going to have this you have to understand it is because of the sufficiency of christ he is all in all and if you want to fight this particular statement you must fight the entire book of john and you must you must fight verses 14 through 29 of the book of colossians if you want to fight you got to fight the book of john in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god and the same was in the beginning with god all things by him were made and without him was not anything made that was made in him was life and the light was the life of men and that light shined in the darkness and the darkness couldn't put it out if you are going to say i gotta have christ plus nothing your first fight is with the book of john go fight john for a while if you're not happy with fighting john then pick up colossians 1 14 through 29 and fight colossians 114 through 29 in which he says he in verse 15 he is the image of the invisible god the firstborn over some creation see so you gotta understand what he's getting ready to do he's getting ready to tell these colossians you already have what you need you've demonstrated that the word is in you we've seen it and he's going to strengthen you in it and so he says in verse 12 giving thanks to the father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light you know what this word qualified means he has made us fit there's another word that's used in scripture he has made us meet m-e-e-t he has made us qualified not by fitness i desire but through christ i live my life he makes us fit he makes us qualified it is god the father who has given us the inheritance you got the inheritance in the saints in the light now jesus is the light of the world jesus is the light when you come into faith you come out of darkness into for he says in verse 13 he has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us in the kingdom of his son in love we are now in the kingdom of light i finished when did you go to heaven you're already there you're already there when did you go on the day you were saved you see what the apostle here is getting ready to tell these people in colossi he's getting ready to give them a germ of sanctification you see there are four processes in salvation there is sin to which there is justification to which follows sanctification which is in the final process our glorification and god here is getting ready to help these colossian christians and us as well he's getting ready to help us understand that christ has delivered us from the power of the darkness and has translated us into his kingdom when are you when did you get in his kingdom now isn't it kind of interesting before you were saved did you ever think about heaven can you think back that far before you were saved did you ever think about the kingdom of god probably not your mind was in other things and going off in other places and you thought very but after you were saved what do you say every day you say even so lord jesus come quickly every day we're looking for the kingdom in fact that great old song says looking for the kingdom where the saints will try looking for the kingdom on the hill of god looking for the kingdom and he has given these colossians a germ of sanctification he is saying to them if you are out of darkness and if you are in the light of the saints of god you are already in heaven you're just waiting for something to be translated the only thing you're waiting for is either the rapture and the resurrection from the dead we're already there now watch what verse 14 says in whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins what can wash away my sins what can make me whole again oh precious is that flow that makes you and me white as snow oh precious love i know nothing nothing either he is sufficient either he is preeminent over all things or he and god are the greatest liars in this universe and he is and so we say to be like jesus to be like jesus all i want to be like him and on this journey from earth to heaven all i wants to be like him paul is talking to people he's never seen he is putting some pretty heavy theology on these people and he's getting ready to help them next week come to understand who this man jesus christ really is and that's what we'll study next week who is jesus really well first of all he is before all things and in him all things exist he is the head of the body of the church who is the beloved beginning of the first he is he is he is echo i me jesus said i am the truth echo i mean i am the truth i am the life i am the way no man comes to the father except through me either he is or he's a liar and if he is and we believe it is he is the preeminent adorable majestic wonderful son of god of whom we all of us are joint heirs can you say amen to that heavenly father we just get so fucked up here when we look at your word we see how precious it is to our redemptive life we come to understand that there's absolutely nothing we can do except believe and receive and there is nothing that we can add to your redemptive process no acts of man no additions of any kinds of saving only thing we can do father say lord jesus i'm a sinner forgive me of my sins come into my life and save me and father take me into your glorious kingdom and make me one of your children in order that i might walk in the light and the love of jesus christ from this point on forever and ever into eternity into all heaven and that is our prayer and the prayer of paul in jesus name amen see you next sunday