Colossians 1:15-29 The Preeminence of Christ

The speaker is sharing a story about a picture he received on his 90th birthday. He talks about his teaching career and the number of students he has taught. He introduces his colleagues and explains their roles. He then discusses the heresy of Gnosticism and legalism and how it was affecting the church. He emphasizes the importance of Jesus Christ and the centrality of the New Testament. The speaker mentions a January Bible Study and his experience teaching the Book of Colossians. Good morning! How are you all? I want to show you something that was given to me on my 90th birthday. I'm very, very proud of what I'm getting ready to show you all. I have been teaching at Southwestern Seminary for 55 years. Of that 55, I've probably taught 41 or 2 in what we'd identify as a full-time teaching capacity until you become a dean. When I became a dean, I was deaning for one course and teaching four, and at the end of my deanship, Jimmy, I was deaning for five courses and teaching none. And that's kind of what happens when you become an administrator. They move you out of the classroom. But anyway, during the time that I was in full-time class, I had classes that were in excess of 200 people, sometimes classes of doctoral seminars of three people, and so just all kinds of people. So on my 90th birthday, our new computer director, Dr. Adam Dodd, went back into the records and he found a picture of me sitting, teaching one of my large classes because there was no room. I had to sit on the table in the front. I had to give my chair to somebody. And he found this picture of me, and they made this for me. And I'll have it up here when it's over, if you all would like to see it. It shows me teaching, and the number is 7,556 students. That's the exact number of students I taught while I've been at the seminary. 7,556. That's what they found in the records, so this is actually my record of teaching at Southwestern Seminary, of which I'm very proud, very happy, and I wanted to share it with you all. Well, it's good to see my cohorts back here again, John and Sandy. Now, you'll have to understand about John and Sandy, and you'll also have to understand about my administrative executive. Let's see, what's your name again, Kelly? Kelly and Dan Blight. John and Sandy. John teaches at Southwestern. He's a professor, teaches theology, and also teaches in our college. And Sandy is a development officer, and she's very busy with the women's program, but also she does a lot of development work. This last week, John made a trip to North Carolina for a meeting with a donor, and Sandy's been running up and down I-45 and 287, going back and forth to Houston, San Antonio, and Amarillo. So they've been running around all over this last week. We're happy to have you home safely. Thanks for getting back safely. And then, of course, Kelly and Dan. Kelly works with me every day, and we're just grateful to have them here with us. So, you understand, when John and Sandy aren't here, they're either running around raising money or seeing people, or John is preaching somewhere. And John does a lot of Sunday preaching in churches throughout the Southern Baptist, Texas Baptist Convention. So, when they're not here, don't say, well, I wonder where John and Sandy are. Well, I can tell you where they are. I know where they are. They're either out preaching or running around trying to help get some funds for Southwestern Seminary. And so I just want you all to know, when they're not here, it's not because they're playing cookie on us. They really would like to be here. Okay. Now we're going to start in the middle of Chapter 1. And I told Brother Jimmy early on, when we were back in the back, I said, Jim, if I can get to verse 23 today, that's where I'd like to get through today. And then, if I may, pick it up next Sunday at verse 24, and then go on and finish the chapter through verse 29. And the reason I'm asking that privilege is, this particular chapter, as I mentioned to you all early on, is the chapter in which the Apostle Paul explains to the Christians in the city of Colossae, actually, who Jesus Christ really is. Now, I'm sorry that there's some background that you must a bit understand. I'm going to be as quickly as I can with it. The Apostle Paul here, in this particular message to the Colossians, is wanting to help them fight a very, very bad heresy that had begun in the latter part of the 1st century, around 50, 45-50 AD, became very profuse in about the middle of the 1st century, and came into its height in the 2nd century AD. And that particular heresy was called Gnosticism. Gnosticism is basically a heresy of being knowledgeable, or having great knowledge. And the Gnostics, along with the Legalists, the Jewish people, were giving the Christian church a really, really bad time, because they were trying to take all of what was happening in Jesus' churches and use it in a very disdainful way in both Gnosticism and Legalism. You remember the Judaizers were saying, it's okay to be a Christian. We want you to be a Christian. But, if you're going to be a Christian, you also have to be circumcised, and you also have to keep celebrations, and you also have to keep dates, and you also have to eat the right foods, and you do this, and you do this, and you do this. And all of a sudden, to the Kingdom of God was added all kinds of stuff, and we came to the conclusion last week, at the end of our study, that it is Jesus plus what? Nothing. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. And so, that's exactly what the Apostle Paul is trying to help these Christians understand, because these Gnostics had taken a lot of the doctrine and the theology of the Kingdom of God, of the Christian church, of what was called in the first century, the Church of the Way. Jesus Christ said, I am the Way. And so, it was called the Church of the Way, and they had taken a lot of bits of theology, and were trying to put it into their systems of worship, and they were doing a pretty good job doing it, because they were making people stop and consider what was going on. For instance, the Gnostics had a whole level of angelology. Now, where did the Gnostics, who were a Greek knowledgeable group of people, it was a Greek, basically a Greek worship, which was based upon Gnosis, which means to know, or based upon knowledge, and the more knowledge that you had, the more Gnosis you had, and the more Gnosis you had, the better of a person in Gnosticism you were. And you had to have all of these eons, all of these levels of angels, and to show you what they were doing, they even took the name of Christ, and put him up toward the top of their 14th system of eons, and one of the angels that they had in their system was named Jesus Christ. And so, you can see how they were taking lots of parts of stuff, and they were trying to convince the people that the faith in Jesus Christ was not the true faith, that there were other faiths, and they had temples, and they had worship in temples, and they had everything, all of the trappings of a kind of a religious faith, along with the legalistic Judaizers who were still worshipping in Jerusalem, and still worshipping the Jewish faith in the Old Testament. And so, Paul is trying to help these people understand the difference between true faith in Jesus Christ, who Jesus Christ really is, and Gnosticism and legalism. So, what you're going to see Paul doing, he's going to talk about angels in this passage, and he's going to talk about who angels are, and he's going to talk about how the angels were relational to God, and how later on, at the death of Jesus Christ, and the beginning of the eternity within his kingdom, the angels were changed in relationship to eternal God, even in heaven. Now, as you read this, you have to keep in mind two things, Gnosticism and legalism. Because when Paul talks about something, it may be relational to Gnosticism, it may be relational to what they're doing in error, he's trying to put in truth, it may be relational to circumcision, or in legalism, or eating foods, or keeping celebrations, and what he's trying to do is trying to keep everything in Christ. Now, throughout the entire chapter, you must remember one thing, everything in the kingdom of God is in Christ Jesus, period. And so we come back to the question, what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. And so, in reality, what the Apostle Paul is saying to these Christians in Colossae, what they're trying to teach you in Gnosticism, and what they're doing in Judaism, with the Judaizers, they're trying to confuse you, and trying to get you to move away from the centrality of the New Testament and the kingdom of God, and that is, Jesus Christ is preeminent, period. There is no other like him, there never shall be, there never will be, he is, he was, he shall, and he is, and he continues, and he is our redeeming savior, and we are redeemed strictly through him, nothing but the blood. Okay, if you can kind of keep that in mind, as we read through some of these verses, you're going to start hearing words that relate both to Gnosticism and to Judaizers. And you're going to hear, because actually, Gnosticism had gotten into the church so badly that it was giving the pastors and the leaders and the deacons and the elders of the churches, giving them a really hard time, as heresy can give you a hard time. And of course, heresy is always able and ready to walk into our churches anytime. Right, Brother Jimmy? So, in relationship to that, Brother Jimmy knows that several years ago, we used to have a thing called January Bible Study. And in January Bible Study, every church in the Southern Baptist Convention, during some time in January, it was so cold you couldn't do anything other than go to church, at some time in January, study a book of the Bible. And I remember I was, I've been invited to many, many churches and did many convention studies on January Bible Studies, Jim. And one year, we had, a January Bible Study was the Book of Colossians. And that year, I was invited by a good friend of mine, Sam Cotter, who was the Executive Secretary for the state of Colorado. And Sam invited me to come up there and to do a Bible study with his January Bible Study Pastoral Group that we were going to meet on a three-day activity. And I was going to be the Bible teacher, and my good friend Shadrach, Meshach, Lochridge from California was going to be the preacher. You talk about a good time. Now, we had a good time. Anyway, I was teaching this particular chapter one day. I would teach for about an hour, and then we would have a break, have a cookie or a cup of coffee, and then Shadrach would preach for about an hour and a half. Now, Shadrach never could preach for an hour. Sam could never preach for an hour. He had to go an hour and a half, two hours. He was so great. Anyway, on the day I taught this particular lesson, when we came to the preaching time, S.M. took over with nothing on the pulpit except his closed Bible. He started, and for 45 minutes, he began in the book of Genesis, and he said, Now, in the creation, I want you to know, Jesus Christ was preeminent. And in the fall, when the information was given to Eve, how God was going to save the world, Jesus Christ was preeminent. And in the flood, when Noah built the ark, Jesus Christ was preeminent. And for 45 minutes, with closed Bible, he went through the entire book of the Bible, telling us about every part of the Bible, all of the important parts, the Egypt activity, the Sinai activity, the building of the tabernacle, the building of the ark, and the building of the temple. He went through the whole Bible, through the New Testament, and through it all, he ended up, and he said, standing totally in wet clothes, and about an inch and a half of his britches, he said to them, after 45 minutes, My dear brothers, what I'm trying to say to you is, Jesus is preeminent. And I want you to know, the whole thing came apart. Everybody was up, Jimmy shouting, screaming, clapping, hollering, hallelujah, and we were having a big time. You thought we were Pentecost. Now, that's how this particular passage really should affect us all. When we get to the end of it, you should come to the understanding, Jesus is. He is the ego I meet. He is the I am. Jesus is the King. He is the Lord. He is forever. He is our Redeemer. And so the Apostle Paul, now, is getting ready to talk to these people. Oh, by the way, I can't teach you the material that I write down on here. I'll refer to it on occasion and go back and forth, but what I hope you're doing is, and by the way, the reason I put this little thing on the side here for you, is for you to read it at home after you get home with your Bible, and you write your own notes out here. I write mine out here, but you write, that's why I put that little thing on there for you, so you can write notes on it, read the Scripture, look at the Scripture, look at what I said, see how the commentary works with it, and see how the work and the commentary go together. So that's what I try to do in your lesson. I hope you're reading them at home and comparing them to the Word of God. So we start today in verse 15. And the Apostle Paul, now, has said to them in 14, In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins. And so the Apostle Paul establishes the first thing, the first activity of importance, and that is, salvation is only through the blood of Jesus Christ. There is no other available salvation in any religion, in any kind of heresy, in any kind of activity outside the blood of Jesus Christ. He says it here, and toward the end of the chapter he will say it again. And so the blood of Jesus Christ, Apostle Paul, in this particular chapter to these people in Colossae, is very important. And so he says, For he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. Now, the Apostle Paul is getting ready to say something that has been said throughout the entire Bible, the Old Testament. And he's getting ready now to enter it into the New Testament. And that is, he is beginning to identify the image of the invisible God. Now, the Gnostics didn't have a God. They had temples, and they worshipped, but they didn't have a God. He was invisible to them. And the Christians didn't have a God. He was invisible to them. And the Judaizers didn't have a God. They had a big temple, but he was invisible to them. And so he starts talking about the invisible God, and that Jesus Christ is the exact, in the flesh, representation of the invisible God. If you see Christ, you see God. He and Christ are the exact representations. He is the image of the invisible God. Now, since the Gnostics had invisible gods that they couldn't see, they built eons of angels. And he'll talk about that in a few moments in one of the verses. And they talk about eons of angels, and how the angeology, and what they're doing, and how you can get your activities relational to them. And, of course, the Judaizers were saying, well, you're saved through circumcision, or you're saved through keeping celebrations, or you're saved through doing this, doing that. Both of them had activities in which you were saved by doing things. Whereas, the faith in Jesus Christ, you are saved by being something. And you are being saved. Now, may I say something to you? You are still being saved. On the day you were saved, God gave you freedom from sin, freedom from this world. He gave you a home in heaven, sins forgiven. He gave you everything, but he hasn't given you everything that he has for you. For it says, you are being saved. And every day, as we plow through the Word of God, and every day as we study the Word of God, every day we come to understand a little clearer who this invisible God is. Because we have seen him in the New Testament in the form of Jesus Christ, who represented the Father. He is the only begotten before creation. Now, that's very important. Christ was not created after creation. Christ was the only begotten of the Father before creation. In fact, Jesus was very, very prominent in two creations of which this verse speaks. He is the firstborn over all creation. What he's saying here is, unlike an angel, of which the Gnostics speak rather regularly, and of which they spoke could save you from your sins, unlike the angels, even the angelic hosts that are in heaven, unlike the angels, Jesus Christ was preeminent over the angels. He was before creation. Now, interestingly, Jesus Christ was part of two creations. He was part of the first creation. Now, if you really want to fuss about this chapter, you really have to take on John 1. If you want to fuss about this chapter, you really have to fight with John 1. John 1 and follow it. In the beginning was the Word, Jesus Christ. And the Word was in the beginning. And the same was in the beginning with God. By him all things were made. And nothing was made that was not made except by him. In him was life. And the life was the light of men. And the light shined down into the darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it. Now, what Paul is saying here is, you've got to understand that Jesus Christ, who is the expressed image of. Now, if you really want to do something, and if you can do it, if you can get into the Greek language and look at this word invisible and expressed image, it means to look exactly alike. That when you see God, you see Christ. And when you see Christ, you see God. They are the exact representation of the Father. And he was before creation. Therefore, if he was before creation, he is before anything that is in heaven. He was before anything was existing. He was with the Father before creation. And later on, he's going to be in the prime individual of another creation, a new creation written in his blood. And he's going to talk about a new creation in Jesus Christ, of which all of us who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior are part of that creation. We have been re-created in Jesus Christ. You remember what 2 Corinthians 5.17 says? If any person be in Christ, he is a new creation. Okay. That's the other creation of which Jesus Christ was a vital part. So Jesus Christ had a vital part in two magnanimous creations. The creation of the first thing we call creation in the world, and he was in the beginning of the second creation, which we call the new kingdom of God. So he was part of the creation of the first kingdom of God, and he was part of the creation, he was the creation of the second kingdom. So in him we have two creations. And so he is the firstborn over all creation. And he says in verse 16, For by him all things were created. Now watch where they were created. By him all things were created in heaven and that are on earth, visible, invisible, our dominions, our principalities, our powers, all things were created through him and for him. Now then, what about the angels? What about all of the heavenly activities that are going on? What about the throne room of God? What about now the New Testament tells us that Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us. What about all of that which is in that invisible area that we have never seen, of which we shall see someday? Jesus Christ was creator of all of that. Which means that Jesus Christ along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, the triunity, they created all of the angels. They made all of the heavenlies. They made all of the powers and the principalities and the rulers. They were over everything. And it's kind of interesting when you read the book of Job, how one day they had in chapter 1 of the book of Job, this great meeting in heaven when all of these principles and principalities and powers came and met with the eternal God and in the middle of that meeting here walks in Satan. Yes, he created Satan as well. And he created all. He created everything that was in heaven. Now it's kind of interesting. The second creation in Jesus Christ is going to do something in heaven as well. Because if Christ Jesus was part of the creation of the beginning, then when he had his re-creation here on earth with his death, burial, and resurrection, which was his regeneration and his re-creation, then he had some to do in heaven as well. We'll talk about that in a few minutes. I wrote it in the material. I think you'll find it. Okay, so it says, For by him all things were created in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for him. Now go to Ephesians 6. Brother Jimmy covered Ephesians 6 a few weeks ago. In Ephesians 6 it says, For there is a level of eternal heaven between where God the Father and the holy angels are and earth here. A second level. And in that second level there are powers and principalities and rulers of the darkness of this world. Go back and read Ephesians 6. And see about that level that appears to be between where we are here on earth and where God the Father is in heaven. That second level called a second heaven. And in that second heaven are all of these people of whom he's speaking of here in verse 16. Jesus Christ, God the Father and the Holy Spirit created all of them. And at the beginning of creation they were created. They were created for the providence of God. And yet many of them went beyond his providence as did Satan. And many of them actually abrogated all of their eternal state as did Satan. And so, 16 says principalities and powers, all things were created through him and they were created for him. Pause. Why would God use someone like Nebuchadnezzar? A power, a principality, a ruler, a man of darkness, a vicious, ugly, vile killer. Why would God use someone like Nebuchadnezzar to bring his kingdom back to form again? Why would God use someone like Hitler? Or why would God use any of these powers and principalities and rulers of the darkness of this world? Why would he use them? He would use them in order to get the people of his kingdom back in line again. And many of us have said on many more than one occasion, eternal God has not yet dealt with America as he can. He has not yet dealt with us as he can. And there is a possibility that he can deal with us in extension. And so, these powers and principalities are all used by the eternal kingdom of God for him. It was created by him and for him. Verse 17 says, And he is before all things, in him all things consist. If he is before all things, he's before everything that's here. He's before all the angels, he's before all the creation. And all of this consists because of him. It is kept in place. In fact, in my material, we talk about it being kept in place. I say in here that he's the reason why creation occurred at all. Christ is the final and efficient cause of creation. It was for Christ that creation was created at all. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit said that we will create and it will be for my Son, my only begotten Son, begotten before the creation. And so, it simply says that he is the final and efficient cause. First, being with God in the origination of the first creation. Secondly, being with him in the second creation, established of the new second creation, second Adam from above. Have you read chapter 15, 1 Corinthians, lately? In there it talks about two Adams. In 15 Corinthians it says there was the first Adam who was of the earth, earthy, sinful, fallen. And then along the way came the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, heavenly, from the eternal being. And he said in the first Adam he made a living soul. In the second Adam he made a divine living spirit. And so he speaks here of, in 17, he was before all things and because of him all things consist. Everything is held in place like it is because of who he is. And I also said in here, in their presence we're called into being from nothing and in their present state it still consists. In fact, in the first chapter it said that God created the heavens and the earth from nothing. From absolutely nothing. He created the nothing and he made the heavens and the earth. And what he created in the beginning still consists. It's still here. And it's going to be here until God the Father in the end time decides to do away with this thing we call the earth when it shall be done away with with a blazing fire and totally destroyed. And so what he's saying here is Jesus Christ was not only in the beginning of what still consists but he is the conservator of who keeps it. And so the earth is being kept in conservatorship by Jesus Christ because he was the creator of all things and together in him are all things. The final completion is, and here are the words, in him. Now, Paul oftentimes, sometimes uses the word by him. But later on when the Greek text was analyzed and evaluated they found out that those that he identified or that had been translated into English by him were really the same word in him. And so everything consists in him and by him all things hold together. He is the conservator. He is the creator. He was before. He was during. He is after. And so what he says in 17 is he is before all things and in him all things still hold together. He's the head of the body. Whoa, wait a minute. He's been talking about heaven. All of these verses that we've gotten to to get to verse 18, all of them have been talking about what God and the Son and the Holy Spirit did in heaven. Talk about principalities and powers and thrones and rulers and it talked about angels and it talked about all. And now all of a sudden the Apostle Paul says, but let me tell you about the second creation. And now Paul is getting ready to start talking to them about the second creation of which you and I have had a magnanimously vital part in his second creation. And so in 18 he says, and he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have preeminence. Now Paul is coming down to our day. He's saying not only did God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in ages past create that which we see that still consists and still is still contained. Not only is all of this still in relationship to his sufficiency and his sustenance, it is also relational to his body, the church. And at this point the Apostle Paul introduces to them that Jesus Christ has a second creation and that second creation is the church. So he says that the church who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. There's the creation. Christ in his death, burial and resurrection established for us a new creation. If any man be in Christ, and notice that in Christism, he is a new creation. And so the Apostle Paul is simply saying because he is the firstborn from the dead, all things he may have the preeminence. He is preeminent in everything. And I wish you could have been there the day that S.M. Lockridge said, do you get what I'm trying to say? He is preeminent. He is over all, he is in all, he is through all, he's about all, he's with all, he's in us all, we are all his. You all understand? And so we come to the fact that Paul says not only in heaven is he preeminent, but on earth in the church he is preeminent. He's the head of the church. The church is his bride. The church is his beloved. The only begotten of the Father from the beginning. We are his beloved bride. And if you understand Judaism, you understand the fact that Jesus Christ came here to get his bride. And there is just a lot of imagery that's built in to Jewish background in Scripture that talks about how Jesus came to earth in order to talk with our Father. And if you go back in the passages of Scripture, you find out that Scripture says, and our Father, Jesus said, your Father the devil, when he was speaking to people. He said, your Father the devil. How the imagery of this firstborn, the church, the bride of Jesus Christ, is Christ coming to earth in order to talk with our Father the devil in order that he might pay a dowry for his bride, who is the church. And the dowry that was determined was the dowry of his death on the cross. Go back to Genesis 3.16, where it is said to Eve, and the curse shall be upon you as well. And the one that you shall deliver, his head shall be bruised, his heel shall be bruised, but he will crush the head of the evil one. And so redemption through the body of Jesus Christ was identified in Genesis 3.16. So he's saying here, he is the preeminence of all things. So now he's beginning to talk about the body, the church. So in 20 he says, and by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross. The blood of the cross is mentioned again here in verse 20. Could it be that in the second creation of Jesus Christ, identified here in verse 20, so that by him to reconcile all things to himself by himself whether things in earth or in heaven, could it be that at the death of Jesus Christ, things in heaven were reestablished as well? Could it be that in the death of Jesus Christ, angels achieved an opportunity for a closer relationship with eternal God? Could it be that the heavens were changed in some way through the new creation of Jesus Christ here upon earth? Many people, many scholars think that it was. And that Jesus Christ's death here on the earth is identified by Paul in this verse, saying that by him reconcile all things to himself, both in heaven and on earth through his blood. And that relationship of angelic beings were improved with eternal God through the blood of Jesus Christ. That the new creation on earth had emphasis and had importance on the creation that was in heaven. Read my material on that and see if you agree. Sometime when you have a few minutes. But understand that in the second creation, in the creation of Jesus Christ for his church and for us, he did recreate things which were in heaven and in earth as well. So in verse 21 he says, And you, now he's talking about the conscience, and you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled. So the apostle Paul is now saying he's building his body through us. He's building his body through the membership of the church. He's building his body through the redemption of the church. He is going to build his body through him. And by us you are reconciled. By his death you have been reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy, blameless, and irreproachable in his sight. Now what he's saying here is, he's saying because of his death, he made us who were aliens, who were outside the commonwealth of Israel, who were lost and undone, who were on our way to eternal perdition, he made in his body for us a way of escape, and we became, we have peace through his blood, through the blood of Jesus Christ. And so in verse 21 he says, And you who were once alienated. Oh, by the way, look in the mirror and say those words. And you who were once alienated. Each one of us, just like these Colossians, were alienated from God. Each one of us were outside the commonwealth of Israel. Each one of us were outside the kingdom of God. If you want to see who was alienated, look in the mirror and you'll see his or her face. And you were without hope. You were without strength. You were without redemption. You were without heaven. You were without everything. And through his blood, he satisfied God's eternal plan. And by satisfying God, for nothing can be redeemed without the shedding of blood. So through his blood, he redeemed us. So in verse 22, In the body of his flesh, through his death, to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable in his sight. Therefore, continue, continue. Keep on keeping on. And so he says here in verse 23, If indeed you continue in faith grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, which I, Paul, became a minister. Now I'm going to take you back in and then we're going to come out again. The apostle Paul is wanting to tell us, is trying to tell the church in Colossae, Because you are of Jesus Christ in his body, and you have been created in him, you have in yourself the recreation of him in his second creation, and he has brought you out of darkness into light. And he has given you the promise of redemption. And so he says here, That you might be sure that you stay grounded, steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you've heard. Paul is telling them, I haven't seen you. When he said, the gospel which you heard. Gives indication that Paul has never seen these people. So how have they heard the gospel? They've heard it through his young men who were in the church. They heard it through Agippa. They heard it through the young man that brought this particular book to them. He was one of the converts out of Colossae. And they heard it from him. Paul is saying you heard this gospel from me. But I want you to know it is the gospel which was preached to every creature under heaven. And I, Paul, have become a minister of that gospel. And I'm sharing that gospel with you through all of my people who have brought you this gospel. And so I'm telling you that you are in the Lord Jesus Christ by faith in re-creation. Verse 24. I now rejoice in my suffering. At this point, the Apostle Paul is getting ready to introduce all of us to the word suffering. Jesus Christ suffered in order that the church might be formed. We, in our daily Christian lives, suffer in order that the church might be forwarded throughout the entire kingdom. We have this relationship of suffering of which the Apostle Paul said on many occasions, I suffer with Jesus Christ. And I suffer with him because suffering is part of the redemptive process of the church. So he's saying here, I now rejoice in my suffering for you and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, which is the church. Paul says, although Christ Jesus himself and his suffering paid the ultimate price for your sins and my sins. Now, in our relationship with him, we too suffer in order that many others might come to the faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ through redemption. So the Apostle Paul says, I daily suffer with Jesus Christ and we too suffer with Jesus Christ. We suffer with him in the presentation of the gospel. We suffer with him when we study the word of God. We are suffering and agonizing and striving in order that we might be able to do that, which is for the kingdom of God. Now, I rejoice in my suffering because I have been made a minister of my suffering. The mystery of which has been hidden from the ages is what I'm bringing to you. Now, in this chapter, all of the preeminence that were in verses 14 through verse 20 and all of the relationship of Christ Jesus to his new creation, the church, was important in verses 20 through 24. Coming now down toward the end of the chapter, we come to a word that the word is mystery. Gnosticism was a mystery religion. It was a mystery because they could not identify God. They could not see a person. The God was invisible. The God was a mystery. And so they looked at Christianity and they looked at Judaism as mystery religions as well because they could not see anything. It was, as he said in the beginning, the invisible being. And Paul comes to say, now I want to share with you a mystery that has been hidden from the ages. What was that mystery? Look back over the beginning of the kingdom of God in the Old Testament in Judaism. Look and see in all of the peoples who lived around the Jews in all of the beginnings from Genesis all the way through the Old Testament to the coming of Christ. Look at all of these people and look at their religions and every one of them had temples. Every one of them had gods, but every one of them had invisible gods and these invisible gods were put in temples. Everywhere you went in the Old Testament, if you went to the cities of Greece, if you went to the islands of the Aegean, if you went to Ephesus or if you went to Rome or if you went to any of the major cities, you saw temples placed all over. These temples were to invisible gods and the temples were where God dwelt. Today we have temples. We have temples in all of the basic faiths. We have a magnificent temple in Salt Lake City and there are temples all over the world to Buddhism and to Taoism and to all kinds of other isms there are temples. And in the kingdom of the Old Testament there was a temple and they built a temple and in that temple was to dwell eternal God. And in that temple God was to come and visit with his people. Now as the temple was built by Solomon and it took over the place of the synagogue and the relationship of the temple to the people became a relationship of redemptive activity on the day of atonement. Anytime the people came to the temple, if they could see smoke in the daytime, they knew that the presence of God was in the temple. If they could see light in the nighttime, they knew that the presence of God was in the temple. And all of these other religions with their temples make an assumption that the presence of their God is in their temple. Now I'm coming to something which you need to understand. I grew up Catholic. I was taught that the presence of God is in that church. And I can remember when I was growing up as a kid, every time we drove in front of our Catholic church or every time I walked in front of the Catholic church, I recalled that it was incumbent upon me to do the sign of the cross. It was incumbent upon me to do the sign of the cross because I was simply identifying and recognizing that in that building was the spirit of God. I didn't know it wasn't there. And the people of all of the religions in all of their temples do not know that it's there. They think it's there. They hope it's there. Barbara and I were with some friends in Hawaii not long ago, and we went to a Buddhist temple. And this big Buddha was sitting up on his throne, and there was all kinds of food all in front of him. And one of the monks came to me and he said, do you want to be sure that the spirit of Buddha is here? And I said, I sure would like to know that he is. He said, well, have your little wife go over there and ring the bell. I said, do what? He said, have your little wife. He said, you see, Buddha really loves the women. Go over there and have your little wife. So she went over there and she hit this big old gong, and he said, now Buddha's in the temple. I said, really? How do you know? He said, well, your wife hit the bell, and so he's in the temple. And so I was taught when I went in front of the Catholic Church, I was to do the sign of the cross in homage and in glory to the king who is in the temple. I learned later that in a building, God is not there unless somebody like you and me who carry his spirit in our temple is there with him. Yes, Ed, did it go in? I'm sorry. Take a second. I'll keep on. Can you hear me? Okay. I'm going to get through this one, Jimmy, so you can have it all next week. Okay. I've got about five minutes. So now we're talking about a temple, a temple where God dwells, a temple where the spirit of God is supposed to be. Whatever God you might think might be there can be there. But I want you to understand that in this particular time, the apostle Paul is saying to them, Christ is going to become the spirit of life in another temple. And so he says here, to them God will to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, verse 27, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you. Thank you. Appreciate it. I didn't know. I didn't know I went there. Christ in you, the hope of glory. So on this particular time, in this particular time, Paul is saying to them, we have new temples. It's not a building. It's not a building made with hands. It is a person. And no, you're not. Your body, 1 Corinthians says, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you. 1 Corinthians 6. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you. And you are not your own. You have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body, which is his. The Apostle Paul is saying, this is the mystery that has been hid from the ages. It was hid from the angelic host in heaven. It was hidden from all of the powers and the principalities, as you go back and look at all these who were created in heaven for God's pleasure. In fact, the scripture even says God rides on these principalities as chariots. Go back and look at the book of Psalms. Psalm 56. Psalm 56 says God rides on these principalities as chariots. God created them for his pleasure. Look at them and see that God is there. Now, that same eternal, magnificent, majestic God in Jesus Christ is going to come into our bodies. And our body will become the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul says that he may present every man perfect in Christ. Every man perfect in Christ. We preach then warning and teaching. Warning about the fact that the Spirit of God dwells in your body. Teaching the fact that we are to present every one of you complete in Jesus Christ. So, the last verse he says, to this end, I have labored for you. And to this end, I have brought to you the gospel. And to this end, I join you as part of the recreation in Jesus Christ in his body, the church. And so now, if we are here, the Spirit of God is here. If this building is totally empty of every human being in the building, God's Spirit is not here. God's Spirit comes when our spirits come together. And our spirits join in one. So that it sounds something like this. We are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord. We are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord. And we pray that his image will one day be restored. And we know we are Christians by our love. By our love. And we know that the Spirit of God who dwells in us identifies we are Christian by our love. Now, this chapter is the preeminent chapter of the entire book of Colossians. His preeminence. His sustenance. His conservatorship. His stewardship to us. His redemptive love of putting his Spirit in each one of us. I wish I could have been at Pentecost. I wish I could have been at Pentecost. And I'm going to close by telling you why. Because every time since I have come to know Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, later in teenage life, every time I see somebody walk the aisle and go down to the front and confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, every time I see that, I see going on what I think happened at Pentecost. For it says that they were all together in one place. And all of a sudden, there was a noise. It sounded like a great, mighty, rushing wind. And it filled the entire place where they were. Here's the deal. And all of a sudden, I saw tongues of flame over the heads of each of the people. The Shekinah glory of God over the heads of each of the people. And as they were there, all of a sudden, that Shekinah glory came in. In my mind's eye, Jimmy, every time I see someone walking to the front, I see that Shekinah glory coming in. Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which dwells in you, and you're not your own. You've been bought. Amen? Heavenly Father, we thank you that we can come to agree with you that Jesus Christ is above all. He is in all. He is all. Was all. Continues to be all. Sustains. Conserves. He is the relationship of our redemption. It is through the blood of Jesus Christ, your Son, that we have been saved. And for that, we give you great glory and great praise. And yet, Father, we also thank you that in the new creation, made in His blood, in which the church, His bride, was presented to Him, and each of us now becoming part of the body of the church, part of His bride, and we are betrothed to Him, and He is our husband, and we are His bride, and we walk in the light of His redemptive love and the blood that He shed for us, and for that, we give all men a word of encouragement and a word of redemption and a word of forgiveness. And we thank you, Father, that in the final analysis, it wasn't important for you to be in a building, but it was important for you to be in us. And we thank you that your Spirit came into us and filled us, redeemed us, brought us into your kingdom, eternal life forever in heaven with you. Our great praise and glory to the preeminent Christ, Jesus our Lord. Amen. See you next week.