Colossians
Colossians · JD McCulley · Feb 16, 2014
Colossians (2014), No. 07
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926417464296

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

Alright, well, we started with the prayer of intercession last week. That's verses 9 through 14. And so we'll review really quickly, but today we're going to pick up with 10, second half of 10 and move all the way through 14 is the hope. Of course we'll go with the pace of questions and so forth. I know that the approach that I take is a little bit different since you get handouts and we're not looking at the questions in the exact same way. Those questions that you have answered and spent time with are critical for you to think through these passages. And so, though we may not address the exact same questions in the exact same way, just be comforted that your time spent there is time with the Word and time with the Lord. We definitely want to make sure that we get clarity on all these things, but at the same point we want to stay in the text and really move through it so that we get a clear picture of what's there.

So we're going to look at Colossians 1, 9-14. We'll read that again, and we'll pick up with the second half of 10, but just to get a reminder of what the Word says, feel free to follow along here or have your Bibles open as well. Colossians 1, 9-14. For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask. What is he asking for?

That you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Verse 10, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please him in all respects bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Verse 11, strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience joyously. Verse 12, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in life. 13, for he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. And finally in 14, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

So very, very heavy passage. As Paul looks to begin transitioning into the person of the work of Christ, he's still praying. So we're calling this the Prayer of Intercession, and I gave a little bit of an outline last week. Verses 1 and 2, Salutation, and then he has the Prayer of Thanksgiving.

He thanks the Lord for the Colossians' faith in Christ. Remember, they had their faith placed in the correct object of Christ. They had a sharing of truth and grace, and they had love in the Spirit, and he was thankful for those things. But it didn't stop him from taking a perspective of intercession on their behalf.

So he not only thanks the Lord for their basic walk in Christ, but then he moves on and says, yeah, but that's just the beginning. The Lord has so much more for you. And so he begins into this prayer of intercession that starts with verse 9 and ends in verse 14.

I said last week that there are several things that we learn from these verses, and I think repetition is pretty key, and I think that hopefully this will serve as a good reminder. This is going to teach us two things, these verses. First of all, the root of Christian living and growth is knowledge, filled with the knowledge of His will. So behind this worthy walk and all the things that have an outward manifestation of a believer's walk is the knowledge of God. And we'll talk a little bit more about that, but that was the majority of what we covered last week. And second of all, it will tell us the essence of prayer and how to pray for fellow believers.

What do we ask for? Well, it's not to say that we can't ask for anything that comes to our heart, but when it's aligned with the Word of God, you have a much more accurate way to approach him because he's outlined how he thinks and how other believers, such as Paul the Apostle, approached him. And there's a lot to glean from that. And so we want to know, how did Paul pray here?

And how could that potentially apply to us as we look to pray for one another? So we use an analogy of a tree, and it's helpful to put these verses together in a visual. We have the root, which was verse 9, the trunk, verse 10, and the four branches should be 10 through 14. Not 12. So we'll review that a little bit here. Before I do that, I'm going to come over here to the Christ character. Let's go back. So let's just review it. What was the root? Do you remember what the root was in verse 9? What's the root of Christian growth?

To be filled with the knowledge of His will and all, and Spiritual wisdom. That's right. Where's the source of that wisdom and understanding? Spiritual. That's right. And where do you glean it from? The Word of God. And how is it processed in your heart? Holy Spirit. Spiritually. That's right. So the root, the root of the tree, is the knowledge of His will.

And the trunk was the worthy walk. Do you remember that? We saw the worthy walk so as to please Him. And you think, well, goodness, how am I going to have a worthy walk? Well, it starts with knowledge of His will. We talked about His will in the three different areas. You can refer back to your notes on that last week. But it is the root, the knowledge of His will, that gives growth to the trunk of the tree, which is the worthy walk.

And then from the worthy walk, you start to have these branches that sprout out in verses 10 through 14. And we will look at those today. So, picking up where we left off last week, the first branch we see is the production. Let's go back to verse 10. I'm skipping ahead of myself here. So what does verse 10 say? Someone read. We just read it. Let's read it again.

So that you will walk in the manner of the living of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. So we left off last week kind of halfway through this verse, and it was the first branch, and it had to do with this fruit-bearing process. And so what we did is we said that Paul moves to the branches of the believer's life, the knowledge leads to the worthy walk, which leads to the works.

So a worthy walk is defined by for present tense participles. So participles, big words, grammar, geeky stuff, no big deal, but these four different things are going to explain how that walk looks. So, for example, if I was to say, he came into the room, that explains what happened, but if I say he came into the room running and screaming and limping, you get a much more clear picture. And so the running and screaming and limping are descriptions of how the worthy walk looks. So that's what these branches are. These are descriptions of how the worthy walk looks. So they're an extension of the trunk. Does that make sense? So it describes how something gets done.

So we have these four different areas that we want to look at. First is the bearing fruit, which is in the second part of verse 10. The second aspect, or the second branch, is the aspect of increasing, the spreading, the growing. And then three, the being strengthened, or powerful living as we'll call it. And then four, the giving thanks, an attitude of mental thanks. So those are the four branches we're going to try to look at today. And they're characterized by verses 10 through 14 there.

So branch one is this bearing fruit in every good work. So it's interesting to note that this is a present tense bearing fruit. It means that you continue to bear fruit, even up until this very moment. The idea is that you're bearing fruit. And so it's a continuing, but why this figure of speech? Why this fruit thing? Have you seen this before in the scripture? Yeah.

It's a really beautiful figure of speech that explains how the believer's life, when grounded in the source, the correct source, bears fruit. And the whole concept here is that the fruit is based on the life that's in it, right? We see that regularly through the scripture, but it's Christ's life in us is the one that's bearing fruit.

Someone look at Colossians 3.3 and read that for us. For you have died, and your life is in Christ your God. Can you bear fruit if you're dead? Not unless you have a new life. And that's where identification comes in, isn't it? We've been crucified, buried, risen, ascended, seated. Those are five identification truths that we regularly mention. We don't bear fruit from the old man. The old man is where? He's dead. I like that. Everyone had the same idea there. I wonder where you got that. You don't bear fruit if you're dead. You bear fruit when you're alive.

Our life, being hidden in Christ, Colossians 3.3, we are alive. We've been crucified, buried, risen, and so forth.

2 Corinthians 3.18, we talk about the beholding and how that beholding results in a transforming. But it's Christ's life in us that bears the fruit. And so the word fruit occurs about 60 some odd times in the Bible. And what you see it talking about is the part of Christ's life that shows up in us. When you say, man, that believer's got a lot of fruit on his tree, or her tree.

Well, it's not their fruit, is it? You know, we talked a little bit last week about faking it till you make it. You can fake, you can put some of that plastic fruit you got on your table, you can kind of hang that on your Christian life. You can produce this kind of fruit that looks a little bit like Christian service and, you know, man, I'm out there witnessing, I'm spreading the gospel.

You know, it's interesting that not in anywhere that I looked, and I should do a more exhaustive look at it, but I didn't see the fruit bearing ever associated with how many people you led to the Lord. It always had to do with something subtle that Christ was doing in your life.

Patience, long suffering, things like that we're going to look at today. Really interesting. But, you know, we can zealously pursue fruit. But when we pursue it, and even a fellow believer might see something happening in our life that says, man, they're really pushing through and they're bearing that fruit. You know, they got a worthy walk.

Well, we have to recognize that there's a difference between us. bootstrapping it out, you know, pulling up our boots and just carrying it on out there and I've done that. And I think probably most of us in this room have done that too. We've figured out what it is we want our fellow believers to see and we've acted the way that we're supposed to act, but that's not what Paul's talking about.

He's saying, I want you to be grounded in the root of the knowledge of His will so that in spiritualism, the source, spiritualism, spiritual understanding, that you'll walk in a worthy manner that is pleasing to the Lord so that you bear His fruit so that His life comes out through you in a way that bears fruit. And then we look at, just kind of summing that up, branch one, moving forward with the second one. It's the production of Christ's character through us as a result of a worthy walk, grounded in the knowledge of Him. How do you ensure that you are bearing Christ's fruit through you. What's involved in that?

We've talked about it from different angles, but this whole fruit bearing thing is something you could really get beat over the head with. I could shackle you to your pew. Man, where's your fruit? Show me some fruit, folks. What's going on? You could say the same to me.

We could really get tied up and locked down with this idea of doing and producing. But really, how is this obtained? How does the fruit obtain in the Christian life? Is it an active doing or is it a restful trusting? Restful trusting. It's crazy that we produce more fruit when we rest in the Lord. And He does the production.

See, it's paradoxical to most of Christian thinking and living today. You go pick up a book on Christian life in the bookstore, it's unlikely that it will tie us back to these words that we see here in Colossians or any of the identification truths that are so important in the New Testament because we're so worried about a little bit of law, a little bit of grace, and a lot of production. But that's not what the Scripture is talking about.

It's saying, grow in the knowledge of His will, and then all of these things just start happening. Don't get worried. Behold the Lord through his word and he'll transform you and he'll bear the fruit through you. So we bring up 2 Corinthians 3.18 once again. So the last part of verse 10, how much fruit are we expected to bear? How do we know? Does it say? What does it say? Keep increasing. So this word increasing has the idea of growing and spreading.

So you can imagine this branch that comes out, it starts to bear fruit because you're trusting in the life that is Christ, and Christ is bearing the fruit through you. And all of a sudden another branch kind of shoots off of that one, and it just starts to increase all the more, and you've got branch after branch just continuing to produce fruit. But all the while, all you're doing is beholding him in his word, seeking to understand the knowledge of him and his will. And it's a personal, relational process that's taking place. You're spending time with the Lord and His Word, and all of a sudden you're bearing fruit.

You know, that doesn't sound like a very, let's go out there and get it done, you know? Well, it's not. It's a very personal, and sometimes quiet, sometimes not. You may be in the car, you know, fellowshipping with the Lord and His Word in a very non-harmonious way like I do. It may not sound all that great, but it's real.

I joke in that the way I studied the word in the younger years, I had a drive, about a 30-minute drive to and from college at the time. I remember taking what I learned the day before and talking to my steering wheel about it. I don't know why, I don't think I could save my steering wheel, but I was very interested in hearing what the Word of God sounded like as I talked about it with myself, and that's just how it happened, and now I've got less in my life, and so she gets to be a much more interesting version of that. So we were talking yesterday, just driving, we were just talking about the Word and it was, you know, it can be done alone, it can be done with your spouse or with, you know, family or fellow believers, but it's this beholding the Lord through His Word that results in this increasing in the knowledge of God. So it draws us back to the source of growing and the production of fruit. You know, the society of nutrients coming up through the roots, all the way up to the branches and into the fruit of the Christian's life.

It's interesting that Paul prays strategically. He prays for the thing that will produce the most fruit. He doesn't pray for the fruit. He's not worrying about that. So I want you to think about your fellow believers as you read through these verses and as we learn them together today. How is it that I could potentially be praying for my fellow believers in a way that would result in the most Christ-produced fruit in their life? How do you pray for your children, and your spouse, and maybe the family that you don't have a really close relationship with? This gives you a strategy. This is specific. This is the Word of God, and it's specific about how you can go about praying to see the most fruit in a believer's life.

Now, is that going to take 5 weeks? Or 5 years? Or 30 years? We don't know, do we? But we know where the root of it all is, and we know who the root of it all is. And so we pray for Christ being revealed in a person's life through his word, and we see some of these things happen as Paul desired for the Colossians. Mike said in answer to one of these questions, it's not merely that people are saved and bear fruit, but they grow either by or into a deeper knowledge of God himself in Christ. So, growing into a deeper knowledge of God, Himself, and Christ. You want them to get to know each other, right?

It's not just filling out their notebooks and making sure they've got all the right notes in the right places. If you've ever done an inductive Bible study, which is an approach to studying the Bible that uses a lot of different colors and highlights and symbols and things like that, that's great, if it results in a deeper knowledge of Him in a relational way, a personal way. The method can be important. I mean, there's a method to studying the Bible. Some of you are working through that right now, and there's definitely a right way and a wrong way to go about studying and beholding Him through the Word, and that's how to study the Bible one-on-one. However, don't forget that studying the Bible is about a relationship issue for those that are saved. For those that are not, it's fact-finding, and it's the Holy Spirit working in their life to convince them of their need, right?

So branch number two is the increasing, the spreading. So you've got fruit, and now it starts to spread all over the place. So we say branch number two is closely related to the first, and this is my small attempt at trying to show that these branches kind of branch off of each other, and there's an increasing production, a spreading. It's closely related to the first the increasing production of Christ's character through us as a result of a worthy walk grounded in the knowledge of him Don't forget beholding 2nd Corinthians 318 and I keep saying it because it's critical to how we Increase in the knowledge of him is through beholding He does the transforming for his glory Okay, so let's look at branch number three. But first, someone read verses 11 and 12. Now, we keep reading these same verses. Why? Because it's the Word.

The Word of God is the only thing that can pierce joint and marrow. It's the only thing that can get deep enough into your heart, your mind, to allow you to be transformed, conformed to all the things that God's doing in our life. It's the Word of God. Now, I like that I have the opportunity to teach, but I hope that the teaching leads you back to the Word of God. So we're going to keep hearing it over and over and over, but that's the way it works. It's the Word of God that makes the most sense in your heart, and it's the one that will result in a fruit production. So let's read verse 11 and 12 again.

All right, so where does our power come from and what does it look like in a believer's walk? I thought this was a very interesting question because we often talk about a powerful Christian life, don't we? And what does that look like? When you're strengthened with all power and the glory of his might, man, that means that you're... doing what? Are you out there in the mission field? Maybe. But does it directly mean that you're out there in the mission field, you're leading souls to the Lord? Does it mean that you have this special speak with the Lord?

Does it mean that you're able to do things that other believers can't? There's all different kinds of definitions behind the power of the Christian life. And so, what is it that Paul says here that is the result of being strengthened with all power? Does anyone have any ideas so far? What does it mean to have a powerful Christian walk? We're letting the power come from God. Okay, so there's a source issue. It's not your power. It's the power of God, okay. What else?

What does it mean to have a powerful Christian walk? The thing that I always think about is a couple of times on Hudson's Halo, who started with China in the mission and it's about how he learned to rest in Christ and what he did, you know, that whole unchurched, unreached China there that he went in with a few people and just learned to rest in the Lord and the things he went through and all of the fruits he bore. So we have Hudson Taylor, the missionary, and we look to him, we read his biography, and we see a powerful Christian life because of the things the Lord did through him and he was resting. What else does a Christian walk look like when it's powerful? Does it just include the kinds of miraculous missionary-based stories that we read about? I think it includes the knowledge of Him.

Okay. Okay. Love, joy, peace, patience. There's power in a... Persevering with joy. Let's take that right there and let's build on this verse and see where we land. So, first of all, we've got the strength and power might thing. And there's a lot of big power words here. You know, this is a power verse.

But really there's two different words here in the Greek, remember what they are is not important, but you've got dunos and kratos, and one of them is an inherent power. So the example is you've got a stick of dynamite. So inherently inside this dynamite is the ability to do big things, but it's just not lit. So it hasn't taken on the manifestation of that power that it contains. And so that's the second word, the kratos, that's manifested power, that's when you see it. So you've got dynamite inherent and you've got dynamite exploding.

So it's inherent and manifested. And we see both of those words for the Lord here in the word strengthened, with all power, both of those are versions of dunamis, according to his might, which is kratos, which is the manifestation of it. And so not only are we talking about the source, you mentioned, Ida, earlier, the source of the power, the source of this power is coming from His glorious might.

Where's that word according to? So it just means in harmony with. So we are to be strengthened with all power, His inherent power, in harmony with His glorious manifestation of that power. So what does glory mean? I've heard the definition mentioned a number of times in this class.

The radiant essence of who God is. So it is in harmony with God's glory that we have access to this power. The source? God. It's related to the character, his glory, who he is, the radiant essence of who he is. And we have access to this. We have the access to be strengthened inherently with it. Now, are we ever going to manifest the fullness of His glory? In heaven. Isn't that right? What do you think? In heaven. Well, it says here, for all patience and longsuffering with joy. So that kind of indicates now. Okay. Yep, you're right. So let's draw... You're right.

We are going to be transformed. Okay, in face-to-face with him, we talk about glorification. Why is it called glorification? Okay, so we're being sanctified now, we're being set apart, we're being transformed, conformed, and eventually when we go face-to-face with the Lord, when this flesh is no longer holding us down in the sense that the old man is a present and constant reminder of The old man and who we were but now in a glorified state who we will continue to be from Into eternity. There's a reason why it's called glorification Okay, so you're right, but I think that what you brought up there is the second part of this verse is that his power is manifested in the believers walk in two ways here and Remember, the source is His glorious might, this manifested power, and it's manifested in a believer's life in two ways, steadfastness and patience. Wow, that is not powerful. That's kind of what you think at first. That's not Hudson Taylor. Well, maybe it was. It was, if you read his bio.

Steadfastness. Ability to hold together under the pressure of things and circumstances. Impatience. Long-suffering under the pressure from people. So you've got this ability to endure under things and circumstances and people. Man, if we didn't have things and circumstances and people, how easy would this life be? Especially that people part.

It's interesting that it's the steadfastness and the patience is not done by just gritting your teeth and getting it done. That's not what's being said here. It actually combines these two results of having been strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, so that you have steadfastness and patience joyously. So again, a descriptor of how that looks. Man, is that how we live? not all the time, which means that we're relying on ourselves really to push through, right? We're faking it until we make it. That's the idea there.

I think that one of the things that this verse really just slayed me with was the idea of a powerful Christian life We do not pray directly for, or Paul did not pray directly for a powerful Christian life for these Colossians. He prayed that they would grow in the knowledge of his will so that they'd have a worthy walk, so that they'd bear fruit, so that they would have a powerful life resulting in the manifestation of steadfastness and patience joyously. See, all these things come out of spending time with him and growing in the knowledge of his will. You get a powerful life And it's shown, in this case, through steadfastness and patience.

How many times have you heard stories of unbelievers recognizing the power of God based on how you dealt with a circumstance or dealt with a person? I've heard a lot of those things. I don't know how you're enduring this. I haven't had massive circumstances and people issues in my life to the point that I can point to the Lord in my own life in this way, but I've heard your stories and I hear them and we're praying for some of them now.

But this powerful living through the circumstances that you're facing, and the people's situations that you're facing, are a result of you beholding the Lord through His Word, and His power is being shown in your ability, His ability through you rather, to be steadfast and patient. And people see that, and it just blows their mind. Why? It's powerful. It's mind-blowing.

I read this story many years ago, a true story, about in China, during pretty rough days there was this man that the Chinese couldn't break and they held these men together in a prison cell and they just couldn't break his steadfast and not being uptight about things and so one day they shoved a man with leprosy and all the men drew back And this man went over and put his arms around him and allowed him to share his mat on the bed, on the floor. And the Chinese realized they could not break this man and they gave him his freedom. But he was speaking and he was doing what you're talking about. Let me phrase that in a way that I think makes sense with how we've been talking about things so far.

They could not break Christ in him. Right? You can't break Christ. So, when our source is in the person of Christ, don't worry about how that all gets accomplished. You worry about Christ. You worry about the truth of who you are in Christ, how you've been identified with Him, and that kind of thing is the manifestation of Christ's life in you. Don't worry about what it looks like or how it gets accomplished. That's His job. In the case of this Chinese man, that's how it looked for him. But what about you? You have the same person that you have been placed into.

Your identification is in Christ as well. You have a powerful life because you have Christ. You have access to steadfastness and patience, the manifestation of God's power and glory in your life because you are in Christ. And we read these bios, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to hear of how Christ in other believers was manifested. But don't forget this is accessible to you because of who you are in Christ. And this joyously thing, man. Yeah. It brings to mind, as a young Christian, I read these biographies too.

And I was so discouraged. These guys, they look like glorious people that I could never attain to. We're always having these good lives. But nobody ever explained to me that it is Christ's life, not their life, that I was looking at. Do you hear that? No. Bios are great. But unless it's the bio of Christ in you, you can get caught up in feeling like you're not measuring up. There's always a chance for us to get involved in measuring ourselves against others. And biographies do a good job of supplying that opportunity. Now, they're also a great opportunity to be thankful for how the Lord manifested himself in their life. But it shouldn't cause us to feel like we don't measure up.

My goodness, I just don't have the ability that Hudson Taylor had or any of these other missionaries. I don't have the oomph. I don't have the go get it. Well, neither did they. What the biographies sometimes fail to maybe communicate in a way that's understandable to us is that they grew in the knowledge of His will and these were the results of how the Lord used them. So let's look at branch three. We've got this third one. I'm just going to review here. Powerful living. Man, powerful living in the light of steadfastness and patience joyously.

The evidence of the third branch is God's power showing itself in the believer's ability to hold together, I should say the believer's ability as he abides in Christ, to hold together under the pressure of things and people in a state of joy and gladness.

Now are you happy about the situation that you're facing? No, it may be and very likely is a horrible thing as a result of sin. In this world, you're enduring through steadfastness and patience something that is probably grounded in the result of sin and evil, and it's horrible. In many ways, it is. How can you be joyful in that? When you're not joyful in the circumstance, you're joyful in the Lord whose glory is being manifested through your life. your joy is focused on beholding the Lord. Your joy is about Christ in you, not about the circumstance. Obviously, those things are horrible in many ways.

So, beholding the Lord through his words, 2 Corinthians 3.18.

Let's move on to verse 12, this whole issue of thankfulness. So, what produces thankfulness for the believer? I'll give you a chance to answer that. I think as we know Him better and better, we become more and more thankful. Okay. Do you hear that? As we come to know Him, behold Him, in His Word, we become more thankful. I think that's very accurate. I think knowing Him, growing in the knowledge of His will, is spent spending time in the teaching of the Word, all know, here's the big D word, doctrine. When you know the doctrine of whatever the case is, you know what the Lord is doing, you know His will about a certain thing, His sovereign moral, His individual will, His ability to have spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding comes from the Word itself, and don't forget the Word is a person. Okay? So, when we give thanks to the Lord, we're giving thanks for something that He has revealed to us.

Maybe it's about ourselves. Maybe it's about Him. And likely it's both. But in this verse, we talk about four areas that Paul points to that result in a thankful heart for the believer. Remember, he's not praying that they would be thankful. He's praying that they would grow in the knowledge of His will. And as a result, they're thankful. And what are they thankful for? They're thankful for the doctrinal understanding of several things in this verse.

So, thankfulness in the Bible is a response attitude, and Paul focuses on four things that create this attitude. We can call these thanksgiving creators. And you'll find others in the scripture, but Paul talks about four here. These thanksgiving creators that are statements of fact. They are presently true of you today, just as they were presently true of the Colossians when Paul wrote to them from prison. Fact number one. who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in life.

Qualified. So I'm going to suggest that there is the possibility, I think in the King James it talks about made fit. You think about getting yourself fit and it's something that you produce in your own, you know, your hard work and time in the gym or on the road running or whatever. But I think in this, I think it's better translated qualified or to make sufficient, to make adequate, to render fit. And so, this is aorist tense, don't get hung up there, but it means that it's decisive and definite.

So you have definitely been qualified, decisively been qualified, and in 2 Corinthians 3, 5, that same word is translated sufficient, not a deserving. We're not deserving of this inheritance, we are made qualified by an action that is decisive, and that is definite, and is present, up until now, okay? You've been qualified for something that is the result of God's work through... When does this qualification take place? What do you think? When does a believer be qualified for an inheritance? When they believe.

Okay, let's hold on to that. So, I'm just going to quote him here real quick. The standing of the believer in Christ is here in view, not his Christian character. So it's not your character that qualifies you, it's your standing. How do we say that? Position condition. Is this a positional qualification or a conditional qualification? Positional.

The Father qualified believers to partake of the inheritance of the saints by placing them in Christ. positionally, in whom they enjoy a standing which makes them the objects of God's grace." Being qualified is a gracious act of God by placing you in Christ, moving you from the state of being in Adam to the state of being in Christ. That's a positional truth that has conditional consequences. So the thankfulness creator, fact number one, and I say fact because it is true present of you today, if you have believed, that you are qualified. So what are you qualified for?

To share in the inheritance of the saints in light. I'll read it here. In verse 1-5, Paul talks about hope laid up for you in heaven. So this whole inheritance is alluded to in a previous verse when Paul's thinking about He's being thankful for the hope that's laid up in heaven for you in heaven, that is those saints in Colossae. And here he draws it out even further by using the word inheritance. But I think 1 Peter 1, 4 sheds some really interesting light on our inheritance. So I'll read this and just kind of give a little bit of context to it.

But it says that we are to attain inheritance which is imperishable. So imperishable tells us this is inheritance that does not deteriorate. We all know what that's like. We're all getting older and we're sensing the deterioration of our own bodies. But that doesn't have anything to do with how this inheritance looks. It doesn't perish. It doesn't get older. It doesn't wear out. Also, it's undefiled, meaning it's perfect. It has no flaws in it. There's no flaws whatsoever. And it will not fade away. It's permanent. It's eternal.

The inheritance that we have access to, that we have been qualified for when we were placed in Christ at the point of our belief in Him, for His death, burial, and resurrection on behalf of our sin problem, when we placed personal faith in that reality, that truth, we were qualified for an imperishable, undefiled, eternal, permanent inheritance reserved for you where? Is our inheritance here on this earth? has nothing to do with earthly things. So if you feel like you don't have an inheritance and you haven't caught that lucky break, don't worry. You have an imperishable, undefiled, permanent, reserved for you in heaven inheritance that you have been qualified for based on the person and the work of Christ.

And that's what the rest of this whole book is about. It's about who Christ is and what He's done. But here you get to partake in the inheritance that is His. Romans 8.17 calls us heirs with Christ. We are co-heirs with Christ. What He possesses, we possess in Him.

So doctrine is the foundation for thankfulness. I think that was kind of mentioned, and here we're making that statement. In this case, it's our inheritance. So what we have access to that has been where our citizenship is, where our position is, where our Savior is, where we are, is our inheritance, and it has these qualities of imperishable, undefiled, and so forth, and it is a thankfulness creator for us. We can be thankful because we have an inheritance that looks like this, Paul says. I don't know if you're going there or not, but in Ephesians it talks about this inheritance too. It does.

In fact, in most instances of each of these verses, you have a parallel in Ephesians that draws further light to these things. So as you read through the book of Colossians, read through the book of Ephesians. And I'll mention some of them. Verne did a class on Ephesians and Colossians together, where he constantly kept the verses side by side, giving kind of a divine commentary of one another. Go back and check it out. A lot of what I've learned has been from that class and through spending time in the book of Ephesians as well. Three features of inheritance, just by way of clarification.

First of all, it comes by death. Who's death? In the Hebrews class that we're in with Vern, in the main service, we've read verse 9-15. It talks about the death issuing a new covenant, a testament. And so the idea here is that it is Christ's death that begins the inheritance. There has to be a death in order for inheritance to take place. And we cannot be placed in Christ without the identification truth of death. It cannot be purchased. You can't purchase your own inheritance.

It's a gift of grace. They're given by grace. And all the identification truths have nothing to do with what you have done, but what Christ has done and placed you in. That's why we call them identification. We have been identified with Him. And then finally it comes by birth, which is in contrast to the death side. You die. There's the death that makes the inheritance possible. It's not purchased by us, but it sure is purchased. Who purchased it? That's right. Christ purchased it, and it comes by birth. Christ's resurrection, who we've been identified in. So we have the resurrection, the new creation, the new life, that gives us access to this aspect of inheritance, or this reality of inheritance, I should say.

And then finally, in light, as to the inheritance, it's a perfect one where God is. So, yes, the saints are the ones who partake in this inheritance, but I think the in light modifies where the inheritance is. Just like the in heaven stored up for you, it's where God is, right? Where does the radiant essence of God reside?

In his character, who he is, where he is, that's the light. Yeah, you bet. Light in my Bible is capitalized. Who is the light? Christ. Or the Lord. Yeah, I mean, you know, in different instances we could refer to light as being, I mean, we're told to walk in light, not in darkness, but where does that light come from? It comes from the source of Christ, and so, it does, it comes from the triune nature of who God is, right? So, light there, being capitalized, would just refer to the source being divine light, and not your light, right? And really I think it modifies where that inheritance is and who it belongs to and where we're placed positionally in, right?

Does that answer your question? Let's look at verse 13 and 14. We'll see if we can get through a couple more of these. I'm going to read this one just for the sake of time. So verse 13, For he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

So thankfulness creator, fact number two, we've been rescued. He rescued us from the domain of darkness. So your Bible might say delivered. I think delivered is probably a really good word there. But it's the idea of being delivered from danger. Okay, where's the danger come from in this verse? the domain of darkness.

Okay? And what's interesting is, again, Aristotle's here referring back to a definite and decisive moment. You were rescued at a point in time that is continually the case. It's decisive and it's directive and it's yours and it's presently yours. Okay? So, this rescuing is a cause for thankfulness, Paul says. You've been rescued. from a domain or a state of control over someone or something.

It's the authority factor. You were slaves. We use that term. You were slaves to the domain of darkness. You were under the authority and control of the prince of this earth. That is Satan. You were under the consequences of Satan's disobedience and sin and his rule over this Temporary rule over this earth and you were rescued from that domain from that authority you were removed out of that authority and placed somewhere else The darkness figurative for the realm of sin and evil. It's opposite of where inherited Inheritance is in light. So here we've got a contrast you got light where inheritance is and slavery where the darkness is Okay?

In 1 John 5, 19, we know that we are of God and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. That was your state before you came to know the Lord. When you were rescued. Did you see anywhere in the Bible where where our inheritance is taken away and we're unrescued and thrown back to the domain of darkness?

No. You don't see the reversal of any identification truth. You don't get uncrucified and unburied and unresurrected and unascended and unseated. So being in Christ, we have been rescued from the authority of Satan and sin and positionally placed in the authority of Christ. And when you abide in your position, it produces an attitude of thankfulness for your inheritance and how you've been rescued. Those are the first two. So, qualified for an inheritance, rescued from the domain of darkness. And look at number three. You've been transferred. You've been transferred into the kingdom of his beloved Son.

So, transferred denoting change of a place or condition, a change of a state or standing. And the Colossians would have known what this whole, when they heard this word or read this word from Paul, they would have said, man, we know what that is because they saw massive amounts of people moved, transferred from their home to a whole other area of the world. And in fact, in Ephesus and Colossae, these were regions where massive movements of people had been made. So they understood this word, transferred. They had a historical context for what this meant. And when they heard it, they would have said, where are we being transferred from? And where are we being transferred to?

And so from a spiritual perspective, we can see that we have been transferred from darkness. And in coming verses, we're going to see more to this. And if you look at the Ephesians passage that parallels this, it brings a much clearer light to all of it. But we've been transferred from, we've been moved, mass movement. from darkness, slavery, condemnation, power of Satan, to light, freedom, forgiveness, and power of God, under the authority of God.

So there's this transfer. And I think that, you know, as we look at the second part of that transfer to the kingdom of his beloved Son, we're going to have We have two minutes here. I think I'd like to pick up with this next week and just finish it out. I think that probably we'll pick up with the fourth lesson with Courtney midway through that class as we finish just the last few steps of this, the last few Thankfulness Creators in this class. Man, I don't want to stop. I wish we could keep going. Let's take the time to understand, so far, what's going on. Just a few seconds.

Root. Knowledge of his will. That's what Paul asked for. It's the only thing he asked for. That they would grow in the knowledge of his will. So that, in spiritual wisdom and understanding, that they would have a worthy walk. Right? That bared fruit and increased. It spread. It grew. that it would have powerful results in life through steadfastness and patience joyously.

The third branch we talked about was this aspect of attitude, mental attitude of thankfulness. And Paul talks about three things so far that you've been qualified. You've been rescued and you've been transferred. And we'll talk about to the Kingdom of the Beloved Son next time and then transition over to Courtney for Lesson 4. Let's pray.

Lord, we are so thankful for who you are and what you've done on our behalf. We are the objects of your grace and we know that you've loved us so much. that You chose to identify us in the ways that we see in Your Word. And Lord, we know that as a result of Your love, Your grace, and nothing to do with anything we deserve or have earned, and we just take such great pride in who You are and what You've done. And Lord, we just pray that you would continue to work these words of your truth into our heart over the coming week. And as we continue to look in the book of Colossians, we are excited about the study of your deity, your person and your work, this whole issue of Christology. Lord, we're excited to grow in a knowledge of of your deity. And Colossians is just such an amazing book for that. We thank you for preserving it for us and allowing us to spend time in it together as a body. We love you. We thank you for this day. Amen.