Thank you again, Mark, for leading us. Good morning to everyone. A little cooler than it has been. Nice this morning, eh? 

Well, we are continuing our study in the book of Colossians this morning in chapter 1, and again, this is such a rich text that I'm having trouble letting go of it, so we're going to spend one more week focusing in on verse 27. This morning, we've seen the preeminence of Jesus in all things. We've seen God's plan to reconcile all things in Jesus, whether in heaven or on earth, principalities, powers, men. We've seen that it is through the cross, through Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, that we have been brought back into a harmonious relationship with God, and those who believe now have peace with God. Jesus is our peace. 

This morning, I want to focus in on what I think is the most important message of this text for us, for believers in Jesus Christ. It's really the heart of what Paul is saying, and that's what God's will is for you. Why is it that God has saved you? What is His purpose for you? What does He intend, or how does He intend to work this out in your life and for eternity? These verses before us speak to God's will and purpose for every believer, and they give us security, assurance, understanding, and hope. 

At the heart of these things is the mystery of the new covenant, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. One of the most exciting things for me is that in this text, we see answers to so many of the questions that Christians have about salvation, about security and assurance, about how to live the Christian life, and what God's will is for me, and how He intends to accomplish it. These truths will guide us and keep us from wandering off into error, misunderstanding, doubt, and fear. 

If we do not have a right understanding of our salvation, of who we are in Christ, of God's way of sanctification unto glorification, fullness of salvation in Christ, then we will be off fighting the battle at the wrong points. We will be distracted and confused, frustrated and discouraged in this Christian life. But if we can get hold of these things that Paul is teaching us, if we can begin to understand God's perspective of our salvation, what He has done by His grace through Christ in us, and how it is that He intends we live this life out in our time on this earth, then we will begin to experience the abundant life that Jesus promised, the fruit of the Spirit and peace and assurance and fulfillment in Him and Him alone. 

Let's look at our text together, Colossians 1:21, and you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight. If indeed you continue in the 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, of which I, Paul, became a minister. 

I now rejoice in my sufferings 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, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you to fulfill the word of God. The mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations but now has been revealed to His saints, to them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 

Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily. 

I've given you four points on the outline this morning. First, God's will. Second, knowing the truth. Third, the battle of the mind. And fourth, the battle is believing. 

Well in these verses we see clearly God's will for the believer in Christ. If you look at verse 21 again, and you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, why? There's your purpose word. Two, the purpose for which He saved you is to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight. 

In 1 Thessalonians 4:3 Paul wrote, for this is the will of God, your sanctification. Ephesians 1:3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. 

It is God's will to save you, to reconcile you, to bring you back into a right relationship with Him through Christ's death on the cross, and it is God's will for you to complete that salvation through sanctification and glorification. Christ in you is your hope of glory. Glory is the end of our salvation. 

So God's very purpose in saving you is to conform you to the likeness of Christ and bring you to glory. He who has begun a good work in you will carry it to completion unto the day of Jesus Christ. So we see that it's God's will and purpose to reconcile you than to bring to completion the full work of salvation and glory to spend eternity in heaven with Him. 

We understand that we have been reconciled, justified by grace through faith through the blood of His cross. It is in the body of His flesh through His death that He brought us back into a right relationship with Him, and I pray that we are coming to understand and appreciate more and more the promise and surety of our final salvation and glorification as we long for and look forward to our blessed hope. 

Let's look at 1 Peter 1, please. 1 Peter 1, beginning at verse 3. This is a familiar passage to us. I just...these words are so encouraging concerning our salvation and what God has in store for us.

1 Peter 1, 3 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again, that's the new birth, has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love, though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 

Sounds pretty secure, doesn't it? We are kept by the power of God. Romans 8 tells us that those whom He justified, He also glorified. God has reconciled you. If you have believed Jesus, you have been reconciled to Him, and He will bring you to glory. We have the guarantee of our inheritance, the Holy Spirit permanently indwelling us in this new covenant time, Christ in you, the hope of glory. 

We have the promise of God in Christ that He will come again and take us to be with Him, that we will be delivered from these bodies and raised with a new glorious heavenly body delivered from the very presence of sin. What we want to come to understand more, to know the truth concerning and to believe that truth, is this time between justification and glorification, the Christian life on this earth. 

It is God's will to conform us to the likeness of Christ. It is His purpose to accomplish this in us and out through us in our walk for His glory and His purposes. This is why He saved us, and He will bring it to pass. But how do we understand these things? What truths must we know? What must we believe? By what power is this accomplished? Where does the battle lie? 

There is a battle, amen? Holiness and fruit does not just come naturally to us, it's not automatic in our lives that we do all things that please the Father. Paul speaks of extreme effort, agonizing, working to exhaustion in this battle of the Christian life and the ministry that God has given him. But where do we fight? Where should we apply effort? What are the key imperatives of this Christ's life according to the scriptures? 

What does God teach us in His word about this new covenant Christian life? What is the emphasis? How do we live this life and how is God working out His express will in us? There are some things we must know, truths, indicatives that we must understand and know, and we're going to look at some of those things this morning. 

But when I think about the key imperatives, the real essence of how to live this life, what God tells us about where to apply effort, to agonize, many scriptures come to mind all surrounding the same things. You know, so often we would like something to do. Just give me a law. Give me a list of things to accomplish and then tell me how good I'm doing. 

But the problem with this is that righteousness cannot come through the law, any law. The law brings only wrath. The law is a ministry of condemnation. The law condemns us and works together with the sin that still dwells in us. As much as we would like to have something to do, a law we could keep, a list to follow, doing is not the way of righteousness. This is not the place for the battle. 

Rather than starting with doing, we must start with knowing. Romans 6.1, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it, or do you not know? Verse 6, Paul says, knowing this. Verse 16, do you not know? Paul gives us truths to know in Romans 6.1-11. 

As a matter of fact, if you study through Romans 5-8, and this is true of many passages, what we find is a lot of truths to know, a lot of truths to believe, indicatives, not commands to follow. But truths to know. Romans 8 is like that. We read down Romans 8.1-11 and all these amazing truths, but no imperatives, right? No commands. Paul wants us to know. 

Do you not know? Jesus used to say, haven't you read, right? Don't you know? There are many great truths that we need to know that have tremendous impact on our thinking, on our living of the Christian life. In 1 Corinthians 2-2, Paul said, for I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 

Again and again, in fact, 964 times we see the word know in the scriptures, and Paul constantly affirms the things we know that are true of the believer in Jesus Christ. Knowing is the first step to this Christian life. Colossians 3-16 says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching, admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 

Romans 12-2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 2 Corinthians 10-3, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 

The battle is clearly one of the mind, of knowing the truth according to God's word, of understanding our salvation, who we are and what we have in Christ, renewing our minds continually to the truth, knowing the truth. Paul says that the mystery that is now revealed in the new covenant in Christ is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 

What does this mean? There's something that is new. There's a progression in the revealing of the salvation plan of God, and it is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, of Jesus Christ living in you, and this is our hope of glory. In the Old Testament, under the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit came upon people for certain purposes but left. The believers of the Old Covenant did not experience regeneration or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We see in Ezekiel 36 that this was a future promise of the new covenant time.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take out the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them. Jeremiah 31, same thing, he speaks of a new covenant, right, not like the Old Covenant. Hebrews 8 picks this up. Jesus told us in Luke 22 that He was instituting this new covenant in His blood at the cross. 

Hebrews 8 tells us that this new covenant, though promised Israel and ultimately fulfilled in Israel, is now in effect, and its promises, and the church has experienced a pre-fillment of these promises now. We have the Holy Spirit. We experience regeneration. Jesus lives in us. These very truths are the heart of our knowing. That which we must know concerning our salvation. The New Testament is abundantly clear that the Christian life is not lived by or under the law, that we do not produce holiness by our own efforts, that we stand in and live by and walk in grace and that we live by, walk by faith. 

This is a great distinction between the Old and the New Covenants. We looked at Romans 5.12-21 last week to understand the contrast between the man and Adam and the man in Christ. And we saw that the way that God explains this is with two triads. First for the man and Adam we see law, sin, and death. The man and Adam experiences condemnation in this way. He is in bondage to the law. He is controlled by indwelling sin and he lives all his life in fear of death. 

But the man in Christ lives under grace, righteousness, and eternal life. We were in Adam. We are now in Christ. God has conveyed us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love. So that which was true of us in Adam is no longer true of us in Christ. We see God's will, His intention in saving us in Romans 5.20-21. It's parallel to what Paul is telling us in Colossians 1. Let's look at those verses, Romans 5.20. He brings a summation of all he's been saying in this contrast. He says, "...Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that, so that, as sin reigned in death..." 

Now, we understand that, right? You understand in Adam. You understand who you were. You understand the people around you who are lost. Sin reigns in their life, leading to death, producing the fruit of death. "...Even so," he says, "...so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." God's purpose, as we also see in our text in Colossians 1, is that we might now live by grace through faith and experience righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

This is just what Paul says in our text. God saved us, reconciled us, regenerated us, took us out of Adam, conveyed us into Christ, crucified our old man, releasing us from the controlling power of sin so that we might now live not by law, but by grace, walking by faith, abiding in Christ, so that we might be conformed to His likeness, that we may be presented holy and blameless before Him in love. 

Paul then asks this question in Romans 6.1. He says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? He says where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so what are you saying, Paul, we should just keep on into sin so that grace can abound? No way, he says. Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? You see Paul's logic. Those who have believed Jesus, who've been united with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection to newness of life, have died to sin. 

We looked at this in Romans 8 last week. God has made us free from the law of sin and death, releasing us from its controlling power in our lives out through our members. Now I want to be very clear here, it's not indwelling sin that died, right? Indwelling sin is still in you, and it's still in me, just as it was in Adam. But my relationship to sin has changed by means of my death. I died to sin. 

You know, Bobby and I were talking about on the way down here, the soft maples are turning red already, and I was thinking, believe it or not, we're not that far away from deer season. Years ago I'd be getting ready, right, thinking about bow hunting, setting stands, baiting. When I think of my death to sin, how my relationship to indwelling sin has drastically changed by means of my death, I always think of opening day of rifle season in Wisconsin. 

Think of this scene, hundreds of thousands of men composing the Orange Army, going out into the deep woods to the hiding places and bedrooms of big bucks hoping to tag a trophy. Now those deer are scared to death. They run, they hide, they do anything they can to avoid those hunters. If a hunter walks through a thicket, a buck slips out the back to avoid that threat. The actions of the hunters dictate the movement and actions of the deer. 

Much the same way in Adam, we were constantly threatened by the power of indwelling sin. Sin controlled us, dictated our movements, our actions, we lived in fear and bondage, and we produced the fruit of sin and death out through our members. Now as scared as those deer are on that opening weekend in the woods of Wisconsin, there's one deer on Sunday morning who has no fear, the one hanging on my buck pole. That buck couldn't care less about the hunters coming in and out of the cabin, walking by him, talking, rummaging about. 

He's not afraid. He's not controlled by the actions and movements of the hunters because he's dead. He who has died has been made free from sin. You see, it's our relationship to indwelling sin that has changed because we died and were raised to newness of life. And Paul says, these are the truths we must know. We've been regenerated, given a new heart and a new spirit, and the Holy Spirit lives in us permanently. Jesus has come to make His home in us and live His life out through us. 

Do you not know? Do you not know that you died? Do you not know that sin no longer controls you, the law no longer holds you in bondage, you no longer have to fear death, but now you live in grace, in righteousness, and experience eternal life as you walk by faith. And the Christian life is Christ living in and through you, Christ in you.

And the truth is our hope, our confident assurance of future glory is Jesus living in us. These are the truths we must know, and knowing these truths, continually renewing our minds to them, letting them dwell in us richly, knowing them, we must reckon them to be so. Romans 6.11 says, likewise you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul uses a mathematical accounting term here, he says, count up the facts. He gives us, I think, seven facts in 6.1 to 10. He says, know these truths, your death with Jesus, freedom from indwelling sin, release from the fear of death, new life, Jesus living in you, surety of full salvation, the power of the Holy Spirit in you, producing the will of God for you. 

Take all these truths, know them, count them up, reckon them to be so, and believe. Choose to believe what God says, and walk in full dependence on his grace and power to conform your outward living to these inward realities. This is your reasonable service. This is your spiritual act of worship, presenting your members not to sin, but to righteousness which is consistent with who you are. You see, the battle of the Christian life is not one of doing, of producing fruit by our efforts, but by the grace of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, by an abiding relationship with Jesus as a branch abiding in a vine. 

I was looking at our apple trees the other day, there are a lot of apples this year but not much fruit because of the drought. Apples are tiny and they're falling off the trees, I noticed the leaves are falling off my apple trees, they're trying to survive with no water. You see, the fruit is poor because the nutrients and hydration did not flow up into the branches through the vine, the tree, and thus there's no fruit. I can't produce good, healthy fruit in my life unless I am abiding in the vine, unless Jesus is by His grace drawing up the water and nutrients, supplying the sufficient grace and power through me to produce the fruit. 

Galatians 5.22, but the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such there is no law. Love, joy, peace, all these things are fruits of the Spirit, not works of the flesh. The battle's not won to produce the fruit, but to abide in the vine, to know the truths and to reckon them to be so, to believe. The battle is one of the mind. Do I believe what God says? Do I believe that I'm dead to sin? Do I believe that Jesus lives in me? Do I believe that God will conform me to His likeness by His power in me? Do I believe that? Are my expectations today and every day for a holy life because God says that's who I am and that's what He wants? 

Turn to James 1 with me, please. James 1 at verse 14. James says, each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. James really helps us to understand the practical application of these truths in the Christian life. How does sin come about in my life? James says a desire from within draws us away, a feeling, an emotion rises up. The sin that still dwells in us entices us to some thought or desire. 

And James says the battle then happens in the mind. We have a choice in a moment in the mind to agree with and rationalize that desire or feeling or to take that thought captive to the obedience of Christ, the truth of God's Word. Let's say that something happens that makes me angry. I feel the emotion of anger, it rises up in me and entices me to sin. Now I could rationalize that anger and think about what someone did or some circumstance I see as unjust or even is unjust, and we could conceive the sin in our minds. 

And what James is saying is that just like a baby, once it's conceived, it will be born. It will come forth. So when we conceive the sin in our mind, it will come out through our members. We will have an outburst of wrath, totally inconsistent with who we are as new creatures in Christ. But we have the choice at that point of temptation to remember, to reckon ourselves dead to sin, to look to Jesus, pray to Him for help and grace in time of need. 

If we take that thought or emotion captive to the truth, if we remember God's Word, His truth, what He says about us, we choose to believe Him, then we will produce the fruit of righteousness, not anger and wrath. We will react as one who knows and understands and believes what is actually true, regardless of how we feel. And sin is stopped in the mind long before it comes out through our members. You see, if we're fighting the battle at the point of committing sin in our members, we've already lost the battle. 

The sin was already conceived in our mind when we believed our circumstances, when we believed our emotions, when we believed our experience, rather than renewing our mind to the truth of God's Word, reckoning it to be so and relying on His grace to deliver me from this temptation for His glory. I shared a story about my oldest brother a while back, I think in a men's study. I'd been witnessing my brother for some time and he'd professed faith. I was staying for a visit at his home in Indiana and his son had come down for work and gone out and got into his truck and he backed right into the side of my brother's truck. 

He came in white as a ghost, sat down waiting for my brother to get out of the shower and get dressed, come down for work. When my brother came down, we both expected him to blow his top, lose his temper, yell and scream because that's how it's been our whole life, right? But when my nephew told him about his truck, my brother said, it's just a truck. It was an accident. Don't worry about it. Go to work. I was stunned. My nephew was speechless. Clearly there had been a drastic change in my brother's life. 

This was the fruit of the Spirit, my friends, a practical application, taking the emotion, the thought captive, it is just a truck. That's the truth. It will be fine. Much better to exhibit the fruit of love and forgiveness in a proper perspective than an outburst of wrath that accomplishes nothing anyway.

We have all conceived the sin in our minds at that point and produced an outburst of wrath and then later felt silly and ashamed, realizing and knowing that the things of this world are insignificant, that bad things happen, but that doesn't change the truth nor who I am nor how I should react to such things in everyday life. We could use a thousand examples from your life and mine, but what we are learning from our text and so many other passages is that I need to learn to judge all things by God's Word. I need to take my thoughts and emotions captive. I need to evaluate all emotions and circumstances by truth, not by experience or feelings or even my wisdom. I need to know and believe the truth, what God says. 

Go back to Colossians 1 verse 9. Colossians 1 9, Paul says, for this reason we also since the day we heard it, heard of their faith and their fruitfulness, do not cease to pray for you. What's Paul's prayer for the church, for the believers? To ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Filled and controlled no longer by indwelling sin, no longer by the wisdom of the world or men, but with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Why? Verse 10, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power for all patience and long-suffering with joy. 

I'd like to have all patience and long-suffering with joy when a cow steps on my foot, right? Our ministry to one another is exhorting, reminding, pointing to the truths of our salvation, who we are in Him, encouraging each one to believe, to trust God, to walk by faith, pointing every brother away from law, from self-effort, from trying to produce the fruit that only the Holy Spirit can produce, and trusting Him, His life and power in me to accomplish His will for me. In short, to believe. To believe. 

First we have to know, you can't believe what you don't know, we have to keep renewing our mind to that, right? Sometimes it's hard to hold on to, keep coming back to it, renewing, remembering, but you have to believe Him. You have to trust that God knows better than you. Sometimes that's hard. 

Colossians 124, I now rejoice in my sufferings for you fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the affliction of Christ for the sake of His body, which is the church of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you to fulfill the Word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations but now has been revealed to His saints, to them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man, teaching every man in all wisdom, in order that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. 

To this end I also agonize and strive and labor to exhaustion, Paul says, according to His working which works in me mightily. Where should my striving, my labor be focused? For myself? To know Jesus, to know Him through His Word, to renew my mind, to remember, to reckon and believe what God says to be true and to rely on His power. Working according to His power, His working, which works in me mightily. 

And toward the body of believers, the church, our brethren, to point them to these very truths, to encourage them to know the truths of the Christian life, the promise of life by grace now and for eternity, pointing each other back to Jesus continually. Not to ourselves, not to our performance, not to law, but to the grace of God in which we stand, to faith in Jesus by which we now live, and the glorious will and power of God working in and through us to accomplish His will. 

We are to know, to reckon, to yield, this is the point of the battle in this life we live until Jesus comes. And then we will be glorified. Our brothers and sisters in Christ, Christ in you is a truth taken by faith in this new covenant. How do I know Jesus lives in me? Because God said so. It's a promise. Christ in you is a promise of your salvation, of your inheritance. Christ in you is a promise of the hope to come, glorification, final and full salvation in Him by grace through faith. 

I just encourage you this morning to take this promise for yourself. Know that you are in Him and live by His power and life in you as you walk by faith, believing Him. Believing Him, that's enough. This is the commandment of the new covenant. Believe Jesus and love one another. 

Let's close in prayer. Father, we're so thankful that you are patient and long-suffering with us, that you continue to teach us, to guide us, to use all the circumstances and occurrences and troubles and trials and joys and everything we have in our life to show us who we are in Christ and why you've saved us and how you intend to make us like Him. 

Thank you for the promise of your sufficient grace for today, of Christ and the Holy Spirit living in us. Thank you for the promise of conforming us to His likeness, to produce holiness and fruit through us for your glory. Thank you for the promise of glory, glorification and eternity with you. Thank you, Jesus. It's in your name we pray. Amen.