Grace to you.

John Farley
Pastor-Teacher
Sunday,
March 25, 2018

Grace Prison Ministries

www.graceprisons.org

Grace Prison Ministries works to change the lives of prisoners through evangelism and sound Bible teaching.

www.graceprisons.org

Grace to you

The great hope of being presented complete in Christ by attaining the true knowledge of God’s mystery: Christ.

I. Opening Salutation [Col 1:1-2]

II. Thanksgiving and Prayer [Col 1:3-12]

III. The Glories of Christ [Col 1:13-23]

IV. The Mystery of Christ [Col 1:24-2:3]

V. Admonishing the saints about the enemies of Christ
[Col 2:4-23]

VI. Our Life in Christ [Col 3:1-4:6]

VII. Closing
[Col 4:7-18]

Listen as if you were a saint at Colossae who was hearing this for the very first time.

Col 1:1-12

Let’s taste all the deliciousness of these words today.

Heretics have been attempting to place heavy burdens on their backs.

“Very bad,
very wicked,
very wrong”.

Am I on the wrong path? Am I missing the boat here?

And buried in what they are insisting we do is that tug on my heart that draws me back to former days.

“It’s kind of exciting to hear about these new visions that these men claim to be having…”

Treating my body severely? Why, the ancient wisdom of the ancestors taught that.

It taught that we could achieve spiritual heights and visions when we do that perfectly.

I have fallen back into the drudgery and hopelessness of not measuring up.

And when I fail, I get angry and resentful, and give myself over to all the old lusts and bad habits.

Maybe that letter will help me escape from this slavery that burdens my heart.

This body of weakness that prevents me from doing the spiritual exercises correctly.

God Himself chose Paul.

God, who calls himself – our FATHER!

He sees us as holy - saints.

A family of saints - faithful saints at that.

And we are in Christ - always.

Grace to you.

Not a vague spiritual euphoria held out for only the most worthy devotees …

Blessings freely given
to us by God -
 without considering whether we deserve them or not .

Gifts freely given to the undeserving.

Rom 5:8
Rom 3:23-25

We have already been declared righteous forever by God Himself through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

Rom 8:1

So you can take back your “Do not handle”s and your bed of nails and all that….

We need to soak in all that the grace of God provides.

 

 


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