NOTE: This is an unedited transcript and, therefore, contains imperfections and is not for publication or quotation in whole or in part by anyone without the express written consent of Pastor Conley. The audio tape of this message delivered June 29, 1997, is available and may be purchased from the Church.  Brackets "[ ]" are used for parenthetical words and phrases spoken. Parentheses "( )" are used for words inserted by transcriber.

THE GOALS OF GOD

Colossians 1:22-23

Dr. J. Drew Conley, Pastor

Tri-City Baptist Church, Columbia, South Carolina

There are a variety of appeals made to those outside of Christ to receive Him as Savior. There are those that teach that if you would be healthy and wealthy, that Christ is the answer. Many of us began to think seriously about our need for Christ when the reality of Hell gripped us. We realized we didn't want to go there, and we would prefer to go to be with God in Heaven. When we look at the motives that first turn us to listening to the gospel of Christ, we forget that God had motives for providing Christ for our salvation. Why did God choose to save you? Why did God go to all the trouble He went through to send His only begotten Son to die in our place? Why did He go through all of that? Many of the goals that man might have simply would not do; they are simply not sufficient to add up to such extraordinary sacrifice. Too often we have a whole Christianity that is centered on man's goals and centered on man. What about God's goals? Why did God save you? What is He doing? What is the point to all of this? Why would He go through the trouble of sending Christ, of justifying you on His behalf, of sending the Holy Spirit, of doing all these things the Bible lays out for us, why is He doing that? This passage in Colossians gives us great insight into the goals of God.

Starting in verse 19 of chapter 1 we read: "For it pleased the Father that in Him (that is, Christ) should all fullness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled In the body of His flesh through death, (Why?) to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight: If you continue in faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister." [Colossians 1:19-23].

Note with me first the purpose of God's reconciling us to Himself. The purpose of going through all of the trouble He has gone through is, first, to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight—to present you as a priest would offer up a sacrifice to be acceptable to God. In fact, that is the very language Paul uses in Romans 15:12 when he talks about offering up the Gentile converts that he had won to the Lord as an offering that would be sweet- smelling to God, that would bring God glory. To offer us, to present us as a bride is presented to her bridegroom—that is the imagery he uses in Ephesians 5—or to present us, in another setting, as one would present a person not guilty before the judge—to present you to God "holy."

Now when we think of "holiness" we think of someone who is pure, who does the right thing—that is a practical holiness, the result of what holiness really means. To be holy means to be set apart from all that is evil and set apart to God—but even that does not get right down to the root of what it means to be holy, or why we are holy. We have the "Holy Bible". We speak of the "Holy Land". We are a "holy people," fundamentally because we belong to God. It is because we belong to God, we are consecrated to Him, just as the temple instruments were consecrated to the LORD, were anointed and dedicated to the Lord. Just as the priesthood was consecrated and presented to the Lord in full time service, so we belong to the Lord. We are a holy people. In fact, that is what I Peter 2:9 when He says: "(We) are a chosen race, (we are) a royal priesthood, (we are) a holy nation, (we are) a peculiar people; (To make this more clear, it means we are a people for a possession—we belong to God.) (Why?) that ye should show forth the praises (or the virtues) of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."

God is holy. He says "I am holy" therefore be ye holy. You belong to me. You are set apart to me, and therefore you are set apart from the world—let your life evidence that holiness. Let my virtues be yours. Be pure. Be holy because you are connected to me. You belong to me. One commentator described it this way: "This holiness is an inner consecration, and the purity it creates and fosters." Holiness is the very root of the other qualities that God seeks to find in us and produce in us, because it is internal. There is no such thing as "hypocritical holiness"— because if you are hypocritical, you are not holy. You belong to God, and God dwells in you through the Holy Spirit, and you take on this holiness. This is consecration; this is purity of life that belongs to God. How does that happen? God doesn't just make goals for us without the means of attaining them. We know the Holy Spirit has been given to us, He indwells us, and according to Romans 15:16 where Paul again is talking of his Gentile converts, many of them won from just sordid kinds of lifestyles, he says: You are going to become holy by the work of the Holy Spirit that is within you. The Holy Spirit insures that God's goals for you and me are going to happen. It wouldn't happen just in our strength, Would it? That is why the Holy Spirit has been given to us, to shed the love of God abroad in us, to produce in us the fruit of the Spirit, to bring our character in line with God's character. We are so closely allied with God that He, in fact, dwells within us—that is part of God's purpose to achieve His goals: the indwelling Holy Spirit. But what about our part in that? Jesus Christ said in John 17:17 "Sanctify them (make them holy) through thy truth. (What is ‘thy truth'?) Thy word is truth."

When I was growing up, I heard many a message and many a challenge to make sure I was doing basically three things: that I was reading my Bible daily, that I was praying, and that I was witnessing. Witnessing they would compare to exercise, and the reading of God's Word to eating. Praying, of course, is communing with God. But the fact is, as I got older and that seemed a bit simplistic, it was true. You will not survive as a believer, you will never become holy, if you are not immersing yourself in God's Word. How do I know that? Because Christ said, "Sanctify them (make them holy) through thy truth: thy word is truth." [John 17:17] If you are having a problem with corruption in your life, if there is not a holiness there that speaks of God's holiness, the first problem may be that you do not have the Holy Spirit—you have never received Christ as your Savior, and there is no way you will ever be holy. There is no way you will ever be holy unless God dwells in you. But if you do know the Lord, the problem may be that you are not filling your mind and heart with the Word of God. You are not being set apart by thinking God's thoughts after Him. Soak your mind in God's Word. How do you know what is right and wrong? Well, you know God's Word. How do you develop the right kind of Christian character—other than through the working of the Holy Spirit in you—how do you know what kinds of things you should be working on? How do you discern and have the sharpness to know what is going to be a danger to your spiritual life and what is going to drag you away from God? How are you going to know that? Well, by the counsels of God.

Does it really matter if I don't spend much time in God's Word? I come to church Sunday morning. (In fact, maybe you come to church Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening.) Does it really matter if I don't spend any personal time in God's Word? Let me ask you this: Are you listening to any other advice during the week? During the week we are bombarded by television, by radio, by newspapers. We get advice from every corner of the globe, and a good portion of that advice and a good portion of that mindset is utterly Godless. What are you going to do to protect your mind against Godless philosophies? So often the church thinks just like the world because they are not being sanctified (being set apart) to God, through study, through meditating on His Word. I would encourage you, if you don't already do so, to make it a habit to read through God's Word each year, and to make it a habit to spend time in God's Word.

I have a friend of mine who says, "No Bible, no breakfast." I don't think I would do too well since I am not a morning person. He is more of a morning person. But whenever your best time of the day is, you ought to give that to God to spend time in His Word. Before you pick up the newspaper, before you turn on the television, before you do any of the other things that are really insignificant, make sure you spend time with God and God's Word.

We are to be holy. Jesus didn't die just to make us happy. In fact, He died first to make us holy—and it is only by being holy that we will ever be happy. Too often man tries to get to the happy without the holiness.

What is the second description he uses? He says God's goal is that we be unblamable. What does that word mean? We find the word used translated differently in Ephesians 5:27 where it says Christ wants to present us "...to Himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."—there's our word, "without blemish." Hebrews 9:14, "Christ...offered Himself without spot to God." Both of those translations "without blemish" and "without spot" get at the root of what this word really means. We find that in the Greek translation of the Old Testament the word is used to describe a sacrificial animal without any defect that would make it unsuitable as an offering. So we are back to Christ presenting us to God as a suitable sacrifice, as something that would please God. We have to be holy, but we also want to be without spot, without blemish. Just as Christ was without blemish as He presented Himself to the LORD, our character is to be unstained. You say "Wow, that is a high-sounding goal. Will I ever be that way?" According to the scripture, all those that are His will one day be this way.

You look at the world around you, you look at your own character, and how often we are so discouraged by the ravages of sin—whether it be death, dying or disease, whether it be cruelty, whether it be the flesh that we are constantly battling against—the character traits that are part of our old life, whether it be the great difficulty it is to grow and live for God—all of these things seem to pull us down. We think we have won victories and years later we will come into a situation and we find that that terrible character trait that we thought we had victory over just pops out all over again, and we find that we are very blemished people. If you belong to the Lord, there is a day coming when there will be no blemish, there will be no spot whatever, and God is working that in you—if you belong to Him—that is His goal for you, and it is our duty to see that His goals become ours.

Third, we will be unreprovable. The word that is used here is one that is used in the qualifications of deacons and elders. In those cases, I Timothy 3 and Titus 1, it is called "blameless." The term is used in Acts 19:40 in the words of the town clerk when there had been a riot in Ephesis because Paul's evangelization had adversely affected the sale of Diana images for the worship of Diana. You will recall for hours the crowd chanted, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." The town clerk quieted them down and said, "We are in danger to be called into question for this day's uproar."—that is this word here: "to be called into question." In Romans 8:33 Paul asked the rhetorical question, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" (God's chosen ones.) This term means that there will be nothing that someone could question. Nothing someone could bring a charge against us for. It is not just being acquitted of the charges, but being without any legal charge or accusation whatsoever laid against us.

Satan is the great accuser of the brethren, but there is a great day coming when no accusation will stick at all because of God's work in us. No accusation sticks because of the perfection of Christ, but one day Christ will bring our perfection in keeping with His own. I like the description that Alexander MacLaren gave when he said, "Every accusation shall drop away from our dazzling purity like muddy water from the white wing of a sea bird as it soars." Notice that we will be holy, we will be unblamable, we will be unreprovable in His sight. One man explained the term used here as "right down in the eye," even under the careful observation of God—that perfect observation where God sees all things—even in His sight, we shall be unblamable, unreprovable and holy. That means we will be utterly, absolutely free from sin and all its taint. The gospel alone, of all the religions and philosophies, is willing to expose just how black with wickedness we are, because the gospel alone is absolutely sure of its unlimited power to totally purge me from my sin. It has the power to transform the filthy squalor of the sinner into the brilliant splendor of the saint, and nothing short of perfection will do. When you think about what God has paid to save us, nothing short of perfection could justify the horror of the cross or the self-sacrifice of the Son of God.

God's purpose is that we should be holy, unblamable, unreprovable in His sight. Notice how this happens. There is a progress. He has a purpose, but there is a progress. We might even call this the condition. Paul says, "If ye continue in the faith." The "if" there speaks of something not just that might happen, but something that will happen. In fact, we might translate it, "If ye indeed continue in the faith." It is something that is expected to happen. What is "the faith"? Whenever you see the article "the" in front of "faith" it refers to that body of truth presented to us by the apostles, the gospel of Christ, the Word of God. Now we know "without (me) (Christ) ye can do nothing." John 15:5. Philippians 2:13 says we know that God works in us "to will and to do of His good pleasure," but at the same time God puts on us an obligation—a divinely powered obligation, but an obligation nonetheless—to continue, to remain, to abide in the faith. Now how do you and I do that? You cannot live on past acts of faith.

I was reading this week in a book in which essentially a man defined salvation as just being saved from Hell. Look, that is not all God is doing is keeping you from Hell. Hell is just the ultimate result of those that reject God. It was prepared for the devil and his angels. God has not gone to all the trouble He has gone through just to keep you out of Hell. No, His purposes are positively more glorious than that. It is not just to keep you out of the universal trash can. He is trying to take you on to glory—that is His purpose. The man took this passage and he said, "These are God's goals and this is the condition that you continue in the faith, but, you know, if you don't continue, you will still be saved from Hell." According to my Bible, if you are saved from Hell you are saved in every other sense of the term as well. There is no such thing as "half- saved people." There is no such thing as people standing before God in His sight that are just saved from Hell, but everything else about their life is filthy. No, Christ says, "By their fruits ye shall know them." (Matthew 7:20). That man is preaching a false gospel that says salvation is just saving from Hell and nothing else. Jesus Christ came not to save us from Hell but to save us from our sin, and it is our sin that takes us to Hell. It is a much bigger project than just keeping us out of Hell. Notice how this happens. We are to continue in the faith. First of all, grounded and settled and not moved away from the hope of the gospel. To be "grounded" means that someone has laid the foundation sure. You are founded on something solid. This is your basis for life. This is what you build your existence on. Everything about your life roots itself into the realities of the hope of the gospel. Let me ask you a question: are you really founded? You go out to a building site, they pour the footers, they pour the slab, and they build the building. What would you think if you went out a month later—you had seen them pour the footers, you had seen them pour the slab—and you saw them putting their stick-built structure on the ground beside the slab. And yet, how many Christians say "Oh, yes, I'm saved. I'm founded on the rock, Hallelujah," and then they build their lives on the ground beside the rock. Is it any wonder the instability that we see.

When I am founded on the gospel that means I build on it—that means, I'm rooted in it—that means that every waking hour harks back to my relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That means, when I wake up in the morning, I have a mission and I seek God to help me fulfill it. That means when problems come my way and decisions need to be made whether small or great, I am always going to use as my reference point the foundation of my life—the hope of the gospel. Is this consistent with the gospel? Is the way I react to this person who has done me wrong, is that consistent with the gospel? Is the way I am preparing my taxes, is that consistent with the gospel? Is what I do on the Lord's Day, is that consistent with the gospel? Is what I give to the Lord of what He has given to me, is that consistent with the gospel? Is the way I talk to my children and what I teach them, and the way I commune with my wife, is that consistent with the gospel? Have I been founded on the hope of the gospel?

Notice, the person that is founded should also be settled. He should be firm, steadfast. You know, it is impossible to have this stability unless you are fixed upon the certainties of God's revealed truth. Our stability is not in ourselves. You do not have to have lived very long, if you have your ears open and pay attention to just what you are, you know that your stability is not sufficient. Don't you ever disappoint yourself? Just about every day. We are amazed at just how far short we fall. We are amazed at how often that the things we feel and think are not consistent with the hope of the gospel. We face crises and it takes us awhile to get our minds pulled back from the natural response and rooted back down to where they ought to be so that we are fixed, so we are stable, no matter what happens to us.

Notice the third description: "not moved away from the hope of the gospel." That suggests there will be crises, there will be opposition, there will be affliction, there will be that which seeks to shift us from one place to another, that seeks to make us unsteady. In Luke 8: 13 and also in the other synoptics where the parable is given of the sower, you will recall there was one kind of response to the word described as "rocky soil." There the person heard the word with joy, immediately received it, and a little plant sprang up from that seed, but as soon as affliction came—as soon as the sun came out and beat down upon the plant—the plant had no root because it was in rocky soil and it withered away. Now some people describe this as the rocky, stony-ground Christian, but it is not a stony-ground Christian, it is a stony-ground response to the word. A Christian is going to be productive. A Christian is going to be rooted down, and if you are not rooted down, then you are not going to be stable, you are going to be moved away from the hope of the gospel. Jesus Christ put it this way in John 8:31: "If ye continue (remain) in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed (then are you truly my disciples)." In I John 2:19, John explains of those who had fallen away, "They went out from us, (why?) because they were not of us...but (and) they went out, (from us so it might be revealed) that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." So it is exceedingly important that I continue in the faith, grounded, settled, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel.

Have you ever noticed how our entire faith roots itself in the future? Certainly there are things that we benefit from our salvation now. There is that great peace of heart that came when you received Christ, when you felt the load of guilt fall from your shoulders but, look, this is not what it means to be totally saved. This isn't all God's doing. Have you heard people say, "I tried that, it didn't work"? Well, you haven't tried the whole thing yet. There is a great banquet laid out for us, and we are just getting to smell the fumes right now. The hope of the gospel. There is an ardent expectation—in the words of William Hendrickson, "...a complete confidence, a watchful waiting." We are, in Paul's words, "saved by hope." (Hebrews 8:24). Hebrews 11:1 says, our "faith is the substance (it's the foundation) of things hoped for." You see, there is a whole way of looking at life that looks at this life in light of what is to come. Sometimes we deal with the crises, we deal with the problems, we say "this will pass—we will get over this." Well, sometimes it does not get over: when you are dying of terminal cancer, it doesn't get over until it is really over; when those have been cast in prison for the sake of the gospel, there has been many a believer who has died in prison and accounts of some are even in the Word of God. You know it is not that it lasts for just a little bit of time, but that it is going to be worth it when we see Jesus, and it is going to be light compared to the eternal weight of glory which is going to follow.

We look at everything differently because we know there is much more to come. We don't look at life and say, "Go for the gusto, because this is all there is. Boy, if you miss out on all your fun now, you are never going to have anything better." There is much better coming. When you make an investment with your money, what is your investment? An investment is sacrificing something today so you can have something better tomorrow. When you save for your kids' college, what are you doing? You are giving up a certain amount this week and next week, and so on, so that when it comes time to pay for college, you will not be wiped out. When you lay aside money for anything, that is what you are doing. You are saying, "I can put up with being deprived now so that I can have adequate later, or perhaps much more than adequate." That's what you do in your Christian life, you say, "I'm laying up an inheritance in glory. I'm investing my life in eternity. I am giving up some things here on earth, and I am going to place them—I am going to sacrifice them—and offer them to God in glory so I can have far better than this forever." Now if you don't believe that is coming, if you don't have that hope of the gospel, then it is not worth it—it's not! If this book is a lie, if all this that God has promised is a lot of slick advertising, then you are just as well to go live it up, you are just as well to be out fishing today, you are just as well to keep your money to yourself, but I don't know that any of us are willing to call this whole book a lie; and if this book is true, then you are a fool if you waste your time on the lake when you should be in God's house. You are a fool if you spend your money all on yourself when you should be investing in the kingdom of God. You are a fool if you sit in front of the television instead of reading that which will nurture your soul, or witnessing to your next door neighbor. If the bank of heaven exists, if these glories await, we are fools if we don't invest in it—it is the best deal going.

I heard this illustration several weeks ago and it really stuck in my mind: a preacher friend of mine in talking about the millennium (ten centuries) and what people go through to add a few years to their life, made this comment: "If all there was was the millennium, if all there was was ten centuries of the kind of blessings, described in the word of God as to what the millennium is going to be like, what would you give for a thousand more years—not of this kind of living, but of the best kind of living? What would you give for that?" But you see, the millennium is just a drop in the bucket compared to eternity—now what would you give for it? There is no reason for us not to be grounded, not to be settled, not to be moved from the hope of the gospel.

Finally, how does this happen? How am I supposed to do this? "That is all great, but you know, Pastor, I am weak." What is the power that brings about the purpose and enables the progress? Paul says (in Colossians 1:23) you are "grounded, (you are)...settled,...(you are) not moved away from the hope of the gospel" (the good news). What gospel are we talking about? There are lots of people pandering "good news." What is really the good news that produces this? "Which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister." Notice first the personal reception: "which ye have heard." This was the gospel which they heard through Epaphras. The gospel which not only they had heard, but which was preached to every creature—there is a universal application of this gospel. It is not a limited presentation to only a select few. It is not just for middle-class people. It is not just for white folks. It is not just for the western world. It is not just for smart people, and it is not just for dumb people. It is for everybody—and it is not narrow in its value. Everybody needs it. It has a universal application. It is preached to "every creature." Every era, every land of all human history, needs this gospel to attain these goals.

And then he says, "whereof I Paul am made a minister." This wasn't Paul's theology, in that he came up with it, no scripture is of any private interpretation—it doesn't rise out of that. The whole modern theology is utterly flawed in its premise that man came up with it—that is religion, not Christianity. This is revelation, not creative writing. "We have not followed cunningly devised fables (myths)" (I Peter 1:16) — and it is interesting to me that Peter already knew the term modern theologians were going to use, "a myth"—a fictional story with a true meaning. That is the way they approach the Bible. Paul says, "No, I have a divine commission." There is a personal reception of this gospel, a universal application of it, a divine commission, "whereof I Paul am made a minister"—a deacon, a table waiter, an ambassador—in other words, the authority that Paul had was a delegated authority. He was giving this message, not because he came up with it, but because he received it, and God Himself had given him authority to share it with other people, and that is where our authority is. What gives me the right to say "If you believe this, if you receive this, you will spend eternity in Heaven—God will utterly save you. If you reject this, you will spend eternity in the lake of fire; you will have the wrath of God continue to abide on your head." What gives me the right, as another human being, to say that to anyone else? There is only one way I can have the right to say that, and that is if I have received that from the one who has the power to send me to Heaven or to Hell. That is why Christ speaks of giving the keys of the kingdom to Peter and the apostles. We literally open and shut the door by presenting the gospel: you either receive it, or reject it, but your eternal destiny hangs in the balance. What a remarkable thing it is that it is Paul who has received this ministry. Paul, the persecutor; Paul, the murderer; Paul, the Pharisee; Paul, the enemy of Christ is suddenly transformed. He is a living testimony of the miraculous power of the gospel to do what he claims it will do—to accomplish the very goals of God.

We know that there is a day coming when there will be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, when all will be reconciled and restored to God. But the question is, "Will you and I fit?" Will you and I be so brought into conformity to the character of God? There is only one way, it is through this hope of the gospel. "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature (creation): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, (that is), that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:17- 21). Will you let God achieve His goals (that sounds actually blasphemous, doesn't it?]—God will achieve His goals, but you must come to Christ to see these things happen in your life.

On that happy, golden shore, when the storms of life are o'er, meet me there.

The goals of God, may they be worked out in your life and mine.

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