The Tasting Point

Transcript

Hello again radio friends, how in the world are you? You doing alright? Oh, I trust so, bless your heart. Nice to be back with you. It’s your friend Dr. Cook. We’re looking together, you and I, at the first chapter of Colossians. You’d laugh if you could see me. It gets cold in the downstairs room that I have here, where the tape recorders and the computers are set up. It’s a nice place really and it’s got a little wood stove in the corner, but it is somewhat removed from the main heating system of the house and gets a little colder. So I do these broadcasts in the early morning hours oftentimes, because many of you listen at that time and I like to feel like you feel when you’re listening, you know what I mean? So I grabbed some sneakers, put on a pair of sneakers and a robe and then ’cause it was cold, I put on my fleece-lined outer coat. [laughter] so here I sit with sneakers and a robe and an overcoat and the Bible and you. How about that, alright?

Hey, it’s great to be with you. Let’s look at Colossians 1. In whom we have redemption. Now, he’s talking about the dear Son of God, translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. Verse 14, Colossians 1, “In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins.” Redemption means to go in the market, to buy in the market and to buy out of the market. It has to do as the imagery of Scripture gives us in one sense, the idea of purchasing a slave in the slave market. You go in the market, you buy in the market and you buy the person out of the market. Redemption. Redemption is a price paid for a life, it’s a price paid for a person, it’s a price paid for a relationship. If you pawn an article, you have to go redeem the article, that means you pay the price for that article. Redemption through his blood. Now, there’s only one way for people to be redeemed. People are redeemed through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. People are redeemed through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have redemption through His shed blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

Why is it important to bring up the subject of Christ’s death for us and the fact that He shed His blood for us? Well, I cannot give you the reason why God established this practice early in the history of the human race, but He did. He said through Moses, the life is in the blood and I have given the blood to you to make an atonement upon the altar for your souls. And so it was that the Lord Jesus Christ when He appeared, in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those that were under the law, when the Lord Jesus appeared in history, He came as the lamb of God. Said John the Baptist, “Behold the lamb of God which beareth away the sin of the world.” and it was then His manifest destiny as God’s lamb, God’s Passover Lamb, to give His life for you and for me. “Even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give His life a ransom,” that’s our concept of redemption here, “a ransom for many.” So it was His manifest destiny, coming into history as God’s Passover Lamb, to give up His life and to have His blood shed, shed for many it says. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.

And so the idea that is implicit in all of this when he says, “We have redemption through his blood.” is redemption through the fact that He gave up His life for us. God hath made Him to be sin for us, He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Paul the Apostle said, “The life I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” We have redemption because He gave Himself up for us. There is the stark basic fact of your salvation. Never forget it. We have a habit of prettifying some of the doctrines that we hold as Christians and they become then something that is less significant and which tends to shake us up not at all. Jesus died for me. Have you ever seen a person die? Those of you who’ve been in the military, some of you have been in those agonizing situations where one person would give up his life to spare the lives of his buddies. The occasions where somebody literally fell on a grenade before it exploded so as to keep all the rest of the people around him from being wounded or killed. He gave His life for me. The fact is we are dealing with the basic agonies of human existence. To live and to die for somebody else is the essence of what he’s talking about here.

We have redemption through his blood. That is to say Jesus lived and died, endured the agony of the cross where every joint was pulled apart almost. You may say, literally. The Bible says, in prophetic scripture, all my bones are out of joint. The entire body suspended with nails in wrists and ankles in a position where the weight of the body itself simply pulled every muscle, every tendon and it was an agonizing effort just to breathe. One had to lift his body in order to breathe so that the pressure on the diaphragm could be relieved momentarily. Authorities tell us that people who were crucified died not of the agony of being nailed there, but oftentimes finally of suffocation because they grew too weak to lift their body one more time to take one more breath. In any case, it was an agonizing death and he did it for me because I’m a sinner and he wanted me to be forgiven and the only way for me to be forgiven was for him to pay for my sin. This is the essence of the Gospel, beloved. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, Paul says is the essence of the Gospel. And that he was buried and that he rose again the third day and that he was seen by all of these different ones, last of all me too.

When you proclaim the Gospel, you tell other people that you know Jesus died and rose again for you and that you’ve met Him. And that you know Him. That’s the essence of proclaiming the Gospel. So when we say we have redemption through His blood, we are really talking about the basic agonies of a life given up for others. Now, what is the tasting point of redemption? We’ve been talking about something that happened, a circumstance that happened on Calvary’s cross 2,000 years nearly ago. But what is the tasting point of redemption? Why, says Paul, it’s the forgiveness of sins. You wanna know what it is to be redeemed come to your blessed Lord and confess your sin and you need to him and hear from him the blessed words of forgiveness. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Forgiveness takes care of giving you the right relationship with the God against whom you sinned and cleansing takes care of making sure that you don’t repeat the offense. God undertakes to do both things for us. He is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse. The tasting point of redemption is not to know about it but to experience the results of it, forgiveness of my sins.

Now, you go on in this matter of the kingdom of his dear Son. Redemption, forgiveness, then he says the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by Him were all things created and He is before all things, and He’s the head of the body, the church, and in all things He must have the pre-eminence. The kingdom of His dear Son means you get to know the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who reveals God to you, the image of the invisible Christ, God. The image of the invisible God. You get to know the Lord as the one who reveals God to you. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, Jesus remarked in John chapter 14. The firstborn of every creature. You get to know the Lord Jesus is the one who shows you the potential of what God can do in your life. If he is the firstborn of every creature, that is to say, he is God’s exhibit A of what the Lord can do in your life and in mine when he’s finished. And then verse 16 says He’s the creator, you get to know Him as the creator. And then you get to know Him as the one who is first in everything, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence.

Now we’ll go back and think a little bit about some of these things that are in verses 15 through 17 or 18. But I thought I’d just give you that little layout there. The kingdom of his dear son. What is it? Redemption, forgiveness, knowledge of God, potential of what can be done through the power of the living Christ, the authority of the creator. You take Christ not only as your savior but also as your creator. He can create in you what you need to do the will of God. And then the one who is absolutely pre-eminent. He’s the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in all things he might have the pre-eminence and then He’s everything you’ll ever need. It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. The kingdom of his dear Son. Isn’t that a great package of truth there?

Now, let’s go back to verse 15, “He’s the image of the invisible God.” the Bible says, “No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared,” that’s Greek verb “Phaneroo” or make manifest or put it in a package in other words. He hath declared Him. Everything you need to know about almighty God you’ll find in the Lord Jesus Christ. Make the Lord Jesus your daily companion by yielding to the indwelling Holy Spirit of God and you’ll know more about God tonight than you did this morning. You get to know more about God as you make the Lord Jesus Christ Lord of your life and obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit of God. Well, we’ll go on from there the next time we get together.

Dear Father, today, may we be hearing from Heaven by the prompting of the blessed Spirit of God and by the messages we get from Thy Word and may we be people who obey Thy commands. I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!