KNOWING AND EXPERIENCING THE ALL-INCLUSIVE, EXTENSIVE CHRIST
Message One
The Will of God concerning the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ
Scripture Reading: Rev. 4:11; Eph. 1:5, 9, 11; Col. 1:9-10, 27; 2:6-7; 3:4, 10-11; 4:12
I. God is a God of purpose, having a will of His own pleasure, and He created all things for His will that He might accomplish and fulfill His purpose—Rev. 4:11; Eph. 3:9-11; Col. 1:9:
A. God's will is God's wish; God's will is what He wants to do—Eph. 1:9.
B. God's good pleasure is of God's will; His good pleasure is embodied in His will—v. 5.
C. God's will is His determination for the carrying out of His purpose—v. 11; 1 Cor. 1:1.
D. God has made known to us the mystery of His will through His revelation in Christ, that is, through Christ's incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension—Eph. 1:9; 3:9.
E. God works all things according to the counsel of His will; God's will is His intention, and His counsel is His consideration of the way to accomplish His will—1:11.
II. Colossians is a book concerning the great, eternal will of God—1:9; 4:12:
A. The will of God mentioned in this book is not His will in small matters—it is the eternal will of God, the great will of God.
B. Colossians reveals what God's will is according to His desire and intention in the whole universe, in creation, in redemption, in the present age, in the coming age, and in eternity—Eph. 1:5, 9, 11; 3:9-11; Matt. 16:18; Rev. 19:7-9; 11:15; 21:2.
C. We need to be filled with the full knowledge of God's will—Col. 1:9:
1. God's will in Colossians 1:9 is His will regarding His eternal purpose, regarding His economy concerning Christ—Eph. 1:5, 9, 11.
2. To have the full knowledge of God's will is to have the revelation of God's plan so that we may know what God plans to do in the universe—Rev. 4:11:
a. God's plan is to make Christ everything in the divine economy—Matt. 17:5; Col. 1:15-18; 3:10-11.
b. The revelation of God's plan opens the way for us to have more experience of Christ—2:16-17; 3:4, 15-16.
3. To know and experience the all-inclusive, extensive Christ requires "all spiritual wisdom and 1 Cor. 2:11-12; 6:17; 1 John 5:20. understanding"—1:9:
a. Spiritual wisdom and understanding are of the Spirit of God in our spirit—Eph. 1:17;
b. Wisdom is in our spirit to perceive God's eternal will; spiritual understanding is in our mind, renewed by the Spirit, to understand and interpret what we perceive in our spirit—Eph. 1:17; 4:23.
D. Walking worthily of the Lord issues from having the full knowledge of God's will; such a walk is one in which we live Christ—Col. 1:10; Phil. 1:19-21a.
E. We need to stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God—Col. 4:12.
III. The will of God for us is that we know the all-inclusive, extensive Christ, experience Him, and live Him as our life—1:9, 15-18; 3:4:
A. The will of God is in Christ, concentrated in Christ, and for Christ; Christ is everything in the will of God—1:9.
B. For Christ to be the Firstborn of both the original creation and the new creation means that He is both all-inclusive and extensive—vv. 15, 18:
1. The extensive Christ is the Christ who is more vast than the universe and who is everything to us—Eph. 3:18.
2. Christ, the Savior and Lord in whom we believe, is limitless and inexhaustible; since He is without limitation, the revelation concerning Him must also be without limitation—vv. 2-5, 8-9.
C. The Christ unveiled in Colossians is the all-inclusive, extensive, preeminent One, the centrality and universality, the center and the circumference, of God's economy—1:15-18, 27; 2:16-17; 3:4, 10-11; Eph. 1:10; 3:11:
1. Colossians reveals the all-inclusive Christ—the One who is God, man, and the reality of every positive thing in the universe—2:9, 16-17.
2. In God's economy Christ is everything; God wants Christ and Christ alone—the wonderful, preeminent, all-inclusive Christ, who is all in all—Matt. 17:5; Col. 3:10-11.
3. The all-inclusive, extensive Christ is the center of God's economy; God's dispensing is altogether related to Christ and focused on Him—Eph. 3:17a.
4. God's will, His intention, in His economy is to work the wonderful, all-inclusive, extensive Christ into our being as our life and everything so that we may become the corporate expression of the Triune God—Col. 1:27; 3:4, 10-11.
D. The will of God is that the all-inclusive, extensive Christ be our portion, our life, our constituent, and our peace—1:9, 12; 3:4, 10-11, 15:
1. In 1:9 God's will refers to Christ; the will of God is profound in relation to our knowing, experiencing, and living in the all-inclusive, extensive Christ.
2. God's will for us is that we would know Christ, experience Christ, enjoy Christ, be saturated with Christ, and have Christ become our life and person—3:4, 10-11; Eph. 3:16-17.
3. God's will is that we, having the all-inclusive, extensive Christ, should walk in Him—Col. 2:6:
a. To walk in Christ is to live, act, behave, and have our being in Him.
b. As we walk in Christ, we will be rooted in Him to have downward growth and be built up to have upward growth—vv. 6-7.
E. We should estimate and evaluate everything according to the all-inclusive, extensive Christ—v. 8:
1. Christ is the governing principle of all genuine wisdom and knowledge, the reality of all genuine teaching, and the only measure of all concepts acceptable to God.
2. Only when we have a clear view of the place of the all-inclusive, extensive Christ in God's economy will we be able to see through delusion and deception.
F. We need to be infused, saturated, and permeated with the all-inclusive, extensive Christ until in our experience He is everything to us—1:27; 2:16-17; 3:4, 10-11:
1. The all-inclusive, extensive Christ is in us, but we need to see Him, know Him, be filled with Him, be saturated with Him, and be absolutely one with Him.
2. We should allow the all-inclusive, extensive Christ to fill our whole being and to replace our culture with Himself—Eph. 3:17a; Col. 3:10-11:
a. The more Christ replaces our natural life and culture with Himself, the more we will be able to declare, "To live is Christ"; to us, to live will be the Christ who takes full possession of us, occupies us, and fills us with Himself—Phil. 1:21a.
b. The all-inclusive, extensive Christ desires to replace every element of our natural life and culture with Himself so that we may be the one new man as His corporate expression; this is the message of the book of Colossians—3:10-11.