THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS

COLOSSIANS 1:12-14

          In this letter written to the most Gentile church at Colosse Paul speaks of four great things that God has done for man.  If we focus on and understand with depth, the great work of God on our behalf we will find a new love for God or at the least rekindle our first love for Him.  If we can grab hold and be firmly planted in our understanding of these four acts of God we will find the power of God erupting in our lives; the power that transforms us into children of God, ambassadors for Christ, drawing those who are currently in darkness to the light of Jesus Christ. When we truly understand the work of God on our behalf our lives will never be the same and we can not help but be captivated by this great God.  

          Now you must know that such a great understanding can not come in one Sunday morning message.  For I am not that great of a preacher and I doubt that any one is other than Christ.  I say that to let you know that this will be a series of messages.  And I feel led of the Lord to give the series the title “FROM CAPTIVE TO CAPTIVATED”.  Now we know what the word captive means held prisoner.  However, the word captivated, which by the way comes from the root word captive, means to capture the attention or affection of by beauty, excellence, fascination, charm, etc.  It means to overwhelm with one’s character, love and beauty.  When we understand what God did in freeing us from being captives we can not help but be overwhelmed by Him. 

Now the first great thing that God did for us is found in verse 12.

COLOSSIANS 1:12

          The Bible clearly tells of an inheritance that God has for His children.  So the title of the first message in this series is “THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS”.  Now there are three points that I want to make from this verse.

1.     He made us fit for the inheritance

          We had to be prepared, that is, qualified and made fit before we could receive the inheritance. The Greek word translated here as meet is hikanoo which means to make able or fit. Man is not qualified or fit to receive anything from God, especially an inheritance, not in his present sinful and corruptible state.  Isaiah 64:6 tells us, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.”  If man is to ever receive an inheritance from God, he first has to be made fit and acceptable to God. Note that this is exactly what the Scripture says: God has made us meet (fit). We could do nothing to make ourselves fit.  We could not earn our inheritance.  God himself had to do something.  Paul does not say at this point what God did to make us fit.  He simply declares that God has fitted us to receive an inheritance from Him. We will learn later what he did to prepare us.

2.  The inheritance that God has prepared us for is a shared inheritance.

            We share the inheritance with all other saints in light. The word used for saints is hagios which simply means those who have set their lives apart to live for God.  Verse 2 of this chapter lets us know that it is to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ that Paul is writing.  Our inheritance is shared with this group of saints in light.  1 John 1:5 tells us that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”  Therefore, when a person turns his life over to God, he is turning his life over to Light. He is to live and move and have his being in light. He is to walk in the light of God Himself, so much so that he is called the light of the world. This is what is meant by "saints in light." They are people who have committed their lives to walking in the light of God. Therefore, they are saints, persons set apart in the light of God.

Every saint who lives and moves in the light of God is to receive the inheritance of God. But note, since God is light, only those set apart in light, those who walk or now live in the light, can live with God. Any person who chooses to continue walking in darkness can never receive the inheritance of God, for darkness can never dwell in light. Light always destroys and eliminates the darkness.  That is why 1 John 1:6 says, ^“If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.”  You cannot have fellowship with God and continue to walk in darkness, to live a life of sin, because darkness cannot continue to dwell where light is. Our inheritance is shared but it is only shared among those who choose to walk in the light of God.

3.  What then is our inheritance?

When many think of the inheritance given to us by God they think only of the mansion being prepared for us in Heaven and the crowns or rewards we will receive when we get there.  But scripture describes the inheritance of the saints in the following ways.

a. We are heirs of eternal life.  TITUS 3:7

   In God’s grace he has instituted a plan whereby all mankind can be declared just in His sight.  Individual acceptance of this plan opens the door to eternal life with God.  However, eternal life still lies in the realm of hope; not because God will change his mind or the plan because God cannot lie.  It lies in the realm of hope because though eternal life is not given to everyone who is in Christ, it is given on the condition that we remain in Christ.

HEBREWS 3:12-14

    Paul warns us to be careful lest and evil seed of unbelief creeps in and spoils our hope of eternal life.  We are to encourage one another lest some be deceived and tricked into following after sin.  The he reminds us that we will be allowed to share in the inheritance with Christ only if we hold steadfast to the Christian lifestyle until we leave this earth.  Apart of our inheritance is eternal life but we must hold on to the hope of life with God until we actually get there.

 b. We are heirs of salvation. – HEBREWS 1:14 

          Salvation, like eternal life is not an unforfeitable possession until we inherit it fully in the next life.  Though we can know for sure at any given instance that we are committed to living for Christ and are thus saved, we must hope, trust and fight to maintain our commit throughout each day of our lives.  Like eternal life, we must hold fast to our salvation.  For we have an enemy who daily commits to snatching it from us.

c. We are heirs of the promises made to Abraham – GALATIANS 3:29

According to Romans 4:13 Abraham was promised that he and his seed would be the heirs of the world. Thus as a part of the seed of Abraham through faith, we who are in Christ though we are Gentiles also receive the promise to inherit the world and to be citizens of a great nation of people.

d. We are heirs of glory – ROMANS 8:17

 Even as Christ has been glorified so will we who are in Christ one day be glorified.  However, our ability to later be glorified with Christ depends on our willingness to suffer for his sake now.  Sometimes when we think of suffering for his sake we think only of the persecution we must endure from as result of being Christians.  I believe that a bigger part of our suffering for which we will receive glory is our willingness to deny the flesh and surrender to the will of God.  Our suffering is in our denying ourselves and taking up our cross and following Jesus.  It is in our surrender to the Spirit of God as he endeavors to change us into the image of Christ—from glory to glory.  If we are not being changed here on this earth we will not inherit glory with Christ later.

 e.  We are heirs of righteousness – HEBREWS 11:7

          Noah inherited righteousness because he acted in faith at the plan of God.  Likewise when we act in faith on the plan of salvation instituted by God we inherit righteousness. 

2 CORINTHIANS 5:21

          Seeing that all of our own righteousness is like a filthy rag and therefore useless to God, He of his own will gives us the righteousness of Christ.  This means that He considers us as being in right standing with him because of our acceptance of the righteous actions of Christ on our part.

 

f.  We are heirs of an immortal and perfected body – I CORINTHIANS 15:50-54

          The bodies that we currently have cannot inherit the Kingdom of God nor can they without the tree of Life live eternally.  Sin has diseased them causing them to be corruptible and mortal.  But when Jesus returns to get his Church those who have already died and decayed will be given new incorruptible bodies and those who still live in bodies that are able to die will be given immortal bodies.  Thus all those who are in Christ will inherent bodies that are no longer subject to death and decay.  A part of our inheritance is new glorified bodies.  Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:1-2 that we have another body that we are craving to inhabit.   He says “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.”

          We who are in Christ have an inheritance promised to us by the Almighty God and that inheritance goes far beyond the physical and material things that we traditionally think of. 1 Corinthians 2:9 tells us “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” This does not just include things.  There is a peace beyond our understanding and a joy immeasurable awaiting us.

EPHESIANS 1:13-14

          Hebrews 9:15 tells us that we have the promise of an eternal inheritance.  We do not have our inheritance in hand but we do have the Holy Spirit who is the assurance that we will one day receive the inheritance if we remain in Christ.  Why is the Holy Spirit our assurance of receiving the promised inheritance?

ROMANS 8:11

          Whether we are living or dead, when Christ returns all that are born again of the Spirit of God, having the Spirit of God indwelling their human spirit will be raised to eternal life with God.  God Himself will use the Spirit of God, the same Spirit of God that he used to raise Jesus from the dead, to raise all of His children to life eternal with Him.  It is in that life that we will reap the full benefits of our promised inheritance. 

NOTE:  For the continuation of this series see messages titled:

v    Out of Darkness

v    Repositioned in God

v    A Kinsman Redeemer