Our Inheritance

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. What do you have that will really last? An assurance that believers in Jesus have is that eternal things never change. Our study of Colossians continues today with an encouraging look at our imperishable inheritance. The Bible has a lot to say about our inheritance and about our rewards. Do you understand what your inheritance is going to be?

What your rewards are going to be like? And what difference does it make how you live now? If you'll turn to Colossians chapter one, Paul in this chapter tells us about our inheritance. And I believe explains that in such a fashion that you and I can understand what we have to look forward to regarding our inheritance as the children of God. Beginning in verse 11.

And you'll recall that he has given his prayer for the Colossian church beginning in verse nine. And then he ends that by in verse 11, the last word joyously, he says, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. For he delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. And I want us to look at this passage in light of inheritance because we need to understand what we have to look forward to.

And therefore, on the basis of that, how are we to live in the here and now? So he says, God has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. Now, what is this inheritance? This inheritance, in essence, is the sum total of everything our salvation provides for. Our inheritance reaches three ways back in the past and all the forgiveness that God has provided for us into the future with all that God has in store for us in the future. But likewise, in the present, so that God today has intended and has so arranged that our life would be full of peace, full of joy and our provisions met. So that the inheritance that you and I have is an inheritance that does not begin to be enjoyed after death. God has forgiven us and freed us, which he says in this passage, so that you and I can enjoy our inheritance now.

The part that is enjoyable now, we enjoy. We should have a good time living the Christian life. It's no testimony to the unbelieving world to walk around with a sad face saying, well, you know, I'm devoted to Jesus.

I'm consecrated to him. I'm living for God. I'm a Christian. Well, don't tell anybody if that's the kind of face you're going to have, because the Christian life is a joyful release and liberation to be the person Jesus Christ desires to be in us. The Christian life is not what we do. The Christian life is what we are and it is who we are. Christ Jesus living his life through us so that when you and I have been given an inheritance, part of that inheritance is forgiveness, cleansing, freedom, liberty, not when we get to heaven, but here and now.

We're no longer shackled because God has delivered us from that by his precious son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So every single believer has an inheritance. Every single believer has an inheritance. It reaches back in the past and we have experienced some of it. It is presently in our life and if we understand how, we can enjoy it and soak it up even now. And then there's that part of our inheritance, which is the future.

We will enjoy some of it here on earth as we grow older. And then some of it is reserved until the other side when the Lord Jesus Christ calls us home. So all of us in Christ have that inheritance. Now, the big question is, how do we receive that inheritance?

And this is where a lot of people are very misinformed because the average person says, well, my inheritance depends upon what kind of life I live and so therefore I try to live a good life and therefore I have an inheritance. Well, let's see what God says in his word and these two verses about how we receive our inheritance. Now, in Colossians chapter one, now he says, if you'll notice, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance. So, according to that passage of Scripture, how do we receive this inheritance? We receive it by being qualified for it. And what he's saying in this passage is simply this, you and I have been qualified. How are we qualified?

You can't qualify yourself. When God the Father sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ to the cross, the Bible says in Colossians chapter two, he nailed, listen, look at this, having canceled out the certificate of debt. Every single one of us have debt against us, all of our sins in that debt. He says that he nailed your certificate of debt to the cross with the Lord Jesus Christ. When he died, he took the penalty of all of your sin, past, present and future, within to the cross 2,000 years ago and therefore you and I have been forgiven of all of our sin, past, present and future and therefore he says he has the right to already have given to you your inheritance and the only reason you have your inheritance is because all of your sins have already been forgiven. When you have Jesus Christ, you have it all and when you have him, you are free from the reign and power of sin in your life and because that has already taken place, God has already given you your inheritance. Some of it you've experienced in the past in forgiveness, some of it you're experiencing now and ultimately on the other side, you and I are going to be able to fully experience the total full inheritance that is ours in Christ. God the Father qualified us for the inheritance.

You can't qualify yourself. It is the work of Almighty God through the death of his son. He says he's canceled out every debt against you, paid in full. It's what happened at the cross.

So that's one way you and I receive our inheritance, but I want you to keep going if you will. Look in verse 13. He says, for he delivered us, first of all he qualified us for it, through the shed blood of his son. Secondly, he says he delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us, what?

Rescued us, transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. Now when he speaks about the domain of darkness, what is he referring to? Everybody falls into one or two categories, either the domain of the kingdom of his beloved son, which he says here, or the domain of the kingdom of darkness. The domain of darkness is the rule of darkness, the authority of darkness. It is Satan's dominion, Satan's rule, Satan's kingdom, Satan's authority.

It is those references in Ephesians 6 where he talks about principalities and powers in high places, every single unbelieving. I'll tell you they won't believe it. You can tell them and they don't believe it.

They say, well, I'm free. My friend, if you've never received Jesus Christ as your savior, you are a captive, enslaved, shackled, and in prison under the authority, under the dominion, under the control, under the domination of Satan and all of his demonic powers. It doesn't make any difference what you think, what you say. That is a testimony of Almighty God. There are no three kingdoms. There are only two. One of them is the kingdom of darkness, wickedness, the occult, evil, those spirits out there in the other world. Then there's the kingdom of righteousness, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of holiness, the kingdom of heaven. You're in one or two kingdoms. Somebody says, well, but I don't fit in either one of those.

Yes, you do. My friends, you may try to build a third kingdom. There's no third kingdom. There's the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of disobedience and rebellion toward God, the kingdom of righteousness and holiness and obedience to Christ. Those of us who received Christ as our savior, we live in the kingdom of righteousness. We live in the kingdom of God. We're in the kingdom of his beloved son, qualified for it by his death at Calvary, delivered from, rescued from the dominion, the domain, the kingdom, the rule, the domination of Satan himself. Every single believer has been snatched out of, delivered from the kingdom of darkness and placed transplanted into the kingdom of righteousness.

That is not what you do. It's what God does. How does a man transfer himself out of the kingdom of darkness in which he is absolutely and totally and completely and habitually under the control of evil forces which he himself cannot escape from?

He cannot. Rescued from the kingdom of darkness, transplanted into the kingdom of righteousness, the kingdom of light. Where we believers live, this is where our hope is to be found.

So we have an inheritance. And all of us who believe us are present and living in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is a spiritual kingdom here on earth. And one of these days we leave this life, we will plant our feet on his eternal kingdom in heaven.

And, my friend, there shall we live with him for eternity in all the fullness of Jesus Christ. It's not that you're going to be. He says you already have been.

The reason he can say you have been is because of what he already has done. Now, when is this going to take place? Well, when do you usually receive an inheritance?

After somebody dies. Well, hallelujah. Two thousand years ago Jesus Christ died. Nailed him to a cross and I nailed him to a cross. Every single person who's believed in him since that moment has already received the inheritance.

That's why you've already got it. He's already died, resurrected, sitting at the Father's right hand as our mediator and our assurance that what he promised as an inheritance is already ours. Let's think about something. The Bible is very clear about rewards. And those rewards are based on our faithfulness here according to the light of truth we've heard, according to the opportunity we have, and according to what we do with that opportunity and that light. So we are responsible for the opportunity God has given us. And you see, part of that opportunity is part of the inheritance. He's gifted you.

He's skilled you. He's given you talents and abilities, personality and all the rest. What are you doing with that?

Are you just satisfying your own flesh with that? How much of what you have, which is already part of your inheritance, are you investing in the Lord's work to serve him? Now, part of our inheritance is what God has done for us that cannot be tarnished and cannot be lost. Part of that inheritance involves the rewards that you and I are laying up in heaven as a result of our life now that we're saved by the grace of God.

You can lose rewards, which means you can lose part of your inheritance. Because, you see, God has provided you an inheritance. Before you were ever born, God made some choices in your life. Some of those choices were conditioned. Part of our inheritance is conditioned, part of it's unconditioned. I want to go back to say it is a short-sighted, foolish person who is only living for today forgetting the fact that all of eternity you will either profit or lose as a result of the way you're living down here.

We don't take the Christian life seriously enough. Well, you know, everybody makes mistakes and we brush it off and years go by. Well, you know, I'm going to get committed one of these days. I'm going to really get more committed one of these days. When I retire, I'm probably going to get more committed. Suppose you die the day before you retire.

A lot of folks die right afterwards. The Christian life is Jesus living in and through a human being who has been brought into a beautiful relationship with God the Father through the Son, Jesus Christ, thereby now being indwelt by Jesus Christ and now the Christian life is that life of Jesus overflowing and flowing out through us the life of Jesus. That's what the Christian life is. And as we allow Him to flow and as we give ourselves to Him unreservedly, what is happening but God, listen, with great joy, God is stacking up the rewards. We're not to live for rewards. That's just what God said. Our obedience, our faithfulness to Him, forever and ever and ever for eternity, we are going to be able to enjoy God's rich rewards for our faithful service to Him.

So let's turn that around. Suppose you go through life. The only thing that matters is today.

Just want to get my pleasures, my needs and what I want today. You don't invest your life in anybody else's life. You don't give to the Lord's work.

You spend it all on yourself. You do your thing and you die. Well, you're going to have some inheritance because of what Jesus did at the cross.

But what I want you to remember is this. Once it's lost, it is eternally lost. When you stand before the judgment seat of Christ and what doesn't count won't start counting later. You've lost it. Which in essence is to bring us to this point to say, if you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you can never lose all your inheritance.

But by sloppy, slothful, lazy, non-committed, careless, indifferent living of the Christian life, you can lose a great portion of it. So, my friend, what are you going to do about it? Just think. Think. The judgment is inevitable.

It's coming. No escape. And what we're doing now is going to make an eternal difference as to what God does with us for eternity in heaven. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not about to waste my life in foolish, slothful, careless, indifferent, non-committed living and lose it for eternity. Now, if your dad, listen to me, Dad.

If your teenage son or your daughter came and said, I'm 13 now, and till I get to be 20 years of age, I'm going to do just like I please. I'm going to live it up. I'm going to spend all the money. I'm going to be as immoral as I want to be. I'm going to go anywhere I want to go. I'm going to have any kind of friends I want to have. I don't want anybody telling me what to do. And then the day I reach 20, I'm going to change. But, daddies and moms, and you who are not dads and moms, that is exactly what some of you by your actions have told God.

I'm going to do just like I bloom and please, and then when I finish having my fun, God, I'll give you the rest. You're in for a very rude awakening. That's not the way God operates. That's not the way life is. If you've never received Jesus Christ as your Savior, I want to invite you to the privilege of being rescued.

This morning. The kingdom of light. If your life has been careless and indifferent and invested in everything but the Lord's work, I want to challenge you to make a commitment today on how you're going to invest the rest of your life. Get involved in the work of God. That's the only thing that's going to last beyond this life.

Houses, cars, money, bank accounts, stocks, bonds. None of that's going to last. You know what's going to last? Your involvement in some other person's life. Making a difference in somebody else's life.

Being a part of God's work. That's what's going to last. That's what's going on before you. So I want to ask you, if you're lost, are you going to stay in the kingdom of darkness under Satan's dominion, rule, paralyzed, shackled, imprisoned, deceived in the darkness and think that everything's all right, you're going to stay there? And if you are in the kingdom of light, I want to ask you one last question. Does Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who stretched out his arms on the cross at Calvary and then nailed him to the tree and he bled for you and me, does he deserve your life?

I think he does. Father, your grace is totally beyond my comprehension. What I understand, I praise you for. But what I don't understand, I still praise you for. And I am overwhelmed when I think about how good and how gracious and kind and loving you are to us.

How patient. What a wonderful, joyful peace that rules and reigns in our hearts when we think about that we've been qualified, already transferred into the kingdom and are blessed beyond all measure, beyond all comprehension. And Lord, you know, it is our heart's desire that every single person would make that same wise choice. And that is my prayer today. In the Savior's wonderful, all liberating name. The name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Thank you for listening to Our Inheritance. If you would like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia. .