<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2026: Uniting Heaven & Earth: Christ in Philippians and Colossians

Eric Flickinger

Clinton Wahlen

01 Persecuted but Not Forsaken

06 Confidence Only in Christ

02 Reasons for Thanksgiving and Prayer

03 Life and Death

04 Unity Through Humility

05 Shining as Lights in the Night

07 A Heavenly Citizenship

John Bradshaw

Great Characters of the Bible: Abraham

08 The Preeminence of Christ

09 Reconciliation and Hope

10 Complete in Christ

11 Living With Christ

Welcome to Sabbath School, brought to you by It Is Written.

We are taking a look at the books of Philippians and Colossians as we look at how God wants to unite heaven and earth.

We're looking at reconciliation and hope, digging into the book of Colossians.

Father, we thank you for being with us today and for guiding us along our journey through these 2 books in your Word.

We ask that you will bless us with a deeper understanding of your plan for us and how Christ fits into that plan as we do so.

Well, we're glad that you are here, but we are also glad to have the author of this quarter's Sabbath school lesson with us.

Clinton Wally, and he is an associate director of the Biblical Research Institute.

We're getting close to the end, but we're not there yet.

And we're working our way now into the book of Colossians.

Today, we're going to be focusing on the latter part of chapter 1.

And so I want to read a couple of verses to you here, verses 21 and 22, and kind of pull some things out of it.

This is Colossians 1, beginning in verse 21.

"'And you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight." Now here in verse 21, Paul talks about Christ being reconciler or God reconciling us.

What is the process by which God reconciles us to Him?

Well, that's very important that we understand it's God who is the reconciler, first of all.

Secondly, all of us need to be reconciled.

Sometimes, I mean, I used to, before I was a Christian, thought I was okay, you know, pretty good guy, not really doing anything bad.

But actually, I came to realize that this world is divided into just 2 different categories.

We're either a child of God or we're a child of the devil.

Jesus said that he who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters abroad.

We all, as actually as he says here, before we come to Christ are alienated and enemies in your mind.

I mean, that's where the battle actually lies, is in our minds.

And then if we are alienated from God in our minds, that will naturally be seen manifested in wicked works.

Now you might say, well, there are good people who don't believe in Jesus, they're not wicked.

Well, if we, as what we've been saying about heaven and the culture of heaven, even the best of us are probably not quite ready for translation.

And so in a sense, there's wickedness that needs to be cleansed from us, for sure.

So even though we may look at ourselves, and I think most people, as they tend to look at themselves, think of themselves as more or less decent people.

There are not too many people who look at themselves and say, oh, what a wicked, terrible, horrible person I am, of their own accord.

But the majority, we kind of look at ourselves and say, well, I'm not like this guy.

My life's in a little better shape than that person over there.

And we tend to think more of ourselves than if we had a more objective view, I guess.

2 Peter 3 says, He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

We see that already in Eden when Adam and Eve fell.

Adam heard the sound of God walking in the garden.

I sometimes wonder the rustling of the grass, what that would sound like.

As you said, it's not something that we ourselves can do, we can't reconcile ourselves to God, but we can let him do that work in us and really for us, we can't do it ourselves.

There's something else that Paul talks about here.

In verse 23 he says, "...if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister." Paul here speaks about being grounded and steadfast in the faith.

Now there's a passage in the lesson, I want to read that, but really as we read what Paul says here, this kind of flies in the face of a very popular Christian idea that once saved, always saved.

"...related to this idea is the Greek word translated steadfast, referring to an immovable structure and by extension to a Christian who cannot be moved away from the hope of the gospel.

The same word is used in 1 Corinthians 15, 58, to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

So being grounded, being steadfast, continuing.

So there is a, I don't know if I want to use the word process, but there is a growth, there is a continuation of this experience it sounds like.

Yeah, of course grounded refers to being, having a solid foundation of faith which is grounded in God's word.

We have to understand God's will for us through his word.

This is the way that we come to salvation, come to faith in Christ.

Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.

And so that's always our foundation is the Bible, foundation of our faith.

And so this is what we must not be moved away from.

There are many voices, many winds of doctrine as Paul refers to in Ephesians 4.

They're trying to move us away from the Bible in various ways.

Popular ideas, cultural pressures, errors of every kind, trying to move us away from scripture.

And Isaiah 8, verse 20 says, to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

So we need to shut those voices out that do not speak according to the Bible.

That's how we remain grounded and steadfast, firm, unmoved.

And so that foundation has to remain solid.

The foundation will, the Bible will remain solid.

We just have to decide whether or not we want to stand firmly on it.

You know, working with the Biblical Research Institute, you get a lot of questions of a theological nature that come in on a regular basis.

And part of what you do is compare these ideas, theories, theologies, if we want to call it that, with the Bible.

I suppose that's something we should all be doing.

We don't have to be a part of the Biblical Research Institute to do that.

You know, as a Christian, we should be doing that regularly, it sounds like.

Yes, actually, I like what it says in Acts about Paul's preaching in Berea.

It said, Bereans were more faithful than those from Thessalonica, for they heard the Scriptures daily and tested whether those things were so.

Back to Menu

Series

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2026: Uniting Heaven & Earth: Christ in Philippians and Colossians

09 Reconciliation and Hope

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Sinner’s Prayer

18m

How to Have a Newstart- Part 2

37m

The Weightier Matters

36m

Reclaim Your Life

42m

The Devil’s Faith

55m

How to Have a Newstart- Part 1

39m

Consider Him

22m

A Call to Revival

Why Adventism Matters

55m

God’s Righteousness In Us

24m

The Converting Light

46m

How We Can Be Ready for Jesus to Come

35m

Unlocking Prophecy

13- Making a New Start

1h 9m

Sound Doctrine