Remember that we said it that these verses have been described as some of the most beautiful in the New Testament. The statements Paul makes can be compared with those found in Ephesians chapter 2, for instance Ephesians 2:3, “3 Among these we as well as you once lived and conducted ourselves in the passions of our flesh [our behavior governed by our corrupt and sensual nature], obeying the impulses of the flesh and the thoughts of the mind [our cravings dictated by our senses and our dark imaginings]. We were then by nature children of [God’s] wrath and heirs of [His] indignation, like the rest of mankind” and 2:12, continued saying “12 [Remember] that you were at that time separated (living apart) from Christ [excluded from all part in Him], utterly estranged and outlawed from the rights of Israel as a nation, and strangers with no share in the sacred compacts of the [Messianic] promise [with no knowledge of or right in God’s agreements, His covenants]. And you had no hope (no promise); you were in the world without God.” Paul reminds the Colossians –as we all need to be reminded –of what Christ has done. Indeed, we should never get tired of hearing it, for the central dynamic of the Christian life is not what we do for Christ, but what He has done for us. Dick Lucas gives a good analysis of these verses when he divides them as follows: what you once were, where you now stand, and how you must go on, are what Christianity is all about! And what were we? ‘Enemies,’ says Paul. Many are unwilling to apply this term to themselves in their unconverted state, and do know what, one sincere way to regard yourself so that God’s word will make a good changing impression on you is to tell or call yourself exactly what you are based on some of our unchristian attitudes and displays. They say, ‘I was never at enmity with God, just apathetic to Him.’ But dig deep into every human heart and find not apathy towards God but antagonism and disobedient. Embedded like splintered glass in every soul is a basic distrust of and lack of love for God. Oh, these raw basic truths are there even though we may not choose to accept the fact. We often don’t like the idea of God telling us what to do, and so act independently in spite of the fact that we have been told it’s to our own ruin. Yet where are we now through grace? Reconciled, by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. By our faith in Christ Jesus, now the enmity is over and peace has come to our hearts. We stand in God’s presence ‘holy …without blemish and free from accusation’, based on our Lord’s great sacrifice for us in other that we are saved from being ruined and destroyed by our sin! And how should we go on? We are to ‘continue in [the] faith, established and firm, not moved or waver from the hope held out for us in the gospel’ (23), “23 [And this He will do] provided that you continue to [s]stay with and in the faith [in Christ], well-grounded and settled and steadfast, not shifting or moving away from the hope [which rests on and is inspired by] the glad tidings (the Gospel), which you heard and which has been preached [t][as being designed for and offered without restrictions] to every person under heaven, and of which [Gospel] I, Paul, became a minister.” If we are to continue in the faith then we must remain content with the gospel that brought us to Christ and not try to change it especially to how it suits us or to how it is convenient to us. Those who seek to add or take away from the gospel do not continue in the faith: they contaminate it. And once this happened, it will no longer yield its purpose to you and everyone around, let us be very care!

Now let us read Colossians 1:21-25; 21 And although you at one time were estranged and alienated from Him and were of hostile attitude of mind in your wicked activities, 22 Yet now has [Christ, the Messiah] reconciled [you to God] in the body of His flesh through death, in order to present you holy and faultless and irreproachable in His [the Father’s] presence. 23 [And this He will do] provided that you continue to [s]stay with and in the faith [in Christ], well-grounded and settled and steadfast, not shifting or moving away from the hope [which rests on and is inspired by] the glad tidings (the Gospel), which you heard and which has been preached [t][as being designed for and offered without restrictions] to every person under heaven, and of which [Gospel] I, Paul, became a minister. 24 [Even] now I rejoice in [u]the midst of my sufferings on your behalf. And in my own person I am making up whatever is still lacking and remains to be completed [[v]on our part] of Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of His body, which is the church. 25 In it I became a minister in accordance with the divine [w]stewardship which was entrusted to me for you [as its object and for your benefit], to make the Word of God fully known [among you]—

In this passage, Paul explains that Lord Jesus is eternal, just as God is eternal, and all created things were created by Him, and through Him, and for Him. After describing Lord Jesus as absolutely supreme, Paul then explains that it was His sacrifice which allowed the Colossians—and all saved believers—to be reconciled to God. Paul says, “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the Church.” Another way of saying it is that God invites us to participate in the salvific action of Lord Jesus through our own suffering. Salvific means leading to salvation. We’ve been thinking about people’s stories at the beginning of these sermons on Colossians. They’re all made up, but just because something is fiction doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Today let’s think about Gordon. Gordon is a cynical man who would say that he has a lot to be cynical about. Gordon might at times say that he is a Christian, but he thinks that much of Christianity is—when push comes to shove—just not wishful thinking. Gordon picks and chooses how he wants to live for himself. He thinks of himself as a golden rule kind of guy. He does unto others as they should do unto him even though, as Gordon would add, people don’t always do unto him as they should. Gordon is precisely the kind of guy who needs to hear the good news of the gospel. We are all precisely the kind of people who need to hear and keep hearing the good news of the gospel. The good news is that God has turned us, His enemies, into His friends. We live by that hope and if we lose that hope all is lost. That’s the claim of this sermon: The good news is that God has turned us, His enemies, into His friends. We live by that hope and if we lose that hope all is lost. We will study this in four points. First: alienated from God. Second: reconciled through Christ. Third: continuing in the faith. Fourth: proclaiming the gospel. We see in verse 21 that humanity is by nature alienated from God. We see in verse 22 that we can be reconciled to God through Christ. We see in verse 23a that we who are reconciled must continue in the faith and we see in verse 23b that this is the gospel which Paul proclaimed, and we are to proclaim. First: alienated from God. 21 And although you at one time were estranged and alienated from Him and were of hostile attitude of mind in your wicked activities, We start with one of Paul’s favorite devices—the once/now. You/we were once in that horrible situation of being alienated; now you/we are in this wonderful situation of being reconciled. You were once under the curse of the law; now you live by the freedom of the Spirit’s guide. You once thought about Lord Jesus as if He were a mere man; now you see Him as the God-man and God Himself who came to earth in other to teach man some vital and essential truth. You were once enslaved to, chasing what is worthless in life on earth; now you are free so live free with God’s Holy Spirit give to you for guidance unto worthy living especially on earth. You were once enemies of God; now you are friends of God struggling under His Spirit’s guide to have a valuable life. Verse 21 is the once half of the once/now; 21 And although you at one time were estranged and alienated from Him and were of hostile attitude of mind in your wicked activities, Paul was reminding the Colossians of their pagan past to contrast it with their current life in Christ. Paul wrote this letter to remind the Colossians that Lord Jesus was better than anything else and that they would be foolish to wander away from Him to pursue satisfaction anywhere else and the same He is telling us today. In this verse he was reminding them of what it was like not to know Lord Jesus; “once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds against Him and everything concerning Him because of your evil behavior.” Some of us have never known that experience. Some of us grew up like Ruth Graham—Billy Graham’s wife—who said that she couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t know Lord Jesus. That’s a gift. That’s a gift we want to pass on to the next generations. These Colossians didn’t have that. They grew up in paganism. They were alienated from God. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” There is no neutrality when it comes to God. Unless people know Him, trust Him, and seek Him, they behave as if He were their enemy. That’s because their sin has made Him their enemy. God isn’t looking to make enemies, but our sin makes us enemies with Him. Imagine someone betraying you, lying to you, refusing to give you your due, and acting as if you didn’t exist. That sounds like an adversarial way to treat someone to me. That’s the way in which humanity by nature treats God in spite of knowing that He has given us His all in Christ. Now amazingly it is God who wants to reconcile this relationship. He has done nothing wrong and yet wants to make things right and we who did wrong doesn’t even care. In our shame we sometimes hesitate to make a relationship right when we are mostly in the wrong. In our pride we sometimes hesitate to make a relationship right when we are mostly in the right. God is eager to make the relationship right even though He is entirely in the right. Praise God that He isn’t like us. We see how God makes this relationship right in our second point: reconciled through Christ. This behavior of God is what He wants us to imbibe from Him, idika Jesus! Reconciled through Christ: This is the “now” half of the once/now; verse 22, “22 Yet now has [Christ, the Messiah] reconciled [you to God] in the body of His flesh through death, in order to present you holy and faultless and irreproachable in His [the Father’s] presence.” But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation. These Colossians once lived like God’s enemies just like us, but now they had been reconciled to God. Now the question is, would we allow to be reconciled? Reconciliation is wonderful. If you’ve even been at odds with someone and gone through the hard work of putting the relationship right with someone else who is willing to make it right, you know how sweet the other side is. Couples go to marriage counseling in hopes of reaching the sweetness on the other side. They are willing to do some soul searching to see where they might be wrong and where their relationship has gone wrong in order to put it right. They are willing to go through the pain of being vulnerable with hurts and hearing how they’ve hurt their spouse because they want the goodness of reconciliation. They do it because they believe that reconciliation is worth it and it brings peace. God thinks that reconciliation is worth it and the good news about this reconciliation process is that it is all God’s doing. That’s great news because you know the reconciliation process will work. Look at verse 22, “now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation”. Who is doing the work in verse 22? God! We humans have turned God into our enemy, and it is this God whom we’ve offended who starts, carries out, and completes the process of reconciling us to Himself. God is the hero of this story. It’s all Him. “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary,” as Jonathan Edwards put it. God reconciled people to Himself by way of Christ’s cross. That’s what’s going on with this talk of Lord Jesus’ physical body; “But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body.” The phrase “physical body” seems a bit redundant, but Paul was most likely contrasting Lord Jesus’ body which hung on the cross with Lord Jesus’ body the Church, which we studied last week. Paul wants us to know that he is talking about the cross. The cross is the means by which God makes peace with us His enemies. That’s why we Christians love the cross. That’s why we put it in our sanctuaries. That’s why we write hymns with words like, “In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever; from the cross my ransomed soul, nothing then shall sever.” The cross does for us what we could never do for ourselves. The cross turned we who were enemies of God into friends of God. It can still do it and is continuously doing it for those who believe. Now the more you own your disposition to enmity towards God, the greater joy you will find in the cross. The more hatred towards God you recognize within yourself—and even the most sanctified Christians has a fair bit of that lingering within them—the more security you will find in your friendship with God because God knew what you were like when He became your friend. “While you were still God’s enemy Christ died for you.” You’re never going to show God any true, ugly colors that He didn’t already know about you when He sent His Son to die for your sins. Stop trying to be worthy of God’s love and recognize that the cross is what reconciles you. God has done it all. Your role is to believe and receive it. Receiving it changes you. It makes you, in the words of verse 22, “holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” What adjectives would you use to describe the way in which the Father sees you—filthy? Possible moral failure? Near hopeless case? Disappointment? How about holy? How about without blemish? How about free from accusation? That’s how God sees His reconciled children. Sit with that for a while. Sometimes receiving grace is the most uncomfortable of experiences. Why is it so hard for you to hear that you are holy in God’s sight? You are holy in God’s sight. You are holy in God’s sight. You are holy in God’s sight. Wrestle whatever pushback you see arising in your heart and throttle it. You are holy in God’s sight. That’s what the Father says. That’s what the Father says if… If what? That’s our third point: continuing in the faith. Can you now be very careful to notice there is a condition: continuing in the faith!

This word from God doesn’t end with verse 22, 22 Yet now has [Christ, the Messiah] reconciled [you to God] in the body of His flesh through death, in order to present you holy and faultless and irreproachable in His [the Father’s] presence.” It keeps going, “without blemish and free from accusation if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” That “if” is real. People harden their hearts to the hope of the gospel. They come to see Christianity as merely something with which they grew up and it becomes a routine. Like training wheels on a bike, it had its purpose, but now it’s not really needed. “When I was a child, I thought like a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish things behind me.” Many a person has, in essence, thought that about Christianity. Many a person has come to believe that they’ve seen too much of life to believe the Bible. If such people continue on that path, any thought that having been baptized or having professed faith or once really liking religious music serving as some sort of assurance of salvation bumps up against the “if” of verse 23, “if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” “23 [And this He will do] provided that you continue to [s]stay with and in the faith [in Christ], well-grounded and settled and steadfast, not shifting or moving away from the hope [which rests on and is inspired by] the glad tidings (the Gospel), which you heard and which has been preached [t][as being designed for and offered without restrictions] to every person under heaven, and of which [Gospel] I, Paul, became a minister.” The perseverance of the saints says the saints persevere. It isn’t a promise that anyone who had contact with Church or Christian influence is born again. It says that those who are born again continue in the faith because it is the Holy Spirit who has made them alive and keeps them alive. That means that if you know Lord Jesus, you need to hold on to your hope for dear life. This hope is the promise that you will be finally and fully reconciled to God. This hope is the promise that your dying to yourself and your dying to sin are leading and will lead to true life. This hope is the promise that God will make all things, including you, new. Your own flesh, the world, and the devil will give you plenty of reasons to doubt that hope. They will point out plenty of ramps from the narrow way. You need to hold on to the hope that God is doing and will do what He says He will do. Some of us had a powerful reminder of that this past week. Holding on to Christian hope lest your heart grow hard is part of Peterson’s most famous song Is He Worthy? It’s a call and response song. “Do you feel the world is broken? We do. Do you feel the shadows deepen? We do. But do you know that all the dark won’t stop the light from getting through? We do. Do you wish that you could see it all made new? We do. Does the Father truly love us? He does. Does the Spirit move among us? He does. And does Lord Jesus, our Messiah hold forever those He loves? He does. Does our God intend to dwell again with us? He does.” Now why would you ever want to jeopardize or forfeit those promises by choosing anything other than Christ? That’s the burden of this letter to the Colossians and that’s the reason for that “if” of verse 23, “if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” Maybe your heart is hardening to this hope. Maybe you no longer actually believe that when push comes to shove that God intends to dwell again with us. Maybe you’ve long stopped believing that the Father truly loves us and now you are just going through the motions. Maybe you are making peace with sin because righteousness doesn’t seem worth what you will have to give up. Don’t think you can cherish sin and find security in being considered holy in God’s sight. The cross that puts sin to death calls us to put sin to death. Or maybe you’ve grown so cynical that you don’t think God can or will make any beauty of out of life. There are plenty of ways that hope dims. Take today as an opportunity to commit yourself to continuing on in the faith. Take today as an opportunity to refuse to be moved from the hope held out in the good news about Lord Jesus. Paul wrote this letter so that these Church-involved Colossians wouldn’t functionally lose their connection with Lord Jesus who died to reconcile them to God. We are working our way through this letter and now we come to this verse with this big warning of “if” and we Church-involved need to be reminded not to functionally lose our connection with Lord Jesus who died to reconcile us to God. Now each of these three elements—a recognition of alienation from God by way of sin, an owning of the reconciliation God provided by way of the cross, and a continuing on in this hope—each of these elements is and has always been part of the gospel message. That’s our final point: proclaiming the gospel. Proclaiming the Gospel: Those three elements that I just recounted—the first three points of this sermon—might sound more familiar to those of us who grew up learning the Heidelberg Catechism as guilt, grace, and gratitude or, if you learned it as the three S’s—sin, salvation, service. Heidelberg Catechism is the new catechism that was intended as a tool for teaching young people, a guide for preaching in the provincial Churches, and a form of confessional unity. This is just the gospel message packaged in a different form; verse 23b, “which you heard and which has been preached [t][as being designed for and offered without restrictions] to every person under heaven, and of which [Gospel] I, Paul, became a minister.” Paul was pleading with the Colossians not to give up on the gospel but to dive deeper in. That’s the call. When there is a lack of satisfaction, the answer isn’t to look elsewhere but rather to know Christ better. Remember what M’Cheyne said, “Unfathomable oceans of grace are in Christ for you. Dive and dive again, you will never come to the bottom of these depths. How many millions of dazzling pearls and gems are at this moment hid in the deep recesses of the ocean caves.” Lord Jesus will never disappoint provided that you are willing to die to yourself to have Him. That’s what Knowing God, Seeking the Spirit, and Imitating Christ is all about. It is the way of satisfaction. That’s what we hopefully want and that’s what we hopefully want for others. Paul wanted this satisfaction for others, which is why he, in the words of verse 23, “proclaimed to every creature under heaven.” Now this call to have the gospel preached to every creature has been misunderstood, but delightfully so. When Paul wrote, “This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant,” he was exaggerating the scope of preaching the gospel to make clear that this gospel was what was needed by everyone everywhere. The false teachers in Colossae had a message that was designed to scratch precisely where the Colossians itched. That’s common spiritual teaching in every age. The gospel is actually what is needed by everyone everywhere whether they know it or not. That’s what the world needs. That’s what we need too. By speaking of every creature under heaven, Paul was also reiterating that this good news about Lord Jesus tells us how God will make all creation right. Remember, “Lord Jesus is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Remember, “God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things.” The purpose of any sermon doesn’t end when we leave the sanctuary. When we leave the sanctuary is where the sermon finds it purpose. That’s when you face life and you start having conversations in your own head. “Do you feel the world is broken? We do. Do you feel the shadows deepen? We do. But do you know that all the dark won’t stop the light from getting through? We do. Do you wish that you could see it all made new? We do.” That’s when you must continue in the hope of this good news. That’s the hope that you need. You know that hope. That’s the hope that Gordon needs. He doesn’t know it. He just knows the world is broken. He just feels the shadows deepen. He needs the good news. That’s what we have to offer. We offer nothing less than Lord Jesus and there is nothing better that we could offer. Amen.