SPEAKER_00: Well, friends, in our culture, over a series of decades, there has been a gradual disappearance of sin.
SPEAKER_00: The idea that human beings are not basically good people, but are rather just people who occasionally make poor decisions, but are by nature creatures who stand in act active opposition to God is falling more and more on hard times.
SPEAKER_00: Though we have, you know, affirmed the word sin, culture is familiar with the word sin, its weight is becoming less potent, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: We have replaced sin with sickness or victimhood.
SPEAKER_00: The conscience of Western culture is being numbed by a strong therapeutic worldview that reframes every moral failure as a condition to be treated rather than a transgression to be repented of and forgiven by God.
SPEAKER_00: And tragically, from my vantage point, much of modern churches have adopted this framework wholesale.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul will not allow us to do that, or rather, God, who inspired Scripture through Paul.
SPEAKER_00: And just three verses, verses 21 through 23, we'll focus on this morning.
SPEAKER_00: In just three verses, he refused to let us soften what we were, minimize what Christ did, or drift from the gospel that saved us.
SPEAKER_00: He uses words that are very stark and deliberate, words like alienated, hostile, evil deeds.
SPEAKER_00: But then he uses phrases like reconciled, holy, blameless, and above reproach.
SPEAKER_00: With God's help, what I want us to see this morning, friends, from Paul's words in verses 21 through 23 is that if you are in Christ, you've been reconciled, presented holy, and declared blameless.
SPEAKER_00: So now live like it.
SPEAKER_00: Paul holds up a mirror in this chapter to show us what we were.
SPEAKER_00: He holds up the cross to show us what Christ did, and in some ways gives us a compass to show us how to walk forward in perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: And so what I want us to do this morning is on the heels of Paul's words in verses 15 through 20, which Zane did a wonderful job helping us just see the supremacy of Christ in all things.
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like Paul is just bursting out into this doxology or this poem just to say, look at how awesome and transcendent and glorifying Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And then in our verses this morning, he's given some indicatives, some reminders of who you are in Christ, and in light of that, how we should live.
SPEAKER_00: So let's let's just let's read verses 21 through 23 real quickly here.
SPEAKER_00: So after this doxology of praise of the transcendence and supremacy of Christ, in verse 21, Paul picks up once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions, but now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him.
SPEAKER_00: If indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard.
SPEAKER_00: This gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.
SPEAKER_00: This these verses can be divided up really by each verse.
SPEAKER_00: The first verse is focusing on uh who you were past tense before your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22 is focusing on present tense, but now he has reconciled you.
SPEAKER_00: This is now your standing before God by way of your justification.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 23 is a future tense of, hey, you are to persevere if you are in Christ and not waver away from the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll break these down one by one, but let's start with verse 21 and look at what you once were before Christ saved you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul doesn't ease into this, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00: He uses very stark language.
SPEAKER_00: He begins with a strong description of the human condition before you receive God's saving grace.
SPEAKER_00: If you are in this room this morning and you are a born-again believer, this is true of all of us.
SPEAKER_00: Before our salvation, you were alienated from God.
SPEAKER_00: When you hear that, you automatically know exactly what Paul's communicating, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: You were a foreigner to the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: You did not belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: You were alienated.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 59, 2 says, But your iniquities are separating you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not listen.
SPEAKER_00: This is important because in our culture, sin is not a serious issue.
SPEAKER_00: Just the term itself can be offensive, but we should expect that because those who don't walk with Jesus don't share our convictions and our Christian worldview, our uh submission to the authority of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, we were alienated from God.
SPEAKER_00: Like let's just think about what that means.
SPEAKER_00: So before you were a Christian, you sin was not just like an inconvenience in your relationship with God, it severed it.
SPEAKER_00: It was the reason why God cannot even look at you with favor and love, but rather his just condemnation and wrath hung over you because you were an enemy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just turn over to Romans chapter 1 real quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you say hard things as a pastor, it's always good to just read scripture so y'all don't think I'm picking on you.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 1, verses 18 through 24 is a stark reality of fallen humanity.
SPEAKER_00: Beginning in verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the guilt of the world according to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: For God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them.
SPEAKER_00: For his invisible attributes, that is his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made.
SPEAKER_00: As a result, people are without excuse.
SPEAKER_00: For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened.
SPEAKER_00: Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served what has been created and said of the Creator, who is praised forever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, that is the universal scope of human depravity.
SPEAKER_00: That is everyone's state before they receive salvation in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That is what it means to be alienated.
SPEAKER_00: You're alienated because of that sinful heart posture that Paul just articulated in Romans 1.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says that we were hostile in mind.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: That's combative language, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: This is a critical word.
SPEAKER_00: Paul does not say, you know what, before Christ, you were indifferent to God.
SPEAKER_00: You were just neutral.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't hate him.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't really love him.
SPEAKER_00: You were just in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say that you were apathetic toward God.
SPEAKER_00: He says you were hostile in mind.
SPEAKER_00: You were an enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Your mind, your affections, your will all were in opposition to everything God stood for.
SPEAKER_00: Your whole posture was oriented against God.
SPEAKER_00: Now some might think, well, you know, when I look at my life before Christ, I don't know if I would say I was an enemy of God.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't hate God.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I didn't curse God.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, if you didn't worship and serve the Jesus we learned about last week in the previous verses, then what God were you serving and loving?
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the God of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, you are hostile in mind.
SPEAKER_00: And that depravity is holistic, friends.
SPEAKER_00: That's how jacked up we were.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just that we did bad things.
SPEAKER_00: No, our minds were hostile and fallen and corrupted.
SPEAKER_00: Our affections were hostile and corrupted by sin, which led to hostile and oppressive, sinful actions slash deeds.
SPEAKER_00: Which is why Paul says you were hostile in mind.
SPEAKER_00: If you look down at verses 21, so we were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying your mind was corrupt and depraved, and that corruption gave evidence through your actions.
SPEAKER_00: You made it evident that you were hostile and alienated by God by how you lived your life.
SPEAKER_00: Your deeds put on display your corruption.
SPEAKER_00: So behavior, friends, always flows from belief.
SPEAKER_00: We can't detach our actions from what we believe in our affections.
SPEAKER_00: What we believe in our minds, what we feel in our hearts, leads to the choices we make.
SPEAKER_00: The words that we speak communicate where we stand with God.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is saying those who were hostile in mind were also expressing that hostility in evil deeds.
SPEAKER_00: Hostility towards God produces a life shaped by that same hostility.
SPEAKER_00: Let me illustrate like this.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a soldier who is deep behind enemy lines by themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Is that soldier in enemy territory just gonna walk around freely, just go to a local coffee shop and just hang out wearing their country's uniform?
SPEAKER_00: No, of course not.
SPEAKER_00: Because you are in an opposing nation's territory.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, you would be actively oriented against that enemy country.
SPEAKER_00: Every instinct, every decision would be shaped by that hostility.
SPEAKER_00: You'd be sneaking around very, very carefully and very strategically.
SPEAKER_00: Before salvation, we weren't spiritually neutral bystanders to God and Christ, who just needed a little direction, who needed a little, you know, self-improvement.
SPEAKER_00: We were active combatants against God and his kingdom, not in spite of our minds, but through them.
SPEAKER_00: We were corrupt radically to the point in which everything we saw in verses 15 through 20, we would have frowned at.
SPEAKER_00: We would have thought, you know, this sounds like clever, you know, clever prose, but I don't see anything precious about this Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Or all the songs we just sung, we wouldn't have spoken like that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wasn't a treasure to us.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, like me, before I became a Christian, I would have professed to have been a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I would have acknowledged God and yeah, Jesus is great, but my life clearly showed he was not supreme in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, showing I was hostile in mind.
SPEAKER_00: This is why in our culture, this cultural fog around sin is very dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: Sin isn't merely a bad habit, or like our politicians do a great job of when they get caught doing something.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, you know, that's not who I really am.
SPEAKER_00: I just, you know, it's a poor lapse of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: No, you that is exactly who you are.
SPEAKER_00: You are radically corrupt.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is not merely a bad habit.
SPEAKER_00: It's not tripping up and just making a bad decision.
SPEAKER_00: It's a description of who we are by nature.
SPEAKER_00: We were enemies of God.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of Satan.
SPEAKER_00: You know, these these terms Satan, the devil, the adversary, these aren't his name.
SPEAKER_00: These are titles that describe his nature.
SPEAKER_00: He is a liar.
SPEAKER_00: He is an accuser of the brethren.
SPEAKER_00: These are titles that describe his nature, what he does fundamentally.
SPEAKER_00: Same with sin for us.
SPEAKER_00: Before we were saved, we were sinners.
SPEAKER_00: That was our identity.
SPEAKER_00: Enemies of God.
SPEAKER_00: But modern culture and sadly much of the modern church culture has so softened this that sin has nearly vanished from the conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Where most Christians would acknowledge, yes, the Bible teaches we should be holy, we should pursue purity and integrity and all these things.
SPEAKER_00: But the actual like holy grit to work and put forth effort to actually be holy is kind of frowned upon sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, let's not be legalistic and talk like that because we're covered by grace.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, amen.
SPEAKER_00: We sure are.
SPEAKER_00: But that same grace should motivate effort.
SPEAKER_00: We've traded conviction for things like therapy and repentance for self-improvement.
SPEAKER_00: But scripture won't allow such categories.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just victims of a broken world.
SPEAKER_00: We are participants in introducing the brokenness to the world.
SPEAKER_00: That goes for when we were unbelievers, and even now, as believers, who still struggle with sin.
SPEAKER_00: We are the problems.
SPEAKER_00: I believe it was J.K.
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton many, many, many years ago when someone, I think it was a publicist, wrote in a news article, like, What is wrong with the world?
SPEAKER_00: And J.K.
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton responded, I am.
SPEAKER_00: He understood the doctrine of sin.
SPEAKER_00: We are not just victims of a broken world.
SPEAKER_00: We are active participants in introducing and promoting sin and brokenness.
SPEAKER_00: We have offended God and severed ourselves from his fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: That is every single person's testimony in this room before you came to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is why sometimes I'm not I want to be careful here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a big fan of, you know, when we share our testimonies, a lot of people spend all this time talking about here's all the wicked things I did, and then like three seconds on, and then Jesus saved my soul and I heard the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone has the same testimony in here.
SPEAKER_00: You were born in sin, you murdered Jesus on the cross, you were separated from God, but God, rich in mercy and grace, saved your soul.
SPEAKER_00: That is everyone's testimony in this room.
SPEAKER_00: Everything I'm describing right now, I don't care what the minute details of your particular testimony is, it's the same.
SPEAKER_00: You were alienated from God, you were his enemy, but God was rich in mercy and saved your soul.
SPEAKER_00: We have to ask ourselves, have I settled for a view of myself that is too gentle in light of scripture?
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, for instance, have I gravitated towards what the culture is teaching me, which is we're mostly most of us are victims, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: Or do I see myself as no, no, no, I'm not primarily a victim, I'm a perpetrator in light of God's holiness.
SPEAKER_00: I am a perpetrator of sin who needs forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a culture which a lot of Christians are being influenced by, oh no, no one's really truly bad.
SPEAKER_00: We're all victims, and we just need to improve a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: That is what you once were, but Paul doesn't end there because verse 22 turns everything on its head if you look down at verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: You always gotta perk up a little bit when you see those words, but therefore, if but now he, meaning Jesus, has reconciled you by his physical body through his death to present you wholly, faultless, and blameless before him.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast between verses 21 and 22 are one of the most staggering pivots in Paul's writing.
SPEAKER_00: Paul often uses this pattern of really soberly highlighting the truth and reality of the our depravity, our sin, our alienation from God, and then does a wonderful job of connecting it.
SPEAKER_00: But God did all these things to rectify all that sinful stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And it raises the very question that one scholar asked.
SPEAKER_00: So, in light of what we see in verses uh 15 through 20, where Paul is just holding up the beauty of the transcendence of God, and some of you might not be familiar, but Colossians is believed to have been written maybe about 30 years or so after Jesus' resurrection and ascension into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So that's important to know.
SPEAKER_00: So this is recent history, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So think about this.
SPEAKER_00: One scholar puts it this way: how could claims of this magnitude, look, actually, let's go back.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read 15 to 20 real quick.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, and this is all speaking of Jesus, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
SPEAKER_00: For everything was created by him in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.
SPEAKER_00: He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.
SPEAKER_00: He is also the head of the body of the church.
SPEAKER_00: He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.
SPEAKER_00: For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Now, keep in mind, Paul is making some pretty, some pretty significant claims about Jesus in those verses, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's he's saying Jesus, whom the audience would have heard of and known, because he existed about 30 years ago, or he was resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: These verses are saying he's God.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father expresses himself visibly through the Son, he is the ruler and has authority over all things.
SPEAKER_00: All things were created by him and for him.
SPEAKER_00: And one theologian puts it this way, and I love this, he says, How could claims of this magnitude be made about a man who died little more than 30 years ago and was remembered as a personal friend by men and women still living when this letter was written?
SPEAKER_00: The answer Paul gives is not philosophical, it is historical and physical.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus didn't truly resurrect from the dead, people could have easily debunked this and saying, wait, no, Jesus wasn't this.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, are you serious?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was not supreme over all things.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't the creator of all things, he wasn't God in human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father did not uh find pleasure in dwelling in him, letting his fullness dwell in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They could have easily pushed back on this.
SPEAKER_00: And instead, this becomes inspired scripture for the edification of the church 30 years after Jesus' death and resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is saying, the Jesus you knew, this is who he is.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's some parallels.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to turn here, but uh Colossians and Ephesians have some good parallels.
SPEAKER_00: So for example, in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 12 and 16 gives us similar language.
SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians 2.12, Paul says, Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
SPEAKER_00: As I said earlier, if you want to know your testimony, go read Ephesians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: Go read Ephesians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: That was all of us.
SPEAKER_00: We were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers of the covenants of promise, and because of that we had no hope and were without God in the world.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 16, Paul says, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
SPEAKER_00: That same hostility that Paul mentions in our text this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Paul returns to this theme repeatedly because it's almost like the hinge of the entire gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We who were separated and without hope have somehow been brought near to God, who was once our enemy.
SPEAKER_00: And the way that happened was through the cross of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The cross did not soften the hostility, it completely vanquished it.
SPEAKER_00: That hostility that hung over every last one of us was dealt with through the physical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why it's very important that Paul makes it clear in verse 22 that we have been reconciled by his physical body through his death.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is careful here.
SPEAKER_00: This was a real death.
SPEAKER_00: The Colossian heresy, which we'll get into when we reach chapter two, minimized the physical.
SPEAKER_00: Paul insists, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: The incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection are not metaphors.
SPEAKER_00: They're not clever fables that us Christians are just passing along to encourage each other to follow a fake God.
SPEAKER_00: God came to earth in real flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He really died on the cross and rose on the third day.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, these things are extremely significant.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Hebrews 9 22 makes it clear that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Or Hebrews 13, turn to Hebrews 13 real quick.
SPEAKER_00: I want to help y'all just brag on Jesus real quick.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 13 verses 11 through 12 give us an important picture of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament and how it connects to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And praise be to God, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Could you imagine every Sunday if we had to gather and as pastors we had to lead a proceeding in which we slaughtered an animal at the front of the sanctuary here?
SPEAKER_00: And we all had a bloody mess every Sunday, just weakly reminding us of the fact that hey, we got to keep doing this because it doesn't fully atone for our sins until Jesus arrived.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11 of Hebrews 13.
SPEAKER_00: The author says, For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the most holy place by the high priests as a sin offering are burned outside the camp.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, Jesus also suffered outside the gate, so that he might sanctify the people by his own blood.
SPEAKER_00: Let us then go to him outside the camp, bearing his disgrace.
SPEAKER_00: For we do not have an enduring city here.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we seek the one to come.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just pause here.
SPEAKER_00: Let's understand what's going on in Israel's history here.
SPEAKER_00: This was this is a this is a yearly thing for them, okay?
SPEAKER_00: This was just life for an Israelite.
SPEAKER_00: On the day of atonement, the high priests carried the blood of the animal they sacrificed.
SPEAKER_00: They carried the blood into the most holy place of worship.
SPEAKER_00: But the body of that animal, according to Leviticus, had to be taken outside the camp and burned.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because it was unclean.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, it was treated as unclean.
SPEAKER_00: So it was removed from the most holy place.
SPEAKER_00: It was cast out.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 13, 11 through 12 makes the connection explicit with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus suffered on our behalf outside the gate to make his people holy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem for the same reason.
SPEAKER_00: He was not executed there by accident, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: He was treated as unclean, cast outside the holy city, bearing the shame and the curse of sin in his own body.
SPEAKER_00: And here is the irony of the author, uh, that the author of Hebrews wants you to feel when he writes this.
SPEAKER_00: The one treated as unclean is the very one who makes sinners clean.
SPEAKER_00: The one cast outside is the one who brings you into the presence of God, or another way to put it, as Paul says, he brings you near to God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus became the rejected sin offering so that the enemies of God could be declared holy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one person in the gospels who touches the unclean leper and makes him clean rather than the leper making him unclean.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think, friends, that the dominant heresies throughout the centuries have been attacking either Jesus' humanity or Jesus' divinity?
SPEAKER_00: Because Satan knows that they matter very much.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus is not fully God, he is not sufficient to atone for your sins.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus was not fully man, his death and resurrection was not sufficient to atone for your sins and to justify you.
SPEAKER_00: This is why these things in the Bible all are pointing to Jesus Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you a little bit more about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you are familiar that several people in the Bible died and were resurrected supernaturally, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, to name a few, obviously the most famous probably would be Lazarus.
SPEAKER_00: There's the widow's son and Jarius' daughter.
SPEAKER_00: People who really died and through a supernatural act of God were resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, there's only one person who died and resurrected himself.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one person who laid his own life down voluntarily and said, Don't trip, because I'm gonna get back up.
SPEAKER_00: He said it himself in John 10, no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
SPEAKER_00: I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.
SPEAKER_00: If that's not one of the most gangster statements in the gospels, I don't know what is.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, no one takes my life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm reading the Gospel of John with my kids right now, and it is crazy to hear Jesus on the cross say, It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: Which means he has the authority to say that.
SPEAKER_00: He has the authority to say what God sent me to do has just been fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
SPEAKER_00: I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' bodily resurrection, death, and resurrection matter tremendously.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul is reminding his audience, friends, Jesus reconciled you by his physical body through his death to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection is the ground of everything Paul says next in verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: These three staggering descriptions of the reconciled believer.
SPEAKER_00: If you are in Christ, you are, Paul says, holy, which means set apart.
SPEAKER_00: You are consecrated.
SPEAKER_00: You now belong to God.
SPEAKER_00: You are blameless, which if you were a Jew, this would have been familiar language because the sacrificial animals had to be without defect.
SPEAKER_00: They had to be blameless.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, through his death and resurrection, that's what you are now.
SPEAKER_00: You are without defect.
SPEAKER_00: You are blameless.
SPEAKER_00: You have been found acceptable before God.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, just think about that right now as you sit in that pew.
SPEAKER_00: If you are in Christ, God finds you acceptable.
SPEAKER_00: He delights in you.
SPEAKER_00: Not because he looked at you and said, Oh man, like they're gonna do so much good for me.
SPEAKER_00: That makes me happy.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Simply because he decided to sovereignly show you grace.
SPEAKER_00: But third, Paul says, if you're in Christ, you are above reproach, which means you are free of accusation.
SPEAKER_00: No charge could stand against you in the courtroom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul echoes in Romans 8:33.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing can stand against God's elect.
SPEAKER_00: No charge can be made against any of God's children where God would sit there and say, you know what, I need to consider that.
SPEAKER_00: No, he laughs at it because Jesus said, It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: So we got to ask ourselves, friends, if if these things are true of us, because this is what Paul is doing.
SPEAKER_00: He's being a good pastor/slash apostle.
SPEAKER_00: He's wanting the church and Colossi to understand, friends, you once were alienated from God, past tense.
SPEAKER_00: That's who you were.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're in Christ, you have now, verse 22, but now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death.
SPEAKER_00: And he did it to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him.
SPEAKER_00: So ask yourself, Christian, in your Christian life, do you live the reality of what Christ has declared you to be?
SPEAKER_00: Do you live out of this reality that I am blameless?
SPEAKER_00: I am above reproach, I am set apart.
SPEAKER_00: Is that the active identity that you're functioning from on a weekly basis?
SPEAKER_00: Now, don't get me wrong, we're all flawed individuals who are striving forward to be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: We struggle with remaining corruption, but are you fighting to remind yourself of what God says you are, or are you letting outside sources more tell you what you are?
SPEAKER_00: And if you do struggle, here's something I found helpful many years ago to try to just reorient myself and remind myself of the gospel, my union with Christ, whether I fall into sin or well, I hate using the word fall into sin.
SPEAKER_00: When I choose to sin against God, or when I'm struggling to believe in my identity of Christ in Christ, I try to remind myself of three things.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, admit your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, accept God's forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And number three, act like a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Think of the triple A's, like the car company.
SPEAKER_00: Admit your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Accept God's forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: That might be the one we struggle with the most.
SPEAKER_00: So, friends, remember when we confess our sin, when we admit our sin to God, we don't have to like do penance where it's like, well, I gotta like accumulate some good deeds to earn God's favor.
SPEAKER_00: And then when I admit my sin, there'll be a transaction which he'll forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I love how Paul says, consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's appealing to our intellect, our mind, our logic.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, it's not, it's not primarily about how you feel.
SPEAKER_00: It's logic.
SPEAKER_00: If you are in Christ, consider yourself dead to sin.
SPEAKER_00: So admit your sin, accept God's forgiveness, and act like a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Do the things that show that this is your identity, that you are set apart, that you are blameless and above reproach.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul does not leave us in the glories of verse 22 without a word about what it means to actively walk in them as well.
SPEAKER_00: Because in verse 23, Paul calls us to persevere in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: If these things are true of you, here is how you should live.
SPEAKER_00: So he makes it clear: hey, you've been reconciled through his physical body, through his death.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the reason Jesus did this: to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before you.
SPEAKER_00: Before I move to verse 23, 23, just notice how Paul is highlighting in verse 22 like God, uh Jesus' active participation in your sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: Don't please don't miss that.
SPEAKER_00: Don't read past that quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus understood the hostility that stood between you and his father.
SPEAKER_00: He died on your behalf so that you can be presented holy, faultless, and blameless before him.
SPEAKER_00: So just think about how fail-proof your sanctification is, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying the only way you can be presented before the Father as a blameless individual is through a reconciling work that only I can do.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna do it for you.
SPEAKER_00: He did what he did in order to accomplish an end, which is almost like, you know, uh a kid when they draw a picture and it's the greatest piece of art they've ever created in their minds, and they just come to mom and dad with so much great joy to show you, and you have to do your best to act like that's the greatest piece of art you've ever seen, as well.
SPEAKER_00: And you bet not throw it in the trash and get caught doing that.
SPEAKER_00: It better go on the fridge with all 23 of the other pictures.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like that's what Jesus does, in a sense, where Jesus is like, okay, I can't present you right now because you're alienated, but I'm gonna fix everything that needs to be fixed so that I can present you to God.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine this isn't the greatest illustration, but imagine a defendant showing up in a courtroom before a judge in an orange uh jumpsuit and shackles.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have a particular heart posture because they don't want to be there.
SPEAKER_00: They understand I'm I'm here to stand in judgment.
SPEAKER_00: But imagine the judge's son or wife comes into the courtroom to bring the judge lunch.
SPEAKER_00: It's a whole different perspective, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm not here in judgment.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to because I have a good relationship with the judge.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, I'm trying to present them to the judge who now becomes their father, because now he sees them as blameless and pure and holy and above reproach.
SPEAKER_00: And if that is true of you, then verse 23 is how we should move forward in our walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if indeed, so here's the promise.
SPEAKER_00: So remember, you see those therefore, you see, but now you see an if.
SPEAKER_00: So this is important.
SPEAKER_00: This is a condition.
SPEAKER_00: So everything he has just previously said hinges on verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: If indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard.
SPEAKER_00: This gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some people get hung up on verses like this because they think, wait a minute, is this teaching that a Christian can lose their salvation?
SPEAKER_00: Because Paul is saying, like, hey, all this glorious stuff I just said that, okay, Jesus, he died for you so that he could present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him.
SPEAKER_00: However, that's if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope.
SPEAKER_00: Is he saying you can lose your salvation?
SPEAKER_00: No, friends, he's talking about the doctrine of perseverance, which to give a short definition, the doctrine of perseverance teaches that God keeps those whom he saves.
SPEAKER_00: God keeps those whom he saves.
SPEAKER_00: That is to say that God, who God has truly saved, will be kept by his power to the end.
SPEAKER_00: Praise be to God.
SPEAKER_00: If any of us was kept by our own power and strength, there would be no hope for any of us.
SPEAKER_00: We are going to commit enough sins in the next four hours that could condemn us to hell.
SPEAKER_00: We are kept by God's power.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I love the beauty of the doctrine of justification.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus died on our behalf and we were declared justified, God did not say, okay, no, uh Jesus put a down payment on your salvation, but you got 30 years to save up the rest through your good deeds.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God doesn't have a warranty on our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have a Costco return policy on our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: If you are justified, it is finished.
SPEAKER_00: It is a done deal.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing can separate you from God's love.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so then how do we understand verses uh verses like verse 23?
SPEAKER_00: Because there's a lot of language in the Bible that talks like this where it has caused a lot of damage, where some Bible teachers or just Bible students reading their word think, wait a minute, so is there some kind of sin I can commit that would forfeit my salvation?
SPEAKER_00: Well, verse 23, for example, has been misread by some as a warning that a true Christian can lose their salvation, but I would suggest that that is a misreading of the text.
SPEAKER_00: So warning passages in Scripture, friends, function not to threaten genuine believers about losing their salvation, but rather to motivate perseverance in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give an example.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 3, 12 through 14 might be the most popular uh warning passage that some people get tripped up on, where the author of Hebrews says, Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
SPEAKER_00: But exhort one another every day as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
SPEAKER_00: For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
SPEAKER_00: So, friends, warning passages of scripture are used by God to actually keep you persevering in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually quite wise of God when you really think about it.
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, we have government that creates laws on a federal level, on a civil level, like speed limits.
SPEAKER_00: Those laws are meant to be guardrails in your life to keep you within the bounds of what is lawful.
SPEAKER_00: So if you step over those guardrails, so to speak, well then there's consequences and punishment.
SPEAKER_00: That's how I view the commands of God in scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Like God's not like a killjoy, doesn't want his children to have fun.
SPEAKER_00: It's like God is saying, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: For you to enjoy all the rich benefits of your salvation and the love that I have for you, stay within these guardrails.
SPEAKER_00: Those guardrails, God's commands, are what motivate us to stay within the guardrails because we don't want to displease God.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to grieve the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: Or think of it like this way: a doctor tells a patient, hey man, if you keep smoking, you will develop lung disease.
SPEAKER_00: Now, would you say that that doctor desires for his patient to have lung disease?
SPEAKER_00: No, that warning isn't a prediction that the doctor hopes comes true.
SPEAKER_00: It's a tool meant to preserve life.
SPEAKER_00: Brother, sister, if you keep on this path, bad things will happen, which then hopefully should lead the person to say, well, then I don't want to do those bad things so that bad things don't happen to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's how I think of the warning passages in scripture.
SPEAKER_00: There are tools meant to produce life and perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: God does not warn his people to frighten them into doubting their salvation.
SPEAKER_00: He warns them to motivate the very perseverance that characterizes genuine faith.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why, and I understand, I think lots of Christians at some point in their walk wrestle with the question of, you know, am I truly saved?
SPEAKER_00: Assurance of salvation, can I lose my salvation?
SPEAKER_00: I'll just say this: I've never met an unbeliever who wonders whether they're saved or not.
SPEAKER_00: So we can just start there.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we have a faulty understanding of sanctification and the doctrine of perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I prefer to tell people, friends, the goal in the Christian life is faithfulness, not perfection.
SPEAKER_00: You are already definitively, positionally holy in the eyes of God if you are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But on this side of heaven, you are progressively seeking to be molded more and more into the image of Jesus as a flawed sinner who's striving forward to just be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're jacked up, if you have sin struggles, welcome to the club.
SPEAKER_00: That is everyone in this room.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone acts like they have it all figured out, just pray for them because they don't.
SPEAKER_00: That is the beauty of sanctification, that is the beauty of the local church because God knows this, and that's why he created this institution of the local church, so we can help each other persevere forward and all finish our race well.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does persevering faith look like to Paul?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he he makes it clear here.
SPEAKER_00: It's continuing in the faith, not treating salvation as a starting point that we then move beyond, but rather as a foundation that we stand on every day in our lives as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I think sometimes when we wrestle with, you know, well, was that person, uh, did they lose their salvation because, man, they were in the church for many years and now they've just rejected Christ and they've walked away.
SPEAKER_00: I think a better question is, were they ever saved in the first place?
SPEAKER_00: Because again, friends, perseverance teaches God keeps those whom He saves.
SPEAKER_00: So if someone verbally professed faith externally, they look like a Christian, but then they commit adultery, they leave their family and move on, and five years later they're still living in sin.
SPEAKER_00: Well, friends, I think we have no confidence to say that that person was ever truly born again.
SPEAKER_00: Because those whom God saves, God keeps.
SPEAKER_00: But persevering faith also looks like remaining stable and steadfast.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not necessarily stable mentally, because then we'd all be in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: But remaining stable and steadfast is like the image of a building with a proper foundation.
SPEAKER_00: Are you rooted in the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Is God's word sufficient and authoritative in your life?
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is not a phase you pass through, but the ground you stand on.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is not the prerequisite to Christianity, and then you move on to all the bigger, loftier topics of theology.
SPEAKER_00: No, it is the entire classroom that you never graduate from.
SPEAKER_00: You are to remain stable and steadfast in the gospel and God's word as your foundation.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul gives the warning of not shifting from the hope of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll learn what he means by that in chapter two, where he addresses the Colossian heresy that was a false teaching, a false gospel that was leading some people astray.
SPEAKER_00: He has a concern for these Christians that they would uh move believers off their foundation through a false gospel by adding to the gospel a different perspective on Jesus or uh, you know, keeping the law, or there was some kind of strange teaching of worshiping angels.
SPEAKER_00: The same danger exists in every generation.
SPEAKER_00: So don't read this and think, wow, they got they had some weird stuff going on at Colossa.
SPEAKER_00: We have the same struggles, they just look differently and have different titles and names today.
SPEAKER_00: We have Christians who are tempted to add to Jesus or add to the gospel or add to their Christianity something outside of Scripture, and they try to do this syncretism where it's like, well, I'm gonna add a little bit of Jesus and a little bit of this, and then a little bit of this over here and that and that, and then you end up having a gumbo bowl, so to speak, of religion.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give a practical example for from our modern moment.
SPEAKER_00: Because we live in a cultural moment when the language of mental health, for example, has become the primary way many people, including many Christians, understand their fundamental identity.
SPEAKER_00: And let me be clear: the reality of suffering is not a question.
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about do people experience suffering and brokenness in the world?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: That's nothing new that has been here since the dawn of Genesis 3.
SPEAKER_00: But there is a danger that quietly creeps in when clinical labels become more authoritative over your self-understanding and your biblical understanding of man rather than your union with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When you know your diagnosis better than you know the doctrine of justification, union with Christ, and sanctification, something is fundamentally wrong.
SPEAKER_00: When the framework you received in the therapist's office shapes how you see yourself more than what God has declared about you in his word, something is very off.
SPEAKER_00: God has declared promises and truths, indicatives over his children revealed in his word, that no therapist or psychologist can carry any weight over, because God is the creator of mankind.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's three descriptors in verse 22 are not psychological assessments, they are declared realities, declared gospel realities by the creator of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: You are holy, blameless, and above reproach.
SPEAKER_00: Or I also love how Martin Luther described Christians as we are all simultaneously saints, sinners, and sufferers.
SPEAKER_00: Every last one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Those are not descriptions of how you feel.
SPEAKER_00: They are descriptions of what Christ has made you.
SPEAKER_00: Gospel drift is important, friends, because it's when we drift from the gospel and God's word, it's not always like a loud in your face drift.
SPEAKER_00: It's more of a subtle drift away from God's truth.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to pick on, you know.
SPEAKER_00: The mental health industry, but I am concerned as a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: I've counseled people for many years, and I have seen Christians who love the same Bible we love, but adopt some type of label as if that's their fundamental identity.
SPEAKER_00: I am a person who is a victim of this, or I am depressed, or I am bipolar, or I can give all the lists, right?
SPEAKER_00: And sadly, many of these things are not even connected to any kind of biological study.
SPEAKER_00: It's someone sitting in front of a therapist sharing their lived experience, and the therapist saying, based on what you're sharing, I think you are this.
SPEAKER_00: You can go sit in front of five other therapists and get five other diagnoses.
SPEAKER_00: What does God's word say?
SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I have a copy of the DSM five in my office.
SPEAKER_00: I read those labels and they're helpful in describing a cluster of behavior patterns.
SPEAKER_00: But I tell Christians all the time, but guess what?
SPEAKER_00: There's another manual that describes a cluster of behavior.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes what the therapist's uh manual describes, they don't understand what's the cause of it and what's the remedy for it.
SPEAKER_00: Think about this.
SPEAKER_00: The DSM 5, if you're not familiar, it's what psychiatrists and psychologists use to diagnose mental health uh labels so that they can charge insurance and so on and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: What is very interesting to me about this manual, number one, is it's in its fifth edition.
SPEAKER_00: So that should tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: They keep changing stuff.
SPEAKER_00: So some things that used to be a mental illness are no longer, and some things that weren't a mental illness now are.
SPEAKER_00: So just let that be what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Um but what's interesting is in the very beginning of the manual, they say that the purpose of the manual is to describe abnormal behavior, but not once do they define normal behavior.
SPEAKER_00: So how are you for over 500 pages describing abnormal behavior, but you never start with, and here's what's normal behavior.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, this is far more authoritative.
SPEAKER_00: This is the one book that can tell you who you are, what is the problem, and also by the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling in you, how you can actually change.
SPEAKER_00: That is far more hopeful.
SPEAKER_00: I'm only bringing this up because we got to understand, Paul is addressing a group of Christians who were shifting away from God's word slowly and gradually by things in the culture that will infiltrating the church and leading Christians astray.
SPEAKER_00: We are no different today.
SPEAKER_00: But he ends on a positive note at the end of verse 23, saying that the the uh describing the universal scope of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.
SPEAKER_00: Now notice the strategic word choices here.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul is making it clear this gospel, not my gospel, not the Colossian gospel.
SPEAKER_00: This gospel has been proclaimed in all uh in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is making it clear, keep in mind, contextually, they were embracing a false gospel, and he's saying there is only one gospel.
SPEAKER_00: There is one gospel that was handed down, and I am a servant of it.
SPEAKER_00: And I love that language.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's not saying, like, no, I'm I'm an apostle, I'm building my platform, and the gospel is a part of my platform.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel was delivered supernaturally by God, and I am a servant of it.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think of yourself that way?
SPEAKER_00: Do you think of yourself as a servant of the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Because if you do, it changes how you view the gospel, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It reminds you, it's not my message.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just delivering it.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just trying to persuasively communicate the gospel in love.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to alter it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to minimize the blow of it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to just be faithful to be a servant of it.
SPEAKER_00: And I love how he just highlights God's supremacy again.
SPEAKER_00: Paul ends with a breathtaking claim.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The reconciliation he has just described is not local, primarily, or a tribal arrangement.
SPEAKER_00: He says, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: This is an announcement of the kingdom of God that is spreading across every corner of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: And praise God.
SPEAKER_00: This should encourage us when we read this stuff to recognize wow, even when false teaching is trying to infiltrate a church and lead Christians astray from the gospel, the gospel is still gonna be proclaimed and spread to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Like you cannot stop the threat of the gospel spreading to every tribe and tongue.
SPEAKER_00: I watched a video recently of a pastor who grew up in Iran just articulating the persecution the Christian church has faced and how the underground church, despite over 40 years of persecution and oppression by a radical regime, the underground church has just been growing rapidly.
SPEAKER_00: Like rechurch history, guys, it will stir your heart when you realize when government abuse this authority to try to shut up Christians from sharing the gospel, they had the opposite effect.
SPEAKER_00: Even when they killed Christians, churches just kept getting planted all the more.
SPEAKER_00: And more and more people came to faith in Jesus Christ, and the gospel continues to spread to this very day.
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you a question, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Are you standing on that gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you allowing yourself to slowly drift towards something that supplements or replaces it?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the great danger here is that that drift is always subtle.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with people who at one season in their life they look like some of the most fruitful Christians, and then a drift started happening, and then they're sitting in front of me saying, Well, God wants me to be happy.
SPEAKER_00: My spouse doesn't make me happy anymore.
SPEAKER_00: So God's telling me to divorce my spouse, though they have no grounds for divorce.
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, I used to think this is sinful, but you know, I don't know if I think that's just a cultural thing.
SPEAKER_00: I think God's actually okay with this now because it fits a current choice they want to make.
SPEAKER_00: That drift doesn't happen overnight, it happens gradually over time.
SPEAKER_00: And we must be vigilant to guard our hearts and to help guard each other's hearts as brothers and sisters in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So, in conclusion, Paul gives us three movements through these three verses.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about past tense.
SPEAKER_00: You were an enemy of God.
SPEAKER_00: God did not wait for you to become presentable to him to act.
SPEAKER_00: He took the initiative to save your soul.
SPEAKER_00: God was the very first missionary in Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: But he also says, we have been reconciled, which is also past tense.
SPEAKER_00: It is a finished work through the physical death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You Christians stand before God right now as you sit in that seat, holy, blameless, and above reproach.
SPEAKER_00: And if those things are true, then I would encourage all of us to act like it.
SPEAKER_00: To act like it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't drift.
SPEAKER_00: Don't supplement the gospel and God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Stand firm in the hope of what Christ has accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, you have not trusted in Christ, the verdict that believers enjoy and celebrate and sing about is available to you today as you sit in this sanctuary.
SPEAKER_00: That includes all of you children as well.
SPEAKER_00: You are not too hostile, too far gone, or too entrenched in your sin for Jesus to save your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus specializes in saving jacked up people who everyone else thinks there's no hope for.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a believer, to encourage you, the foundation you stand on is not your own faithfulness, it is God's.
SPEAKER_00: You were reconciled through his physical body by means of death.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to ponder that this morning, especially as we sing and take the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: God died.
SPEAKER_00: Just think about that sentence.
SPEAKER_00: God died.
SPEAKER_00: The one who is eternal, the one who is self-existent and needs nothing, the one who created all things and sustains all things, he died.
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't just die, he died for you so that you can be reconciled to him.
SPEAKER_00: Which is why Jesus can hang on that cross and say, I lay my life down voluntarily, no one takes it from me.
SPEAKER_00: And when he died, he said, It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.