Create – judge – save or redeem. You could say, create – evaluate – change. That is the creative process whether you are God or human. I think of the process I go through in creating a sermon. I write it out, I judge whether it conforms to certain criteria I have as to whether it will serve the purpose I have for it, and then I make changes as necessary to ensure that it meets the final goal.
This is true for anything we create. Now ultimately as the creator of it, we are really the only ones who know what exactly it was intended for, so while others may judge it, ultimately only the creator has the ultimate authority to judge their own creation, because no one else knows exactly what it was created for unless we tell them. And because we create it and judge it, only we really know how to change it in order to have it meet the expectations we have for it.
If our creation is flawed, does not seem to be operating as it was planned to, this final process is really salvation or redemption. Taking something that is not what it’s supposed to be, and making it right. Now whether it’s a sermon, or a house, or an automobile, can the thing itself make itself right if it’s not working? Of course not, who can? The creator.
Now to make the thing right there are two things we can do. 1. Throw the original away and start from scratch, or 2. make modifications and changes to make it right.
So I think you have the picture. Now if God is the creator of human beings, he has the right to judge what he has made and only he knows the true purpose he has for them. We have talked about these two aspects of God – creator and judge. Now today if the first two are true, then he also the ability to save us, to alter us, to make us right, for the purposes he created us.
I believe our primary text today from Colossians 1:13-23 says it very well…
Why was everything created? For Him and to him. God was basically creating a home and community for himself. Because he is God, he can only be in the presence of perfection and holiness. That is not an arrogant statement but I believe one of protection for us. His holiness is so pure, it would incinerate anything that contained any impurities. That is why no one can see God and live as mentioned in Exodus 33:20.
Humans can only see God as he is manifest in Jesus, and the Spirit filled human because Paul says in 1 Tim 6:16 that he lives in unapproachable light and no one has seen or can see him. He came as a human being in Jesus with all the fullness, or character, or Spirit of God dwelling in him. That is the only way we could see Him. We cannot cast our human eyes on his shekinah glory because it is such a pure and bright light. It would be like getting too close to the Sun. And it’s interesting how Revelation says there will be no need for the sun when God dwells with us in the New Jerusalem.
Somehow when God transforms us in our new bodies, they will be capable of being in his presence. Why? Because Jesus makes us Holy and able to dwell with God. So God creates his humans, and we read that he walked with them in the Garden of Eden before they sinned. He wanted a relationship with them and to dwell with them in loving community.
When they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, all they had known was light before this. Afterward they were enlightened by sin and could no longer survive in God’s presence. That is the death that sin brings. They didn’t die physically, but they brought into being the physical ability to be incinerated by the light they once walked with. This was passed on to all mankind after that, and now no one can dwell with God unless God makes it so again. We have to choose light over darkness now if we want eternal life, which is life with him.
So in the meantime v 17 says he sustains all creation, he holds it together. Basically all creation is on life support until Jesus returns. At some point creation will have the life support shut off and only those who have eternal life (Jesus) living in them will survive with God.
Verse 22 says he has reconciled us through the death of his physical body. He burned for us so we could be presented into God’s unapproachable presence. It seems like before creation God was no longer satisfied with a relationship with himself. He wanted company, he wanted to incarnate physically in a physical home here on His created earth. But he has to be in community with those who want to be with Him and are willing to be Holy, because the moment anything unholy is in his presence it dies simply because of His nature.
It reminds me of that story in Greek mythology of King Midas where everything he touches turns to Gold. Sounds wonderful unless you want to have an intimate relationship with anything. If you touch anything you destroy it and so you walk around wanting a relationship, wanting to hold your baby, touch your bride, but you can’t, not because you are mean, but because simply by your nature, you can’t, so you have to separate from your own creation or unwillingly destroy it if you stay.
If you’re God you can’t change your nature because it’s perfect and you are uncreated, you exist eternally. So you have to create something you can be with, but you are loving so you create something that has to have a choice to be with you or not. The ability to be in your presence is dependent on their desire to be in your presence and not choose to be vaporized by you. You warn them, but they don’t heed the warning. They want to use their freedom for other things.
You are grieved, you continually call them to come back to you, but they refuse. They go so far down the road of adultery that there is only one more thing you can do. You have to sacrifice. You have to leave your divinity and experience darkness yourself, show the world what is required to have a relationship with you again.
If you accept His method of coming back, you can be given this new resurrected body and spend eternity with Him. And you are asked to spread this news to all others.
So v 23 says make sure you continue in this belief.
But what does it mean at the end of v 23 that this Gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven. I thought that was the point, it hasn’t been so we need to get out and spread the Gospel and that’s why he’s waiting to come back. Well that is true today, but back then it is very conceivable that in the 30 years after Christ died (this book was written about the year 62 AD), that the Gospel could have gone throughout the populated regions of what we would call Europe, Africa and Asia. There is no solid evidence that there was human civilization outside of these connected continents and the immediate islands around them. Certainly not known to Paul.
So it is possible that at that time the known populated world had been reached, and all people had been given the opportunity to respond to the Gospel.
Now God as Saviour is by no means just a New Testament idea. Look at Joel 2:28-32 which Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour my Spirit out on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
Even on your male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. And I will show the wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Salvation is all over the book of Isaiah. We read chapter 53 often at Christmas, “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, like a lamb led to slaughter and so on”. In chapter 54 it talks about him as redeemer. In chapter 56 it says his salvation will come even to foreigners. In chapter 60 “I the Lord, I am your saviour and your redeemer”.
Again the entire Bible is really the story of God as creator, judge, and saviour. And I love 1 John 4:15-17, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.”
Just as Jesus was accepted and loved by the Father when he walked the earth, so are we if we abide in Him. And it is knowledge of this perfected love that gives us confidence on the day of judgment. That we will be raised with Him.
It is how this love was manifest through Jesus Christ that gives salvation. We saw how God created the universe. We saw why and how he has to judge his creation. And now we see how he saves his creation. All three are done in love for our sake and also for His so that He can dwell with us forever. That is his greatest desire.
He has to punish sin. He has to eliminate evil from His presence, but he didn’t want to destroy the mankind that he created. So he sent his Son Jesus to live a perfect sinless life, so that he would be qualified to bear the sin of all mankind and nail it to a cross, paying the death penalty for all sin past, present, and future. That’s how he saves us.
Hebrews 10, “We have been sanctified (set apart, made Holy) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all… When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God (he was God’s right hand man on earth and now he sits down because it’s all done)…. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified (we are perfect in terms of acceptable to God, but sanctification or growth in Christ is an ongoing process while we are in these bodies).
And he says, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more”. That’s how he saves, but how do we get saved? By truly believing in our hearts that he did this and that what he did accomplishes what he says it does. By choosing to wear the covering that Jesus provides. Wearing Jesus Christ is like wearing a shield that protects us from his incinerating light. And I believe baptism is the official, intentional putting on of Christ.
Romans 10:9, “Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord”. Translate: publicly agree with God that Jesus is the master of your life and the supreme authority in the universe. And believe in your heart (in other words with every fiber of your being) that he was raised from the dead, and you will be saved.
When we do that, he continually sanctifies us even as we continue to sin, so that he can present us blameless before God.
Now as redeemed people is that our only purpose, to be saved and have eternal life with God. I believe if that were so, he would beam us up to heaven right at the moment he saves us. But he doesn’t do that does he? And because we strayed initially and had to be saved, he has given us a mission to be his hands and feet in the ministry of reconciliation.
Paul says in 2 Cor 5: “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others (by the way the words for believe and faith in the New Testament come from a root word meaning persuasion).
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded that one has died for all, therefore all have died (to themselves); and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”
God created us to live with Him forever. That happens after we die. While we live we are to live for Him and carry the message of reconciliation to the world. I believe God is leading me to take us to a higher level in terms of evangelism, and in the New Year I am going to make sure that we are equipped to take this message to our town and our world in a way that we feel confident in doing.
Now on that note I want to just take a minute to talk about Halloween because some people have asked me about it. How should God’s redeemed people participate in Halloween if at all? If you look history Christmas and Easter were actually Pagan holidays that Christians redeemed and made to focus on Christ. Maybe they need a little re-redeeeming today. Halloween ironically does have Christian roots, but Satan seems to be redeeming that for himself.
I am not a big fan of churches putting on Halloween alternative events, because what message is that conveying? Let’s celebrate Halloween (regardless of what we call it). But let’s just separate ourselves. I think we would be better off just ignoring the whole thing. Have a thanksgiving party at another time.
Personally I have nothing against participating with the culture at Halloween, but as redeemed people who bring redemption to the festivities. We have a food drive in town. We delivered smoke alarm batteries with a tract a couple years ago. It is a great opportunity for bringing this message of reconciliation to people that we wouldn’t normally have access to.
Hand out a Jesus loves you tract with the candy you give. 9 out of ten will probably just get thrown away, but one might actually have an impact on a child or a parent. Decorate redemptively. One of the reasons we don’t like to participate in Halloween is because of how costumes and decorations have deteriorated. We were in Minot and one of the pictures on a store window in plain sight (an actual photo), was of a blood covered person looking very evil eating raw bloody meat clearly meant to be human flesh.
That’s extreme, but that’s the way its going, toward disgusting and evil and gory. In my day a cartoon witch and black cat were the scary things, and we dressed as football players, princesses, bunny rabbits. Now it’s how gory or sexy you can get, and I don’t like looking at it never mind exposing my children to those images. You can’t even walk into a grocery store without having to be exposed to those images without a choice. We should have the right to not be exposed to that garbage and yet those nativity scenes, ahhhh!
Kids, if you go trick or treating dress as a disciple, an angel, or at least innocent and positive, say thank you and Jesus loves you when you get your candy.
You might even want to exchange something good with the person giving out the candy. Whatever, but try to bring some redemptive light to the situation if you are going to participate. Redeemed, sanctified people should not look like the culture, especially where the culture is evil and deprived.
Elijah set up an altar next to the Baal worshippers and showed that God was stronger than their idols. We don’t need to be afraid to mix with evil as long as we are careful, Christ centered, and our purpose is to bring light into darkness. I won’t tell you to participate or not, but if we are not willing to be a light, then I suggest not participating at all.
Ephesians 5:11, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them”.
We are saved in Christ, but we are also judged as Christ followers and will have to give an account before God. Because we are saved we can be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Not to get saved, but because we are saved. If you struggle with living not for yourself but for the one who died for you, dig in deeper to God, know him more deeply, receive and bathe yourself in his love so that He can overflow through you into the world.
Let’s end with a final exhortation from Jesus brother Jude 17-23…
