“What A Relief!!!”
Colossians 2:6-23
The late Author and speaker Brennan Manning has a pretty cool story about how he got the name "Brennan."
While growing up, his best friend was a guy named Ray.
The two of them did everything together: bought a car together as teenagers, double-dated, went to school together.
They even enlisted in the Army together, went to boot camp together and fought on the frontlines together.
One night while sitting in a foxhole, Brennan was talking about the old days in Brooklyn while Ray listened and ate a candy bar.
Suddenly a live grenade came into the foxhole.
Ray looked at Brennan, smiled, dropped his candy bar and threw himself on the live grenade.
It exploded, killing Ray, but Brennan's life was spared.
When Brennan became a priest he had to take on the name of a saint.
So, he thought of his friend, Ray Brennan.
So he took the name "Brennan."
Years later Brennan went to visit Ray's mother in Brooklyn.
They sat up one night talking when Brennan asked her, "Do you think Ray loved me?"
Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in front of Brennan's face and shouted, "What more could he have done for you?"
Brennan said that at that moment he experienced an epiphany.
He imagined himself standing in front of the Cross of Jesus wondering, "Does God really love me?"
And Jesus' mother Mary pointing to her Son, saying, "What more could He have done for you?"
As Christians, it often seems like we are trying to add more stuff to try and make Jesus love us…
…rules, regulations— “Don’t do this”
“Don’t say that”
“You gotta have this.”
“You gotta have that.”
But in our Scripture Lesson for this morning, Paul is telling us that this is a royal waste of time.
I remember, as a new born Christian in college, feeling so bad about my inability to “measure up” to what I thought Christianity was about.
I felt like I was a person living in the hands of an “angry god” and I had to act and do things in a certain way in order to please this angry god.
But I kept falling short.
And every time I fell short I became more and more discouraged.
And with that discouragement came depression, guilt, hopelessness, and a general feeling of unhappiness…
…even a bit of self-loathing, if you will.
It’s like I thought there were a whole long list of rules and regulations that I needed to follow in order to be on God’s good side, in order for God to love me, in order to be saved.
It’s as if God’s love is conditional rather than unconditional.
And so, I felt lost, in bondage.
There seemed to be no way out.
Have you ever felt like this?
Perhaps you feel like this now.
Maybe, you imagine that God is looking down on you with either a disgusted sneer or a hopeless tear.
Or even worse, perhaps you feel as if God has given up on you—turned his back on you.
Do you feel as if you are not good enough?
Have you missed the mark?
Has your train derailed?
Yeah, I’ve felt that way.
And during one of those unhappy spells of feeling that way I opened my Bible to this passage in Colossians and read: “When you were dead in your sins…God made you alive with Christ.
He forgave all [your] sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
Can you sense the sigh of relief I felt when reading those words for the first time?
I was already complete in Christ.
I didn’t need anything else, just more of what I already had!!!
Anyone looking at the Cross of Jesus Christ in the first-century world would think that “the rulers and authorities had stripped Christ naked and celebrated a public triumph over him.”
But, blink and rub your eyes.
On the Cross, God stripped the armor off the rulers and authorities!!!
God’s triumph was over the principalities and powers--the devil and his demons--the very powers that thought it was the other way around.
What a glorious paradox!!!
God’s “supposed” weakness overcomes all other “supposed” strength.
God’s “supposed” folly overcomes everything that stands against us!!!
Dear saints, all the forces that might try and take over your life…
…to steal your salvation or the joy of it…
…are included in the ones shamed by the triumph of God on the Cross of Jesus Christ!!!
And God did all this for YOU, for ME!!!
What better reason is there to be “overflowing with thankfulness”?
The Law that stood over and against us has nothing more to say.
“There is therefore no condemnation,” as Paul writes in Romans Chapter 8, “for those who are in Christ Jesus…”
We are “set free from the law of sin and death.”
Breath in, breath out…
…Can I get a big SIGH of RELIEF?!!!
As Paul writes in Galatians: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.”
One of the most appealing things about Judaism in the pagan world of the first century was its high moral code.
It made heavy demands, and often when people are sick and tired of the murky and immoral world of paganism they are glad to embrace a way of life which offers clear, bright, clean lines.
"Don't handle this, don't taste that, don't touch this."
The very detailed regulations and the strict discipline it would take to try and follow them might make people think that they must really be making advances in their moral and spiritual lives.
"Well," says Paul, "It may feel like that, but it's an illusion.
Go that way and the street will soon come to a dead end.
A religion that focuses on the details of things you're allowed, or not allowed to touch or eat is dealing with perishables.
God deals with eternity--with the BIG picture.
Trying to follow a bunch of rules and regulations won't make you holy.
It won't make God love you more.
It won't save you.
It will really only frustrate you and make you feel more and more unworthy.
The only way to really change is to allow the love of Jesus Christ to transform you!!!
You need to die and be raised.
You need to give yourself 100 percent over to the One Who loves You and died for you.
Jesus is all you need!!!
God loves you; live into that reality.
That is what it's about."
Pastor Tim Keller is quoted as saying, "Here's the Gospel: you're more sinful than you ever dared believe; you're more loved than you ever dared hope."
And once we realize how much God loves us, no matter where we are in life...
...no matter what we have done...
...no matter how sinful...
...no matter how far we fall short...
...that is when we learn to really love God in return.
And when we love God in return, we begin to change.
Because when we love God, we love others, and our love for and desires for the dark side of things, the evil things, the twisted things, the things that hurt others become truly repulsive...
...and when that begins to happen, an excitement takes over our lives...
...a transformation is occurring...
...and we know God is alive and well, and we are part of God's Kingdom, and God loves us!!!
In Galatians 5:6 Paul writes, “The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.”
And in 1st John we are told “This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice to deal with our sins.”
Brennan Manning had a life-long friend who jumped on a grenade to save his life.
And even after that occurred, Brennan asked, "Do you think my friend loved me?"
God came into this world, took our sins on the Cross, shed His blood and died the death we deserve so that through faith in Him we might have eternal life.
And even after that, we sometimes ask: "Does God really love me?"
Paul tells the Church in Colossae, and Paul tells you and Paul tells me, "See to it that no one enslaves you with...foolish deception...
...When you were dead because of the things you had done wrong...God made you alive with Christ and forgave all the things you had done wrong.
He destroyed the record of debt we owed...
...he cancelled it by nailing it to the cross."
Someone once said, "I know that it sounds so simplistic, but Christianity is about Jesus!
We forget that!"
We often think it’s about us.
It is in Jesus that we are transformed.
We do not need more; we need not have less.
A wealthy art dealer once sent his agent to find and purchase a certain set of paintings that he desperately wanted.
After searching and searching the agent returned to report to his boss that he had finally found those paintings.
They were in the dealer’s own warehouse.
He already had what he desired.
If we are in Christ, we need to discover what we already have.
Or if we are not in Christ, we are missing out on the most important thing in the entire world.
Don’t be unhappy, uneasy, strained, oppressed, and fearful.
Don’t try to save yourself…it doesn’t work that way.
Jesus loves you; Jesus died for you; will you accept what He has already done for you?
Live in Him and for Him!!!
In doing so, you will learn to love yourself and others.
You will learn to be thankful, and experience a peace which transcends all understanding.
Talk about a BIG sigh of Relief!!!
Praise God!!!
Amen.
