Above All: A Study in Colossians
Colossians 1:20-23
Pastor Jefferson M.Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
05-01-2022
Reconciliation at Chili’s
Our first year of marriage was very difficult. We married at 24 years old. I was 24 going on 15 and Maxine was 24 going on 40. ?
About year in, we ended up in a fight over…going out to eat. This wasn’t just an argument. We weren’t speaking to each other.
Let me explain. I grew up going out to eat or eating fast food at home all the time! I was so sick of eating out. Maxine was an incredible cook and I wanted home cooked meals sitting at our table together. I would say, “If you loved me, you would cook.”
Maxine grew up in a single parent house and eating out was a luxury they just couldn’t afford. If they did go out to a sit down restaurant, it was because someone was paying. She would say, “If you loved me, you would take me out to dinner.”
We were at an impasse. We needed help.
I called a friend who was a marriage counselor and made an appointment. He listened patiently to both of us as we shared our feelings about this situation and then said he thought he had the solution.
He looked at me and smiled and said, “I want to to leave here right now and…take her out to dinner, you doofus!”
And I did. I and still do.
The dictionary defines the word reconcile as the act of restoring friendship or harmony, to settle or resolve.
What did Mark do? He helped to reconcile us. He made peace between two warring factions.
As a counselor, sometimes reconciliation is not possible. We say that the couple has irreconcilable differences. Think Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.
I once had two junior high students in my office. They had been screaming at other in the hall of the church and, earlier that day, in the hall of the school. I asked them both if they loved Jesus and they both said they did. So I said, “Then for His sake, stop calling each other names in the halls at school and church.” They agreed. Not five minutes later, they were yelling at each other in the hall.
Abraham Lincoln was once asked how do you defeat an enemy. He famously answered, “You defeat your enemy by making him your friend.”
When Lincoln was assassinated, even those in the south mourned because they knew that he would have treated the southern states with more kindness and grace that Andrew Johnson would.
This morning, we are going to continue our study in Colossians by examining, what Skip Heitzig calls, the “greatest peace treaty ever written.”
Jesus is King
Last week, we studied the “Christ hymn of Colossians.”
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col 1:15-17)
From these verses, we learned that Jesus is King over Creation. He is the image of the invisible God and He is the creator, authority, sustainer, priority, agent, and aim of creation.
I saw a headline this week on Twitter, “The world was created by aliens in a lab.” This was the conclusion of Harvard theoretical physicist Avi Loeb. We will learn that the mind hostile to God will do anything to avoid giving Him glory.
He is also the King of the Church.
And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. (Col 1:18)
He is the head and the source of the church, His body by virtue of His glorious resurrection.
Let me stop here and recommend a book to you that will help you better understand the beauty and majesty of the Church - Dustin Benge’s new book, “The Loveliest Place: The Beauty and Glory of the Church.”
He begins the book with a quote from Spurgeon:
“Nothing in the world is dearer to God’s heart than His church; therefore, being His, let us also belong to it, that by our prayers, our gifts, and our labors, we may support and strengthen it.”
Paul ends the hymn with the notion that we will pick up in today’s verses - reconciliation.
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Col 1:19-20)
Jesus reveals the Father to us and, by His death on the cross, He reconciled to God.
If you missed last week’s sermon, you can watch it on FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, or our website.
Turn with me to Colossians 1:21.
Prayer.
The Colossian Condition
Paul now moves out of the high theology of the Christ hymn and applies these amazing truths to the Colossian Christians. Notice the change to the personal pronoun, “you.”
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 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— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. 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.
A Past Condition (enemies become friends)
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior
Paul might have been humming the song, “The Way we Were” when he was writing/dictating these words.
He is going to remind them of their past to teach them about their future.
Once these believers were "alienated from God.” The Greek of this phrase means something that happened in the past that still has effects in the present. It means to be estranged, to be far from God.
Sin separates us from God. Isaiah said it this way:
“But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:2)
Sin is a virus that are are infected with at birth:
“Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5)
There was something very wrong. The whole universe was out of tune with its Creator.
They were not only far from God but they were “enemies in their minds.”
Paul wrote to the Roman Christians:
“The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” (Romans 8:7)
Before their salvation, believers were opposed to God’s will and His ways.
Our culture is saturated with this mindset. I watched a Tik-Tok recently where the speaker said that he considers churches “trauma causing centers” that should be shut down for good. He said that telling people, especially children, that they could go to hell if they don’t submit their lives to Jesus, is worse than hitting them with a baseball bat.
It’s interesting that this culture loves to use the word “hell” as a curse word but they don’t want to be told that it is real and real people go there.
Jonathan Edwards, in his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” wrote words that would make our Tik-Tok friend really angry:
“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire ... you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes, as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours.”
Without Christ, we are God’s enemies:
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” (John 3:36)
We are enemies in thought and in deed. Our evil mindset lead us to evil behavior.
We see this is the modern push for “women’s reproductive rights,” which is really just a euphemism for abortion. A mind set at opposition to God leads to the mindset that the mother’s rights are more important than the baby’s rights so it becomes okay, even expedient, to kill the unborn child in the name of freedom.
By the way, we have our baby bottles and starting on Mother’s Day we will be filling them with change to support to the Hope Pregnancy Center. Our goal this year is $1,000.
We see this in the push to talk to kindergartners about sexuality or demanding that people call them a gender that they are obviously not.
But it is also seen in the unconverted in the church that use gossip and slander to cause division.
There is nothing we can do to change this situation. We are hopeless, helpless, and hellhound.
So what do we need? We need a “Bible But.”
B. A Present Condition (guilty becomes blameless)
But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death
There are some great “buts” in the Bible. This is one of them!
You once were far from God, enemies of His, with no way to make peace.
But now…
What has God done? He has reconciled you!
In Ephesians, Paul wrote:
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Eph 2:1-5)
He wrote the Romans:
“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10)
He wrote to the Corinthians:
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.” (2 Cor 5:17-19)
In the 70s, Peaches and Herb had a hit song called, “Reunited and it feels so good!”
At Christmas, we sing:
Hark the Herald angels sing
Glory to the the newborn King
Peace on earth and mercy mild ?God and sinners reconciled.
There are many words for salvation in the Bible. John MacArthur points out five of them:
Justification - sinner stands before God in sin and declared righteous.
Redemption - sinner stands before God as slave - granted freedom
Forgiveness -sinner stands before God as a debtor - debt is forgiven
Sonship - sinner stands before God as a stranger and is made a son
Reconciliation - sinner stands before God as an enemy and made a friend.
How did He reconcile us? “Through Christ physical body through death.” In verse 20, Paul says peace came through His blood shed on a cross.”
There were false teachers in Colossae that were telling these believers that Jesus wasn’t really a man. He was sort of a ghost-like creature.
But Paul emphasizes his physical body, His death, His shed blood on the cross.
Jesus lived a perfect life under the law. He was the only human ever to do that. He represented us before the Father.
He took the test in our place, made 100%, and his grade was applied to our paper.
And through Jesus sacrificial death on the cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sins.
Leviticus 17 says that only blood can make atonement for the soul.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)
C. A Future Condition (present you holy)
What’s the aim of this reconciliation?
to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation
God plans to present you at the final judgement all tuned up!
Once we are reconciled to God, He sees us, (means a penetrating gaze) as holy, blameless, and free from accusation.
How many of you actually feel that way this morning?
But it’s true. This is how God sees you because you are covered in the righteousness of Christ.
“I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness…” (Isaiah 61:10)
Holy means “set apart.” We are to be set apart from the culture we live in. We are to be in the world but not of it. A boat is the water is good. Water in the boat is bad.
“…we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:10)
Blameless is a sacrificial term. Priests would inspect an animal to see if was able to be used for sacrifice. It had to be spotless, without blemish.
Isaiah wrote:
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)
Free from accusation mean that we are free from blemish or even the charge of it.
Satan is called the ”accuser” and loved to remind you just how unholy, how many blemishes you have, and accuse you being too sinful for God to ever reconcile you.
But Paul wrote these amazing words:
“Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” (Rom 8:33-34)
"It's been said that true freedom in Christ is when we have nothing to hide, nothing to lose, and nothing to prove. We have nothing to hide because Jesus has already covered our sin. We have nothing to lose because we are already committed to picking up our cross in pursuit of Christ. And we have nothing to prove because Christ has already taken care of it - all our sin and selfish ambitions, vain desires and self-glorifying dreams." - J. R. Briggs
Next time satan reminds you of your past, remind him of his future!
D. Evidence of Reconciliation
if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. 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.
The better translation of the first phrase is, “provided that you continue, and I’m full confident that you will.”
Paul is not saying that you could lose your salvation. Scripture is clear that once you are born again, you can’t undo that.
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.” (John 10:27-29)
What he is giving is evidences of being born again - continuing in the faith, being established and firm, and not moving away from hope that is found only in the Gospel.
When I meet someone who starts their story off with these words, “I used to be a Christian…”. I stop them. Once you become a butterfly (a new creation) you can’t turn yourself back into a caterpillar.
The sad truth is that they were never believers in the first place.
Jesus said these haunting words:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matt 7:21-23)
That’s why Paul encouraged the Christians in Corinth to examine themselves:
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?” (2 Cor 13:15)
Established, firm, not moved are Greek words used in constructing buildings. Colosse was on an earthquake fault and buildings had to have a strong foundation to survive.
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matt 7:24-27)
In fact, a year after Paul wrote this letter, Colosse was devastated by a massive earthquake.
This is the Gospel of hope that they had heard and the had been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, meaning even in little Colosse!
This is the Gospel they are to hold on to. They don’t need secret knowledge, or to follow Jewish rules, or anything that but Jesus.
Jesus plus nothing equals everything!
One commentator sums up Paul’s thoughts:
“Those who were at one time alienated (21a) are those who have now been giving a share in the inheritance of God’s holy ones (12). Those who were hostile in mind and evil deeds (21b) are those who have been rescued from the power of darkness (13) and whose calling is the knowledge of God and every good deed (9-10). Those who are reconciled through the death of Christ (22) are those who have been transferred into His Kingdom (13). Those who He now presents as holy, blameless, and free from accusation (22) are those who in Him have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (14).”
And now we have this ministry of reconciliation!
I began today with the story of God using Mark the marriage counselor to reconcile Maxine and I.
But you do know that God doesn’t need to use anyone. He’s a reconciling God!
Video: A Marriage Miracle
4. Communion
Marriage Therapist and author Beth Guckenbeger talks about the principle of asula, an ancient, and still practiced, conflict resolution strategy where the offended one is the one to reach out. Conflict doesn’t stay with just two people. It’s how families are destroyed. It’s how ministries are destroyed.
We miss out on the storyline of the Gospel.
But God demonstrated His love for us in this - While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
The ancient table of reconciliation - offering food and drink to their enemies. Prodigal Son. Peter. Communion.
"If I have something against someone who is not a believer, then that doesn't make sense. How in the world will they see that reconciliation in my life if I'm not extending to them that which I have received? And if I have something against another Christ follower, another son of light, I have not fully participated in what God has offered to me."
Naomi Judd.
Ending Song: Living Hope
