British Airways 2069 left Heathrow’s London Airport everything seemed to be going quite well at first. Six hours into the flight some of the passengers were asleep, some of the reading lights were on, everyone was comfortably settled in when suddenly everyone was jarred awake by a violent dip of the airplane. They heard a scuffle up near the front and in the cockpit their was a lot of chaos. Then about as suddenly as the plan dipped it had leaved out and seemed to have recovered. The problem was that a 27 year old deranged and suicidal man had rushed into the cockpit and momentarily gained control of the plane. When the pilots jumped on him they were able to pull him away from the controls for just a moment and then he began to punch them and pull the and even began to bite them. He regained control of the airplane and locked himself onto the controls and leaned forward and pushed the 747 into a deep and violent plunge. At this point everyone in the cabin was absolutely chaotic, people were yelling and screaming people were praying out loud, people writing notes to their loved ones. They were certain they were doomed as this 747 plunged toward the ground. Earlier that day a man by the name of Clark Bineham had gone to London’s Heathrow and tried to get on his flight from London to Uganda but was bumped due to bad weather and got on flight 2069 going from London to Kenya. They were going to fly him from Uganda to Kenya with apologies and to make up for it they put him in first class. Clark said it was the first time he had ever flown in first class and they put him two sets from the cockpit. Clark was on his way to a short-term missions trip, he was a preacher from South Carolina and he was going to preach to a couple thousand teenagers who were assembled for a rally in Uganda. The preacher that God had redirected to this flight happened to also be six foot seven and a former athlete from Clemson. He was huge and in the prime of his life. He says in the report that he saw a very short flight attendant going to assist in the cockpit and about that time he says he realized it was his calling to get involved. He unleashed himself from his seat belt and dove into the fray in the cockpit were everyone was fighting and this madman was clenched to the controls of the plane. And this six foot seven preacher popped that guy out of the cockpit like a bad tooth. He literally threw him on the floor between the first couple of rows and jumped on him and with the help of his preaching partner subdued this man and had him quickly tied up by his hands. The plan in this deep descent was then regained by the pilot who took the plan and releveled it back out and he later said that if the plane would’ve continued at that descent for 2 or 3 more seconds he would not have been able to recover it.
What do you think the passengers thought of Clark Bineham? They thought they were doomed but because of the intervention of a preacher from North Carolina they had a whole new lease on life. He was their hero, they all had a since of relief, some said they didn’t sleep for days and all they could think of was Clark Bineham.
Paul is trying to paint that kind of picture for us in Colossians chapter one. When he says the life and destiny of every single person on earth was doomed for the wrath of God had it not been for the intervention of a preacher from Nazareth. The destiny of everyone who has put his or her faith in Christ has now been radically changed.
Colossians 1:21-23 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- 23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved 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.
We were alienated from God then Paul puts these words in verse 22 “but now” he has reconciled you.
Can you imagine sinful people presented God as Holy? There is something in the Greek that we don’t see in the English there is an intensifier on the word now. You once where far away from God but now…it’s different – but now through God’s amazing grace you’ve been given a new position – now you’re not far away from God but you’re in Christ. Paul wants us to catch the gravity of our plight that we once were headed for doom, but through Christ we are headed for eternal bliss. If Christians could catch the vision of where they were headed and where they are now it would change the whole perspective of the church. It would totally transform your attitude about much of your plight of understood that you once were doomed but you’ve been saved. We were not saved from loneliness, or hopelessness; we were saved from God’s wrath.
Paul pulls this powerful statement into a few more verses in Ephesians chapter two.
Ephesians 2:1-5
Here the Word of God uses the analogy that before we came to Christ we were dead in our sins. We were literally dead men walking; headed for what the Bible calls the second death, an eternal death of the soul. We were doomed to follow the lust of the flesh, doing whatever we could get away with following the ways of the world and the devil. But by His great love for us according to His rich mercy, HE made us alive with Christ.
A gracious act from a preacher from Nazareth who didn’t have to get involved, and who is much different from Clark Bineham in the fact that Clark in saving the plane also saved himself. But thank God that Christ did get involved and He did so much so that it even cost him his life.
1 Timothy 1:15-17 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-of whom I am the worst. 16But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. 17Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Paul said that God goes to extremes to give people fresh starts.
1. We need to Revel in new beginnings.
It’s like when your computer gets to the point that it’s just not functioning right anymore and you have to get out that disk that’s called the “recovery disk”. And you just say I’ve got to start over – and you format your computer and it’s just like it was when you first pulled it out of the box.
We do the same things with our lives sometimes, we totally mess everything up to were nothing is functioning right anymore and God is able and willing through His amazing grace to totally reformat our lives and give us a brand new start. And for many of you, you can just yawn you way through that and say yeah I’ve heard that a million times. But do you recognize Christian that the grace that was required to turn you life around and give you God’s hope and love instead of His wrath is the kind of grace you need in your life everyday? Because it’s not just fresh starts from non-Christian life to Christian life but even after we become Christians we need a series of fresh starts. That would be great if once I become a Christian I became perfect but my wife tells me I haven’t quite made it yet, so their has been this life of imperfection that has carried on ever since. So now, in this Christian life I cherish all my new beginnings.
It’s like in the book of Jonah, here is this mighty prophet of God who has been given an enormous trust to take the message of God to his enemies and his life is riddled with stumblings. You know how the story goes in Jonah 1:1 God comes to Jonah and tells him he wants him to go to Nineveh and evangelize there, but Jonah runs from God and God disciplines him and he gets barfed up on the shore in Asia Minor and he ends up finding his new path and going to Nineveh. But the interesting thing is how chapter three starts almost the same way chapter one starts with the exception of three words. Jonah 3:1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time… I love the fact that our God is a God who comes to us a second time and always gives us another chance after we have failed Him miserably.
Failure is not a fun place to be, it’s one thing when you fail people but when you fail God that has a whole new dynamic of guilt that nothing else quite compares to. You might be able to remove yourself from certain people and situation in your life but you can never remove yourself from God and God’s presence. But even in the midst of our worst failures in life God says I can restart that I can fix that. Is God’s grace bigger than your sins? Way bigger! It’s huge…so much so that regardless of how big the sin is in your life, God can forgive you. God says I can reformat your soul and we can start over. Now that’s not to say that all your problems will go away or that you won’t have to suffer the worldly consequences of your sins. But it is to say that in your soul God can make you white as snow.
I know that some of you are thinking well this “fresh start coupon” is just a little too easy. O.K. I sins now all I do is come to God and He gives me a fresh start “that’s so sweet”. It sounds like something easy to abuse doesn’t it?
Colossians 1:22 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-
This reconciliation came at a price…Christ physical body through death. What Paul is saying here is that salvation; even though it’s free it came at a great cost. We all get a lot of free stuff in the mail, free catalogs, flyers and all kinds of stuff. How do you treat free stuff? You might say with that set up, well I treat is cheap, I might glance over it and then throw it away. That’s not always true though is it? Many years ago I gave my wife a diamond ring and asked her to marry me. Now I didn’t charge her for the diamond ring…no charge it’s free here. She doesn’t treat it cheaply because even though it was free to her it wasn’t cheap. Because free has very little to do with worth. The issue isn’t that you received it free, the issue is what is the value…what did it cost.
Bonhoeffer said that the problem with at least his generation was that they perceived that just because grace was free it must be cheap.
And I think this is a problem that still lingers today, and even though it’s free it isn’t cheap. God can save the self-righteous but lost (never been born-again) preacher in his pulpit and he can save the worst criminal on death row. We have to understand that even though it was free it cost a real person real pain. A real physical body a genuine physical death; I want you to think of it in these terms. Sin cost, it always does - It cost someone their life. From time to time we all need to stop and think about the reality of our sins bringing death. Apart from Jesus dying on the cross for OUR sins what it would cost us, I believe with that in sight we can see the value of God’s amazing grace.
Now when we are faced with a temptation to sin we need to remember the truth of what that sin cost, if you’re lost you will pay for your sins in the lake of fire, but if your saved, your sins get transferred to the cross. Now would that kind of love be something you would want to furiously abuse? Would you take something so valuable and drag it through the mud and abuse it just because you can? Our salvation did not come at the cost of a scuffle in the cockpit of some airplane. If Clark Bineham would have been stabbed and somehow bleed to death on that plane we would somehow get a little closer to understanding that the people on that plane were saved at the cost of someone’s life.
God wants us to know that our salvation came at a high cost and it should be something that we treat with great respect. And then he goes on to say that all of this was done to present you holy in His sight. Now am I holy? NO I’m not because there is a lot of stuff in my life and all ways will be that prevents me from being holy, but through Christ I’m presented holy in the sight of God. Not only that but without blemish, now I have a few but God’s Word here says that I’m presented to God without any. And also free from accusation, now there is a lot of things you could accuse me of and rightly so, and not only that but the devil is the accuser of all Christians. But because of Christ death on the cross I have been acquitted of all charges, that means no ones accusations will hold up.
2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
My sins deserve some kind of just punishment and this verse says that God takes all of our sins and not only puts them on Christ but turned him into our sins. You see Christ wasn’t just a prophet and a preacher He was God. So now His life is applied to us. So get this, I am sinful, He is sinless – but God took my sinfulness and put it on Him. And now He takes Christ righteousness and puts it on me. And now when God looks at me guess what? I’m no longer sinful but righteous in His sight, no blemishes and free from accusation. God looks at me and proclaim that now I am whole, completely and judicially whole before God the righteous judge. Galatians 3:27 states that I have been clothed with Christ.
Zechariah 3:1-5
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. 2The LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?" 3Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. 4The angel said to those who were standing before him, "Take off his filthy clothes." Then he said to Joshua, "See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you." 5Then I said, "Put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him, while the angel of the LORD stood by.
The dirty clothes came off of me and went on Christ, and Christ rich clothes have come off Him and now I wear them. Now when God sees me He knows I’m a sinner (burning stick) but I’m clothed in Christ clothes.
Have you ever noticed how when at weddings people are all dressed up they walk a little different? When people are dressed to the nines they’re smooth, it just seems to make their chin go up shoulders back and their like man look at me. If we’re dressed in Christ clothes shouldn’t it change our attitude about sin? If I’m wearing Christ royal clothes I don’t want to drag them through the mud of my sins.
Ephesians 4:1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
I will never forget the day that Joe Thiesman broke his leg. Not that I’ve never seen a broken leg before. You want to know why I won’t forget it, because the NFL played it over and over and over… Now instant replay is a great thing, but there are some things that don’t need to be played quite so many times. God has put some incredible technology between your ears, the ability to recall events from your past. God never designed the brain cells in your head to be playing over and over again the fractures in your life. Because once you were that God says now your not and it came at a high price. You know who’s right their in the screening room playing your sins over and over again? The devil(the accuser) and saying; “look at that – look at that” why would a Christian ever do such a thing? Now he doesn’t get very far in heaven because there is a hard nosed attorney their named Jesus who is fighting your case. But in your mind how is he doing? Are you playing it over and over again for him? You’ve been given a fresh start a new beginning – you don’t live their anymore – as far as the east is from the west – in God’s economy through the cross it’s all gone.
