Colossians 1
18And 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. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and 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.
21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22But 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.
Paul’s Labor for the Church
24Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness-- 26the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
28We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. 29To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.
I. The Plan of Our Reconciliation
Colossians 1
18And 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. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and 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.
21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. I wonder what it would have been like to have been one of God’s angels watching it all. When God created the galaxies, stars, and the planets, the angels must have said: “Wow! How much more could God create?”
Then God created the earth. He separated the blue sky, separated the ocean from the land. He created topographical wonders. He drove His hand in what would one day be Arizona and dug out the Grand Canyon. In Central Asia, He pushed up the earth and created the breathtaking Himalayan peaks.
In the oceans, He created islands of extraordinary beauty. In the arctic and Antarctic, he created massive glaciers. And the angels must have said: “Wow! How much more could God create?”
Then God created the plants and animals. He created the great redwoods of California that towered to the sky. He created massive dinosaurs. He created fish and great whales to fill the sea. He created wondrous animals, like a caterpillar that would transform into a butterfly.
He created eagles and other birds of beauty to fill the sky. He created horses and buffalo to fill the ranges. And the angels must have said: “Wow! How much more could God create?”
You know, when it comes to animals, I believe that the platypus must have been the last animal God created before He created man. God in Heaven must have looked upon His work bench and He saw these left over parts. He saw part of a beaver, a duck bill, and an egg-laying reproductive system.
Not being One to waste anything, God decided to put it all together to create the platypus. When God created the platypus, the angels must have said: “Wow! How much more could God create?”
Then God rolled up His sleeve and drove His hands into the earth. He began to shape what was in His hands, and then He breathed life into it. And it became a man. He was unlike anything else God created in the Universe. He could think. He had a soul.
But Adam, you see, was a bachelor. And being a bachelor, I’m quite sure he was trashing up the Garden of Eden. You know, he was probably leaving banana peels everywhere. So God decided He needed to create someone to keep man in line. So He caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep and then crafted from one of his ribs—woman. And the angels must have said: “How much more perfect could creation be?”
And so it seemed that creation was perfect. But that was soon to change. There was a tree in the Garden of Eden—the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As we know, Adam and Eve had been instructed not to eat of that tree.
One day, however, curiosity got the best of her, and Eve approached the tree. In that tree was Satan disguised as a serpent. And we know from the story that Satan enticed Eve to eat of the fruit and then Adam soon followed. And when that happened, what had been the most beautiful of creation suddenly became ugly in the sight of God.
Humankind suddenly became infected with this deadly plague known as sin, and God had to separate Himself from His beloved creation. God did, however, have a plan. It was a plan He began to reveal right after the fall of Adam and Eve.
Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."
This was a promise that God would defeat the power of Satan in the life of the believer. God revealed His plan of reconciliation throughout the centuries preceding the advent of Christ. He revealed in Genesis 22. God had commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, and then at the last moment, He provided a ram for the sacrifice. It was on that mountain that Abraham would declare: “The Lord Will Provide.”
Throughout the centuries, God promised His people He would provide. We can see God’s plan of salvation revealed throughout the Old Testament sacrifices and through His prophets such as Isaiah.
There was a wall, however, that still separated people from God during the Old Testament period. This wall was symbolized by the curtain that hung in the Temple of God separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple. This curtain, which was four-inch thick sixty feet by thirty feet, was something no human hand could tear and a barrier to keep sinful man out of the Most Holy Place.
This symbolized the great chasim between God and man. The message of this curtain was not "Welcome, Fellowship with Me.” No, the message of this curtain was "No Trespassing." It was the message of a Holy God that could not tolerate the presence of sinful humanity.
God knew, however, that this wall would have to come down. There was only one way that could occur, but it would come at a great cost.
II. The Cost of Our Reconciliation
Colossians 1
22But 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 past week I watched the Republican National Convention. During the event, they talked about how President Bush visited Ground Zero shortly after 911. I know that Saturday is the third anniversary of 911. Certainly, President Bush visiting Ground Zero is noteworthy, but what if President Bush had actually been at Ground Zero when the planes collided into the World Trade Center.
What if he had put on a fireman’s uniform and had actually gone into the flaming towers to rescue those perishing. That certainly never would have happened and it would unreasonable for us to expect a president to do such a thing.
But that is what our God did for us. Christ looked down into the 911 that was our world. He put on the fireman’s gear and came into the flaming tower of this world to rescue the perishing and it cost Him dearly.
When we see the movie The Passion we can get some idea of the suffering that He went through. He was mercilessly beaten. He was stripped naked, His hands and feet were impaled with spikes. The greatest agony that He experienced, however, was not physical, but rather spiritual.
When God placed all of the sins of mankind on the sinless Christ, Christ experienced for our sake separation from His heavenly Father.
Christ experienced separation from God during the three hours of darkness on the cross. This darkness during the crucifixion represents God’s divine judgment. The cross became the place for the pouring out of His wrath.
Jesus Christ was not merely one man, but many crucified. He was the recipient of God’s wrath. At Calvary, God pours out His divine fury on His son, so He pulls the blinds. The darkness at the cross is God judging the sins of the world. We know also that after Christ declared: “It is finished,” that veil in the Temple that symbolized the separation between God and man was torn in two. Sinful man could now be reconciled with God!
III. The Aim of Our Reconciliation
Colossians 1
22But 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.
What is the purpose of our reconciliation? What does God hope to accomplish in us with all of this? Nothing short of holiness and perfection itself.
It is the desire of God to develop us as a holy people. This was the challenge that John Wesley gave his followers. Are you moving on to perfection? Are you freer from sin than you were a year ago? We are as believers are to walk free of sin. God has set us apart for something special. We have been set apart to be different than others in the world.
1 Peter 2
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
We often see ourselves, however, as being so far from that perfection, so far from God’s idea of holiness. Michelangelo’s David is perhaps considered the greatest sculpture in the world. How he acquired the stone for the sculpture is quite a fascinating story itself.
Michelangelo was well known among the stone merchants of Italy at that time because he had a high Papal commission to finance his work for the Vatican. Because he was so generously financed, all the stone merchants throughout Italy were trying to entice Michelangelo with their best wares, but the artist was a hard sell. He had browsed many stone shops and had refused all the finest pieces of marble that they had to offer.
Michelangelo, however, decided to continue his quest. This time he went into shops requesting to examine rejected pieces stored in the backs of the stone shops. It was at one such shop that he found what he was looking for. In the back of this one shop, shrouded in years of dust, pushed into a corner was a stone with a glaring flaw in it. This was the stone Michelangelo wanted.
The merchant was completely befuddled: “You have seen hundreds of pieces of marble in all of these shops and all of them are of greater quality than this one. Why have you chosen such an inferior stone to carve your statue from?” Michelangelo answered: “I have chosen this one, because this one is the one with David in it!”
We are like that stone Michelangelo discovered in that shop. We, too, are flawed, but God sees in us what we could be. In the life of the believer, God is chipping away at the sin and selfishness to reveal the image of His Son. We have the promise of Scripture that God will continue to perfect the work He has started in our lives.
Philippians 1
4In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
When God created humanity he had an ideal of what His creation would be. When Adam and Eve fell in the garden, humanity would continually fall short of that ideal. Through the reconciling work of Jesus Christ, we are the creation restored! We can truly become the people that God has intended us to be! We don’t have to live in defeat! We don’t have to live in frustration! We can truly fulfill His purpose for our lives!
IV. The Mission of Our Reconciliation
Colossians 1
28We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. 29To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.
Many look at this verse and believe that it only speaks to pastors, but I believe that we are all called to proclaim Him.
Humanity is now afflicted with a deadly plague worse than the Bubonic Plague and worse than AIDS. It is a plague that destroys the soul—it is the plague of sin. Everyone has been infected by this plague. The good news, however, is that there is an anecdote and we who have been saved know the anecdote. His name is Jesus.
It is our lifetime task to tell people of the hope we have in Christ. Many out there have no hope. They are weighed down with sin and despair. We, however, have a message of hope for those who don’t have hope. It is not merely the intention of God for us to be reconciled with Him and not pass that message on.
What is our vision as a church? What is our vision as believers? Our vision is to embrace Jesus Christ, realize the work He has done in our lives, and seek to bring others to the same reconciliation that we have experienced.
